J Allard (my boss' boss' boss - what's up J!) has made good on a bet he lost with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal , resulting in. . . Read more about the bet here . In other rumors news, again, I re-iterate: We don't comment on rumors and speculation - even on those rumors that come with a photoshopped image ;)

<edit 11:59 AM>I talked to the retail team; this is a hoax. The actual ad that ran offered a $15 iTunes gift card with the purchase of an iPod, and free Zune Premium Earphones w/ the purchase of a Zune. In the immortal words of Strongbad: DELETED . Funny while it lasted, though! Around seven thousand people sent this to me today: (photo from Giz ) No idea if this is true; my guess it's an error on behalf of the Spokane* Compusa. I emailed the retail account team to find out. It reminds me of...

I think I need to clarify how DRM works on Zune. As a company, we want to empower consumers to share music experiences, but recognize the need to place limits on the transfer of music files so that consumers are encouraged to try and buy music. You can sample full-length tracks that you receive from your friend up to 3 times in 3 days. I misspoke (mis-blogged) on last week’s post . We don’t actually “wrap all songs up in DRM:” Zune to Zune Sharing doesn’t change the DRM on a song, and it doesn’t...

First, I didn't post yesterday, because I'm beta-testing Zune - both the Zune software and on the device. Sorry 'bout that. Ok, onto the subject of this post: www.notfornoobs.com . Saw this in Gizmodo today. I can tell you that it's not a Zune site. I don't think it's a gaming site, but I'm checking w/ the games team. Actually, I'm not even sure that it's a Microsoft site. I'm checking into it. And since I'm on the topic of rumors. . . Lots of folks have asked me: what do I think about the Zune UI...