Popular Online Hangout!

One of the most popular online hangouts’s, MySpace is getting into the online download business. Their nearly 120 million users will be able to listen to free music, as much as they want. Now there’s a catch, you can only listen to the music through your computer using your MySpace account. And of course there will be ads you will be looking at. By offering this free to MySpace users will definitely hurt other online music sellers like iTunes. That’s because if you like the song you’re listening to you can buy it for as low as 79 cents from Amazon’s site. And the thing that will set this service apart from iTunes is that you can download the songs as many times as you want. Plus the song will work on any MP3 player. I think iTunes is going to be in a little bit in trouble here. The recording labels are loving this new service. They’re hoping this will bring their numbers back in line. I read that CD sales where a little over $12 billion in the late 1990’s. Today they almost reach $6 billion. That’s a huge drop in sales, which is why recording labels love this new service.

Google’s New Phone!

Yes the title say’s it all, Google Inc. is now in the phone business. The new phone, called G1 will only be sold by T-Mobile and will be coming out Oct. 22nd of this year. Google said it would be easier for you to search the internet and easy access to your gmail. The price tag on the new G1 will be $179 with a two-year contract through T-Mobile. You can get a data plan for the phone, which will cost you $25 per month on top of your service plan. I have no idea what the service plans price will be, but will most likely be the same price as the iPhone. And the launch date fits right in with Christmas, so make sure you get it on your list. And just in case you’re not a big fan of Google, wait about year and you can get a Yahoo Phone or even a phone from Microsoft Corp. Both are also getting ready to break into the phone business. Me personally will most likely never buy a G1 or phone from any advertising company. Bad enough we look at tons of ads online, now our phones, not me.

Not-So-Secure!

I was just reading that the FBI has a suspect in the hacking of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account. According to reports the FBI caught a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student David Kernell. David Kernell is the son of Tennessee Democrat State Representative Mike Kernell. The Secret Service and the FBI are both investigating Kernell. It seems that he was bragging to other hackers on a message board. He also had posted how he did it by using Yahoo! reset function. He used her stored security question, which was “Where did you meet your husband?” He then did a background search on her and found out where they hooked up, which was “Wasilla High School.” He then posted screen shots of the account and even the new password. He was caught because another anonymous message board member turned him in. The other member logged into the Palin’s account and changed the password again. After he changed the password to protect her information he then contacted the Palin family with the new password. It took the FBI a short time to find Kernell after tracking him down through the proxy server he used. This guy should go to jail for a long time, put he won’t because of his daddy.