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As predicted by Macworld, Apple has introduces a new multi-touch iPod nano with a small 3x3cm screen.

The new device features a complete multi-touch display, but has a unique interface completely different from the iPhone iOS (although it appears to be based upon iOS 4).

“This is the biggest reinvention of the iPod nano since its debut in 2005, and we think users are going to love it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Replacing the click wheel with our Multi-Touch interface has enabled us to shrink the iPod nano into an amazingly small design that is instantly wearable with its built-in clip.”

It features the funcitonality of the iPod nano, including Nike+, Voice Over, albums, photos and has a a built in FM Radio

It also has a clip on the back and appears small enough to be turned into a watch. Steve Jobs joked that one of the board members was going to use it as a watch.

The device comes in six colours including a Product (RED) version as part of the charity effort.

“it’s amazing to hold such a small thing in your hand. It’s always amazing” said Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs also claimed that the device has a 24 hour battery life.

The iPad nano will cost £129 for the 8GB model and £159 for the 16GB model. in the UK. Perhaps to pre-empt any concern over UK pricing, Apple points out in a press release that this includes approximately £25 VAT, duty, and levies for the 8GB model and approximately £30 VAT, duty, and levies for the 16GB model.

A chart from report by Robert Morris University showing top ways consumers discover music.The first category is recommendations from friends.

(Credit: Robert Morris University. )

Song samples are no trivial matter, say researchers from Robert Morris University.

Consumers are more likely to buy songs if allowed to sample the music for about 60 seconds and if provided access to a “high-quality” version of the music, said Professor Min Lu and Assistant Professor Yanbin Tu.

“Our empirical tests show the current stingy online digital music sampling [of 30 seconds] is not optimal,” the researchers wrote in their in their 28-page report.

Apple is expected to announce that it will boost the length of iTunes’ music samples during the company’s media event on Wednesday, sources with knowledge of the decision told CNET. The sources said iTunes users will most likely be given up 90 seconds to try out a song, up from the traditional 30 seconds.

Apple is still overwhelmingly the dominant music retailer in the land but is more frequently taking a backseat in the song-purchasing process, according to music industry sources. Other digital music retailers, such as Amazon, also offer 30-second samples. What has happened in the last few years is that for many consumers music discovery begins with Pandora, a popular free online radio service, or sites that feature music videos, such as YouTube and Vevo. Most of these sites offer full-length songs.

But offering songs in their entirety may not be the answer to wetting a consumer’s appetite, according to Yu and Lu’s report.

Writing in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising (available for purchase), the researchers said little has been written about the effects of music sampling on song sales. They set out to answer such questions as how do consumers behave towards digital music sampling and what determines a consumer’s music evaluation and willingness to pay?

They studied 90 college-age subjects since that age group does most of the music listening and buying in this country. Not surprisingly, they found that the longer the sample the greater the risk the sample will satisfy a consumer’s interest in the music. When offering full-length samples, the risk of attracting “free riders,” people who will listen to the sample instead of purchasing the song, skyrockets.

What’s important to note is that the test subjects didn’t need to listen to entire songs to make decisions. The subjects made up their minds about a tune typically around the 60-second mark.

Song samples present an opportunity for iTunes and other music retailers, according to the researchers. They determined that most of their subjects discovered songs via a friend’s recommendation (71 percent). That was followed by radio (67 percent), familiarity with an artist (64 percent), music TV (39 percent) followed by online music sampling (34 percent).

“Online digital music sampling is ranked as No. 4, implying that online digital music sampling has not yet been fully utilized as an effective product evaluation channel,” the researchers wrote.

And when it comes to learning about new artists, song samples were critical, according to the report. Naturally, consumers are wary about plunking down money on an unknown artist. The researchers concluded increasing sample size is “an effective way for consumers to reduce new product risk.”

Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.

GoldenEye 007 for Wii.

(Credit: Screenshot by GameSpot)

GoldenEye 64 designer Martin Hollis finds it hard to believe that Activision’s Wii remake, GoldenEye 007, will do the original game justice.

