Motorola plays iTunes

Motorola has unveiled its highly anticipated iTunes-playing 3G phone, the E1060, at the 3GSM Congress in Cannes, France With up to 512MB of additional storage via a removable card, the phone will have the same capacity as the smaller of the iPod shuffle models, though whether it will match Apple's device for sound quality remains to be seen. Although iTunes will be the default media player, it will not be the only one. 'We're committed to have iTunes as the default music client, but we'll also continue to support other music players such as RealPlayer,' said Amer Husaini, vice president for Motorola's mobile devices group in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. ...more

Labels pressure eMusic to increase prices

A number of independent record labels are threatening to withdraw their music from the eMusic download store unless it rethinks its pricing model. According to US industry magazine Billboard, at least six labels plan to either pull their entire repertoire or limit content to back-catalogue recordings. 'We've been partners with eMusic since the very beginning, and it is a great way for our customers to discover music,' the head of one of the labels, who asked not to be identified, told Billboard. ...more

And also today (28-September-2001), for the record...

Here, in brief, are some of the day's other stories. Virus writer sentenced Remember "Anna Kournikova"? The virus, that is, not the occasional tennis player. Well, the Dutch creator has been sentenced to 150 hours of community service for his crimes. ...more

Back-ups secure from nuclear blasts

UK telecoms operator Zipcom has launched an off-site back-up facility aimed at businesses with up to 10Gb of data on their servers and PCs. HighwayRescue enables a company's computer system to perform unattended back-ups of its data over the Internet to a secure, remote site without disruption or downtime. Back-ups are controlled by Zipcom's client software, which can be installed on any server, desktop PC or laptop. ...more

Microsoft builds path away from Java

Microsoft has updated its Java Language Conversion Assistant (JLCA), which provides the automated conversion of Java source code to C#. The battle for developer hearts and minds over Web programming continues.. ...more