iTunes is an a la carte model: you see the track you like and pay your 79p. A big drawback with iTunes is that it has inbuilt digital rights management (DRM), which prevents you playing ‘your’ music on anything other than an iPod [my emphasis], although iTunes has begun to introduce some DRM-free tracks. On Napster, you can listen to your chosen music for as long as your subscription is valid, including music stored on your MP3, but it too is not ‘your’ music (you can’t burn it off your computer onto CDs).”

It’s always disappointing to see how the press continue to misrepresent the iTunes Music Store: you can in fact play iTMS downloads on anything because you may burn each track to CD as often as you wish and any given playlist five times. The dealbreaker with Napster must surely be that when the customer (and it’s nice of him to write) stops paying his £14.95 a month, or when the service closes, the music files become useless.

It would surely be sensible to view iTMS as a shop that makes life ever so slightly awkward for customers who want to listen to files on their Creative Zens, iRiver or other mp3 player (as well as cassette player, minidisc, 8-track cartridge…) while Napster is a subscription radio station that allows its customers to choose the tracks which they would like to hear each month.

On a completely unrelated note: I was nearly mown down at a zebra crossing yesterday. The rider of the scooter in question made no attempt to brake until I stopped, irrationally, in his path (demonstrating the pedestrian equivalent of target fixation). He left two or more metres of rubber on the ground and stopped within a couple of inches of me. I tried to say something like, Have you ever thought of taking lessons to use that thing? but think I may actually have said, Have you ever hungmpht dabrkl…

As the rider repeated that I should go forth and multiply out of his way (or something on those lines) and then tried riding his bike through me, I rang the police while realising that the chap was now surrounded by witnesses who were noting down his registration number and giving me their details. The police are coming tonight to take a statement. At the very least, they should be able to prosecute the chap for riding on a street which is open only to buses, taxis and bicycles and for not giving way to a pedestrian on the crossing.

Today we had the opportunity to get annoyed at the one who set us a task, gave us eight minutes to complete it, and talked for four of those eight minutes, thus making it rather hard to concentrate on the activity.

To be fair, I would hate to train my colleagues and would do a far worse job.

Besides, that’s not the point of this post. It is, indeed, just the preamble to explain why I’m currently at home playing Mario Strikers Charged and celebrating the fact of having finally won a few games— two of them against online opposition. I play a passing game (this is a euphemism: it means method of play in which one player keeps losing the ball to the opposition but sometimes mistakenly gives the ball to a member of his own team) thus my possession averages at around 28%.

Defensively my playing style leaves a lot to be desired but I’ve been learning the advantages of the shoulder barge as a means of winning the ball.

He did, after all, spend much of the 1980s playing its BBC Micro equivalent.

In other news, I had a premature attempt at an online game of Mario Strikers Charged this evening. Someone somewhere on the internet is wandering around with a broad grin having beaten me 83-0. I’ve now finished the training and had my first victory: it was against Kate, who hasn’t finished the training yet.

I was quite taken aback at how responsive an online game can be. I assume the programming involves all sorts of jiggery-pokery and other technical stuff to get it to run so smoothly.

The solitary Diamond race is actually quite simple: it took a couple of attempts to get the requisite B grade. Should I manage to get S grades on all the Super Excite races, I shall manage to unlock Mirror mode.

(No, I haven’t even begun to run out of bad puns yet.)

The game continues to be the only racing game (other than Mario Kart 64) that Kate’s been willing to play against me more than once. What makes the two player split screen mode quite hard is that, even on a widescreen television, the view is narrower than I would like.

Having learnt how to fly the trucks, I finished Platinum tonight only to discover that I need to complete all the races with an S grade in order to progress to Super Excite level, which I assume will be superbly exciting.

The two player mode has also demonstrated that, although I am quite consistently quicker than Kate, she drives with more style.

If that’s what Nice crash means.

It’s frustrating to finish first only to find that I’ve run out of points-scoring (read: crashing) opportunities and have, therefore, lost.

It just wouldn’t do to have a mobile with the standard irritating ring. Sending an mp3 via Bluetooth didn’t work, using Windows Media Player to transfer it appeared to require a memory card that I cannot be bothered to buy (at least for the moment).

Some googling, however, led to the following rather useful post. There will be a small prize for the first person to correctly guess my ringtone.

Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV review and info

Thanks to site visitor Ian for adding the following: “You can use mp3 if you place the MP3 file in the my documents folder, the phone cannot read into sub directories so should be just in the my documents folder”

Technorati Tags: Lobster, DAB, radio, smartphone

Manufacturer Roberts Radio and digital technology company Frontier Silicon have joined forces to develop the UK’s first DAB/FM plug-in for the iPod.

Digital radio stations will be able to reach a potential audience of millions by opening up their services to iPod users.

The device, which is “about the size of an egg” will be launched in late autumn. It will be sold by major electronic retailers for £49.99.

Obviously this blog is being read by industry insiders. I am a little concerned at the idea that the gadget will be egg-sized, perhaps because I first read it as egg-shaped.