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Truck stop rocker Kid Rock has been one of the poster boys for the “ignore downloads” crowd.

His latest album, Rock and Roll Jesus has not only sold more than 2 million albums, but has continued to sell lots of copies long past its release date–this week, nearly a year after release, it’s still at No. 7. That’s almost unprecedented in this day and age, when top-selling pop artists (think Mariah Carey) sell hundreds of thousands of albums in their first week then plummet off the charts. Why the staying power? Some argue it’s because the hit single from the album, All Summer Long (which is basically a reworking of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”) hasn’t been available as a digital download on iTunes or anywhere else. If you want to own the song, the only way to get it has been to buy the full CD.

That changes today: you can now download the entire Rock and Roll Jesus album–and Kid Rock’s entire catalog if you’re so inclined–through the Rhapsody MP3 store. The albums are also available to Rhapsody subscribers. You still can’t buy the single on its own, as Kid Rock considers himself an album artist and wants you to hear the full package. And still no iTunes, as Apple frowns on album-only sales. It’ll be interesting to see if digital availability has any impact on sales, or whether fans keep preferring the CD.

Bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

At United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tenn., LPs are still made the old-fashioned way: with lots and lots of vinyl. This is a bin full of little vinyl pellets that will be melted into records.

Then, the biscuit is placed in the middle of a machine and then it is joined together with a fresh supply of vinyl, and together they are smashed between a plate and the stamper. A blade then shears off the excess vinyl, and voila! A brand new record slides out of the machine and onto a rack.

So how is a record made?

At this point, it’s all about raw vinyl, millions of little chunks of the material that resemble Pop Rocks.

In fact, it is these digital downloads that may be heralding the re-emergence of the LP and the death of the CD. That’s because many artists are now offering record buyers a one-time free download of all the tracks on the album as a bonus.

Millar showed me a room in the basement of the building that contained thousands and thousands of folders–really, they seemed like extra-thick album covers with no art–that contain the masters of every record the company has produced over the years. This is a treasure trove bar none, since United Record Pressing works with pretty much every major label you can imagine.

The labels, which are printed here by the thousands, are actually baked in a special oven so that they retain no moisture, something that could cause bubbling on the actual record.

First, the vinyl is melted down into what is called the biscuit. This is the center of the record, the round part with no grooves and the little hole. To this is added the label, which is pressed onto the biscuit, a step that doesn’t require any adhesive. Rather, the biscuit is so hot from the vinyl being melted down that the label sticks right on.

Still, for audiophiles who used to buy CDs, this gives them a way to have a physical disc to listen to the music on, as well as a way to easily tote it with them.

The master is then used to make what is known as the mother, a metal version of the record that can, itself, actually be played.

And it’s not just black either. The company also makes records that are red, orange, blue, and gray. Sometimes, it takes all the discarded vinyl from several pressings and mixes them together into a kind of hodgepodge color.

In other words, as iPods began to dominate the music world, people were leaving their CDs on the shelves, and iTunes downloads, as well as those via file-sharing services, took over.

First, the lacquer is sprayed with a layer of silver, which, after it sets, is then peeled off. The resulting sheet is known as the master, and it is the opposite of a record, because it has ridges rather than grooves.

To ensure that labels don’t bubble up after being pressed onto a record, the labels are baked in an oven to remove any moisture.

“People don’t need their discs to be compact anymore,” said Millar, “because you can’t get much more compact than MP3. So it’s back to the big discs.”

Why? The reason is pure irony.

This is still a small enough phenomenon, of course, to barely register on Apple’s radar. iTunes is safe, in other words.

A record-pressing machine at United Record Pressing. The company is one of only three in the United States that still produces LPs in any meaningful amounts.

On Monday, as I swung through Nashville on Road Trip 2008, I was lucky enough to get to visit the production facilities of United Record Pressing here and get a firsthand look at how LPs are made. Before you scoff at the notion of making records, consider that over the last few years, the format has made a big comeback, with sales skyrocketing and turntables moving off store shelves like they haven’t in years.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Inside each folder is the master, and a full set of all the associated materials: the master, a label, an album jacket, and anything else that might be included, such as liner notes. And these days, as with an Elvis Costello album Millar showed me, the folders may also hold an insert with information for a digital download of the album.

