Apple Computer may announce a much-anticipated iPod phone and will likely unveil revamped iPod music players next week during the annual Macworld conference in San Francisco. More

Speculation on future additions to the iPod — whether at next week’s MacWorld or at some unspecified future date — is now running so rampant that it’s only a matter of time before someone suggests that the next iPod will run Windows Vista natively.

One of the more common suggestions, however, is that the iPod will beef up its networking capabilities in order to compete with Zune’s much-discussed (and not always well-regarded) wireless song-sharing feature.

New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.
New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed “watch out” to no avail. Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street. More

One of Apple’s biggest achievements in the creation of the iTunes/iPod system was the balance that it managed to strike between the needs of customers and the needs of the recording industry. Their DRM (Digitial Rights Management) system allows you to make enough copies of your music on enough devices that it will seldom be an encumbrance to anybody, while not being a free-for-all that the music industry couldn’t accept. All DRM systems make me slightly uneasy, but it’s hard, I think, to find another company that has incorporated one as well as Apple. More