Speaking to the U.K.’s Official Nintendo Magazine, Hollis said he believes Activision sees more value in the franchise’s name than in the quality of the title. And he’s concerned that the company will allow its “business decision” to get in the way.

“I imagine it’s a business decision, isn’t it?” Hollis said in an interview with Official Nintendo Magazine. “‘This name is valuable, let’s use it.’ I find it hard to picture Activision’s top management being excited about the original and wanting to do it justice.”

Of course, Activision would likely take umbrage with Hollis’ remarks. The company did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Hollis is understandably protective of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. The game is one of the most influential first-person shooters to ever hit store shelves. And many believe this game was the inspiration for other franchises, like Halo and Call of Duty. Hollis seemingly doesn’t want to see it marginalized by a poor remake.

GoldenEye 007 is set to launch November 2. It will be available exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.

Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Apple's Ping getting hit by comment spam.

(Credit: Sophos)

Apple’s new social media service, Ping, is already getting hit by a barrage of comment spam.

The Ping network integrates with iTunes 10 to let you follow your favorite artists and swap comments with other fans. But it took less than 24 hours for the comments sections to be swamped by phony offers for free iPhones and other hot gadgets, according to a Thursday blog from security vendor Sophos.

Sophos expressed bemusement that although it’s no secret that blogs and forums have become the new playing ground for spammers and scammers, Apple apparently has set up no spam or URL filtering in Ping, leaving the service wide open to junk comments.

Apple has implemented some degree of security in Ping–the service won’t display profile photos until they’re approved by the company–and is filtering for offensive content as well, notes Sophos, so the company should be able to kick in a spam filter. But spammers can also easily create fake accounts for Ping since the service requires no credit card or other ID to join.

Of course, comment spam has been swamping other social networks and blog sites for years. The spam messages hitting Ping are virtually the same ones that Sophos found have targeted Facebook, Google, and Twitter. These “survey” scams typically promise a free iPhone, iPad, or iPod in exchange for filling out a bogus online questionaire.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats–journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He’s a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.

Mobile operator O2 published a study today suggesting millions of broadband users were wasting money buying broadband services too fast for their needs.

O2 head of home and broadband Felix Geyr said, "Sixty-two per cent of broadband consumers in our survey would prefer their ISP to provide packages based on their specific needs."

He added that the industry therefore needs to "tailor its services to people’s needs, help consumers understand exactly what they should be buying and avoid marketing based solely on speed".

The survey of 2,000 consumers found that although the average UK user has an "up to 20Mbit/s" broadband package, the large majority only require an up to 8Mbit/s package.

O2′s reasoning is based on what customers said their top three most frequently used applications were.

Email was the top application for 77 per cent of respondents, while 74 per cent said they used broadband for general web browsing, and 51 per cent for paying bills and online banking.

"On the other hand," said O2, "services that require high bandwidth and more expensive packages are used much less frequently."

These include streaming multimedia content through iPlayer or other streaming applications (18 per cent), and downloading music and films, five per cent and three per cent respectively.

Thinkbroadband.com co-founder Sebastien Lahtinen said that O2′s research "clearly highlights the need for the industry as a whole to re-think they way it sells broadband".

"Consumers need to be educated about what kind of service they need to cover their daily usage and the industry needs to help them to make informed choices, " said Lahtinen.

"While some users will want the fastest possible package, others may find they can save money by picking a package that is more suitable to their specific needs," he pointed out.

Information has surfaced suggesting that Sprint will carry the CDMA version of the Samsung Tab Android 2.2 based tablet in November.  This follows yesterday’s announcement of the Tab during a press event at IFA 2010 in Germany.

The currently confirmed version of the Tab features a 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor, triband HSPA support, quad-band GSM, 7-inch capacitive 1024×600 resolution display with multitouch support, Android 2.2, Wi-Fi radio, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS support, DLNA media streaming, Flash 10.1, 3.0 megapixel main camera with flash, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, HD video playback at 1080p and microSD card slot with support for 32 GB cards.