At United Record Pressing, black is not the only color of vinyl that is used. There’s also red, orange, blue, gray, and even a mixture made from the cuttings of the other colors.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

The lacquer is then delivered to United Record Pressing, which begins the process of actually making the LPs.

But for audiophiles used to actually handling some sort of disc, this change has led to a reversal of fortune for the LP, a format long thought to have gone the way of the floppy disk.

First, at least one of each new album run must be tested. So on one side of a room that long ago was used as a room for record release and signing parties–Hank Williams Jr. had a party thrown for him here when he was 16, Millar said–a woman is sitting and bobbing her head as she listens to songs on headphones, making sure the new record has no problems. If it does, United Record Pressing will have to tell the record company what the issue is.

But here in Music City, there’s something else to commemorate the earliest stages of the British Invasion: the fact that the first American Beatles 7-inch record was produced by United Record Pressing–then, as now, one of the largest makers of vinyl in the world.

The mother is then pressed into what is known as the stamper, and this, too, has ridges. The stamper actually is the basis of every record that comes out of this factory.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

“It really started picking up when iPods started coming onto the scene,” Millar said. “Everything got so sterile with digital that people were not spending time” with the physical manifestation of their music.

When all is said and done, it’s actually a remarkably simply process. But there’s still much more that must happen before an LP leaves the facility.

According to Jay Millar, the marketing and sales manager for United Record Pressing, it has everything to do with the emergence of Apple’s oh-so-ubiquitous MP3 player.

There’s also the small matter of putting the records in their sleeves–something I saw two people tucked away in a corner of one room doing. They had their process down pat: grab an LP, inspect it quickly for obvious defects, pick up a sleeve, slide in the record, repeat.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.–When people think of the Beatles coming to America, they usually conjure up images of The Ed Sullivan Show and screaming teenage girls chasing the Fab Four on the streets of New York.

For a company like United Record Pressing, that’s been great news, as its sales have been going up steadily as more and more artists turn to records as a way to get their music into the hands of people who care about it.

First, a separate company with facilities nearby takes the original recording–which can come in the form of an audio tape, but (audiophiles, cover your eyes here) more often comes on CDs since many artists are using software like ProTools to cut their tracks–and uses it to cut the familiar circular grooves into an object called a lacquer.

Vertu’s Dangerous is a pink-gold phone with paved cabochon, white and yellow diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. Is it calling you, Paris Hilton?

(Credit:
House of Boucheron)

Related stories:

In other Vertu news, luxury-spotting blog Sybarite reports that the high-end British-based subsidiary of Nokia has finally unveiled its updated Signature phone six years after the release of the original.

The next-generation Signature will be a 3G phone available in white gold, yellow gold, and stainless steel. It will feature a SIM drawer that will let users remove the SIM card without the need for removing the battery cover, and it will have an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display and a keypad containing 4.75 carats of solid ruby bearings.

Maybe the fact that the cell phone charms are detachable and can also be worn as pendants or dangled as glittery hypnosis tools will help justify the cost. (Prices for the phones aren’t listed on the Boucheron site–a fair clue that they could approach past Vertu models, ranging from $5,000 to $310,000.)

Vertu’s ‘Racetrack’ phones: no small bet

And no Crazy Frog ringtone here. All ringtones are composed exclusively for Vertu by Academy Award-winning composer Dario Marianelli, with music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

The Dangerous model (aptly named, as you wouldn’t want to whip this one out on the Metro), for example, is a pink-gold phone with paved cabochon, white and yellow diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, House of Boucheron, the posh French creator of jewelry, watches, and fragrances, is sharing the swankness with a set of Vertu bejeweled cell phones bearing names such as Magic, Audacious, Curious, and Voluptuous.

A cell phone for an Egyptian queen

(Credit:
CDC Public Health Image Library)

What happens in Vegas could be contagious; but don’t worry, despite the recent ricin scare on the Strip, your chances of dying from exotic poison or a bio-engineered infection are pretty slim - even at the buffet.

“Although no direct links to terrorism has been yet drawn in this recent case in Las Vegas, it is important to note that hazardous materials in the hands of domestic terrorists can be a very serious threat,” said UDT CEO Jacques Tizabi. His company stands “positioned to capitalize on opportunities related to Homeland Security.”

