Doug Aamoth…

Bob Marley’s family is NOT happy about Verizon going over their heads to ink a deal with Universal Music Group to sell exclusive Marley ring tones. Verizon will also be able to use Marley’s image exclusively. According to the family, such use would constitute an endorsement which would and should allow them to set parameters on how Bob’s music and images could be used.

They won’t be able to control any of it if Universal and Verizon win this one. Universal is calling the family’s claims “meritless” and insists that it’s operating within the terms of a longstanding contract.

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Sony Ericsson mobile phone owners will soon be able to add an extra 8GB of storage-y goodness. The Sandisk M2 cards are currently being tested by phone manufacturers and should be available to the public later this year.

Pricing hasn’t been set but a quick check on Amazon shows that the 4GB version can be had for just under $75, with an MSRP of $99. So perhaps the new version will be available for around $100-$120 when it’s offered later in the year.

This is all well and good for the relatively small percentage of phones and devices that use this format but howsabout bumping MiniSD and MicroSD capacities up a little bit now, eh SanDisk?   

SanDisk Press Release via Mobility Site

Seems there’s a new epidemic going around at big box retailers that involves bilking people out of $30. Sales reps at Best Buy and Circuit City have been telling digitally impotent customers that they’d be wise to pony up some extra dough for recovery CDs — CDs that would cost twice as much from the manufacturer and can’t be made by the customers themselves. Birdshit. You can make the CDs yourself and it’s as easy as falling in love.

As someone who’s worked in sales and/or tech support for Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA, I feel qualified to speak on the subject of how retailers encourage their salespeople to go about cheating you out of your hard earned money. Here are a few tips to help you avoid getting ripped off at stores like these.

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If at first you don’t succeed in suing an anti-spyware maker for identifying your program as spyware, try, try again. Apparently adware/spyware peddler, Zango, didn’t like PCTools and Kaspersky Antivirus calling it like they see it.

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Good for you, Sony. You get points for finally throwing in the towel on your CONNECT Music Service.

Granted you stopped trying to patch it well over a year ago and it never really worked correctly in the first place but kudos to you for shutting it down by March of next year. That oughta give all those people who never used the service a chance to back up all the songs they never purchased.

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Some more information about the upcoming Google phone. The phone will be developed by Google and the software will make use of some of the assets Google acquired when it purchased a company called Android.

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So for $710 million, Acer bought Gateway – the same company that was worth $7 billion back in 1997 and purchased eMachines in 2004. Its fall from grace is a testament to the importance of good management and an even better business model.

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The GP2X series of open source portable gaming devices will include the new GP2X F-200 this fall. Notable updates include a touch screen and a redesigned D-pad. The main draw of these Linux-based portables is built-in emulator support, allowing you to play games from systems including NES, MAME, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, SNES, and Atari Lynx.

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Before Gmail came along, I used an innovative e-mail service called Oddpost which, back in 2002 when it was released, was one of the coolest applications of JavaScript this side of the Rio Grande. Well Oddpost got purchased by Yahoo! in 2004 and the underlying technology lent itself to what is today Yahoo! Mail.

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If you’re a DirecTV subscriber and you’re prepared to cough up the $368 it’ll cost you to get the NFL Sunday Ticket package plus the SuperFan upgrade, you’ll be able to stream every game to your computer (Windows only) this season.

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