Just a week ago, Microsoft acquired the famous makers of the Sidekick, Danger Inc.  According to this press release, this "acquisition will align Danger’s nearly 10 years of expertise in the mobile consumer space with Microsoft’s vision to provide innovative and compelling mobile experiences to a growing base of customers."

Rumors of the Zune Phone were brought up, debunked, revived, and burned again. However, I couldn't help but noticing a paragraph in the press release that read, "Combining these services with Microsoft’s connected entertainment and experiences technologies, including MSN, Xbox, Zune, Windows Live and Windows Mobile, will provide Microsoft with the tools to accelerate its work to create industry-leading entertainment and communication experiences for consumers." Could this be the birth of a possible Zune Phone? What do you think? Feel free to share your opinions and thoughts in the comment box.

If you're a hardcore Zuner, then it's likely that you've already signed the Worldwide Zune Petition. Fake Steve Ballmer posted on his blog some hilarious photoshop'ed photos that I wanted to share. Wow, the Petition is really catching on!

To view all images, click here!

As a webmaster and an owner of a Zune forum, I can't stand flash based Zune Cards. Whenever I open up a thread, my browser crashes from 15 Zune Cards open at once (okay, maybe I do need to upgrade my computer). Well, there is good news for me and other budget computer Zuners! MyGamerCard now has support for Zune Cards, and it's easy to use!

Your Zune Card can be generated at http://card.mygamercard.net/apps/zune/YOURZUNEID.png but don't forget to replace the red font with YOUR real Zune ID!

(Image from MyGamerCard)

With the image based cards, you will not get any fancy interactive animations and features-- but they do load much faster!

Donald Bell, a longtime iPod loyalist "had a lot of mixed emotions ordering a Zune 80."

Part of me felt like a traitor, honestly. I thought about my poor 5G video iPod, which had been ignored for weeks at the bottom of my messenger bag while I played with Microsoft's loaner for my review.

All in all, Donald admits the Zune deserves some recognition for the Zune Originals.

Update, here is Donald's Snapshot too...

-chris

Read full review and video here.

As you can read here and here, the Zune 80 is nowhere to be found. They are being sold for $300+ on eBay. Microsoft claims that "high demands" are to blame, but ZuneScene reports that they are in fact 6 weeks behind schedule. Write your opinions, is this good or bad? My opinion: both good and bad.

Good -  Shows high demand and interest in the new players. It'll definitely bring attention to the Zune. It's said people want what they can't have.

Bad -  Losing a lot of potential customers because of unavailability. In the age of instant gratification, people tend to get impatient if they can not have it at that very moment. Some may even look at alternatives, such as the iPod Classic.
Go ahead and drop your opinions below!

For those whose Zune software or firmware update did not go as planned, or simply hate the new software, there is a solution for you. Personally, I would not downgrade, but users with multiple songs with Asian Characters may want to downgrade until Microsoft adds the support for Asian Characters. Full guide and instructions here.

Yup, it's finally here. Microsoft decided to improve the "social" experience by adding their own community forums. Check it out here!

In an interview with Cool Hunting, Chris Stephenson explains what Zune Originals is about. Zune Originals is a collection of 27 original works by 18 international artists designed to be engraved onto the back of the device. Visitors will be able to customize their Zune by size, color, illustration and with up to four optional lines of text—all free of charge. Let's get to the interview, shall we?
How did this project came to be and what role did your background play in it?
Chris Stephenson: I came out of the music industry. I was at MTV, I worked in fashion, I ran a record label, Ministry of Sound, and I had my own consulting business in music and design. And the thing I was used to was creating. I was into creating, making mistakes and making stuff that really resonates with people.

So, from day one we committed ourselves to authenticity and action, to supporting arts and giving artists the opportunity to express themselves. The first foray was Zune Arts and we put absolutely no restrictions, just asked artists to participate. We thought, 'wouldn't it be interesting to take this love of art to the device.'

It was a way of saying, 'let the consumer get involved let them do the customization.' It's like NIKEiD for the MP3 player. We looked at Nike a lot and we also took inspiration from something as pedestrian as MySpace. That's what the internet is about, it makes readers into writers. It's putting self-expression into the consumer's hands.

What was your strategy in curating this group of artists?
Chris Stephenson: Quite honestly, what we did is we sat down, we have great team of illustrators and designers, and we created a list of 60-70 artists that we love, a wish list.

We realized after the first 12 calls that everyone was like, "Yeah we'd love to do that." So after that we just fine-tuned that to the people that we were really excited about. We had a really high conversion rate. There are some who don't want to have anything to do with anything corporate and we respect and understand that. Others were excited for the exposure and I think we have some of the best contemporary artists and illustrators.

I noticed a strong international representation, how did that play a role?
It was very purposeful. I think it goes back to my years at MTV. Some of my responsibilities were getting the best animations and it was amazing where they came from. They came from Poland, from India, Bulgaria. If they just came from the U.S. and Eurpoe, it'd be different. From day one we said this is our goal. We'd already worked a lot with South American illustrators, we've been global in our aspirations from day one.

What was the directive?
The brief that we had for ourselves and for artists was that it had to be something that would work as a tattoo on the back of a device. But what you create needs to works as line art but also as a poster, because what happens is you get a beautiful poster that you can frame and a set of cards. We wanted it to be a deeper experience.

Otherwise, the directive that we gave was very loose. We have a couple of brand themes that we really believe in and one was sharing and also community, but we made it very loose. When you look at someone like Catalina [Estrada] (pictured top left) she has these great themes so we didn't want to over brief. But some of the Japanese art is playing on vibrant communities. Someone like Kenzo [Minami] (at left), you just love the architectural side of it. His work looks almost like Frank Lloyd Wright in a way. It has that something that you didn't want to lose.

What did you discover along the way as far as trends in art?
The one thing that I'm noticing, not just this particular project, but I think there's been a very clean aesthetic for a long time, in the '90s and with Apple. Now, you look at wallpaper, there's so much Fluer de Lys patterning, paisley—we're seeing much more richness, seeing flocked wallpapers, seeing some great companies like Timorous Beasties and Flavor Paper.

The Apple cult and homogeneous art, homogeneous culture—things are opening up. Look at Artful Dodger, look at some of the clothes hip hop kids are wearing. The quote is, 'were just opening up color again.'

Ami, I have to tell you, I'm sitting in a room right now at Microsoft and on the wall I've got wallpaper with tanks and airplanes and rainbows and clouds that we made. And we live this because we love it and it's very much a part of the culture that we're trying to build there. And it's not a project, it's coming to life in natural, intuitive way. It's really just who we are.

They also posted all the images that will be available for customization, so check it out! It's hard to believe, but Microsoft has just "out-cooled" Apple.

The fine folks over at ZuneBoards made a collection of great looking wallpapers for Pink Zuners.

Hope you like them!