Lots of interesting news stories and articles today in the world of technology.  So many, in fact, that I thought I’d collect several of them here together in one post for your clicking and viewing pleasure:

• WalMart is now selling DRM-free digital music, including songs and albums from several major labels.  “DRM,” if you’re not aware, stands for digital rights management, and it’s what usually keeps you from being able to play your purchased digital songs on whichever device you like.  So typically if you buy a song from iTunes, it won’t work on your Microsoft Zune MP3 Player (that analogy might not work very well, unless you’re one of the three people in the world who bought the Zune player, but you get the point).  For months now, digital music fans have been clamouring for digital downloads that don’t come with player restrictions, reasoning that once paid for, a song should be able to be used on any and every device the user sees fit.  So the fact that WalMart (already a major player in digital music sales) is selling songs and albums that are completely DRM-free is a pretty big deal.  Go here to read more.
• USAToday has compiled a pretty neat list of the Top 25 Scientific Advancements of the Last 25 Years.  It is, of course, as subjective as any similar list (such as the AFI’s Top 100 Movies), but it’s still a great read.  And the format of the list is good too, with just a small paragraph blurb about each advancement.  A great way to recap on how far we’ve come scientifically in 25 years without wasting an entire afternoon.
• SPAM could kill you.  No, not the canned meat product, but the obnoxious email variety.  Here’s an interesting article that talks about the products you see advertised in SPAM messages, and how they are often expired, diluted, or off-brand versions of what’s actually being advertised.  And there’s, obviously, a real danger in taking any kind of medication that has been tampered with or that has sat on the shelf for too long.  So SPAM is maybe just as deadly as it is annoying. 
• If you use Skype–the internet-based phone service–you definitely noticed that they had a major outage last week in their service.  Even if you don’t use it, you probably have read about the glitch.  The outage affected millions of Skype users, and kept some of them from being able to use the service for more than 24 hours.  The company now says that the problem was the result of a so-called “perfect storm” and should never happen again. 

So there you have it…you’re pre-assembled news report in the world of the web and technology.  So handy that I don’t even know why you would need to buy a newspaper anymore.