Tomorrow Night at 7pm, we're holding a charity concert. I'm personally (not an official Zune team thing, me personally, no affiliation with Microsoft, etc... legalese, sorry) giving away a limited number of tickets to give out to Zunester readers! Details:
Charity Concert
When: Tuesday, October 24th, doors open at 7pm
Where: Showbox (http://www.showboxonline.com/)
Included :
Entertainment provided by touring artists Band of Horses and Simon Dawes (check them out at the links below)
http://www.bandofhorses.com/ http://www.simondawes.com/ Live auction including:
Trip for two to the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles with round trip airfare and two night hotel stay at the Mondrian Hotel! Trip for two to The Apprentice wrap party including First Class airfare, hotel, limo and dinner! Come one, come all. Actually, come a limited number in pairs, come all. Email tix@zunester.com with your full name...

Hey, today's the iPod's fifth birthday, born October 23, 2001. We'd sing Happy Birthday, but copyright law prevents us from doing so unless we pay the owner of that song. So instead of crooning that hackneyed ditty, we're going to spread the haterage about the iPod.
The iPod gets so much adoring and worshipful press—we ink-stained (pixel-stained?) wretches are fawning over it 24/7—so we figured it was high time somebody took it down a notch or two. As my Gizmodo colleagues hide in the closet, they've shoved me out into the limelight to take the heat, offering my Top 10 Reasons Why I Hate You, iPod. So get your flamethrowers ready. Here goes:
There's no FM: we have some great FM stations around these parts, one jazz station in particular that I listen to all the time in the car. I can't do that with the iPod. How much more would it cost to put FM in that thing, maybe two bucks? Get over it, put the damn receiver and there and be done with it.
More ha...

Filed under: Announcements, Digital Cameras, Media PCs, Portable Audio, Portable Video
We've given away an enormous amount of kit these past few weeks, but we've got some pretty big prizes up on the block right now. We know you'd like to go on with your weekends unhindered by any obsession with competing for a Nikon D80 DSLR, VidaBox SLIM Media Center PC, or a Zune, but sorry, we want to see what you're made of.

Halloween contest - VidaBox SLIM home theater PC
Care to take on 2005 runner-up Cameron R? (Movie above, no sound.) Make a gadgety Halloween costume! Send it in by Wednesday, 11:59pm EST, November 1st. Full details on how to enter here, let's make it happen.

Gadget photo contest - Nikon D80 DSLR with lens
Shoot the best gadget or tech themed photo! Send it in by 11:59PM EST, Sunday, the 29th. Full details on how to enter here.

Engadget theme song contest - Zune
The final pre-release Zune! Write the Engadget theme song; S...

I came across a great review from the 2old2play.com site, who managed to get some 1 on 1 time with the Zune, but they also managed to do a very extensive review on the Zune. One of the good parts in the review is where they talk about the skin of the Zune. Its not [...]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Here at Engadget, we're all about squeezing every last drop of functionality from our gadgetry, and to be honest, Microsoft's Zune needs all the constringing it can get. While we've heard reports stating the average Zunehead could expect 12 hours of battery life when simply spinning through tunes, and 3.5 hours while watching their favorite YouTube masterpieces, new (unconfirmed) talebearing suggests that users can realize 14 hours of continuous audio playback should they follow a few (rather stringent) rules. There can be no activation of wireless functions, no skipping over tracks, and no usage of the built-in equalizer; additionally, the tunes must be ripped as 128kbps WMA files and repeated into perpetuity. Oh, and we almost forgot -- the backlight timer must be set to "one second," and no "other activities" such as viewing photos or scrolling through playlists are allowed either. While we suppose these carefully implemented listening...

The guys at 2old2play seem to have a few tricks up their old-man sleeves, scoring a few minutes with the Zune. The most important detail?
The 'skin' of the Zune was a 'rubberized' material that had a smooth seductive feel to it. I found myself unable to stop stroking the device, so much that the demo assistant asked me to put it down. Video and slideshow were both fluid and skip-free on the player and the file transfers were fairly speedy. You'll also need to register a Zunetag in order to use the Microsoft Zune Marketplace, which will be able to use the same Xbox Live Marketplace points you've already paid for to purchase songs. If you have a gamertag on Xbox Live, that same name will be reserved for your Zunetag.
The Zune Marketplace software on your PC can interface with the Xbox 360 music UI, and you can play back songs you downloaded or imported into Zune Marketplace. Pretty cool, but we're looking forward to doing a direct comparison of how the Zune music manag...

We've got some Zune battery life numbers thanks to Cesar of Zune Insider fame. The Zune will apparently get 13 hours of audio playback with wireless on, and 14 hours with wireless off. This, with the player doing absolutely nothing else while playing music—no backlight, no fiddling for songs, no picking your nose, no volume adjustment.
For video, there's going to be a 4 hour battery life (not sure if this is wireless on or off). These Zune numbers aren't impressive, but they are around the same as the 30GB iPod Model which has 14 hours of music and 3.5 hours of video. So it seems the Zune's needs a bigger battery to match the 30GB iPod in terms of usage (thanks to its larger screen), which contributes to the Zune's bulk. – Jason Chen
Battery Life [Zune Insider]

Ok, I've got some battery life numbers to share: Zune has a battery life of up to 13 hours, when listening to music. Oh. . . and that's with the wireless turned on. When you turn the wireless off, Zune...

The CSS tourbus stopped by our building today, wanted to drop some photos: (try playing where's Waldo/Cesar here) (me and CSS) Ok, hope everyone has a great weekend. Take care! (edit: Friday 10/20: fixed broken links. . . (I think)...

Another ever-so-confusing patent application from Apple has hit the wire. I'm trying to break down this confusing document and it seems that it is a process by which the iPod can wirelessly sample and save (purchase) media. The iPod tunes into a wireless signal like AM/FM, digital radio or Wi-Fi.
So what does this mean? Well first-off, iPods could soon be tuning into satellite radio networks. Secondly, the iPod may be trying to combat the Zune and its crazy ass wireless purchasing/swapping system. Does this mean Apple is concerned about the Zune? Meh, probably not, but it is always good to see some intense competition. Jump to see a bigger picture for the patent docs. – Travis Hudson
Patent Application (PDF) [Via Orbitcast]