NBC and Miscrosoft may team up to create a content owner’s dream device, one that will provide “filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”

My take? NBC and MS will gratify each other in an Alcatraz-like Zune yin-yan, one that’s sure to provide a pretext for private lavish director-level NBC-MS lunches, gushing press releases, demonization of fair use, and circle-jerky boardroom meetings that will make defense contractors blush.

And the public will continue to ignore the Zune because of it. These companies just don’t get it.

A future update of the software for Microsoft’s portable media player may well include a feature that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it.

Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it would start selling video programming for the Zune, mainly TV shows. These include programs from NBC Universal, which has pulled its shows off Apple’s iTunes Store.

Late Tuesday afternoon I reached J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, to ask why NBC found Microsoft’s video store more appealing than Apple’s.

He explained that NBC, like most studios, would like the broadest distribution possible for its programming. But it has two disputes with Apple.

First, Apple insists that all TV shows have an identical wholesale price so that it can sell all of them at $1.99. NBC wants to sell its programs for whatever price it chooses.

Second, Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos.

Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright

Could be tomorrow. Ars Technica reports on a report (that probably, yes, reports on a rumor of a report) that an announcement is coming up soon. According to AT, the 6th gen iPod would ship when/after iPhones ship.

According to the “unproven source,” the announcement of widescreen, touchscreen iPods is coming tomorrow, but the new iPods wouldn’t ship until after the iPhone launches in June/July. It’s a cool, and very titillating rumor, but I suspect that this particular source is about as reliable as the guy who sold me a Ziploc bag full of what turned out to be flour cut with Comet and mothballs. In particular, three things stick out about this latest rumor:

First, there’s the claim itself: the launch is coming tomorrow because the touchscreen technology “has been finalized” for the iPhone, but they won’t ship until after the iPhone so as not to lure buyers away. It’s just different enough from what’s been said to already be working, but I don’t think it’s very plausible. First of all, if users are already waiting for the iPhone in order to get their hands on widescreen/touchscreen technologies, so what’s going to stop them from waiting another month to get the 6G iPod that they might really want?

London - The youngest British captive held by Iran said in an interview published on Monday that the gifts the Iranians gave to the seized sailors were a cheap load of old junk - and they stole his iPod.

Royal Navy able seaman Arthur Batchelor, 20, said the suits they were given were “tacky”, the CDs and DVDs do not work and there was no sign of his iPod portable media player, worth £160 (R2 229).

Via news24.com

The 11 books Batchelor was given were in English and mostly aimed at trying to convert the reader to Islam, with titles like Youth and Morals, The Divine Intervention and Knowing God. He also received some toffees and a bag of nuts.

“They’re a bit pathetic,” Batchelor told the Daily Mirror newspaper of the gifts.

Apple, Inc.’s legal department reached in February an agreement with the Beatles’ record label Apple Corps Ltd. It frees Apple Inc. to load music onto its products. It could have an interesting effect on how iPods are sold (or possibly even Macs or AppleTV).

The old agreement (at Sections 1.3 and 4.3) seemingly prevented Apple from selling music on physical media, such as CDs, even though it could sell music through the iTunes Store. On paper, this seemed like a simple limitation: Apple could sell music-playing hardware like iPods, but it couldn’t sell you the discs full of music to play on the iPod.

Apple’s iTunes Store - the subject of the 2003 lawsuit - successfully stepped around this limitation by using the Internet to distribute music, but it left Apple with two major limitations: Apple couldn’t pre-install music on iPods, or otherwise sell it on any physical medium, such as discs. This was one of the reasons that the prior U2 Special Edition iPods didn’t actually include U2’s music - Apple’s contract with The Beatles forced you to buy it separately online.

This would be a big boost to very specific, niche iPod sales outlets like airport iPod vending machines. Can you imagine being able to get an iPod at airport terminal loaded with Celine Dion, saving you the trouble of ripping your vast Dion collection while trying to pack?

iPod Shuffle gets color

The iPod Shuffle now comes in orange (a new color for any iPod model) as well as 4 other colors. Here’s a good review by an iLounge.com editor of why the new Shuffles are better than the old, colors notwithstanding. Hint: it’s the earbuds, bud.

If they didn’t lack the bass response of the higher end Nano and iPod Video, I’d have been an owner back in November, when these amazing aluminum Shuffles were introduced.

Vista released… meh

Microsoft’s first new operating system in 5 years was released for retail sale yesterday. Eyes lifted briefly, then went back to television or work. Vista was previewed to death over the last couple years, and released to corporate clients over two months ago.

Many stores that had planned midnight showings were surprised at the lack of devotees queuing up to buy Vista. CompUSA’s premier store on San Francisco’s Market Street only saw a fraction of the 500-plus shoppers its manager had hoped for at the stroke of twelve. And in an unintentionally hilarious piece of irony, many of those who came to shop — including those at the head of the line — were there only for discounts on gadgets rather than Microsoft’s software darling. Similar stories surfaced in other parts of the US.

Suspense had been entirely bled from Vista, so yesterday’s release was a big yawn. Of course, accusations flew that Microsoft’s new OS is a ripoff of Mac OS. It would have been surprising if they didn’t fly. It’s happened with every version of Windows, to one degree or another.