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Talk of the day: Wal-Mart turns up volume on pricier iTunes

By Times Wires
Published August 22, 2007

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said it is starting to sell downloaded music without copyright-protection software at a price lower than what has been offered by Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store. Music is available online from record labels including Universal Music Group and EMI Group Plc for 94 cents a track and $9.22 an album, Wal-Mart said. Apple said in May that it would sell songs without digital-rights-management software for $1.29 each and continue offering copy-protected versions for 99 cents. While Apple's digital-rights-management software helps stop illegal copying, songs can be played only on Apple's iPod. Wal-Mart said its digital tracks are in the standard MP3 format and can be played on Apple's iPod or iPhone and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.

Expect eBay to be mobbed with bids

Now that The Sopranos is over, the owners of the real-life club that played the part of the Bada Bing will auction off the 12-foot stripper poles and other relics from the HBO drama on eBay. Other items going on sale later this week include a pool table, a disco ball and the fluorescent purple men's room sign often seen in the background as mob boss Tony Soprano conducted business. Susie Quigley, who runs special events at Satin Dolls (which passed for the Bada Bing), wouldn't speculate on how much the poles might fetch. "The poles have been featured in almost every single episode. I can't begin to say," said Quigley, a former dancer who appeared as an extra last season. Also up for sale: at least 10 standard-issue bar stools that James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano, and his crew sat on.

Microsoft maps out OnStar challenge

Microsoft Corp. has begun showing U.S. automakers an alternative to in-car navigation and assistance now offered exclusively by General Motor Corp.'s OnStar communications service. The voice-recognition software, displayed at an auto industry conference Tuesday, allows mobile telephone users to receive spoken data from Microsoft's Tellme database. Microsoft's service, which would connect through a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone in the car, could challenge Detroit-based GM's digital subscriber-based wireless system, which costs as much as $324 a year and has almost 5-million subscribers. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said the system could be paired with digital music and mobile phone software known as Sync to be offered by Ford Motor Co. on its 2008 Ford Focus.

Marlboro to take chance on chaw

Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette company, said Tuesday it will introduce a moist smokeless tobacco product this fall under the Marlboro brand, selling it first in the Atlanta area. The company will sell the loose, spitting tobacco in original and wintergreen flavors, and in long and fine cut, for about $3 a can. It is part of a wider effort to sell more smokeless products in the United States as cigarette consumption declines due to concerns about health, smoking bans and price increases. "This new type of moist snuff product offering kind of builds on that premium tobacco experience that Marlboro represents," Philip Morris USA spokesman David Sutton said.

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 01:07:09]