Music downloads rocket this Christmas

CD sales continue to decline as music downloads continue to grow in popularity, new figures reveal.

According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), just short of three million tracks were purchased online during the final week of 2007.

The figure, 2.94 million, is an increase of 100.2 per cent on the 1.47 million tracks purchased during the same period in 2006.

The BPI, whose figures came from the The Official UK Charts Company, also revealed a 50 per cent increase in music download sales on 2006, topping 77 million, whereas CD sales dropped during the same period.

This trend is repeating itself in the US, with music CD sales down 15 per cent last year as consumers turned to legal and illegal digital downloads, according to research.

Sales of physical CD albums dropped to 500.5m in 2007, a three-fold increase on the 4.9 per cent fall suffered in 2006, according to Nielsen Soundscan, an information system that tracks sales data for singles, albums and music video products for music companies in Canada and the United States.

Downloads for independent labels are also rocketing and according to download subscription service Emusic, these sales also smashed retail expectations during the 2007 Christmas period. On Christmas Day alone indie labels clocked up almost half a million downloads of music and audio-books.

Matt Phillips, BPI director of communications, said: "Recent years have seen a boost in download sales in the week after Christmas, but this was a larger increase than expected, and sales should continue to grow throughout 2008.

"The enormous choice of music and great value for money, combined with the ease and convenience of downloading, means legal digital music services are becoming increasingly popular with music fans."

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MP901 portable media player looks slapped together

The MP901 from Shenzhen Link-Create Technology seems much more appropriate for Halloween than the Christmas season, with its seemingly Frankenstein-inspired design that incorporates what looks to be parts from a few other gadgets. It supports MPEG-4 video files (in AVI container), MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC audio files, and JPEG images.

The device has a 2.4-inch TFT LCD with 262,000 colors and a 1.3MP camera. A speaker and a microphone are built-in, and e-book, FM radio and gaming functionality (including NES games) are included. Internal memory ranges from 128MB to 4GB, expandable through a TransFlash card slot. Dimensions are 88×48x10mm.

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Microsoft Launches Microsoft Point Gifting at the Last Possible Holiday Shopping Moment

Good news procrastinators and slackasses! Have you still not bought The Orange Box or another appropriately awesome game for your best bud with an Xbox 360? No worries, just give them a shitload of Microsoft Points from the comfort of your lonely computer chair. As of yesterday, you can gift points from the Microsoft Points site, but you've gotta know their Windows Live ID—Gamer Tag transactions are on the way early next year. It's US residents only (plus the site is a little busted up in Firefox 3 so I couldn't login 'til I fired up IE). If your friend's getting a Zune for Christmas, they'll work in the Zune Marketplace too. Just take note that if you actually give someone a bundle of points for Christmas, since the program just launched yesterday, it's a red-and-green neon sign that you're a mediocre-to-crappy friend.

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Microsoft's 12 Gifts of Christmas

For holiday 2006, Microsoft offered up a big lump of coal, as in no Windows Vista. Is someone feeling guilty or what? This year, Microsoft has unloaded a bag full of gifts for the holidays. I pick the 12 best.

And, no, no, no, no, no! I won't be setting these gifts to music. Please feel free to sing through the 12 gifts, but I won't help you. That parody approach long ago became a bad joke.

So, what were Microsoft's best gifts, from 12 to one? Here's my list:

12. Connect 3.0 beta. The list begins with a little lump of coal in the Christmas stocking. Microsoft is testing a new Connect Web site. It's time for the Microsoft beta tester revolt, because the new site is butt-ugly. No thanks, Santa!

11. Windows, code name 7. OK, so you haven't deployed Vista yet and loathe the prospect of testing. No worries, Microsoft has started dropping hints about successor Windows 7. It's a gift! In a Dec. 11 blog post, Microsoft's Hilton Locke wrote: "If you are impressed by the 'touch features' in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7." Did you get a gift receipt for that iPhone?

10. The 11-cent reward. Yesterday, Microsoft announced an 11-cent-per-share dividend for stockholders. For all those Microsoft investors pining for the good old share growth days or Google's stratospheric share price, every little bit helps. I don't get anything. For conflict-of-interest reasons, I don't invest. Say, don't spend it all at once!

9. Bill Gates' Office 2007 tutorial. Microsoft's chairman wants you to know how he uses his company's software. Sorry, I couldn't get past the dreamy description of Gates' gear: "Three large flat-screen displays ... synchronized so they work like a single very wide display." I also got a warm, fuzzy feeling about Gates' management style. He wrote, "Each year I do something called ThinkWeek where anybody in the company can submit a paper about an idea they have to change the way our company works or to pursue a new development project." Oh, yeah, and he uses Office 2007, too!

8. Vista's disabled off switch. Microsoft will finally do away with one of Vista's most loathed features (c'mon, you hate it more than Universal Account Control pop-ups). Vista will no longer disable if not activated. This could have ranked as a bigger gift, but Microsoft still requires businesses with volume-license keys to use activation servers. OK, so it's not the present you really wanted.

