Amazon may have blown the cover off of Adobe's strategy by inadvertently leaking information on pricing and release dates days before the scheduled announcement of its high-end Master Collection suite and other applications.

According to Amazon, the Adobe software will be classified and labeled as "OS X" and "OS X Intel" compatible versions. While there will indeed be a dichotomy, the fact of the matter is that Power PC users will be able to run the products with ease and that's saying a lot.

The prices revealed by Amazon are a little stiff, though. The Contribute CS3 package sells for US$ 95, the Master Collection goes for US$ 2,969 while web artists will have to shell out US$ 1,186 for the CS3 Design and Production Premium bundle. All of these are reportedly shipping in April, but users who prefer Encore, Premiere and Soundbooth may have to wait until July to get their fill.

We'll keep you posted on how accurate the Amazon revelations are when the official announcements hit on Tuesday.

Not everybody likes vinyl skins, but if you like to express yourself by blinging up your gadget, then you might want to know about Wrapstar's latest press release. According to their press release, a Wrapstar vinyl skin is pre-cut and ready-to-apply (so even the clumsy ones among you can get it right). A Wrapstar vinyl skin is also easy to remove - if you get tired of it, you peel it off and it won't leave icky goo behind.

Range of vinyl skin choices. They have DS Lite skins, PSP skins, and iPod skins. Patterns range from manly skins for the tough guy and flamboyant skins for the raging diva queen. Desert camouflage skins, dalmatian print skins, Union Jack skins, and Japan flag skins...

       

Availability. They're already selling in Game stores throughout Europe and Scandinavia. North American and Australian readers can get them from Amazon.co.uk. Amazon ships all over the world (you can visit their delivery pages for more info).

The iPod killer, the future-proof MP3 player, the cool-looking portable Hard Drive. The Zune's been called a lot of things (we'll omit what the iPod dudes have to say for now), and while we do like the functions that it's been churning out, and Bill Gate's exceeding expectations for his (other) little black box, we were beginning to wonder just how people took to it as compared to the iPod.

"I have never heard of the Zune," came the reply of one sales clerk when asked about the Zune, at least according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Munster had conducted a survey on at 40 major retails stores, and found in his results that only 8% of the sales clerks ever recommended the Zune, with 75% recommending the iPod for customers.

"In fact, some MP3 player salespeople had not even heard of the Zune, despite the fact that they sold it in their store," Munster also writes in his report. Ouch. As of Tuesday, the Zune's on the #22 spot for Amazon's most sold MP3 player, the 30-gigabyte ipod taking the #1 spot, the 1-gig iPod shuffle at #3, and the pink 4-gig Nano at #5.

And what of marketing for the Zune? "our checks show that Zune ads are being placed more selectively than iPod ads," Munster said, adding that the Zune "is off to a slow start; from sales perspective as well as the marketing perspective." Given the season's just starting up, we're going to have to see what lies in store for the Zune.

The Neuros Recorder 2 might be turning one year old in December, but it doesn't diminish the awesomeness of the device. In fact, people who've been looking for an excuse to buy more tech will probably be pleased to hear that the Neuros 2 is once again on sale.

We picked up word of another Amazon markdown, and the Neuros was one of the products getting a price reduction. The Neuros is currently being sold for US$ 99.99, and the sale only has two days left. For those who haven't heard of the doohickey, the Neuros Recorder is a mini digital VCR your PSP, iPod Video, cellular phone, or other handhelds.

Now, before you start flaming us with sentences like "QJ sucks," or "Woohoo I wanna have ur babyz!" it would be good to note that the Holidays are coming. For the budding video editors out there who want to make skating trick vids while playing Tony Hawk on your PSP, or the gamers who know someone who could use this, it would make a pretty interesting gift.

If you wanna grab more information, check out the review we made on it some months back. Just remember: contrary to the comments on the linked article, we're not advertisers. We just have the very bad tendency to sound like them when we're in a drunken stupor while writing. Enjoy!

Apple's dominance over the music-download industry might be giving the iPod maker some troubles when it comes to moving into the movie-download market . The issue? Hollywood studios are frightened by Apple's dominance.

The movie studios are afraid they will face the same troubles that record studios are facing. See, in the music industry, sales for individual music tracks may be at an all time high, especially since Apple promotes single song downloads on iTunes. But because of that, album sales are going down, and album sales are where labels get their profit from.

So if Apple does for movies what they're doing for videos, then only the better known movies will be downloaded and paid for. The lesser known or less popular films won't stand a chance. You could say that's what marketing and advertising is for but, the truth is, word of mouth on the "intarweb" is faster than any Hollywood hype/spin/marketing plan.

