itunes

The death of television and the advent of online-only programming has been upon us every week going back at least as far as the first Hulu stream, and perhaps much further depending on which rumor-monger blogs you subscribe to.

Today, a company called DeepDyve launched the largest online rental service for scientific papers, which allows users to rent any article for just 99 cents. Journal articles currently trend toward the obscene ($30 or more), unless you're the lucky dude with a password for a university library. DeepDyve saw an opening in the market and made deals with major scientific publishers to stock 30 million (and growing) articles of tech, med, and scientific interest.

DeepDyve is part of a greater trend of getting scientific info back to the hardworking taxpayers who funded it.

Is Apple unstoppable? If it is, the Zune HD has long appeared to be the best shot at unseating the MP3-player kingpin. Knowing that, when a Zune landed at PopSci HQ, we had to see if such a thing could actually be true.

For a week, I split my commute between a Zune HD and a brand new iPod touch (my fourth Apple player). These are the high- (and low-) lights of my week with the Zune HD.

Well, the prophets were right: No App-let (Ta-pple, Ta-cintosh, whatever) today. The real news: Steve's back, the iPod nano is trying to kill Pure Digital's Flip pocket camcorder, and iTunes lets you copy files within your home network.

Here's a shocker: Apple's iTunes App Store is all over the news today. Some of it is good (at least from the company's perspective): The store is about to hit its one billionth download. Apple has even estimated the time it's going to happen down to the minute. Download the milestone application, and you can win some valuable prizes, including a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

With tech companies firing, Steve Jobs ailing (get well, Steve!) and the auto industry in a downward spiral, it’s no wonder that the first of 2009’s big shows were a bit ho-hum.

The Financial Times reported yesterday that Apple is considering a plan to give people free access to its library of tunes if they pay more for their iPods or iPhones.

Sick of limiting your iTunes purchases to five authorized computers?

Let the rumor mill churn away, but good luck getting something out of it. After more than a year of speculation, iTunes and the Beatles still haven't announced a deal to release the notoriously-absent tracks. BEATUNES, which would pay out in full if Beatles songs appeared on iTunes by Halloween, kept brokers guessing in the first month, but fell steadily over the past few weeks. Today, the stock closes at $0, with trading halted at a scant $1.50 per share. Why do you taunt us so?!—Abby Seiff