7. Internet Explorer 8's acid trip. IE7's first year of application-breaking mayhem has passed, and Microsoft execs are suddenly talking about its successor. Considering Microsoft has said nothing about IE8 for the first 11 months of the year, the sudden disclosure is quite the gift. Surely, everyone is so proud of how grown-up IE8 is. The browser passed Acid2.

6. Server protocols. Yesterday, Samba licensed server protocols from Microsoft, as required by the 2004 European antitrust ruling. But developers should be careful what they ask Santa for. Microsoft may benefit more from the protocol program than licensees. Is this like when I give my wife a DVD that I want to watch more than she does? Happy Christmas!

5. A ribbon for Popfly. Microsoft gave its mashup site and service a nice makeover, just in time for the holidays. The Popfly Web Creator now incorporates stylistic elements from the Office 2007 ribbon. Microsoft just wants you to feel as comfortable on the Web as when using desktop software. Santa says: "Begone with archaic browser motifs!"

4. Office 2007 and SharePoint Server service packs. Microsoft knows that you really don't need them. But socks and underwear (ah, thanks, mom) are what someone gives when they don't know what else to give or they don't care to find out what you want. Microsoft checked a box on the gift list and, poof, Service Pack 1 arrived.

3. Hyper-V. Microsoft even called the Dec. 13 Hyper-V beta a gift. Santa "developers, developers, developers" Steve Ballmer must have pushed the elves hard to get out the virtualization software in time for the holidays. Hyper-V testing is the perfect break from all that chaotic Christmas shopping. You've nothing better to do, right?

2. Search visualization. For all those developers tired of boring, text-driven searches, Microsoft has a gift. This week the company released Windows Live QuickApps code for Tafiti search visualization. What happens when Silverlight meets Live Search? Tafiti! Developers, Microsoft wants you to feel young again, like when Santa brought you that first set of Legos or building blocks.

1. Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 1. You know you need it and maybe even want it. The world runs on Windows XP. It's Microsoft's most successful operating system ever. For the zillions of people waiting on switching to Vista or never going to it, Windows XP is their computing lifeblood. SP3 is that new transfusion. Say, why not celebrate the holidays with a Windows XP tattoo? Why should the Zune tattoo guy have all the fun?

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Santa bot caught talking dirty to children

Disturbing news has reached our Yuletide youthful innocence bunker that Microsoft's new artificial intelligence-powered Santa bot is subjecting the world's children to an unprecendented torrent of filth.

Reg reader Iain blew the whistle on the foul-mouthed software after his nieces - just 11 and 13 years old - were drawn into a chat about oral sex.

Redmond has added the seasonal ID northpole@live.com to MSN messenger. Anyone can add the bot as a contact. During conversations it often suggests people play a child-friendly online game called Factory Frenzy where the player helps Santa's elves. It also has a shocking predeliction for casually dropping in that it likes to talk about a certain sex act.

Iain told us that an unexpected profane outburst was triggered by his nieces offering the nasty St Nick a slice of digital pizza, using the string "(pi)". We immediately launched a full scale investigation and attempted to replicate the bad behaviour.

We present the sickening results below:

El Reg says: pizza (pi)

Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat so much! You are quite large!

Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat it?

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: No thank you. I don't eat things!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...

El Reg says: You dirty bastard!

Santa says: I think you're dirty bastard.

This coming from the service that banned the surname Woodcock as an ID.

Here's the full screen grab of Santa's tirade, which will form part of the dossier that we'll be forwarding to Interpol. It is very similar to the inappropriate conversational gambits Iain's nieces read, although Santa stopped short of calling them "dirty bastards".

Iain wrote: "I guess my main complaint is that my young nieces saw it, I am shocked and appalled that this slipped through but am just plain upset my nieces saw this."

Beyond the immediate vulgarity, he lamented the lifelong effect this Père Noel has had on the girls' fragile sense of wonder: "They do not fully still believe in Santa but they still like the magic and are unsure either way - this has pretty much made their minds up!"

We've contacted Microsoft for an explanation and an apology.

While we're sure that Redmond wouldn't allow its developers to turn pranksters, we're shocked (shocked!) that Microsoft would rush out a piece of software that clearly isn't ready for public consumption. Oh, wait... ®

Update

Looks like Redmond's wholesomeness committee has swooped already - Santa's stopped giving his opinions on sexy chit chat. Asking him to eat pizza now elicits the response "If you need a break to go eat, I will be right there when you come back."

Call Santa a "dirty bastard" now and he'll say: "Merry Christmas, especially to all my friends in the UK!"

Very amusing.

We await an apology for Iain's nieces, and if someone at Microsoft would like to restore their faith in Christmas with some presents, we'll happily put you in touch.

Update 2

We're indebted to one of our commenters for news of another eccentricity of the bot. When Santa asks what you want for Christmas, try saying "cake". He'll reply: "You don't need drugs when you're high on life!"

Someone at Microsoft is a Brasseye fan apparently. The uninitiated should watch this.

Update 3

Microsoft has sent us a Christmas card:

"Microsoft has been made aware of claims of an inappropriate conversation taking place between a customer of Windows Live Messenger and an automated Santa Claus agent on Messenger. We’re actively investigating the situation and are working to take the appropriate steps to address the situation as rapidly as possible. We sincerely apologise for any upset or offence this may have caused our customers."

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