Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
So as we understand it, apparently Microsoft secretly slipped 100 hot pink (or shall we say, magenta?) Zunes into the retail market for purchase, where only especially eagle-eyed buyers would notice what they were getting before taking it home and opening up their rather eye-catching player. (For lawsuit's sake, it's in the fine print on the bottom of the box.) Supposedly there's another 100 pink Zunes that were given out to the Zune team, but we doubt those will be up on eBay any time soon, as is at least one of the pinks. Kind of a bummer though for that dude. You get what you thought was going to be your white (or brown or black) Zune home just to find out you've got a limited edition -- great, except that of all the colors to surprise a user with, statistically speaking pink might be the worst selection.

Oh yeah, and in other news somebody hacked XNJB -- the Mac app that makes use of select Windows-centric portab...

Even though the Zune isn't setting any sales records, Microsoft's releasing their limited edition pink and (i think orange) into the wild in limited numbers.
A guy bought what he thought was a white Zune, then came back and found it was a limited edition pink one instead. After reading the certificate of authentication, he promptly placed it onto eBay, hoping to make a buck so he can buy another, regularly colored White Zune.
There's only 100 of these in the wild, and seeing as they're not marked, you're probably going to have as much luck getting one as you would trying to find a chocolate river running through Johnny Depp's house. – Jason Chen
eBay Auction [ebay via ZuneInfo]

For those of you who remember our post about the limited edition pink Zune, which was given has a thank-you present to the Zune team, and only them. If you were one of the people to go pink with envy and wished you could get your hands on one of these for your much loved [...]

New licensing language would put Zune owners in violation of Creative Commons licenses if they distribute CC-licensed songs with the devices. In Listening Post.

A relatively easy hardware mod gives Microsoft's music player an enormous upgrade. In Gear Factor.

So it's been a couple weeks, how is the Zune selling? Is Microsoft on course to topple Apple's portable-audio regime? Are people unable to walk down the street without having fellow Zune-owners offering to share their songs? Uh… no.
According to Amazon.com's MP3 player sales charts, the Zune is their 18th most popular portable music player. Ahead of it, unsurprisingly, are 12 varieties of iPod (including the top 5 spots). A bit more surprising is the fact that also selling better than the Zune are three flavors of SanDisk Sansas and the Creative Zen Vision: M. Looks like the social isn't all that social just yet. –Adam Frucci
MP3 Player Sales Chart [Amazon.com via Digg]

The Microsoft Zune is a typical 1.0 release for the Redmond giant—clunky and plagued with problems—but could it emerge as a big hit and the anti-iPod? ComputerWorld's Mike Elgan thinks allowing hackability in the Zune could thrust it to the top of the marketplace, giving it customizability and enhancing its popularity. While he levels some harsh haterage at the first Zune, he points out lots of Zune hacks already emerging. He also sees the possibility of a newer, looser Zune prevailing in the DAP market, predicting that "Microsoft could create a Zune that's more desirable than the iPod," somehow dominating the market like PCs have slam-dunked Macs in market share.
His suggestions for Zune hacking, leading to its world domination, after the jump.
Let people transform the Zune into an Xbox game controller, a TV remote control, a portable presentation device, a wireless PC hard drive or a Vista gadget emulator. Give me a wireless keyboard and a Zune version of Poc...

First it was Bono and now it's The Beatles. Fortune magazine is reporting that Britain's EMI Group (the Beatles' record label) is close to making a deal with the house of Jobs. There's talk of bringing The Beatles' catalogue exclusively to iTunes and even using one of their songs in an iPod ad. But what's even more interesting is talk of a Beatles-branded iPod. Personally, I prefer my Beatles on vinyl, but in the long run this will only spread their tunes to a new generation of listeners. Sorry Zune fans, looks like the Fab Four have already found a new home. – Louis Ramirez
Beatles: Only on iPod? [via iLounge via Fortune]

According the the site TheChannelCheckers.com, the Zune is selling quite well at the consumer shop Best Buy. Reported to even be on par with iPod sales in some stores. While the Zune is going well at Best Buy, seems shoppers of the online retail giant Amazon.com cant leave their much loved iPods, were they take [...]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Portable Video
AnythingButiPod took a look at the Zune's AV Cable and surprise, surprise... found it to use yet another unique pinout configuration for pumping audio and video out to the TeeVee. However, this time you don't have to get locked into the vendor-specific accessory game since the Zune AV cable shares the same ground location of both the iPod (video) AV Cable and better yet, those off-the-shelf camcorder cables you probably have sitting around the house. As a result, you can use the other cables as long as you route the cable colors correctly for AV-hookup to your TV: iPod AV cable, swap left and right audio; el cheapo camcorder cable, swap video and right-audio. Unfortunately, in yet another drubbing for PlaysForSure devices, the AV cable which works interchangeably between Archos devices, the Zen Vision Series, Cowon iAudio, and even Toshiba's other DAP -- the Gigabeat -- won't work with the Zune. Not without the help of...