Information Security & US & Life & Love & Fashion & Hacking & Passion

Apple's iTunes Store isn't the only one that has adjusted prices for its digital song downloads recently: Changes are showing up at Amazon's and Wal-Mart's online music stores, too.

Apple Inc. ( AAPL - news - people ), the dominant digital music retailer on the Internet, shifted Tuesday from selling all songs for 99 cents apiece to a tiered pricing model where songs cost 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29 each. Recording companies are choosing the prices.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple also eliminated the copy-protection technology that limited users' abilities to copy and play songs on devices other than Apple's own iPods.

On the same day Apple made its changes, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ( WMT - news - people )'s online music store began selling tunes for $1.24, 94 cents and 64 cents apiece. Previously, they cost 74 cents and 94 cents apiece.

In an e-mail, Walmart.com spokesman Ravi Jariwala said the pricing adjustments are "reflective of new costs set by the music industry."

Elsewhere on the Web, Seattle-based online retailer Amazon.com Inc. ( AMZN - news - people ) is also selling individual song downloads for as much as $1.29. Most songs currently cost $1.29, 99 cents, 89 cents or 69 cents each. Amazon did not say when it began selling songs for $1.29; when the store first opened in September 2007, songs sold for 89 cents and 99 cents.

Wal-Mart and Amazon downloads had already been free of copy protection.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs still expects to return from his medical leave at the end of June. That's according to an Apple director who responded to an investor at the company's annual shareholder meeting Wednesday.

The investor had pressed for details about when the board of directors knew Jobs planned to step away from his daily duties. Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) director Arthur Levinson responded only by saying that since Jobs announced Jan. 14 that he needed to go on leave, "nothing has changed."

Jobs, who turned 54 on Tuesday, was not at the meeting.

A survivor of pancreatic cancer who looked very thin last year, Jobs said Jan. 5 that he had a treatable hormone imbalance and would continue to run Apple. But the following week he went on leave to treat medical issues that were "more complex" than he had believed.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

(CNN) -- The rapper Common wants to take hip-hop in a new direction, he says, and he has an unsuspecting ally -- President-elect Barack Obama.

Obama "is going to change hip-hop for the better," predicted the rapper, whose eighth album, "Universal Mind Control" (G.O.O.D. Music/Geffen), hits shelves Tuesday.

"I really do believe we as hip-hop artists pick up what's going on in the world and try to reflect that," he told CNN, outlining his belief that mainstream as well as so-called "conscious" rappers -- the more socially aware -- will pick up on what he sees as the more optimistic prospects of an Obama presidency.

"I think hip-hop artists will have no choice but to talk about different things and more positive things, and try to bring a brighter side to that because, even before Barack, I think people had been tired of hearing the same thing," he said.

Likewise, "Universal Mind Control," with its hook-heavy, synthed-out tracks, represents a "broadening" of hip-hop's audience -- one that demands evolution rather than hackneyed revamps of old beats, rhythms and rhymes, Common said. Listen to clips from the album and Common's interview with CNN.com »

Not that Common, born Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., is altogether removed from the temptations of his hip-hop brethren.

He serves as a spokesman for Lincoln Navigator and purports on his new album to "rebel in YSL," a reference to designer Yves Saint Laurent. Money is also a weakness, as Common -- No. 14 on Forbes magazine's 2008 list of richest rappers -- regularly invokes the greenbacks he makes and spends.

Still, Common has come at hip-hop from a different angle from many of his colleagues. He was generally considered "underground" until he linked up with Kanye West, who produced his albums "Be" (2005) and "Finding Forever" (2007).

Even now, while paying homage at mainstream hip-hop's altar, the Chicago-born lyricist also enters parishes where most rappers wouldn't be seen. He's helped front movements for HIV/AIDS awareness and vegetarianism, and he's written two children's books emphasizing the importance of self-esteem.

Lyrically, violence has never been his thing; soft-drug use has been mentioned but rarely glamorized; he removed homophobic references from his lyrics years ago; and while there have been hints of misogyny and the occasional N-word in his verses, neither has been a staple of his rhymes.

"I've always been conscious, honestly," he said. "I made a choice on this album, 'Universal Mind Control,' to really make some music that was bright, that would be a little more lighthearted, just because of what was going on in the world." Read more from the interview

With a few exceptions, his latest lyrics are consummate Common. In his beat poet's cadence, the 36-year-old rhymesmith aggressively courts the ladies, personifies hip-hop, aggrandizes himself and his hometown (lovingly, "the Chi"), and respectfully doles out props to hip-hop's forefathers -- most notably to Afrika Bambaataa on the album's title track. Hear the title track »

The album's sound, however, is atypical, moving -- sometimes jerkily -- from club-banger to anthem to ballad to Top 40. The latter even runs counter to the opening verse of "Everywhere": "No pop, no pop, no pop, no pop/We gonna do this thing till the sky just drop."