Not long ago, super staph (AKA Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) replaced “flesh eating bacteria” in the public’s imagination as the most gruesome of killer bugs. For that, UDT licensed and commercialized a technology designed to detect microbial buildup in closed-loop environments like the International Space Station. It’s now marketed as the Microbial Event Monitor, a kind of smoke detector for airborne bacterias like super staph.

Next up ITI will seek FDA approval for a brucellosis detection kit. (It already has anthrax covered.)

Still, companies are betting their R&D budgets that the government will ante up to protect you from the toxin de jour. Their odds are good. Universal Detection Technology received a rush of orders for its ricin detection kit after a man was found in critical condition in a Las Vegas motel room with a case of suspected ricin poisoning.

Now for the big guns, Ebola and Marburg: Wonks from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have developed virus-like particles (VLPs) that protect monkeys 100 percent against both Ebola and Marburg and they’re scaling up production in hopes of beginning clinical trials in humans in a few years, according to Science Daily.

Let’s get medieval. Salt Lake City based Idaho Technology (ITI) sells FDA approved kits that detect plague (Yersinia pestis) and Tularemia (rabbit fever). Both are classified by the CDC as Category A, bioterrorism national security risks. Relax, even the company admits it’s highly unlikely you’ll step in something and contract a naturally occurring dose of either. But ITI scored big when DOD selected its Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System (JBAIDS) as “the” platform for I.D.ing pathogens associated with bioterrorism.

You are more likely to be eaten by a Nile crocodile than bleeding out your eyeballs from Ebola, but why take chances?

. (Credit: Universal Detection Technology )

10:15: Double-tapping moves a whole window, rather than just the cursor. Moving around a photo is like on the iPhone, a two-finger approach on the touchpad when viewing a photo. Pinching, as well, zooms in and out of photos, just like on the iPhone.

9:23: Jobs checks out smartphone market share in the U.S. RIM’s Blackberry is in the lead, but the iPhone is in second place, with 19.5 percent market share. He’s comparing to the other hardware manufacturers, as Apple ranks above Palm and Motorola. Not sure how he’s defining smartphone, but, hey, it’s his keynote.

9:03 a.m. PST: Welcome once again to Macworld, Steve Jobs’ annual dog-and-pony show from the Moscone Center in San Francisco. We’re in place and waiting for the keynote to start. I think we’ll be a little later than 9 a.m.; it took the doors some time to open. So far, standard Apple keynote music: Coldplay into Green Day.

9:53: Jobs shows us how to search through the iTunes Music Store: you can do it by title and genre, as well as a few other categories that flew by. TV shows and music can also be purchased through the new Apple TV.

10:20: Moving on, the MacBook Air has MagSafe, a smaller power adapter, and the usual ports. 802.11n ships standard with the new MacBook, plus Bluetooth 2.1 and EDR. No optical drive is built in, but Apple designed a $99 add-on optical drive if you really need it.

9:19: Jobs momentarily forgets which OS version he’s talking about, as he starts referring to “Tiger’s” Time Machine application, which is of course a Leopard feature. He announces Time Capsule, which is a “backup appliance” that looks like the Mac Mini or Apple TV; it’s basically a wireless access point with a hard drive. This lets you backup your notebook wirelessly over Time Capsule, which was an early complaint about Time Machine–that it only worked over wired networks.

9:59: “For the recipient, there is no computer involved.” You can pull music, podcasts, and Flickr photos. It’s the same black interface from the old Apple TV. The demo gods finally rear their heads, as Jobs attempts to access photos from Flickr, to no avail.

9:50: We get a clip of Blades of Glory, which I still haven’t seen. Jobs cuts it short right as Will Ferrell grabs his crotch, which seems about right. We also get a sneak peek at Live Free or Die Hard, which I can’t believe they brought back for another go-round. No Rambo sighting yet, fortunately.

10:25: It weighs 3 pounds, comes with 2GBs of memory standard, an 80GB standard hard drive, and 802.11n. It’s going to cost $1,799 in that configuration; that’s a pretty aggressive price. Shipments start in two weeks. No word on the price with solid-state drives, but that likely won’t be cheap.