Samsung has also confirmed that the Tab will be upgraded to Android 3.0 as well as confirming the codename for 3.5 in Honeycomb, which will be developed around tablets.

Apple’s big overhaul of iTunes, announced Wednesday, turns the media management software into a fledgling social network thanks to a newly introduced feature called Ping. I would have expected more from Apple with this first attempt at building a community around iTunes. It’s not all bad, but if Ping doesn’t improve soon this music-oriented social network will bomb faster than an American Idol wannabe.

Of course iTunes also received a facelift with an improved interface and new logo. But with Ping baked into the new iTunes 10, the software is so much more than media management, offering now a music discovery service powered by recommendations from your friends and favorite artists. You can use Ping to share albums or songs you like, display your iTunes purchases and concerts you plan on attending.

To get started with Ping you set up a user profile and then find other people to follow including friends and artists. The activity for everyone you follow shows up in an activity feed where you can comment, like or re-post items to your followers.

I’ve only been trying out Ping for a few hours, but here are some early impressions of Apple’s new social networking service.

Friend Discover: Not so good

Ping lacks an easy way to find out who among your friends is already using the service. You can’t integrate with Facebook Connect, Twitter or an address book to find people you know. Perhaps Apple is concerned about the privacy headaches that type of contact integration would entail. Importing contacts could raise questions about how long Apple is storing your information, where it is storing it, how secure its storage practices are and so on.

But Ping really needs some sort of discovery mechanism that allows people to easily find their friends. The only option you have right now is to send out e-mail invitations to specific people.

Ping in iTunes App: Not so Good

Ping is integrated right in iTunes with no Web-based alternative. That prompted Twitter user Jason Mauer to comment that Ping feels like “a social network in prison.” That may be a little harsh, but there’s no question that Ping is a walled garden where little external information can get in or out.

You can, however, share album information out to Facebook and Twitter, just like you can through the iTunes Store. But with Ping being so locked into iTunes instead of a browser, I have to wonder how many people will become frequent Ping users.

Privacy: Good

Apple’s privacy settings are very straightforward with three simple options. You can set up your account so that everyone can follow you and see all your iTunes activity including album likes, comments and iTunes purchases. If that’s too public, you can authorize anyone who wants to follow you, but your name, photo and the city you live in will be made public. If you want to go completely private, you can lock down your Ping profile so that no one can see you or find you on iTunes, but you still have the ability to follow others.

Sharing: Pretty Good

On Ping, you can make comments on someone else’s iTunes’ activities, such as what albums or songs they purchased. Correspondingly, Ping displays your iTunes purchases. If you discover music through someone you follow, you can also re-post that music to your activity feed so that the rest of your followers can see it.

Right now, Ping is solely for music so you can’t add likes for videos, podcasts, audio books, or mobile apps. However, considering that iTunes is all about helping you discover content and make purchases on the iTunes Store, I would expect to see Ping’s focus expand over time. It would also be nice if you could share albums and songs stored in your personal music library.

One other thing to note is that Ping is a tiered service in the sense that there are two levels of users: artists and consumers. If you’re just a regular consumer, you can’t submit content such as photos and videos from recent concerts you attended.

Photo Approval: Strange

When you sign up for Ping, you are given the option to upload a profile photo, but it won’t show up right away. For some reason, Apple says it has to approve your profile photo. I assume Apple does this in case you try to post something the company considers obscene or infringes copyright claims. Perhaps, and this is only a guess, since Ping is inside iTunes, Apple has to take greater responsibility for user activity than they’d have to with a Website. Whatever the reason, I have to wonder if approving every user photo isn’t overkill on Apple’s part.

Overall, Ping is an interesting service, although it’s nothing to get excited about. If I had to guess user adoption for Ping won’t be that high. It’s a nice service, but it just doesn’t have the sharing flexibility that are a part of other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Connect with Ian on Twitter (@ianpaul).

