Microsoft leaks Zune Details in FCC filing

cnet-declan writes "One of my colleagues at CNET News.com has picked up on a filing that Microsoft made yesterday with the FCC. Our article reports that Microsoft's Zune media player (the iPod rival discussed before on Slashdot) is going to have features such as creating mobile social networks and streaming music to nearby friends or strangers. It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

I may want one of these after all

[nizo]

With the device's wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists," according to the filing.

Or maybe someone can figure out how to broadcast images to all nearby Zunes with a linux app, so when I drive down the street or ride the train with my laptop I could flood all the nearby Zunes with goatse images. "Awww look someone is sending me a cute puppy picture....augggghhhhh"

Among other features...

[Spazntwich]

30 minutes of battery life?

Re:I may want one of these after all

[larry bagina]

Wireless. More space than a nomad. Lame.

Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?

[PixelPirate]

iDon't Think so..

I can just see the TV Ads..

[ackthpt]

Steve Balmer in silhouette with a glowing cord doing his monkey dance.

More space than a Nomad

[freeweed]

Wifi. More space than a Nomad.

Sorry, still lame :)

I doubt this will unseat Apple

[WillAffleckUW]

but I'm looking forward to picking up one for $5 at a garage sale here in Seattle.

Re:I can just see the TV Ads..

[twofidyKidd]

As I read that, I thought it was going to end with, "...throwing chairs at silhouetted dancers with white headphones."

Big Omission

[MightyYar]

I didn't see "cool" listed anywhere. Without that feature, how can it unseat the iPod? I hope this doesn't mean that they are planning to hire Paris Hilton to say "That's Hot".

Hmmm, interesting .......

[Archangel Michael]

SCAM

I think you're onto something!

and weigh?

[ArsonSmith]

"It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

And with a standard battery it will last 6 minutes so you can get in one complete song.

Hope they do well

[rolyatknarf]

My wife and I already plan on buying a pair of these. Finally we will have a way to communicate over that distance from my end of the couch to hers. No more verbal arguments about which satellite channel to watch.

Re:Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?

[7macaw]

But wii?

Re:Among other features...

[muftak]

Hopefully you'll be able to plug a USB keyboard into it, to press ctrl-alt-del when it crashes.

Re:Perhaps not as social as the summary suggests.

[kfg]

You, Sir, simply do not understand the inherent, underlying beauty of being able to spam personal entertainment devices. It's just like regular spam, only musical. You know how much everybody already enjoys getting free spam, only now it will be enhanced by singing . . .in Korea!

But wait, don't order now, there's more!

Instead of the old fashioned way of shoving the music down tubes the Wizards/Witches of Redmond (follow the black asphalt road) have figured out a way to distribute the music in buckets carried by flying monkeys! How cool is that?

Don't ask where the flying monkeys come from though, or someone is likely to send a picture of it to your Zune; and trust me, it isn't pretty.

Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! My eyes!

KFG

Re:Among other features...

[Anonymous Coward]

Estimated Battery life: 30* hours
*Under normal** operating conditions.
**Streaming content, creating social networks, using wireless connectivity, playing video content, using software equalizer, browsing music library, operating backlight, playing audio content, or using device while not connected to external DC power supply may substantially reduce expected battery life.

Re:I can just see the TV Ads..

[sydsavage]

You mean something like this [macboy.com]?

Why Stop There?

[finiteSet]

Hopefully you'll be able to plug a USB keyboard into it, to press ctrl-alt-del when it crashes.

You joke, but to me, a keyboard sounds like a damn good idea.

I have a few more feature requests:

• Built-in speakers (headphones-free)
• More HD space (100GB+)
• Larger screen (say 15" or 17")
• Enough CPU and RAM to handle real world apps (maybe Turion 64x2 with 2GB RAM?)
• DVD Burner (so you can share movies you made with your Zune)
• 12-cell Lithium Ion battery so it can last more than an hour or two.

Zune has a real opportunity here. Sure, the iPod dominates the market, but I think a lot of people are frustrated with its lack of ability to author DVDs, host webservers or calculate Mersenne primes.

Social Networking

[ackthpt]

If Microsoft can make people strike up conversations with the strangers around them they don't deserve a business success with the Zune, they deserve the next 100 Nobel Peace Prizes.

You can't see the looming hubbub? Some lurker around a school yard, posing as a 13 year old, beaming Michael Jackson tunes to children .. luring one into near the bushes. Then the local parents groups and sheriff's departments and everyone else gets into wanting to monitor or restrict these things, yada yada yada.

It's not a problem until the first time it happens.

Will there be some form of parental control which allows them to disable the social networking feature?

Re:missing the social point

[raehl]

It's a sad fact that a universal constant on buses, trains, tubes, and metros the world over is everyone travelling in deathly silence from the moment they board until the moment they alight at their destination.

Pfft, that's the universal condition. The universal condition is violated under one of three conditions:

- Money (incl. employment/trade)
- Drugs (incl. Alcohol)
- Religion

No, I didn't forget sex. That falls under one of the above. In incredibly rare situations, the universal condition may be violated in the pursuit of sport, absent one of the other three.

But, other than that, people don't talk to each other. It's a waste of effort.

Re:I may want one of these after all

[kjart]

Second, it brings up the Start menu when you tap the Windows key, which is the part that's pure evil.

I must say, I've heard Microsoft called evil for all kinds of things (i.e. business practices, shoddy software, clubbing baby seals) but I've never heard them called out for a button on a keyboard. Nice work :)