The iPhone and iPod Touch will get an application called Maps, which uses the same triangulation method that Google Maps uses on other cell phones.

10:04: Gianopulos gives us the “back story” on the Fox-Apple deal. The studios have spent lots of time talking about business models, but really, all you’re supposed to do is make great movies, and let people get to them, he says. Gianopulos sort of wanders through a description of how studio guys learn about technology, but cuts to a silhouette photo of Homer Simpson from the old iPod ads. Jobs came to Fox with the proposal, he says.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

9:38: Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, and New Line Cinema are involved, plus Fox, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony. That’s actually a few more studios involved than was reported, Apple did some work over the holiday break. “We have every major studio.”

10:32: Randy Newman’s telling us about his trip to Europe, where he noticed that “they don’t like us so much.” So, he wrote a new song. And we’re getting to hear it. It could be worse, at least John Mayer didn’t show up.

9:48: You can sort through all kinds of movies on the new interface, using the Cover Flow user interface. You can get previews right from the Apple TV. Again, you don’t need a Mac or a PC; you can hook this right up to your TV.

9:44: So, what about the big-screen TV? “We’ve all tried, and we’ve all missed.” Apple TV was designed to be an accessory, Jobs says, but that’s not what people wanted: what people wanted was movies, movies, movies. “So we’re back, with Apple TV Take 2.” No computer is required.

10:18: It’s also got a very slim motherboard. This system uses Intel’s Core 2 Duo, running at 1.6GHz standard, and you can go to 1.8GHz. It’s not clear if that’s an ultra-low voltage version or a standard version. Jobs says Apple asked Intel to design a smaller package for the Core 2 Duo, a 60 percent smaller version than the one Intel typically ships. Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO, comes up to take a bow.

10:19: Jobs asked Intel a year ago to design the package, Otellini said, and Intel wasn’t totally sure it could be done at the time. Otellini thanks Jobs for allowing Apple and Intel’s engineering teams to work so closely together, and Jobs returns the love.

9:35: “What about the iPod Touch?” Apple’s adding five applications to the iPod Touch, including Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather, which make the iPod Touch much more like the iPhone. The iPod Touch will use Wi-Fi as the Maps triangulation, and you’ll be able to customize the iPod Touch just like the iPhone. It’s now built in to every iPod Touch, but older iPod Touch users will have to pay $20 for the features. For the first time, the crowd grumbles at that news.

Jim Gianopulos, the chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Film, describes how studio guys learn about technology, and then cuts to a silhouette photo of Homer Simpson from the old iPod ads.

9:31: The iPhone’s home screen can now be totally customized to put Web pages, applications, and basically anything you want on it. Jobs goes over the Maps location feature, which is a partnership between Apple, Google, and Skyhook Wireless.

Jobs' keynote speech closed with a performance from Randy Newman.

A slide of the MacBook Air, from the back.

9:27: There are new iPhone features. The first is Maps with location; you can also customize the home screen, send text messages to multiple people, and the iPhone will actually support lyrics from songs you’re listening to. We move into a demo of all the new features.

The Apple TV screen features movie rental options.

(Credit:
Corinne Schulz/CNET Networks)

10:01: Now Jobs trots out the “revolution” tag for Apple TV, after calling it a hobby last year. A software upgrade, for free this time, delivers all the features. With all the new features, Apple’s cutting the price to $229. The free software upgrade and the new model will ship in two weeks.

10:36: Randy’s new song is sort of a spoken-word defense of the U.S. against Europe, tongue firmly in cheek. It’s actually kind of funny, very much a political satire. But his voice kills me, I’m sorry. He’s leaving us with the uplifting image of a U.S. empire in decline, as the song closes. Now, go buy technology stuff, people!

10:08: The rumors were true: “Today we’re introducing a third kind of notebook, and it’s called the MacBook Air. In a sentence, it’s the world’s thinnest notebook.”

10:29: The Mac Pro unveiled last week gets a mention, as we recap the major announcements from today. Something gives me the sense we’re building, heightening the anticipation, soaking up the audience’s attention before he hits us with the…

10:27: Jobs highlights the environmentally friendly features of the MacBook Air. The environment seems to be a perennial issue with Apple and the green crowd. Apple has eliminated mercury and arsenic from display components, and PVCs from the circuit boards. Packaging sizes were reduced as well, he says.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Jobs talks about Time Capsule.

