News about what is happening in technology today!

An unlikely confrontation is taking shape, where the seemingly unstoppable iPod is meeting with an immovable object — the audiophile’s love of good old-fashioned vinyl.

It’s not yet a dust-up of Mothra-versus-Godzilla proportions. But this showdown between the competing — some might say incommensurable — demands of hi-fi audio and portability is beginning to trickle down into the mainstream, with potentially disruptive consequences for online music services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store, and the music industry at large.

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20 million kids can’t get enough - and neither can advertisers. How a virtual animal kingdom became a product placement paradise.

Every day after school, 11-year-old Tyler Gagen hurries home down the country roads of Hastings, Minnesota, to play with Buddy. “He likes hot dogs and cake,” Tyler says of his pet. “I haven’t brought him to the grooming parlor yet, but I will. He gets the royal treatment!” Tyler also cares for a half-Siamese tomcat, Arctic, and two cocker spaniels, Packer and Patriot. Tyler likes Buddy but says he appreciates the dogs and cat a little more because “you can actually feel them and stuff.”

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and SONY BMG Music Entertainment said on Tuesday that SunnComm is offering a patch to fix a security vulnerability with its MediaMax Version 5 content protection software on 27 SONY BMG CDs. Security firm iSEC Partners discovered the hole following a request by the EFF to examine the SunnComm software. The vulnerability involves a directory installed on users’ computers by the MediaMax software that could allow a third party to gain control over the affected Windows PC. The EFF and iSEC delayed disclosing the problem until SunnComm could develop a fix.”

Wall Street Journal tech columnist Lee Gomes says that the top tech blogs ‘aren’t part of some proletarian information revolution, but instead have become the tech world’s new elite. Reporters for the big mainstream newspapers and magazines, long accustomed to fawning treatment at corporate events, now show up and find that the best seats often go to the A-list bloggers. And living at the front of the velvet rope line means the big bloggers are frequently pitched and wooed. In fact, with the influence peddling universe in this state of flux, it’s not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles.

SEOmoz has an interesting writeup regarding search engine optimization. The article has quite a bit of info and is geared so that even the inexperienced used can learn the basics of search engine optimization. From the article: “It is our goal to improve your ability to drive search traffic to your site and debunk major myths about SEO. We share this knowledge to help businesses, government, educational and non-profit organizations benefit from being listed in the major search engines.”