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Probably the most exciting piece of digital music news to come out of CES 2008 was that Napster was planning on offering its complete catalog of more than 6 million tracks in the unprotected MP3 format. Today, with the launch of version 4.5 of the software and store, that announcement becomes a reality. Although digital music stores such as eMusic, Amazon MP3, and even Napster itself already had MP3s on offer before this point, the collective catalogs of all three didn't even come near the volume of tracks you can find in the entire Napster library. This is a huge day for digital music, as all four major labels and thousands upon thousands of indies are represented in the store, and every track will be available at the standard 99-cent price point. Napster's Web-based store with the online media player window open. (Credit: Napster) More good news is that Napster's Web-based store, which is all that is required for MP3 purchases and downloads, is compatible with every operating system. And--of course--the MP3s can be played on any MP3 player, portable video player, or music cell phone. Currently, 95 percent of the catalog is encoded at 256kbps, which is reasonably high-quality for an MP3, and each track comes with hi-res album art (at least 1,000x1,000-pixels). Although Napster has quite an international presence, the MP3 store will only be available to U.S. residents for the time being. Napster will continue to offer its online and To Go subscription services for $12.95 or $14.95 per month, respectively. The music associated with a subscription will remain in the protected WMA format with the time-out capability. The company did make some improvements to its online interface. It now features a "liquid layout," which resizes everything within both the store and media player windows when you adjust the size of either window. Napster has also improved its download management system so that users can better view what has been purchased already and whether it was eve

如果iTunes和Firefox来一场甜蜜的网络性爱，他们产下的卵就是Songbird。现在你可以一边听Michael Bolt...呃...或许是Vampire Weekend，一边轻易的下A片啦。这真是双羸！这个浏览器里的媒体播放器外表充满创新精神。就拿浏览音乐博客来说：你点击一个MP3，它会自动在 Songbird里播放，就像播放本地文件一样。如果你想通过Songbird储存它，只需要拖曳就可以了。开发者称自己为"历史车轮之先驱者"，由以前的Yahoo！音乐引擎和Winamp开发小组成员组成。我说让历史车轮来得更快一点吧。