Hold that. Well, it’s not “One more thing.” It’s Randy Newman. Randy Newman?

10:41: He eventually moves into the Toy Story song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Jobs comes back on stage and ushers Randy off. Jobs closes, and the Macworld 2008 keynote address is done.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

10:11: Most ultraportable notebooks are around 3 pounds, with miniature keyboards and about a 11-inch to 12-inch screen. Jobs says Apple likes the weight goal, but says you have to make too many compromises. The MacBook Air is about half as thin as a Sony ultraportable model that he uses for comparison–0.76 inch at the thickest part, and just 0.16 inch at the thinnest. That’s thin; it’s so thin, it fits inside one of those office-to-office envelopes.

9:14: Lights dim, as Feist kicks off Macworld with that cute-yet-sort-of-annoying
iPod commercial song. Apple shows a new
Mac vs. PC commercial, a “Happy New Year” edition that basically recaps Apple’s accomplishments over the year. Lights up, and Steve Jobs enters to a cascade of cheers. Standard outfit.

9:46: You can rent movies, including movies in HD, which gets a lusty cheer from the crowd. HD quality will cost you an extra buck, though, which settles them down. The Apple TV does have a new user interface and will allow you to pull photos from Flickr and Picasa.

10:12: Jobs holds up the MacBook Air as flashbulbs pop. Well, I guess they don’t really pop anymore. It’s got a full-size keyboard. Small keyboards are my perennial complaint with ultraportables.

9:35: News item No. 3 is a good one, too, Jobs promises. It’s about iTunes.

10:08: Now we’re on No. 4: There’s something in the air.

Nothing? Really, that’s it?

9:15: Jobs recaps the year: “2007 was an extraordinary year for Apple.” He’s got four things he’d like to talk about today. The first one is Leopard.

9:21: The second item on the agenda for the day is the
iPhone. “Today happens to be exactly the 200th day since the iPhone went on sale, and I’m extraordinarily pleased to report that we have sold 4 million iPhones to date.”

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday for his keynote speech at Macworld 2008. For CNET’s complete Macworld coverage, go here. What follows is a record of continuous updates as his speech unfolded.

10:16: There are three things in the guts of the MacBook Air. It’s got a 1.8-inch hard drive, just like the iPod Classic. This one ships with 80GBs, and you’ve got the option of a “pricey” 64GB solid-state drive, according to Jobs.

The scene in anticipation of Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote address.

10:02: The first studio to sign up was Fox, according to Jobs. He brings out Jim Gianopulos, the chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Film.

10:14: It’s got a 13.3-inch display, and it’s LED backlit. It has the same built-in iSight camera as the other notebooks, and it’s got what Jobs claims is a full-size keyboard, which is also backlit. The trackpad is “generous,” and it has multitouch gesture support that expands upon the gesture support already present in MacBooks.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

9:37: iTunes has sold 4 billion songs and 7 million movies, which sounds like a lot, but Jobs admits that hasn’t met Apple’s expectations. So, as expected, today Apple is introducing iTunes Movie Rentals.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

10:38: Well, not yet, Randy’s rambling on about CNBC, and gambling, and News.com Editor Charlie Cooper’s favorite TV personality, Jim Cramer. Randy’s got some score upcoming for Pixar Animation Studios, apparently. “I usually root against corporations because that’s just who I am, but not this one.”

10:23: Jobs outlines a wireless feature that allows Macs or even PCs to share optical drives. The MacBook Air’s Remote Disk feature would allow you to install software from a neighboring (assuming it’s friendly) Mac or PC’s optical drive.

9:40: In February, Apple will launch with 1,000 films. But the company had to make a concession: Apple won’t get them until 30 days after the DVD release. The movies can be watched anywhere, on any device. You can watch them instantly; they download as you start watching. You have 30 days to watch the movie after you download it, but only 24 hours to watch it after you start the movie.

