I tell ya, the Zune team is just too good to us.  Not only did ALL hardware versions get the amazing 3.0 update today for free (suck it, iJerks!), but they let loose a whole big bunch of half-priced and free music, free videos, AND a trial audiobook from Audible.  This is even better than all the free music I found at Amazon not long ago.  Here's a rundown of everything that's available now (and you'd better get it now, who knows how long it will be around for free).

Click the button to be magically whisked away to the Zune Marketplace

Music:

"Dem Boyz Go" by Planet Asia & F.L.O.

"Fallin'" by Alicia Keys

"Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera

"Vanorapa" by Chiwoniso

"Heroes of Our Time" by Dragonforce

"Yesterday" by Leona Lewis

"So Fresh, So Clean" by OutKast

"Me Cai (Da Cruz Jazz Ragga Mix)" by Pacifika

"Pervert Pop Song" by Plastilina Mosh

"Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira

"Jazz (We've Got)" by A Tribe Called Quest

For the half-priced full albums, go to the main Music Page in the Marketplace and click on the "Back to School Sale"

Video (go to the most recent season to find free download):

30 Rock 

The Office

Battlestar Galactica

Psych

Monk

In Plain Sight

Heros

Eureka

Top Design

Audible Trial:

(thanks to Paul Davidson at Zune Insider, Jason Dunn and Darius Wey at Zune Thoughts for the info!)

Yep, run the software update check and you'll find that the 3.0 update is live!  5AM EDT (I know, I'm crazy for staying up to wait for it) and it's yours.  Go get it now!

Who doesn't like free music?  Anybody?  No?  I didn't think so.  Free ANYTHING is almost always good (minus scabies, handfuls of horse dung, and used toilet paper), and when it's something you actually like, like DRM-free music...it's like your birthday on top of Christmas wrapped up in a bachelor party and covered with hundred dollar bills.  Delicious. 

I had seen before, here and there, that the Amazon mp3 store had a free track or two every once in a while, just like the Zune Marketplace and other music retailers have.  What I didn't discover until tonight is that they have well over 1000 of them!  The even better news is that they've grouped them all together, so you don't have to go searching artist by artist or album by album to see if there might be a free track by somebody you like.  On just the first two pages, I easily found over a half-dozen tracks by artists I like or had wanted to hear more of. 

So get yourself over to the Amazon mp3 store and download so many free mp3s you could roll around naked in them!

I'm only beginning to get into setting up Auto-playlists for myself, and if you've never tried it or played with the tool, it can be a little daunting. Thankfully, Matt Akers over at the Zune Insider blog has a whole gaggle of tips, tricks, and hints to setting up some great playlists in no time at all. After reading this, I'm definitely going to start playing with this more. Go check it out!

The kids over at Zunerama got their hands on the iHome ZN9 and have tons of pics and a pretty thorough review written up.  It's the first clock/radio designed specifically for the Zune.  Check it out!

Over at Zune Insider, Cesar lets us know that over the next few weeks the video portion of the Zune Marketplace will be expanding by 50%, adding 400 new shows, including ones from the USA network (hooray Monk!).  He also says that eventually they'll be bringing Bravo Network hotness to the marketplace as well (hooray Top Chef!). 

Here's a full list of all the shows set to drop over the next few weeks (the first two have me especially hyped):

Wednesday, May 28: COMEDY CENTRAL

o    “The Colbert Report”

o    “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”

Friday, May 30: NBC Universal

o    “Friday Night Lights”

o    “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”

o    “Law & Order”

o    “Life”

o    “Lipstick Jungle”

o    “Saturday Night Live”

Tuesday, June 3: SCI FI Channel

o    “Battlestar Galactica Classics”

o    “Destination Truth”

o    “Ghost Hunters International”

o    “Ghost Hunters”

o    “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?”

Friday, June 6: USA Network

o    “Dr. Steve-O”

o    “In Plain Sight”

o    “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”

o    “Monk”

o    “Psych”

o    “The Starter Wife”

There's tons of free (and legal!) music out there on the interwebs...why not fill up your Zune with some of it?

