It's been awhile since we've heard from J Allard; the man who assumed responsibility for Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division (think: Zune and Xbox) in mid 2008 in an effort to unify the experience into a centralized package. Now Microsoft's CTO and CXO (that's, Chief eXperience Office) has co-signed a patent application for a "Magic Wand" first filed in November of 2007 and made public just a few days ago. The patent application reads very much like a Wiimote, hand-held controller,

"The architecture can utilize one or more sensor from a collection of sensors to determine an orientation or gesture in connection with the wand, and can further issue an instruction to update a state of an environmental component based upon the orientation."

It's worth remembering that Microsoft has been rumored to be working on such a controller since at least August 2007. Something they've apparently scrapped for a camera-based solution that will allow gamers to control the action with their bodies and hand-gestures without requiring a hand-held controller -- you know, if current rumors are true. How many days until Microsoft's June 1st E3 press conference again?

[Via TechFlash]

J Allard, previously of Veep stature, has been elevated to the position of CXO (Chief eXperience Officer) and CTO of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division. That puts the man synonymous with the Zune, Xbox, and once questionable, 80's style in charge of "the technical architecture and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) division." He's also cracking the whip on the E&D's "incubation team" responsible for scouting out new opportunities for the division. You know, like the Zune Phone, Xbox 360 with Blu-ray, and Microsoft Surface Sphere. Thus making him the most important man inside Microsoft... from our perspective anyway.

[via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

J Allard, the mysterious, bedreadlocked, Lex Luthor-ish cat behind the Xbox, Zune and Zune 2 (amongst others) sat down for a Q and A with the New York Times and revealed some deep feelings -- as well as future plans. Mainly, Mr. Allard talks about the hardships of dealing with record labels, the failure of the first Zune to penetrate the market, his hopes for the current generation of Redmond-anointed media players to kill, kill, kill, and the fact that a "Zune Phone" isn't anywhere close right now (though doesn't seem to be off the table). On the flip side, he hints at a future of merged Microsoft services, where you'll be able to order up music, games, and videos on demand -- all in one, centralized package. Says J, "Today we have Xbox live for $50 a year. We have Zune Pass at $15 a month. We don't have a rationalized premium version yet. Fast forward a little bit, and you can image a menu like DirecTV. There is basic, there is enhanced, there is movie pack and NFL Sunday ticket." Of course, right now it's just a crazy tripped-out dream floating around the mind of J Allard... let's hope it floats onto our screens soon.

Read - J Allard: Microsoft's Plan to Be King of All Media
Read - J Allard: The Failures of the Zune and the Record Labels
Read - J Allard: Dancing Around the Cellphone Question

The funkiest and freshest dude in Redmond, J Allard, has once again reached out to the people and dropped straight-up knowledge in regards to Zune Phone rumors. According to the report, during an interview with Reuters Allard shrugged off the chatter, saying that the company was focusing on the new Zunes at the present time. It would have seemed like a total dead-end, but the Microsoft exec then noted that the Zune was built on top of Windows Mobile, and added that the giant has, "The flexibility to take these in a different direction where [sic] our customers, our partners and we are ready." Sure, some new product would be nice, but let's be honest folks -- why would you need to make a phone when everyone is running your software anyway?

Since Microsoft apparently didn't suffer enough indignity with the whole J Allard-in-dreads happenings -- we were sure our caption contest sealed the deal -- another Xbox exec has gone on record making predictions on Sony hardware, unfortunately without similarly high stakes. Xbox director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud is betting a steak dinner with the staff of Level Up that Sony's going to hit the market with a $399 PS3 SKU by Black Friday 2007. His thinking is that Sony won't want to stick with a $599 80GB PS3 as its sole offering, and therefore will drop the 80 gigger to $499 and supplement it with a stripped down $399 40GB PS3 that skips out on WiFi, a memory card reader and backward compatibility. Of course, Sony's not talking much about SKUs ever since its total PR disaster on the 60GB price cut during E3, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company is ready to take a page out of Microsoft's book and go all PS3 "Core" on us.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

So the story goes that Microsoft's bald J Allard and Newsweek's bedredlocked N'Gai Croal are at dinner together, and they make a bet: if the PSP sold 10m units faster than did the PS2, Allard has to dress up like N'Gai (during his next E3 keynote, which never came); if not, J gets to shave N'Gai's head. Guess who won. Not that we think of ourselves as particularly cruel, but surely we can't be expected to let this one go without a caption contest, can we?