10:07: We want people to have access to the same movie on DVDs or files, Gianopulos says. The Family Guy “Blue Harvest” DVD (which you should all watch; it’s a hilarious Star Wars spoof) will be the first one to have the digital copy on the DVD, so you can (legally) rip DVDs to your Mac or PC.

9:18: “We have delivered 5 million copies of Leopard in the first three months: the most successful release of Mac OS X ever, Jobs said. Twenty percent of the installed base upgraded in the first 90 days. He formally announces Mac Office for 2008, which has actually been delayed quite a bit.

9:42: Library titles will cost $2.99. New releases will cost $3.99. You can also transfer movies to an iPod from your Mac or PC right in the middle of watching them, although I assume the 24-hour thing still applies. iTunes Movie Rentals launches today, apparently: the 1,000 movies is (I guess) what they’re going to have by the end of February. It’ll be in the U.S. only to start, with international support coming later this year.

9:33: It’s the triangulation method that Google Maps uses on other cell phones that are out there. It’s not perfect; it’s not GPS, but in a crowded area you’ll get pretty close to your actual location. All the iPhone updates are available today through a software update over iTunes. “The iPhone is not standing still,” Jobs says.

(Credit:
Corinne Schulz/CNET Networks)

9:20: There will be two versions, 500GB and 1TB. The 500GB model will cost $299, the 1TB model is $499. It will ship in February.

(Credit:
Amazon.com)

Two new Kindle models are expected to be available on Amazon.com in time for the holiday shipping season, with the first coming as early as October, an “insider” tells CrunchGear.

The Kindle connects to the Web to download books–a feature that separates it from other e-readers that must sync to a PC to load a book. When the e-tailer, dabbling in electronics manufacturing for the first time, introduced the device in late 2007, it immediately sold out of Kindles. This led to speculation that the delays were caused by production problems or were planned deliberately to stoke more demand.

Both models are expected to be available in multiple colors, but apparently, no clues were offered on pricing points for the new models.

The second new model will be considerably larger, shaped like an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper, and is expected to be available next year.

The first model will be an update of the current e-book reader, with the same screen size and an improved interface, according to the tipster. The source told CrunchGear that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations” with the update.

The soon-to-be-replaced Kindle?

Then there’s Fuser, which lets you view your e-mail and social-networking messages in one place, but doesn’t touch IM. And Orgoo integrates e-mail, IM, SMS (Short Message Service), video chat, and video mail.

(Credit:
Digsby)
The application also has support for popular micro-blogging application Twitter and allows real-time audio and video chat across IM networks through a partnership with TokBox. Oh, and it now offers inline spell check. WooHoo!

Other applications that enable you to manage multiple IM accounts include Trillian and Miranda, but Digsby goes a step further by integrating e-mail messages as well as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace communications.

Digsby, the application that lets you view your instant-message, e-mail, and social-network accounts through one interface, opened up to the public on Thursday. Download Digsby for Windows from CNET Download.com.

Digsby first hit the scene in early February. It’s still in beta, but now you don’t need an invitation to use it.

It’s enough to make your head spin.

That equipment–and those suits–cost an awful lot of money, and AMD is looking to cut costs.

And the thing is, AMD can only go so far. Under the terms of a licensing agreement it signed in the early 1990s (AMD licenses the x86 instruction set from Intel), AMD is prohibited from outsourcing more than 20 percent of its production.

If the company has trouble making the revenue side of the ledger increase amid tough economic conditions, it’s going to have to do something about the cost side, which could involve layoffs, a new manufacturing strategy, or both.

But AMD’s pockets are even lighter right now. Intel has recovered from its mid-decade swoon and is chugging along without incident, while AMD has watched its fortunes spin completely around in about a year. AMD can’t continue to lose money forever, and one way to cut costs is to embrace that tried-and-true 21st century management strategy: outsourcing.

Company executives have steadily refused to explain what “asset-light” (which soon morphed into “asset-smart”) actually means, but have hinted that it involves a rethinking of the way AMD develops chips. The term first surfaced during an earnings conference call in April as Chief Executive Hector Ruiz described vague, tentative plans to reduce costs by thinking of new ways to get chips built and out to customers.

This is a huge, huge year for AMD’s current management team. After the debacle that was 2007, Ruiz has pledged to make AMD a profitable company in the second half of 2008.

