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Portable music players such as the iPod, according to a story from Reuters, should have an automatic levy applied to each player sold to account for the blanket fact that all portable music player owners pirate music. Universal Music's Doug Morris says,

"It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don't see why we wouldn't do that... but maybe not in the same way," he told the Reuters Media Summit, when asked if Universal would negotiate a royalty fee for the iPod that would be similar to Microsoft's Zune.

If anything, this is what Microsoft was really after... the Zune was just smokescreen and a way to get the music companies to start nickel and dimeing Apple to death and eventually toppling the iPod's market dominance! Oh yeah, Doug Morris can take my iPod nano and stick it where the sun doesn't shine...

I managed to get lucky by landing a new Nintendo Wii only a week after a successful launch. On a whim, I went down to the local Best Buy and despite not knowing how many units would go on sale, I dutifully got in line about an hour before opening and bided my time. Patience does pay off as one of the clerks with a clipboard gradually made his way down and before I knew it, I was number 35 out of 41 lucky customers that day.

I wasn't able to get an extra set of controllers so my hands-on experience has only been in single player mode although even that has been a blast with the bundled Wii Sports game. What better way to show off the new features of the Wiimote than to throw in a handful of games guaranteed to get you off your lazy ass and moving around the room as you get into the tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing games. Undoubtedly the most fun I've had in a while on a console game.

Wii Number: 8571 7179 3804 0730

Zune from Microsoft is given a pretty hilarious review by Engadget.

"Welcome to the social"...; sure makes me glad I use a real music player!