Say it ain't so! America's most loyal advocate for Microsoft's Zune is apparently throwing in the towel. Of course, we should warn you that this could very well be a simple ploy for attention, but if the man keeps his word, he will soon be covering his Zune tattoos with... something else. Curiously, he didn't say whether or not he would be playing the traitor card and picking up some sort of iPod, but considering that more people have seen this guy's body art in the wild than actual Zunes, the general public should know soon enough. You fought a good fight, Zune Guy, but consider yourself expelled from The Social.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

J Allard, previously of Veep stature, has been elevated to the position of CXO (Chief eXperience Officer) and CTO of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division. That puts the man synonymous with the Zune, Xbox, and once questionable, 80's style in charge of "the technical architecture and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) division." He's also cracking the whip on the E&D's "incubation team" responsible for scouting out new opportunities for the division. You know, like the Zune Phone, Xbox 360 with Blu-ray, and Microsoft Surface Sphere. Thus making him the most important man inside Microsoft... from our perspective anyway.

[via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

The latest edu-gimmick to hit small-town America: Liberty, Missouri's handing out a hundred and change media players -- Zunes, to be specific -- to local high school and middle school students for listening to lesson-supporting podcasts in the hopes of saving them "lost class time." Surely this will raise test scores, right? Or at least improve the Zune's cachet? Who knows -- even the district superintendent said, "Is it the next great thing? I don't know. Maybe. But it is another tool." Maybe the Kindle might make a better tool, but either way, Microsoft apparently intends to release data on the case study later this year.

Hey, if Bill can give away tens of billions of dollars, the least we can do to celebrate his last day is to give away some Microsoft-powered gear, right? Next up: a black Zune 80GB.

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So we dropped by our old friend Peter Rojas's place (you know, the guy who started this site) -- turns out that since he's a music executive and stuff now, he got himself hooked up with a prototype limited edition Joy Division Zune. (Yeah, the irony in that isn't lost on us.) From the absurdly elaborate pivoting, platform-raising box, to the black fabric wrap (which looked blue to our camera), to the faux-LP liner, to Peter Saville's signature etched in foam, they clearly did Joy Division justice on this one. Which they damn well should have, because in case you couldn't already tell, we're all Joy Division fans around these parts -- which means we'd have the music to load this Zune up, being that the only thing it doesn't have is the back-catalog.

[Thanks, Peter!]

Someone clearly didn't want Microsoft fans being left out at this time of extreme Apple coverage. In an interview with SFGate, Robbie Bach manages to deftly deny the rumored Xbox / Blu-ray match-up, deny a Zune Phone is coming anytime soon (although he intimates Zune software may come to phones), but still cleverly suggests that a Zune Touch could be in the offing. Of course, by "cleverly suggest" we mean he mentions the possibility of a device with touch capabilities, which is like saying Dell might release a laptop with a keyboard. Is that the device pictured above? No silly, that's just someone's Photoshop work. Steve Jobs -- anything to say about this?

[Via wmpoweruser; Image courtesy anythingbutipod]

Hey, props for offering up the "first clock radio for Zune" (it's certainly not the first Zune dock), we're all quite proud, but it looks like iHome sent in the B team for the design here. The ZN9 Dual Alarm Stereo Clock Radio for Zune actually bears a slight resemblance to an Xbox 360, other than the full-featured Zune interoperability, of course. Outside of that there's nothing of note here that your grandma hasn't been rocking bedside since the 80's. The ZN9 should be available now-ish for $100.

That 80GB Zune above looks mighty familiar, now doesn't it? At least it does if you checked out our totally wild guess mockup that we created upon hearing of this gem. The limited edition Joy Division-themed Zune has finally been pictured (officially) and priced, with just 500 of 'em to be offered up through the Zune Originals website. Of course, we have no idea how quickly these will (or won't) go, but if you're looking to grab one, we'd have that trigger finger ready to roll on June 17th.

Just in case you didn't really believe Microsoft was finally bringing the Zune to Canada, along comes a release to make it doubly official. Aside from reiterating the June 13th launch date -- not to mention the $249.99 CDN (Zune 80), $189.99 CDN (Zune 8) and $139.99 CDN (Zune 4) price points -- Microsoft is also announcing seven new designs for its Zune Originals artist series. Fittingly, the mega-corp has tapped actual Canadian artists in order to find said designs, and considering that all Zune Originals artwork / engraving will be offered up gratis for three months after the launch day, you might as well indulge.

GameStop will no longer stock or sell the Zune, citing weak sales and a poor fit with its "product mix". Despite recent positive sales numbers and only weeks short of Microsoft's launch of games for Zune, Microsoft's player will no longer be found at the gaming retail giant. The decision came about a month ago, and sales will continue at Gamestop.com until stock is depleted. Adam Sohn, director of Zune marketing, confirmed the announcement this afternoon by not denying it:

"We have a set of great retail partnerships that give Zune a strong presence at retail including Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and others. We will continue to invest in deep retail partnerships, and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months including a great response to our recent Spring Update. We're looking forward to a continued strong presence at retail with our partners."

We can't help but thinking better Xbox integration could've gone a long way, but perhaps it was just never meant to be.

Just like we said, the Zune has made its first retail appearance in Canada. Come June 13th, our friends to the north will be able to get their hands on Microsoft's media players, starting at $139.99 (for the 4GB flash variety), up to $249.99 for the big-daddy 80GB version. Pre-orders are being taken now, but something tells us you'll be able to get one on launch day regardless.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Microsoft turned a few heads at its Advance '08 advertising conference by announcing a type of ads for its Zune platform, in addition to those web, TV and Xbox "branding experiences" it already delivers. The primary method described merely involved corporate sponsorships of celebrity playlists, with the "ad" being consigned to branding on that musician's Social card -- and you'd have to have friended the musician to see any of it at all. Apocalyptic stuff, eh? Microsoft also promises to keep the ads appropriate for the audience, so we're not going to start panicking just yet, but the first DAP builder to make us sit through a minute of ads every time we try to sync with our computer is sure score the (oh, hey, thanks for the $100, Microsoft!) scorn and vitriol love and affection of its customers for years to come.

Microsoft is still toiling away at the Zune, but there isn't a whole terrible much to show for it so far in regards to market impact. They just broke the 2 million mark, almost a year after they hit 1 million in May 2007. That means growth has hardly accelerated since the second-gen players hit the scene. Zune's overall market share has grown from three to four percent, but that's most likely a steal from Creative (which sunk from four to two percent) than a steal from Apple or second-place SanDisk (with a billionty and 11 percent, respectively). But don't worry, we're sure that 2.5 update is going to change everything.

Ever wonder where Zunes are designed? Well, right now it's all done in a fairly non-descript and temporary office building on Microsoft's sprawling campus in Redmond. (Soon enough a few hundred Zune employees will be packing up and moving to a new building that's currently under construction, though.) We recently got a chance to peek around the cube farm and spend some time with employees in the laid-back Zune lounge -- check it out!

Well, that was fast, the XNA community technology preview with Zune games we were just talking about is already out. Unless you're a developer ready to get your hands a little dirty it won't be of much use though, especially since games can only be distributed and installed from source code right now.

Read - Official announcement
Read - How-to install Zune games