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Zune worth another look

While iTunes is the undisputed king of the mountain for digital music, video - well, just about every type of pay-to-download media - it's a big mountain and there are a lot of different companies sitting comfortably in the foothills like the new Nap

While iTunes is the undisputed king of the mountain for digital music, video - well, just about every type of pay-to-download media - it's a big mountain and there are a lot of different companies sitting comfortably in the foothills like the new Napster, the Amazon store (U.S. only) and Puretracks.

One of those foothill dwellers is Zune, which always seemed like a promising but ultimately half-assed effort on behalf of Microsoft - more a "me too" than a serious attempt to contend with iTunes. Their Zune HD music players are pretty good as far as the hardware goes, but were never marketed or supported all that well and were a year late to Canada. Once again, it just seemed like Microsoft decided it simply had to offer the Zune HD to compete with Apple, but didn't give much thought to actually selling the players.

But with the introduction of Windows Phone 7 on no fewer than 10 smart phones last month, and integration with both the Microsoft Live Marketplace and Zune Marketplace, Microsoft appears to be giving Zune some new life.

Last week, Zune announced annual memberships for around $150. It's not available in Canada yet (U.S., U.K., France, Italy and Spain to start), but it's coming. And it's awesome.

Rather than download songs and albums from iTunes, Zune is a subscription-based service that gives you unlimited access to a library of 10 million songs (!), videos, games and other content for an annual fee. You also get to download and keep 10 songs a month, which is a value of $10.

So, doing the math, you'll pay about $12.50 a month for 10 million songs that you can download to your computer/Zune player/WP7 Phone/Xbox 360,and get 10 songs to keep and do whatever you like with worth $10. Under that equation, you're really only paying $2.50 a month or $30 per year - assuming you were going to pay to download 120 songs a year anyway.

As to why the release in Canada is delayed (no date was given), that can usually be explained by how difficult it is to deal with our artists unions and the Canadian Recording Industry Association, Canadian content requirements and our bilingual requirements. Still, it's only a matter of time and an affordable, legal, unlimited option worth considering.

 

Ready for Zero nearly ready to go

While it's still in beta, a recent donation of over a quarter of a million dollars from various tech industry philanthropists should be enough to finally get the Ready for Zero website up and running. The purpose of the site is to get the roughly 100 million Americans who carry a credit card balance from month to month to quickly pay off that staggering, $900 billion debt load. Basically, you'll be able to give this site your credit card information and they will coach you down to a zero balance by suggesting ways you can save money or manage your debt.

Whether Canadians will be able to benefit from all the features of the site is unknown at this point - it's a limited invitation-only beta - but some of the concepts for people burdened under credit will likely apply just about everywhere. Bookmark www.readyforzero.com, and check back in a few months...

 

Rock Band 3 goes pro

You may have seen the commercial - a group of young people rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen - but if you haven't, then you really should go to Rock Band 3's official website at www.rockband.com.

The game reached the stores last week, with a few notable differences over previous rhythm games. The most obvious is the ability to use real guitar or keyboard controllers that are pretty much identical to real musical instruments. That means actual strings and frets for guitar junkies, and actual keys for people looking to learn a little piano.

There's currently a debate out there as to whether games like this (and Guitar Hero has stepped up a notch as well) actually teach people how to play music. Playing a little guitar myself, I believe the answer is yes.

For one, these games are great at teaching people rhythm and focus, the ability to time your own playing along with the music. Every musician in the world jams along to their stereo, and that's pretty much what this is.

For guitar players, the ability to move your fingers independently is an essential skill and spreading four fingers out over five buttons is a good exercise. If nothing else it will force you to use your pinky, which is the toughest of all your fingers to control.

Lastly, I'd suggest that these games are good at developing your ear. You get a sense of how songs are constructed, of melodies, of rhythm, of tempo, of movements within the song, and can learn to anticipate what comes next. It also requires a certain amount of repetition to master a song.

With the addition of guitars with strings and keyboards with keys, seven-piece drumsets, bass guitar and microphones, the rhythm game market has never been more entertaining, or collaborative, or useful.