Napster-To-Go will cost consumers $14.95 per month for access to Napster's complete library of music and will allow customers to transfer songs to any Janus empowered portable device. Samsung and Creative are slated to debut Janus portable music players in October followed by Rio and iRiver later this year.

The Future: Microsoft's election to rollout Janus with Napster instead of their own MSN Music service further reveals their strategy to "own the online music operating system." With cellular phones becoming the next portable music player market, Microsoft intends to use their leverage with Janus to back door their way into the cell phone operating system field, where they've previously been turned away by the major manufacturers. Unless Apple is willing to license the iPod's technology to a concern like Nokia, or come out with the iPhone, they're going to fade into the sunset.

>>> Digihear? October 2004

Part of Experiments In Sound, TestDrive will feature the lab results of our DJ Experiments so that everyone can get in on the action. Take the latest electronic music releases, mix vigorously with bleeding-edge DJ technology in a large beeker, and then cook the hell out of it! Be the first to hear about TestDrive by joining Futuremusic Direct.

Futuremusic wants to thank everyone who participated in The Next Big Thing 2004. John Digweed, Beatport, Alienware, M-Audio, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, PVDJ, PK Graphics, Ableton, The DubHouse, Propellerheads, Technics, FreeFloat, The Church, PCDJ and every DJ who entered this year's event thank you. From the sheer number of quality mixes, we can tell you that dance music is thriving in the United States. The amount of outstanding talent and creativity really blew us away, and every DJ who's putting their heart, mind and soul behind the music is a winner. John Digweed has made his decision and the winner is...