I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS has a new song from power-pop Canadian outfit Sloan

Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie hips us to Telekinesis! on Stereogum

Gorilla vs. Bear brings us a four-some of tracks from artists playing at Monolith this year

Good Weather for Airstrikes has two from Post War Years

WonderRoot Studios has two live tracks, one from The XYZ Affair and another from Jukebox the Ghost

And Nah Right has a new one from Little Brother, produced by 9th Wonder

And what the heck, another from Nah Right, this time Usher featuring Jay-Z (I know how you kids like that hippity-hop)

Enjoy!

Samsung Plans to add 3M Mini-Projector to New Handsets

"3M has been touting its mini-projectors for some time now (along with many others), but it looks like they're now finally a bit closer to landing in an actual product, with Samsung reportedly set to begin offering them later this year. What's not clear, unfortunately, is whether the projectors will actually be built into the cellphones (and if so, which ones), or simply offered as an attachment of some sort, but either way you can apparently expect to pay between $200 and $400 for the chance to spread a bit of visual pollution."

So phones with projectors are all well and good, but what what about a full-fledged media player with one?  One like...oh I don't know, the ZUNE!?!  It just seems like a perfect fit to me(at least moreso than a phone, ya know?), and while I personally don't know how much I'd use something like this, it would make sense to put mini-projectors on a device designed to play video before a phone.  Rather than have friends crowd around your Zune screen or even a laptop to show them a video, you just throw it up on a wall for all to enjoy.  What do you guys think, would you have a use for this?  Would the lack of speakers kill it (for a phone or Zune)?  Hit us up in the comments and let us know your thoughts. 

Source

It appears that a single male Zuner out in LA is looking for some hot music-swapping action on Craigslist.  Though it's listed in the "strictly platonic" section, we all know what can happen when things in The Social heat up.  It starts innocently enough, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" but things escalate quickly to "My Humps" and "I Wanna Sex You Up" and soon enough you're doing the "Wild Thing".  Next thing you know, somebody's "Knocked Up".  I've seen it a million times. 

Remember kids, practice safe Zuning!

Source

With the new Videos section, auto-playlists, metadata improvements and a more social Social, there's a lot of big changes to love about the 2.5 spring update. But what I appreciate just as much from the Zune team is the little interface and usability touches that make the experience of using the Zune software that much more enjoyable. The great thing about them is that they're never really publicized or explained, you have to explore and find them on your own (or read blogs like this one). When the 2.0 software was released, I was amazed when I found the "Now Playing" screen when I clicked the little equalizer-looking icon by the play controls. This release doesn't have as many surprises as last time, but there's still a few gems to be found. Here's just a few I've come across so far.

The Video Preview

If you're playing a video (or video podcast) and you leave the full-screen view of it, you'll get a little version of it continuing to play down at the bottom-middle of the screen.

It's a tiny Michael Scott!

It even goes widescreen if the video is in that format. How great is that?

More Complete 'Now Playing' Screen

Before when I'd have the Now Playing screen up, there were many places where there wouldn't be album covers making up the background. I had a lot of cover-less music, either live recordings, one-offs, non-album tracks, or stuff that just plain wasn't in the Zune system. It didn't look bad, the Zune software filled in the spaces with squiggly artsy designs, but the completist in me always wished it could be full of my album covers. Now it is! I don't know if it's the metadata fixes that have added art for just about every album and song I have (whether it's the right one or not) or they just changed it to only pull actual album art, but now I've got nothing but wall-to-wall album covers, and I couldn't be happier.

'Show Episode List' for Podcasts on the Zune

On the Zune itself, I noticed a new entry when you bring up the menu while playing a podcast. There's now an option for "Show Episode List" where you can view all the episodes in the series and even change episodes mid-episode. Neato!

Hide the Playlist

When you're on the Now Playing screen, there's now a new icon that lets you hide (or un-hide) the playlist. It still auto-hides it after a few seconds like it did before, so I'm not entirely sure of the benefit of it, but hey, it's there.

That's what I've found so far. I'm sure there's tons of other little changes that I'll discover the more I explore through the new update. If I missed anything share it in the comments.

Oh and by the way, I'm Jonathan. I'm new 'round these parts, but I'm a bigtime Zune fan/evangelist and I couldn't be happier to be a part of the Got Zune team. Add me as a friend on the Social if you'd like.