To keep in touch with the program while protecting their interests, major studios have now signed a string of deals to kick-start movie downloading in an attempt to ensure that the market shares are spread around. For example, BSkyB allows you to download movies for free from them via subscription instead of per movie.

Apple still has the major advantage though, as its portable devices still dominate, and all the larger iPods already have video capability. Given the market penetration of their handhelds and the temptation to just sign up with Apple's service, Apple is likely to gain a significant share of the emerging movie download market.

The online sales of film that started last March has remained minimal. Interests people show are not that favorable for companies until now. Given this, the internet's two biggest retailers are still willing to take chances. Amazon and Apple will begin the new service this week, the magazine Variety reported.

What's interesting though is that the only studio that will definitely be part of Apple's movie store at launch is Disney. This is contrary to the previous reports that Touchstone and Lions Gate are already on board. On the other hand, Amazon.com seemed to have gotten the better deal as they've reached an agreement with almost all the major studios (Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., MGM and Lionsgate).

Also, the prices Amazon tagged with movie downloads appear to be substantially less. Apple is planning, Variety says, a tag price between $10-$15. Furthermore, those who go with Amazon will have the option to buy or just rent whereas Apple offers only sales.

The only apparent advantage Apple has is the movie downloaded from the iTunes Music Store will play on the iPods and Amazon's titles will not.

Not entirely a new idea but still a good one, and an eye catcher at that. One who sees the Pillow Pods can easily be reminded by Linen 'n Things' very own, MP3 Pillow.

The Pillow Pod measures 15" square and comes in four colors: vibrant green, hot pink, intimate purple and cool blue. And as its name implies, these pillows have built-in speakers for that cozy music fix as you sleep.

It uses universal jacks so you can actually plug it to virtually any kind of portable electronic device, be it iPod, MP3 Player, CD Player, etc. Pillow Pods are available online at With Character (tagged at $24.99) or pre-order it at Amazon for $17.99.

Incredible! Kevin Khandjian of Orlando, Florida, managed to get a full refund from an iTunes download! Kevin had downloaded a season of Chappelle's Show for his iPod and, to his amazement, it was full of ads and ridiculous previews! He contacted the Apple, and they sent him to the 'Help and Support' section of the iTunes website. Over the course of the next four days, he emailed back and forth with people from Apple about their 'all sales final' policy. Despite the representatives insistence that no refunds were given, he fought on. After five grueling days, he received the following email (some parts were removed to save space because they were irrellevant):

Dear Kevin,
Thank you for your patience as we investigated this matter.
I have refunded your account $21.99 plus any applicable taxes. The credit should be posted within 3-5 business days.
Please do not repurchase this show in the next two weeks. This will give us time to resolve the issue with the title or remove it, if needed.

Sincerely,

Jesse
The iTunes Music Store team
http://www.apple.com/support/iTunes/ww/

Victory! Kevin received the payment for the episodes he bought, and plans to buy the DVD instead. He got the non-refundable refund! Kevin could've bought the full season DVD from Amazon for nearly five bucks cheaper, ad-free. Hopefully "resolve the issue with the title" means "remove the ads and give you what you paid for". We'll see in the future! Anyone out there had a similar experience? Let us know!

Now that Apple dominates the music world, film studios are afraid the computer company has its eye on the film industry as well. Nonetheless, several Hollywood studios are currently in negotiations with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Other studios, wary of dealing with a member of Disney's board, are talking with Apple VP Eddie Cue instead.

The studios are resisting Job's idea that feature films be priced at $9.99. Typically, library titles are sold to big-box chain stores for much lower prices than new releases. Right now, the studios think Apple should sell similar content at multiple price points, which has not been done previously.

According to Variety, film studios are also negotiating with other distributors such as Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, to head off any chance of a monopoly. Most major studios will probably have movies available through the iTunes Music Store by year's end.

The fun part in buying CDs - apart from owning a wonderful piece of music - was seeing the album art, for me at least. With the popularity of digital music, the excitement of seeing a new album sitting on your collection has gone out. If you also feel that album art is one of the most exciting aspects of music collection, then worry no more: Specere provides us with a solution.

Art Collector lets users cover their tracks in a quick, efficient, and stylish manner. It is a streamlined interface where users can find and apply album art to their music library.

It's simple: select a nude album then drop in your preferred art from Art Collector's selection (courtesy of Amazon) and voila - your music collection is now covered in beautiful images.

Art Collector v1.0 includes a search filter so you can easily find the tracks you want to cover. And you'd also be able to view a particular art before applying it. To make your music collecting more fun, this application has been integrated with Menuet, the ultimate iTunes extender.

Download: [Art Collector v1.0]