AMD could finally be getting ready to explain how it intends to build chips in the future, almost a year after dropping hints that it would revamp its manufacturing strategy.

(Credit:
Sven Doering/AMD)

An AMD representative declined to comment specifically on any actions it might be considering, but said even though the company has been working on this issue for a year, no decisions have been made.

“There are some issues that have to be overcome, and AMD might be able to overcome them by saying we don’t care,” he said. In essence, AMD could dare Intel to sue it for violating the agreement, hoping to work out some sort of settlement further down the line when it’s in better economic shape. Their lawyers talk on a regular basis already.

That might not necessarily hold AMD back, Mosesmann said.

Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James, believes AMD is about to reveal a new manufacturing strategy that will attempt to take some of the formidable costs out of making chips. Mosesmann thinks that AMD is considering spinning out its manufacturing operations as part of a joint venture with another company, making greater use of partners such as IBM and Chartered Semiconductor, or some such combination.

Even in boom times, AMD’s pockets are not nearly as deep as Intel’s, yet it has to spend the money to keep up. To date, it has gotten around some of the need for huge outlays by working on advanced research and development in a facility owned by IBM, using third-party chip foundries like Chartered Semiconductor and TSMC, and making the most of what capacity it does have in Dresden, Germany.

Expect AMD to line up a new partner for manufacturing and/or research, expand its relationship with IBM, or accept another cash infusion from its new investor, Abu Dhabi, Mosesmann said in an interview. “They have to be competitive without having to spend billions each year to keep up with Intel,” he said.

Don’t expect AMD to get out of the chip manufacturing business entirely. After all, “real men have fabs.” All bravado aside, there are plenty of good reasons to keep a great deal of manufacturing in-house, everything from quality control to customer flexibility.

There might not be a more costly undertaking in the modern technology industry than the process of designing and manufacturing high-end PC and server processors. Only six or so companies really do it in high volumes (Intel, AMD, IBM, Sun, Fujitsu, and Via). Modern chip plants cost billions of dollars to construct and maintain, and researching new leading-edge transistor designs is enormously complicated and time-consuming, and therefore expensive.

What do you think? Will BD-Live eventually become a killer feature for Blu-ray? Or will disc makers just use it as a gimmick and make it more difficult to view special features?

On one hand, it’s good that content makers continue to add content, but on the other hand you could say, why wasn’t this available on the disc in the first place? We headed over to Blu-ray Statistics to see if Transformers possibly took up an entire 50GB Blu-ray Disc, but it only takes up 45.75GB–surely there’s enough room to fit an extra short. That’s not the only example. Walk Hard also has a couple extra shorts available via BD-Live, and that disc takes up 46.87GB. From what we’ve seen, we’re pretty sure the extra content could fit on the Blu-ray Disc if they wanted to. The movie already includes an extra Blu-ray Disc for special features, and we doubt the extra content fills up that much space.

While it’s easy to consider BD-Live a relatively unexciting extra feature of Blu-ray, we have started to see some potential downsides. For example, early this week High-Def Digest reported that the Transformers Blu-ray now has new BD-Live content available. Transformers on Blu-ray came out in September, so we doubt that the new short “Robot Ninjas” was created over the last month–more likely it was held onto to continue to generate interest in the movie.

In a lot of ways, BD-Live reminds us of Senior Editor David Katzmaier’s discussion about online HDTV firmware updates. While it’s great that companies can add functionality after a product is released, it also makes it easier to ship unfinished products. In a perfect world, we’d like to see standard special features on the actual disc–so that people without Internet-enabled Blu-ray players can watch them–and keep BD-Live to content that truly need to be served over the Web. In fact, BD-Live could actually be pretty cool if it’s used to serve up timely content, such as clips of the film winning an award or perhaps recent news about the actors. But as it stands now, it seems like more of a gimmick than a feature.

(Credit: Amazon)

We’ve never been completely sold on BD-Live as a major selling point for Blu-ray. While special features on DVDs are certainly nice, the vast majority of people don’t have the interest or time to watch more than the main movie. Blu-ray movies also have special feature sections, plus some movies have even more features available via BD-Live, which you can access with an Internet-connected Profile 2.0 player. While there are certainly plenty of cinephiles that want to watch every deleted scene and featurette available, we doubt it will be forcing many people to upgrade from DVD.

