Ears On

"Fortune has learned that iTunes is close to a deal to bring the Beatles catalog online," the magazine's Tim Arango reported last week. How ironic, given their 20 years of legal battles, including most recently a tug of war over the right to use the brandname Apple. Neither Apple Computer or Apple Corps has confirmed the rumor and the deal may still fall through. However, the president of EMI recently told a music industry conference that he expected to see Beatles downloads available "soon." Still to be determined: What window of exclusivity will iTunes win from the Fab Four and their survivors? Will the Beatles allow their tunes and images be used for televised or other cross-promotional advertising, as U2 has done so successfully? Frankly, I couldn't care less, since my iPod already contains Beatles content ripped from legally purchased CDs. What I want to know is: How much longer do I have to wait for the Beatles catalog to be remixed in surround and released on SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray, or HD DVD?

Jon Johansen strikes again. As a teen, the now 22-year-old Norwegian became notorious for hacking the CSS digital rights management associated with the DVD format. His latest project is to open up tightly guarded ecosystem of Apple's iPod and iTunes Store by hacking Apple's FairPlay DRM. To that end he's cofounded DoubleTwist Ventures with partner Monique Farantzos. They plan to license their technology to manufacturers and download services, as Farantzos explained to news.com, with two aims: "One is to enable other online stores to wrap their content with FairPlay so that it works on the iPod.... We also plan to allow competing devices play iTunes content." No doubt Apple will litigate fiercely to protect its highly profitable closed system. But the music industry, long uncomfortable with Apple's rigid pricing, has been praying for something like this to happen. And several European governments have been quietly or not so quietly demanding it.

No one writes iPod reviews like ArsTechnica's questing Jacqui Cheng. Already notorious for putting two generations of iPod nanos through a washing machine, she upped the ante by dipping the second-generation iPod shuffle in beer, then running over it with a car. Did it survive? I won't deprive you of the pleasure of finding out for yourself. She also literally took the unit apart, as you can see from the pic. One of many things I learned from her review is that Apple has eliminated the "universal" 30-pin docking connector. Instead, the new shuffle's mini-jack handles power and transfer as well as audio output.

Commuters in New York's Grand Central Terminal got an eyeful of huge TVs and the people who love them last week—see full-sized shot in the Galleries. It was the first stop in a Panasonic plasma tour that will also reach Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, and possible additional places. Says here: "The Panasonic Plasma Tour will be staffed by Panasonic Plasma Concierge experts who will be able to answer consumers' questions and give advice... Featured in the display will be Panasonic's full line of industry-leading Plasma TVs including the 37-inch, 42-inch, 50-inch, 58-inch, the recently debuted 1080p 65-inch, and the 103-inch model, the world's largest Plasma TV.... We know that consumers are looking for bigger screens and, when it comes to large screens, there is no better option than high definition plasma." All righty then. Did you know all Panasonic plasmas are covered by the Concierge program? And that you can call a toll-free number (888-972-6276) so a trained specialist can help you "get on with the experience of enjoying HDTV's benefits"? Well, I should hope so, since Darryl told you last June. Check out the Plasma Concierge website too.

Windows Vista launches November 30 to corporate customers and January 30 to consumers. Will the next version of Windows become the next big thing in high-end audio circles? There certainly are some interesting features listed in this tutorial from the Windows Vista Team Blog. For instance, bass management applies in both forward (LFE sent from main to sub channels) and reverse ("mapped back into the main channels"). There's "loudness equalization" to maintain even volume levels among different sources. "Speaker fill" seems to be the Microsofting of Dolby Pro Logic II though whether it will work equally as well remains to be seen (in my experience, nothing works as well as DPLII). Perhaps most ambitious, Vista will have its own "room correction" circuit, using microphone input to tweak delay, frequency response, and gain. "This technology works differently than similar features in high-end receivers since it better accounts for the way the human ear processes sound," says product manager Nick White. We'll see about that! While we're puckering up for Microsoft, check out Gizmodo's Happy Birthday, Windows XP. Five years old and still faithfully serving 400 million users.