From Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster) and Dave Morin (ex-Facebook) comes a new social network platform. Launched just last night in Apple’s App Store, Path creates (and limits you) to a social network of 50 close friends. You can share your personal moments in the form of photos, tag places, things and people, and also capture where you were at the time geographically. Since your network is limited to a max of 50 friends, the creators of Path think that you’ll not only share more often, but you...

It’s pretty incomprehensible that until about two weeks ago, I had never used a piece of Sonos equipment. Heard about it, and read about it? Sure, but never used it. What MP3s did for personal audio enjoyment 5 years ago, Sonos does for your home, office, or wherever you want today, ingeniously creating a seamless and practically unlimited expandable system. Sonos is literally one of the coolest things I’ve seen in years; not because they reinvented the wheel (even though they kind of did in some places),...

Shawn Fanning has long since bailed but his brainchild, Napster, has just been re-launched again and this time Best Buy is at the helm. Whether or not the consumer electronics mega-retailer will have more success with the service remains to be seen but one thing is certain — the innovation that made Napster so popular when it first launched has been completely replaced by emulation. The new Napster is merely a combination of a few RIAA-friendly services and it’s using DRM-free MP3s and unlimited f...

The Isle of Man, a small self-governing subsidiary of the United Kingdom with perhaps the coolest flag ever (see above), is proposing a new law that would allow its residents immunity from prosecution for illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Each citizen would be forced to pay a monthly 1 Pound (roughly $1.40) fee into a communal fund that would be redistributed to copyright holders by a centralized government office. Both publishers and labels would benefit, and the residents of the Isle could breath...

Before you ask, yes Napster does indeed still exist. What’s more, with a current subscriber base of around 700,000 it’s still a pretty respectable offering. Napster’s current incarnation offers three main plans for accessing its library of over six million songs; the first is an iTunes-like music download service that provides a la carte tracks for 99¢ and album downloads for $6.95 and up. A basic subscription service allows users to pay $12.95 per month for unlimited streaming to any PC an...