We only got a mere 20 minutes of his time, but Peter and I got a chance to talk to the one and only J Allard about the Zune, digital media, and the direction Microsoft is taking things in what could be their most public marketplace battle since the browser wars. We'll let J do the talking.

So, you guys have heard an awful lot about Zune already leading up to the press release, what can we clarify?

Well, we've been following it pretty closely, obviously, since we first started hearing about it. Obviously today is the big unveiling, and we wanted to get a better idea of Zune not just as a device, but as a platform, and where you guys want to take all this stuff. So maybe you can start off by giving us an overview of where the device is, and where you see it going both as a device and as a platform.

Sure, I think it's a great question the way you phrased it because we actually really think about Zune more as a platform than a device; you used both those two key words. If you step back a little bit in terms of where we're going as a company and where we think we can move forward with the industry in the entertainment space, we have this idea of connected entertainment. You're too familiar with the transition from analog to digital, we think there's a transition that goes one step beyond that called "connected," where the community gets to have greater participation with their entertainment experiences. We want to bring that across all forms of entertainment. What we're doing with Xbox and Xbox Live in the gaming space, what we're doing with MS TV and the Media Center in the television space, and Zune is really our first foray into a deep connected music experience. The first product we'll introduce this holiday will be a connected one -- that's why we put in WiFi in every device, because we think those connected experiences are really going to signal what the future of the music industry looks like, and the future of television and film and everything else. And the community wants to play a big part in it. So while we're starting now and sharing between devices where you can share songs with your friends (3 plays for 3 days), and sort of get the recommendations of your trusted circle of friends and experience and discover new music. You guys know all too well 802.11 devices there are out there. Think about what else we can connect to. Think about all the other scenarios we could do, whether location-based, etc. The device itself is intended to be a future-proof platform that's part of this connected entertainment world where entertainment will become more personal, more interactive, and more engaged with community.

One of the main problems with the gradual transfer of content from physical media (CDs, DVDs, books) over to digital media (MP3s, movie downloads, e-books) is that when something happens to the devices storing your swag, you're basically out of luck -- most insurance companies will tell you to go take a hike. Well that's all about to change, according to a recent article in British newspaper The Independent, as insurers like Nationwide will now reimburse you for digital content stored on stolen or destroyed electronics as long as you can provide proof of purchase. Nationwide's even got your back for such seemingly trivial fare as games and ringtones downloaded to your cellphone, though its policies specifically state that if you lose your digital goods due to a wiped hard drive / memory card that's your own damn fault, and there'll be no reimbursement for you. Unfortunately some insurance companies -- like the cheapskates at esure -- seem dead set against the idea, claiming that owners of a stolen iPod still have the tracks on their PC and don't deserve digital coverage; well, while that may be true in cases of theft, esure's stance isn't very helpful for the unlucky individual whose house just burned down and whose DAPs and computers have all melted into the floorboards.

[Via Techdirt]

Alright everybody, witness the latest trend to sweep the out of touch music industry: free ad-supported music downloads. And one company planning to offer such a gig, SpiralFrog, has found itself a pretty big taker in the Universal Music Group, whose catalogue of artists (some of which include Eminem, U2, Kanye, Bon Jovi, etc.) will be online and freely downloadable to those willing to sit through "non-intrusive, contextually-relevant, targeted advertising," according to SpiralFrog. It's a step in the right direction, but what do you think the odds are that Universal is still going to require DRM even on free downloads? Now, DRM-free costless downloads with ads, that's fine, but when is someone just going to offer what we really want: straight up DRM-free media downloads? We're willing to freaking pay for it, you know? And we're sure a lot of other people out there are willing to, as well.

[Via Reuters, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Some more details have leaked out about Microsoft's unannounced-but-well-known WiFi-enabled digital music player that shed some light on its role in Microsoft's overall home entertainment strategy -- though you'll still have to deal with that blurry pic for now. According to sources cited by The Seattle Times, the upcoming DAP is only one of several offerings that will be part of a larger lineup of Xbox-branded products, which will also include Microsoft's upcoming online media service -- the one that will dupe all your iTunes tracks for free -- and a dedicated software media player. Codenamed Project Argo, this initiative is said to be spearheaded by Xbox co-founder J Allard, and is rumored to support the so-called XNA toolkit for allowing developers to easily port games to multiple platforms -- possibly setting the stage for that heavily-rumored Xbox2Go. There's not too much here that we didn't already know, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Redmond has a definite battle plan for waging war against Apple and others in your living room (and pocket), and that the company is starting to make good on its promise of turning the 360 into a true digital hub.

[Via Joystiq]

If nothing else, you've got to admire the tenacity of a Connecticut-based firm called USA Video Interactive, which just days after losing what seems to be a final appeal in its lawsuit against Movielink, decided to go after almost all of the country's major cable operators for supposedly infringing on the same patent. Comcast, Cox, Charter, and Time Warner (disclosure: Time Warner owns the company that owns the network that includes Engadget) are all named in a suit filed Tuesday in a U.S. District Court in Texas by USA Video (maybe Cablevision got spared because of all its other legal woes), which claims that like Movielink, the cable giants are violating its so-called Store-and-Forward Video-on-Demand patent (#5,130,792, filed in 1990) by using protected technology in their own VOD services. Besides making patents, the company also offers various products revolving around email, web tools, digital video watermarking, and content delivery infrastructure, so it's probably not appropriate to bunch it in with other lawsuit-happy -- but seemingly less legitimate -- claimants such as NTP and Visto.

[Via TechWeb and Digital Media Thoughts]