But the sound is part of "a whole new sound and a new movement" in hip-hop, something he explored out of disdain for repetition and predictability, he said. That might explain Kanye West's relative absence on "Universal Mind Control."

The Louis Vuitton don appears on only one track, the pop-drenched "Punch Drunk Love." But West has long been credited, even by Common, with bringing his fellow Chicagoan to the mainstream after "Be" and "Finding Forever" went gold and leapt up the Billboard 200.

Of course, it's not all Kanye, said Common.

"I'm a true believer that it all boils down to the music, because Kanye can endorse something, and if people don't like it they ain't gonna get with it -- regardless of whoever endorses it," he said.

He compared his working relationship with West to the collaboration he enjoyed with The Neptunes' Pharrell Williams on "Universal Mind Control." Williams, whom Common casually likened to Quincy Jones, pushed him lyrically, much like West did, he said.

Between Williams and Mr. DJ -- who composed backbeats for some of OutKast's biggest hits -- Common arrived at the evolution he sought, he added.

Common also is plotting a change, or at least a detour, in his career path. Though his past cinematic endeavors have been primarily gangster flicks, Common has landed a role in the upcoming "Terminator Salvation" and could play Green Lantern in "Justice League: Mortal" should the derailed movie get back on track.

"I would truly love to go increasingly in the acting direction," he said. "My goal is to be a movie star. I want to be at Will Smith's level. I want to be co-leading with Leonardo DiCaprio."

Fear not, Common fans. The aspiring thespian is confident he can pull off both, though hip-hop might ride sidecar to the silver screen. Acting, he said, seems to improve his music.

"I don't take as much time overthinking it. Actually, since 'Be' I've been working on films and each album has been expanding and increasing, so I feel like I would still make music, but it wouldn't be the main gig," he said.

Selling albums, Common said, is about more than good music, and though he stands proudly by the music he made pre-West, he concedes he didn't do enough to claw his way up from the underground.

"After you make good, quality music, then it's your job to go out there and promote it and to market it and to get it out there to the people. I feel like I wasn't doing that early on," he said. "Now I am, and I feel like I'm growing as a songwriter and working with producers that are very incredible, so I feel all that is contributing to me getting the recognition that I'm getting."

Nandan Nilekani is limiting his "scarce capital" to company and country.

Jordan Fired, Tapscott to Take Over (Updated)

The Wizards have relieved Coach Eddie Jordan of his duties. Jordan was informed of the decision this morning around 8 a.m. shortly after he and his wife, Charrisse, handed out Thanksgiving turkeys to the needy at a team-sponsored charitable event. Associate Head Coach Mike O'Koren was also let go.

Ed Tapscott, who had carried the title of Director of Player Development but traveled with the team and essentially served as an extra assistant coach, takes over on an interim basis. The team is practicing right now.

The Wizards are off to a 1-10 start and hit rock bottom with Saturday night's 122-117 loss to a short-handed Knicks squad that was without its two leading scorers and used seven players. The Wizards rank near the bottom of the league in several statistical categories and have only one player (Antawn Jamison) who is performing anything close to a high level.

How much of the poor start can be attributed to Jordan is highly debatable. Injuries to Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood left him without his best player and best center. Veteran guard Antonio Daniels has been limited to six games due to a right knee injury and the rest of the team's veterans -- players like Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas and Andray Blatche -- have performed at a subpar level.

The global mass media change a lot of things, but regional identity probably isn't one of them.

It's been nearly 50 years since Marshall McLuhan coined the term "global village" to describe the shared (if largely vicarious) experience that television and other electronic media were fast creating. One of the foundational principles of the global village--which, of course, the Internet has expanded by some vast multiple--is that electronic media doesn't just serve people; it changes people.

As more people communicate over greater distances, goes the theory, the less important are geographic regions as unique repositories of ideas, languages and moral sensibilities--in a word, culture. If so, the cultural differences once assumed to distinguish, say, New Yorkers from Texas farmers should become increasingly vestigial artifacts of a pre-Google world.

