Microsoft is being helped out by media companies (Music, Television, etc.). Because Apple dominates the digital music player and music download markets, they are able to strong arm the content providers and set the prices. Music labels and other media providers would like to see a more balanced market to be able to gain more control over their pricing.

For those of you who don’t know, iTunes and Microsoft-backed stores sell their songs with digital restrictions. These restrictions on the files prevent them from being copied a certain number of times, or can even cause the songs to “expire”, and stop working when the music store owner chooses. This also prevents music downloaded from iTunes from playing on Microsoft “Plays for Sure” players, and music from most other stores working on iPods. So any music you have downloaded from the iTunes music store will probably never work on Microsoft’s new player.

Rather than forcing you to re-buy your iTunes music at their store, Microsoft is planning to automatically buy it for you from their store, and pay for it, as well.

Would you be willing to switch to a new music player, if they re-bought all of your music for you? Will Microsoft be able to avoid previous traps and create a compelling product? I’m not betting on it, but if they throw as much money at it as they did for the XBox, there might be something that at least will have some presence.

Well, here’s the best I’ve seen in a long time. Alive in Joburg is an interesting piece of work that I could write for hours about attempting to dissect it. Or- you could just watch it for yourself. Awesome film directed by Neill Blomkamp in association with Spy Entertainment.

Seems hard to believe, I know. But, a new film is trying to show audiences just why these people find it so intriguing filling letters into boxes. According to the Director, the movie is an attempt to, “show this world to people who aren’t crossword people and try to explain to them why it’s so fun, and why it pulls you in every single day.”

This quirky film will focus on anything from specific celebrities (Mussina, anyone?) to the difference between pens and pencils. According to the official website, however, the film mainly focuses on the man most associated with crossword puzzles, Master Will Shortz.

Now, I’ve always been more of a Sudoku fan myself- but this film might just change my mind.

Don’t you just love documentaries? I mean, we’ve got everything from Corporations, to Presidents, and even McDonalds.

Well, a new trailer has just hit the web for the new documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? It seems yet another film focused on blaming the giant car-manufacturer, General Motors.

The official site provides this small tagline to go with the movie: “In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. Who Killed the Electric Car?”

The movie will be hitting this summer. Stay tuned for details.

“What’s this? A surprisngly good horror movie? Blasphemy! Those haven’t existed since the good old days.”

This is the typical reaction I’m getting from people when I tell them that the Skeleton Key is actually a good movie. But it is. It really is.

First off, the story itself is actually unique. Oh sure, there’s a big old spooky house. But, rather then it being on the edge of town, it’s actually in the Swamps near New Orleans. Instead of this house being completely set apart, we see early on that the entire area is very desolate and home to some deformed people.

Caroline (Kate Hudson) is a young Nurse-turned-Hospus-worker who goes to take care of an old man who is bed-ridden and has a paralyzed face (meaning he can’t speak- although it looks like he has a lot to say). Once in the house, Caroline also has to deal with the fact that the man has an annoyingly creepy wife (Gena Rowlands) and the fact that there are ghosts in the house.

The movie itself is a perfect mixture of learning about the past of the house, learning about magic, and watching Caroline slowly unravelling the mystery about how the husband became paralyzed. All of this escalades into one exciting climax with a very satisfying twist that people have compared to the Sixth Sense and The Others (don’t worry, she isn’t the ghost).

Enough out of me, go see it.
8.6/10