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Imagine if you could access your entire music library from any computer, iPhone, iPad or any other cellphone — anywhere you want. That's the promise of cloud music storage, and it's an idea that's about to really take off.

Still holding onto that DVD collection? (If so — why?) Well, Disney doesn't think you need to anymore. Nope, all you need, according to the company, is its "Keychest." Well, and a television, computer, cellphone or that sort of thing.

So what's Keychest? It's a distribution platform being developed by Disney and Apple that makes it so when you purchase something — a movie being the easiest example — you'd be able to use that something over a variety of platforms. Buy Iron Man, say, and you could then watch it on your computer, television or portable what-have-you. That's because once you've made the purchase through keychest, you'll get a keycode that'll unlock said purchase.

If you think about it, it's a lot like a DVD, just a digital one. After all, you can use a DVD on any device capable of playing them, but — thanks to DRM — if you bought a movie on the Xbox Marketplace, you wouldn't then be able to turn around and magically play it on a different machine.

Disney isn't the first one to think of a cross-platform distribution method, though we're definitely pro any idea that shakes up the horribly insular nature of today's DRM media.

Wall Street Journal, via Engadget

Pop quiz: How much music do you buy or borrow in a month? And how many books to you buy or borrow in a month?

Next question, how much music do you listen to in a month? How many books do you read in a month?

Finally, how many times do you listen to the same album or song? How many times do you re-read a book?

I'll bet your music vs. book answers are radically different, aren't they? How you acquire and listen to music is completely different than how you acquire and read books, and in vastly different quantities. Unfortunately, the publishing industry thinks selling e-music and e-books are exactly the same thing, or at least similar. As a result, publishers are following a scarily similar DRM path in the nascent e-book business as the music industry did a decade ago.

This is not good, not for publishers and not for prospective e-book and e-reader buyers.

Netflix Watch Instantly fans just got another way to view those 12,000 titles, now on Windows Media Center in Vista. Sure, you could watch Instant Viewing flicks in Internet Explorer on a PC before, but now you have all the convenience and the attractive user interface of Media Center, right there under the TV+Movies tab. You can now control your Netflix queue and account from there, too.

So now Netflix instant streaming is available on set-top boxes, through Blu-ray players, on PCs, on TiVo, and now Media Center. We're big Netflix fans, giving you that streaming video goodness (with some HD titles) along with the huge library of by-mail movies for 10 bucks a month at the cheapest. This only makes it better.

Via Gizmodo

Show of hands: How many of you saw Miss California, Carrie Prejean, answer Perez Hilton's question about gay marriage at the Miss USA pageant? For those who answered yes, how many of you saw the video of her on a computer or mobile device instead of a TV? Exactly. That's the power of broadband, and it's the future of the mass media. No surprises there. From iTunes to Hulu, the last few years have seen an explosion of online video, much of it now in HD. The future of online is video, video, video. That future is assured, but there's real danger of that future being delayed, at least in the United States.

You may have heard about Time Warner Cable's plan to introduce metered pricing for broadband access, and its reversal of that plan after it caused an online revolt. TWC's idea was stupidly executed, but in any case it was only a symptom, not the problem. Just like fact that the U.S., the inventor of the Internet, ranks 15th in the world for broadband speeds — that's a symptom, too.

What is the problem? Read on.

Ever need a piece of music for a video presentation at work? Maybe something to accompany a wedding video? Or just the perfect accompaniment to your next YouTube masterpiece? No, it is not okay to use Josh Groban for your mom's birthday video.

The Free Music Archive is a library of music — old, new, funky, classical, all high-quality, and all free for legal downloads. Royalty-free, and unburdened by copyrights, including synchronization rights so you can use them in videos. Curators are scouring for public domain tunes, and new artists can upload their own content. Like what you hear? Tip the artist directly to their PayPal account.

Based on Creative Commons usage, this is a new way to find new music. For free!

The Free Music Archive via Lifehacker