The Zune HD, to be released this fall, will be powered by the new Tegra processor from NVIDIA. This has been speculated for awhile, and was confirmed on Friday in a ZuneInsider podcast by Matt Akers of the Zune team.
To date, no other portable device uses the new processor, which is being heralded for its [...]

Zune.net tonight will be down for a “couple of hours”, according to my Zune MVP contact, starting at 10pm Pacific tonight.
When it comes back to life, Zune.net and the Social will have the following added features:

“Follow an artist” –  Allows users to get news and updates about the artists they care about
RSS feed aggregation – [...]

ZuneHD is appearing now on Amazon, with a product detail page viewable now.
It’s not available for pre-order yet. But the product page offers a nice round-up of the ZuneHD’s unique capabilities.
Note: there is was some mangled language in the product page about Xbox gaming. Don’t get too excited about that; my understanding from the Zune [...]

Moments ago, Microsoft lifted the covers on its plans to integrate Zune Video Marketplace with Xbox.
High-definition movies and TV shows from Zune Marketplace are being made available to 17 million Xbox LIVE subscribers. The previous Xbox video store is being merged into the Zune Marketplace video store. This is a significant extension of the Zune [...]

More details and videos are surfacing about the ZuneHD, which will be released this fall by Microsoft. The video above, from C|net, doesn’t clearly show the entire menu of options, but gives a glimpse of the look and feel of the new player.
One thing that strikes me is the responsiveness of the accelerometer. Watch as [...]

The ZuneHD is officially announced by Microsoft today, and features:

3.3-inch, 16:9 widescreen display
480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display
Multi-touch capability on the touchscreen
Built-in HD Radio receiver. HD Radio provides higher-quality sound than traditional radio, and allows additional song and artist data to be displayed on the player. Some stations also multicast in HD, so you [...]

This morning, the Zune team launched some handy updates to service.zune.net - the site for Zune troubleshooting and for sending in players for repairs.
The site provides a way to register your Zune player, perform online troubleshooting, and to track the status of a Zune that is sent in for repairs.
Some screenshots:
Information on a registered Zune [...]

Anythingbutipod has conducted a series of hardness tests on MP3 player screens.
Using keys, a razor blade, and a carbon steel kitchen knife, Grahm from ABI vividly demonstrates how the Zune’s glass screen is impervious to being scratched.
As Grahm points out, a device’s susceptibility to scratches is determined by the relative hardness of the device material [...]

Have you accidentally cracked the screen on your Zune 120, 80, or flash player?
It’s not easy to do, with the glass screen, but it can happen.
When I and my fellow MVPs met today with the Zune support team, they mentioned that you can now get your cracked screen replaced by Microsoft. Previously, there was no [...]

I am, of course, constrained in what I can share with you from our meetings today in Microsoft’s MVP global summit. Five other Zune MVPs and I spent a full and fascinating day with various members of Microsoft’s Zune team.
I thought I would share, though, a few behind-the-scenes pix from the past day.
As the opening [...]