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Microsoft says that it has signed an exclusive deal to acquire Musiwave, who’s customer s includeO2, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Telus, Telefonica, amongst a myriad of others.

Musiwave provides music services to operators including full track downloads, ringtones, truetones, ringback tones, etc. the pull for Microsoft is obvious here, giving them a direct relationship with many labels and operators directly and therefore indirectly millions of consumers through branded portals.

the acquisition would bring together Musiwave’s relationships with music labels, device makers and operators with Microsoft products and services including Windows Mobile, Zune, MSN and Windows Live.

For every clever trick that Google pulls such as the newly announced Android platform, Microsoft just seems to steam in with its brute force attack. Although this one, I think is very shrewd on their part which is something of a rarity for MS lately.

More at Computerworld

So what exactly are the folks at Microsoft planning for the company’s first attempt to grab some of the iPod-dominated MP3 player market later this year? Well for starters, if you really think this will be available in 2006, keep in mind that Microsoft isn’t exactly the king of on-time product delivery. (How long have we been waiting for Vista?) In any case, the forthcoming MS portable media player is rumored to have some pretty interesting features.

Including Wi-Fi, Large screen, a new store…

More@pcmag

The plans, patented by Apple in January, show a range of ‘Pods sporting different controls to its usual scroll wheel.

Some designs show the player with no control buttons at all, hinting further that Apple has a touch screen or voice controlled player in the works.

Then there’s the elusive iPhone – Apple’s long-rumoured challenge to the mobile phone, which according to the latest plans will look like a nano with number buttons.

More@t3

Our inboxes are on fire with brand new information about the new Microsoft MP3 player. We thought the player was code-named “Argo”, but we now got word that the final product name that’s been flying around is the “Zune”!

The player seems very clean —a definite departure from Microsoft’s other endeavors. You all remember the video Microsoft’s own people made to illustrate their packaging shortcomings? Well, it seems like they haven’t learned much, as our tipster tells us the packaging itself is pretty ugly.

More@gizmodo

Napster isn’t so shy about their new DAPs after all. We just got to spend a little time with Napster’s new 1GB PlaysForSure promotional player, and we liked what we saw for the most part. The tiny device probably won’t be seen outside of its current role of attracting 1-year subscriptions, but it manages a nice look, decent user interface and a commendable 40 hour battery life—not bad for $50

More@engadget

There are numerous music subscription services on the market (such as those from Virgin, Yahoo, and MTV) that let you download all the music you want to your home computer, then transfer it to your portable player. But what if you can’t wait that long? What if you need to grab some new tunes between classes or on the way to a meeting? For you impatient and forward-looking types, there’s the MusicGremlin, which uses a direct wireless link to a music store to cut out the middleman—your PC—from the music-gathering equation.

More@cnet

If you feel you’ve been waiting ages for Nokia’s N91, you are right. The press release I have on file announcing the handset is dated 27 April 2005. In that document, worldwide availability is stated as expected by the end of that year. Well, it is now May 2006, and only now has the handset finally turned up. It’s complete with the 4GB of storage promised way back then – an amount that has not been bettered by any other handset in the interim, though Samsung’s SGH i300 Windows Mobile handset got close with 3GB.

More@trustedreviews

iriver, the leading innovator in digital entertainment, has raised the bar yet again for portable music players with the release of the iriver clix. With the iriver clix portable media player, customers have easy and immediate compatibility with the new Windows Media Player 11 and the public beta of MTV Networks’ new URGE digital music service launching today. The iriver clix features a new ultra-intuitive interface, 2GB memory capacity, a large, vivid color display, digital FM tuner, enhanced photo viewing, video playback, and FlashLite™ game support. (more…)

Japanese Web and telecom conglomerate Softbank Corp. is working with Apple Computer Inc. to develop mobile telephones with built-in iPod music players, Nikkei reported on Friday.
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The music-playing phones can download songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said in an article posted on its Web site.

A spokesman for Apple in Cupertino, California, was not immediately available for comment.

More@yahoo

Sony is to release new software that should make improvements to the handheld console’s network and media functions.

The company is due to release the updated operating system software in Japan tomorrow.

Users will see the most notable changes when they go online, as the new update enables the PSP to access far more websites.

This is because it enables support for Macromedia Flash sites.

Apple’s AAC music format is also enabled by the update, the main format of Apple’s hugely successful iTunes online music store.

More@avinfo