Evan: "After that unfortunate night with the Rastafarian gamers, Allard swore off marijuana forever."
Ryan: "Headline: J Allard hired to manage Weird Al's White & Nerdy tour."
Don: "You mean it doesn't cost an extra $100 to add WiFi to this thing?" [Snap! -Ed.]
Paul: "Yeah, but does this come in Simpsons yellow?"
Ross: "Behold the Zune Elite. Now with HD-UMD and minoxidil."

You may have heard a rumor floating about the internet that the Zune would adopt an incentive-based distribution system. The idea, supposedly, is that each song sent to your Zune-toting buddy that he/she decided to buy at your recommendation would earn you a small reward (think Zune Marketplace Points) for promoting and sharing legal digital music. Good Morning Silicon Valley revived the discussion on Wednesday, and points out that J Allard recently discussed the system at the Music Tech Summit in Seattle, but Microsoft has made no official remarks on the topic. Well we went digging through the US Patent and Trade Office site and came across a 2003 filing from Redmond that describes a very similar system that says "The first license also specifies the conditions upon which the content may be redistributed and licensed for use on a second device" and that "these conditions may specify a price for the second license, and/or a requirement that a portion of the purchase price be paid back to the owner of the first license, and/or a requirement that the first license be revoked upon creation of the second license." GMSV also says that there seems to be some confusion about the role of Shared Media Licensing, the parent company of Weedshare.com, which apparently has a very similar patent. Still, the question remains, if this really exists, when's Redmond going to let it see the light of day?

[Via Good Morning Silicon Valley, thanks Gern B.]

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.

Ok, so we got off the horn with Microsoft just a few minutes ago and realized that making heads or tails of all this Zune stuff is probably driving some of you crazy . (We know others are probably just getting driven crazy by all the posts we've been writing about it. Sorry, it's our job!) So here's what we know for sure, think we know according to inside sources (i.e. yet unconfirmed information), and what we don't yet know at all about the Zune.

What we know (for sure)

• Zune is the name of the project, the brand, and the device.
• The first Zune device will be launched this year, with more devices to come in 2007.
• The Zune brand encompasses not only the device, but the software that will drive it, as well as a music, movie, and media service the Zune device family will use for acquiring, sharing, and discovery of said media. Music will be the first angle of service that is launched, "connected entertainment" being the ultimate goal.
  
• The Zune media service will heavily leverage community aspects and recommendation; emphasis is being placed on using Zune to discover new artists, media, etc.
• The Zune media device will be drive-based, and have WiFi.
• The Zune brand is intended to be an entirely vertically integrated end-to-end solution, not unlike the iPod / iTunes / iTunes Music Store triumvirate.
• The service and device will not be PlaysForSure compliant, meaning you will not be able to use your Zune player with Napster or Vongo, for example. This will be an entirely new system. Microsoft will continue to support and develop for their PlaysForSure initiative, but all things PlaysForSure are handled by two entirely separate division that will not have any crossover.
  
• Zune is under Microsoft's new Entertainment & Devices Division, and is headed by, among others, Robbie Bach, J Allard (Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect), and Bryan Lee (Corporate Vice President and CFO, Entertainment and Devices Division), which accounts for the division of this project from the rest of Microsoft, similar to how the Xbox project was also strictly separated.
• The logo we had is, of course, real.
• Microsoft's launched the Zune viral marketing site, ComingZune.com. [Thanks, bv]

What we think we know (and are pretty sure of)

• They'll be showing off the device by the end of next month, and will aim for a November release.
• Microsoft will buy your way out of iTunes in order to convert you to a Zune user.
  
• The Zune will come in multiple colors.
• Pyxis is the codename for their nano competitor which would also include video capabilities; Alexandria is the codename for the software that powers the Zune experience.
• A Microsoft portable gaming system is in the works, and will be a part of the Zune family. This device should have Xbox Live Anywhere integration. This may or may not be an Xbox co-branded portable, but is probably going to be the portable gaming / media device we've been hearing about for years.
• Microsoft's ad campaign will include a Super Bowl commercial.
• The Zune will have a bevy of accessories at launch; it'll probably be cheaper for accessory makers to develop for the Zune port than pay the Made For iPod tax.

What we don't yet know

• Whether the Zune media service will offer the same kind of all-you-can-eat subscription media services as PlaysForSure media services like Napster and Vongo. Supposedly subscription will be offered, but downplayed in favor of song purchase (which is the opposite of most PlaysForSure services).
  
• Whether you'll actually only be limited to sharing with up to 10 people nearby, as rumored, and that they won't get the protected files, but will "bookmark" them for later purchase.
• Exact device specifications for the first Zune device, as well as its price (though we hear it could be as much as $399).
• Whether it'll include XM and/or Sirius service as rumored (we doubt it).

Let the analysis begin!

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]