But if freedom from geographic constraints means liberation from regional identity, why do many Americans still think in terms of the Midwest vote, Southern conservatism, urban this and rural that? If the entire globe is connected to the same cultural mother ship--drinking the same Starbucks, driving the same cars, using the same search engines, watching the same CNN--how is it that one can still identify regional politics, tastes, values, idioms--the very substance of identity? Were the prophets of convergence wrong?

One argument in their favor is that convergence simply hasn't had enough time-- the global village, after all, is still a new entity by historical standards. You don't have to believe in "the end of history" to recognize how much more alike, at least superficially, far-flung places are today than 100 years ago.

Consumerism, once thought of as a uniquely American phenomenon, is now a staple of life from Kuala Lumpur to Santiago. Drive down a highway anywhere in the U.S., and the first thing that strikes you is how alike every place looks--the same strip malls, the same visual clutter, the same boxy office buildings, whether you're in New Hampshire or New Mexico. (The architectural vernaculars that once distinguished regions from each other are now largely quaint, secondary relics preserved by self-conscious historical societies.)

An American visiting Bangkok, Thailand, 100 years ago would have been struck primarily by its otherness. Today he's struck by its sameness--the same consumer products, the same cars, even the same language (English is common there) as back in Houston. Project the arc of convergence out a few decades, and it's not hard to see regional origin being relegated to a rather minor component of personal identity.

Of course, the world is not a linear equation, and there are forces working to resist the trend. Proximity is surely one of them. There is a whole academic discipline that says, in effect, that you are who you know. So-called "social impact theory" holds that the stronger and more immediate your relationships, the more likely you are to adopt your friends' values, regardless of what else you might read, watch or hear.

OMAHA, Nebraska (CNN) -- Nebraska officials said they're concerned about an apparent rush by parents to drop their teenage children off at hospitals before lawmakers change the state's troubled "safe haven" law.

The latest cases came on the eve of a special session of the Legislature on Friday to add an age limit to the law. On Thursday, a boy, 14, and his 17-year-old sister were dropped off at an Omaha hospital; the girl ran away from the hospital, officials said. A 5-year-old boy was left by his mother at a different hospital, officials said.

The day before, a father flew in from Miami, Florida, to leave his teenage son at a hospital, officials said.

"Please don't bring your teenager to Nebraska," Gov. Dave Heineman told CNN. "Think of what you are saying. You are saying you no longer support them. You no longer love them." Watch as lawmakers convene to change law »

Nebraska's safe haven law was intended to allow parents to hand over an infant anonymously to a hospital without being prosecuted. Of the 34 children who have been dropped off at hospitals, officials said not one has been an infant.

All but six have been older than 10, according to a Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services analysis.

State officials said because of legislative procedures it will take at least a week to change the language of the safe haven law, creating a window where more parents could try to take advantage of the loophole in the statute.

"We are ready and prepared that that situation occurs," said Todd Landry of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. "We want people to understand that this is not the right way of getting the service for your child, your teenager or your family."

State Sen. Tom White said lawmakers have been caught off-guard by the number of teenagers taken in under the law.

"What you've seen is an extraordinary cry for help from people all across the country," White said. "Nebraska can't afford to take care of all of them. Nebraska would like to be able to, but they know that we can't so we are going to have to change the law."

There's growing support among many Nebraska lawmakers to limit the safe haven law to children no older than three days. But several lawmakers said they'll push for something closer to a 30-day age limit.

The safe haven law was meant to protect infants, but there is no age limit under the current law. Five of the abandoned children were brought to Nebraska from out of state. Parents have traveled into Nebraska from Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Florida and Georgia.

Tysheema Brown drove from Georgia to leave her teenage son at an Omaha hospital.

"Do not judge me as a parent. I love my son and my son knows that," Brown said. "There is just no help. There hasn't been any help."

Safe haven laws allow distraught parents, who fear their children are in imminent danger, to drop them off at hospitals without being charged with abandonment. Nebraska was the last state in the country to pass such a law. But every other state included an age limit.

The Department of Health and Human Services published a background profile on 30 of the 34 safe haven cases. The report found:

Twenty-seven children have received mental health treatment;

28 children come from single parent homes;

22 children had a parent with a history of incarceration; and

20 of the 30 children are white; eight are black.

There are 6,600 children in state custody, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Per capita the figure is one of the highest rates in the country, Landry said.

"I think this has spurred some really healthy conversations about how do parents get the help that they need when they are struggling with some of these parenting issues," he said.

"And the message that we have been trying to get out is, 'Don't wait until it's a crisis. Reach out to your family and friends.' "