(Credit:
flickr.com/arielwaldman)

Either way, what Waldman calls “community management” is something that Twitter has to sort out–fast. As Twitter breaks further out of Silicon Valley culture, the service will invariably have to deal with users who cry foul over far tamer situations. Much like its famous outages, which the site finally addressed in full this week, abuse and harassment is something that Twitter can’t simply ignore.

Some of the comments at issue were apparently posted through a site that allows users to post anonymous “tweets” to a central account, making it difficult to track them to a specific user.

That would make the service look less wishy-washy with its “we’ll review the situation” response, but at the same time, branding itself as a free-for-all outlet likely wouldn’t help, as Twitter, reportedly having received fresh VC funding, attempts to gain more mainstream traction.

Blogger Ariel Waldman spurred a lively debate when she claimed that Twitter didn't abide by its own terms of service. She said it refused to take down an account that harassed her.

“It seems like that’s where a lot of the disagreement is,” Waldman said to CNET News.com. “Twitter’s not wanting to take the job of policing and their users are used to being in communities where I guess they are a bit more policed.”

Some Web enthusiasts find microblogging service Twitter to be addictive because you can say absolutely anything you want–as long as it’s 140 characters or less. So what happens when “saying anything” translates into harassment?

“Anyone can use Twitter to consistently harass you and ruin search results for your identity,” Waldman wrote, “and Twitter won’t execute any means of community management.”

In other words, in the bubble-like culture of Web 2.0, Waldman is a sort of celebrity–and with celebrity comes scrutiny and often ugly commentary. If Lindsay Lohan took action every time Perez Hilton and his celebrity gossip brethren scrawled “slut” across pictures of her, her lawyer would be working overtime.

If Twitter wants to take a more hands-off approach to situations like Waldman’s, allowing some of the dialogue that a Digg or Flickr wouldn’t, it would be putting itself in the league of say-anything forums like MetaFilter.

As Waldman pointed out, however, other online services, such as Flickr, Digg, and her employer are far less laissez-faire, banning accounts frequently. And she raised a legitimate concern when she said harassing messages are an issue for identity management in the chaotic muck of the Web.

She said she started receiving “multiple accounts of harassment” from another user of the microblogging service and that when she petitioned to Twitter’s community manager, he opted to remove the Twitter posts in question from the site’s “public timeline.”

Still, Twitter has some ostensible safeguards against abuse. The site’s terms of service say users “must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate, or intimidate other Twitter users” and that the company “may, but have no obligation to, remove content and accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property, or these terms of use.”

That goes back to whether Twitter is inherently for communication or community. There’s no universal standard for terms of service across social-media sites, and most Web users would likely agree that there probably shouldn’t be one. Different services attract different audiences and demographics, and have created different cultures, in effect.

This post was updated at 10:49 AM with comment from Ariel Waldman.

The final response to Waldman’s complaint from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone asserted that “Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content,” and that “Twitter recognizes that it is not skilled at judging content disputes between individuals. Determining the line between update and insult is not something that Twitter, nor a crowd, would do well.” Stone added that Twitter’s team would continue talking about which situations were appropriate for account banning.

Waldman is hardly the average Twitter user. Well-known in geek circles, she’s a “social-media insights consultant” who contributes to tech blog Engadget and runs her own site, Shake Well Before Use, about “art, advertising, sex, and technology.”

One avid Twitter user, Ariel Waldman, posted an entry Thursday on her personal blog, declaring that “Twitter refuses to uphold (its) terms of service.”

Waldman wasn’t satisfied, especially when the harassment allegedly continued and grew worse into 2008. She wanted to see user account bans of those responsible, and despite insisting that the activity was in violation of Twitter’s terms of service, Twitter executives–including CEO Jack Dorsey–repeatedly said it wasn’t.

Waldman also works as the community manager at Pownce, one of Twitter’s few rivals in the microblogging space, giving her a bit of a conflict of interest in the issue. But in a phone conversation with CNET News.com on Friday, she said that the issue (and discussion with Twitter employees) began before she was hired at Pownce, and that she is a part-time employee with no investment in the company.