All contents copyright 1995-2010 Network World, Inc. http://www.networkworld.com

The Apple TV was launched back in 2007. Over the past four years Apple has received a fair bit of negative feedback about the device, which it always referred to as a hobby.

The problem with the Apple TV is it’s always lacked content and cost far too much – for the device itself, and the content.

On stage at the keynote announcing new iPods, Apple CEO Steve Jobs summarised some of that feedback, claiming users wanted a device that was more consumer electronics and less a separate computer. He added that consumers also wanted something considerably cheaper.

As a result of the feedback, Apple TV is now cheaper. Previously the device cost a whopping £223 now it retails at £99. There’s been some debate about the pricing comparison between the UK and US. In the US the device was previously £229, and now costs $99. Clearly the pricing comparison has always been unfavourable to the UK shopper. Bearing in mind that the US price doesn’t include sales tax, the UK price before tax, should be more comparable with the US pricing, but excluding VAT the UK price is £84.26 (or $129.76), which leaves UK shoppers paying around £20 ($30) more. In a press release, Apple claims the extra cost “includes approximately £23 VAT, duty, and levies”, and notes that, “VAT, duty and levies may vary over time”.

Not a computer

Due to Apple’s feedback from consumers that they would prefer the Apple TV to be less of a computer, Apple has removed the hard drive. When the Apple TV launched in 2007 it had a 40GB hard disk. The most recent model had a 160GB hard disk. Removing the hard drive is certainly one way to keep the cost down.

Due to the lack of storage the Apple TV will simply stream video from either the iTunes Store or the local network. The good news is that on the inside the specs have been updated to support 720p video at 30 frames per second (the previous model could only hack 24fps, and even then there were often issues). This is a big deal because a lot of TV-show content is shot at 30 frames per second, and Apple wants everything on the new Apple TV to be in HD, including TV rentals (although Apple does appear to plan on offering SD TV show rentals – presumably for any content not available in HD).

There’s no support for buying stuff anymore, just renting movies and TV shows – if you want to buy stuff and keep it forever, you’ll want to do that on your computer and then stream it to the Apple TV.

The Apple TV’s video features rely heavily on an iTunes Store rental model. In the US Apple has deals in place with ABC and Fox. In UK Apple has no such deals in place, but still offers movies and TV shows for rental and to buy on the iTunes Store. It’s unclear how the rental scheme will translate in the UK when the Apple TV goes on sale here in late September. In the US TV shows can be rented for 99c, while movies can be rented for $4.99 for the newest titles. Apple says HD versions of the newest movies in the UK will be available to rent for £4.49. Currently new movies can be rented for £3.49 for newer films, or £2.49 for older films. Apple has a deal where films are available to buy for £3.99 at the moment on the UK iTunes Store.

UK TV shows are currently available to buy for anything from £1.19 for an episode of Red Dwarf, to £1,89 for an episode of Grand Designs, and £2.49 for an episode of Ugly Betty. Buying a whole series outright lowers the per episode price.

As previously, rentals must be watched within 30 days; once you begin watching a movie, you need to finish it within 24 hours – a feat we have found often isn’t possible. Television shows, on the other hand, get a 48-hour window. For TV shows, the Apple TV will also track which episodes you have watched.

In the US Netflix subscribers can get access to the entire Netflix streaming library on their Apple TV. Apple has not disclosed whether the Apple TV will stream from any of the UK online TV offerings, which include BBC iPlayer and Channel 4OD, or whether it will work with movie rental services such as SeeSaw.

As an alternative to TV and movie rentals direct to the Apple TV it will be possible to stream movies and TV shows from your Mac (or PC) or even your iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 4.1 and using AirPlay. The successor to Apple’s AirTunes media streaming feature, AirPlay allows you to begin watching a video or listening to music on one device and then switch to another device. You can start playback on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and then switch seamlessly to your Apple TV with just a few taps. AirPlay will require iOS 4.1, which Apple will ship next week.

