Owning What You Buy

A week before Apple unveils its long-touted video iPod -- probably -- today's NYTimes carries an article that explains why MP3 is still the best format for digital music: you can use it anywhere and years from now it will probably still work.

Something to consider for all you folks downloading iTunes tracks like mad. Sure, you can't imagine ever living without your iPod, and iTunes offers all kinds of cool cutting-edge content, but remember that Apple's online music store didn't even exist three years ago. If technology changes as dramatically in the next three years, you could end up stuck with a ton of uselessly copy-protected, DRM-restricted AAC files.