Weekly wrapup, 24 – 28 September 2007

by Steve O'Hear

September 29th, 2007 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | No Comments

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

Top digital lifestyle news

The biggest news this week was Amazon’s entry into the digital music download space. Amazon MP3 finally launched, offering DRM-free downloads with a catalog of over 2 million tracks. Can it compete with iTunes? See our full review.

The other major announcement of the week came from the DigitalLife trade show held in New York, where Microsoft made a number of Windows Media Center-related announcements: New media extenders from its hardware partners Cisco, D-Link, Niveus and HP, along with the Beta launch of a new Internet TV service called — wait for it — “Internet TV”.

We also reported on Echostar’s acquisition of Sling Media in a cash and options deal which values the company at $380 million. Sling Media is best know for its SlingBox, a place-shifting device which connects to a home’s TV signal (cable box, digital tuner or PVR) and then ’slings’ that signal over a broadband connection to either a PC or cell phone.

More digital lifestyle news:

Features

First up we reviewed Amazon’s new music download store called Amazon MP3. We also took a first look at the newly launched iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, Apple’s mobile version of its music download service.

Two Microsoft-related features this week. We took an in-depth look at the release of Halo 3 on XBox 360, considered to be the biggest game launch this year, if not, all time — noting that Microsoft’s strategy extends beyond gaming.

In a post titled ‘Is the Zune doomed?’, we asked where next for Microsoft’s portable media player, especially in light of a refreshed iPod lineup from Apple.

That’s a wrap! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.