The interface itself, it’s going to be pretty familiar to current Apple TV users. It’s the same remote-driven UI, with a series of menu items from left to right.

Size wise

The device is small – a quarter the size of the original measuring 9.91 cm square and 2.29cm high. The tiny black box that will likely run cool and quiet due to its lack of a hard drive. You can pick it up and hold it in the palm of your hand, easily. On the back is a small selection of ports, far fewer than on the previous model. If you don’t have a TV that supports HDMI, forget it – this device has only an HDMI port for video out (and you’ll need to buy the HDMI cable). There’s also an optical-audio port, an ethernet jack (along with built-in 802.11n networking), and a USB port that Apple says is for support use only and not for any end-user functions.

The back panel sports interfaces for HDMI (with resolutions up to 720p), optical audio out, 10/100 Ethernet (complementing the built-in 802.11n wireless), and a Micro-USB port for service and support.

It also ships with the same Aluminum Apple Remote that Apple released last year; you’ll also be able to use Apple’s Remote app for iOS devices to control the Apple TV.

All contents copyright 1995-2010 Network World, Inc. http://www.networkworld.com

Microsoft on Thursday started featuring a small advertisement on its Bing home page for Internet Explorer 8 in an apparent effort to encourage more people to migrate to the latest version of its browser.

With the launch of Bing, Microsoft came up with the unique concept of displaying a new photograph on the home page each day, but it also generally followed Google’s precedent of an otherwise sparse page. The Bing site features the search bar and a few links along the outer edges of the page.

Now, it also features a small link in the right corner of the photo that says: “Fast. Easy. Get Internet Explorer 8.” The link goes to a page that presents IE8 as optimized for Bing and MSN and lets people download the browser.

Bing users can scroll through past photographs that appeared on the home page, and doing so now includes the ad overlaid on the previous photos.

Microsoft did not immediately reply to a request for comment about its strategy for ads on the Bing home page. But on Wednesday, it said in a blog post that it planned to continue to encourage people to upgrade from IE6 to IE8. IE6, the widely used browser released in 2001, is notorious for security holes and incompatibility with some Web standards.

“Over the past several months, you have seen us talk about some of the ways we’re helping customers get off IE6 and onto IE8 and soon IE9, coming in beta in just a few weeks,” Ryan Gavin, senior director of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer business and marketing, wrote in the blog post. “From our work with enterprise customers, to consumer campaigns like adios IE6 and spoiled milk, to joining the fun at the IE6 Funeral — these efforts will continue.”

The blog post followed Net Applications’ release of browser market share figures for August, showing that IE 8 continues to grow its market share while IE 6′s share continues to drop. Overall, however, market share for Internet Explorer was down slightly, according to the report.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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The Folio 100, Toshiba’s entry into the tablet race at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) trade show in Berlin, comes with Android version 2.2 like the competition, but the company has opted for a larger 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen.

The larger screen size comes at a cost — the Folio 100 weighs 760 grams, compared to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which has a 7-inch screen and weighs 380 grams. It will be up to consumers to choose between screen size and portability.

The Folio 100 measures 28 centimeters by 18 cm by 1.4 cm. There is an Nvidia Tegra 2-processor under the hood and 16GB of built-in storage, which can be expanded using an SD card.

The battery should last for up to seven hours, as long as the tablet is used primarily for Web browsing most of the time.

The list of preinstalled software includes the Opera Web browser and Fring, an application that in combination with the embedded 1.3-megapixel webcam allows users to make video calls, according to Toshiba.

The use of Android version 2.2 adds support for Flash 10.1. At first, the Folio 100 will access the Internet using Wi-Fi, including 802.11n. But it will also be equipped with 3G soon, according to Toshiba.

The tablet has also been equipped with Toshiba’s own marketplace, which will include music, applications and radio channels.

The Folio 100 will be available during the fourth quarter of 2010 throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Wi-Fi version will cost about €399 (US$510).

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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