US faces 'huge' cyber threat in the future: Gates

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Tuesday that potential cyber attacks posed a "huge" future threat that had to be tackled through joint efforts by US military and civilian agencies.
Asked to assess the danger posed to digital networks, Gates said: "There is a huge future threat and there is a considerable current threat.
"And that's just the reality that we all face."
He said the Pentagon had bolstered security for the military's networks and hoped to do the same for defense industry contractors.
"We are working with our partners in the defense industrial base to bring them under that umbrella, to provide them with protection," he said at a Wall Street Journal conference of chief executives.
Gates said the challenge for cyber security efforts inside the United States is that resources and expertise are concentrated in the military and the National Security Agency (NSA), which raises thorny legal questions about civil liberties.
"The only defense the United States has I think against nation states and other potential threats in the cyber world is the National Security Agency," said Gates, referring to the secretive surveillance agency.
"You cannot replicate the NSA for domestic affairs, there isn't enough money, there isn't enough time and there isn't enough human talent.
"So how do you let the domestic side of the government have access to the asset that the NSA represents, while at the same time taking into account the concerns for privacy and civil liberties?"
Gates, a former CIA director, touted an agreement approved by President Barack Obama last month between the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security that he said paved the way for unprecedented cooperation between the NSA and the domestic agencies on cyber security.
The new approach allows for legal and other officials from the Department of Homeland Security to work out of the NSA's offices, and to assign tasks to the NSA to safeguard domestic networks, he said.
"So you have the domestic security agency, DHS, being able to reach into the NSA in a real time way to get the kind of protections that we need," he said.
The arrangement would hopefully provide better security for both military and civilian networks, he said.
Civil liberties groups have voiced concern over the role of the NSA in cyber security efforts inside the United States, saying privacy rights could be jeopardized.

Fresh Android Apps for Nov. 17: Boston Herald Gift Guide, 123 Zero Build, My BeatBox

Today's Fresh Android Apps features a list of holiday gift suggestions, an app to help limit your carbon footprint and the opportunity to learn how to beatbox.

Boston Herald Gift Guide (Android) FREE

Are you clueless about what to buy your family and friends this holiday season? The Boston Herald Gift Guide in designed to help make your shopping a little less stressful. It's an app that lists tons of different and popular products, both brand new and older classics, all of which have been reviewed by professional reviewers and editors at Bostonherald.com. Apparently, the staff at The Boston Herald have tested, played with, tasted and tried hundreds of items from more than 150 companies.

123 Zero Build (Android) FREE

123 Zero Build is a free tool and a handy app for designers and builders who are shifting their business model in order to go green. This app shows you the different building materials that are available on the market, how much they cost, and rates their performance. This application also estimates the discounted payback for constructing a zero-emissions office building in any U.S. location.

My BeatBox (Android) FREE

The My Beatbox app for your Android phone has been recently updated. If you think beatboxing is super cool, or perhaps you've even tried beatboxing in front of the mirror, but just couldn't figure out how to make it happen, this is the app of your dreams. Beatboxers make it look really easy, and now it actually is easy. When you use My BeatBox, you make rhythms just by using recordings of your voice.

October video game retail sales slide 4 percent

NEW YORK – U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories slipped 4 percent in October as demand for most gaming consoles declined from a year earlier, according to data from market researcher NPD Group.
Overall game sales were $1.07 billion last month, down from $1.11 billion in October of last year, NPD said on Tuesday. Year-to-date sales were down 8 percent at the end of October, at $11.07 billion.
"Keep in mind that these sales only reflect new physical retail sales," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a statement. "While down, there are revenues being generated from digital distribution, used game sales, rentals, social network games and mobile applications to name a few."
Hardware sales tumbled 26 percent to $280 million from $381 million a year ago. With the exception of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, every gaming system saw a decline in unit sales, NPD said. The Xbox sold 325,000 units, up 30 percent year-over-year, Microsoft said.
Sales of game software, meanwhile, climbed 6 percent to $605 million from $573 million. The basketball blockbuster "NBA 2K11" from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. was the month's best-selling title. It was followed by the shooter "Fallout: New Vegas" from Bethesda Softworks and "Medal of Honor" from Electronic Arts Inc. The number doesn't include "Call of Duty: Black Ops," which went on sale Nov. 9 and shattered the entertainment industry sales record held by its predecessor, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."
Sales of game accessories jumped 18 percent to $142 million.
Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, said in a recent interview he expects Nintendo to do well during the November-December holiday sales period.
"Last year, we sold close to 50 percent of hardware on (the holidays)," he said. While Nintendo is not planning to cut the price of the $199 Wii, Fils-Aime added that some retailers are doing this on their own as they work to lure shoppers into their stores.

Google Launches Personalized Fashion Shop Boutiques.com

Google launched a personalized online fashion shop Boutiques.com, letting users visually search and discover fashion goods as well as create their own fashion boutique.
Currently limited to the U.S. and women's fashion only (with plans to expand in the future), Boutiques assists you in refreshing your wardrobe with a combination of curated fashion choices from fashion taste-makers and machine learning algorithms. Start with a style, and you'll see 50 hand-curated items on top, with the rest of the inventory in that style chosen by Google's algorithms.
Features include the ability to filter searches by genre, silhouette, pattern, color families and sizes, as well as visual search, which analyzes the photograph of a clothing item for its color, shape, and pattern and then returns visually similar items. Boutiques also gives you matching outfit ideas to the right of the search results, and you can complete looks using style rules which suggest items that match.
Boutiques is also available as an iPad application, available for free in the iTunes store.

Q&A with MTV's Music and Talent head, Amy Doyle

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – MTV removed the words "music television" from its logo earlier this year, but with the not-so-sudden surge in the popularity of music videos (thanks in no small part to YouTube), it's getting back in the music game.
When it comes to making sure its viewers can sing along while simultaneously cringing to the latest escapades on "The Jersey Shore," that task is bestowed upon Amy Doyle, MTV's executive vice president of music and talent.
Doyle is rolling out a slew of artist-curated programing over the next few weeks, including documentaries by musical artists including Nicki Minaj ("My Time Now," premiering November 28) and Kid Rock ("Kid Rock: Born Free") along with world premieres of videos by My Chemical Romance and Bruno Mars.
THR spoke with Doyle about the network's plans moving forward.
THR: Because MTV is so much about reality shows these days, it seems like you would have the hardest job...
Amy Doyle: It's actually easier, believe it or not, because we have so many more places to express music across all of our screens. I've been at MTV more than 10 years now and the opportunities are really endless for an artist. It's just different than what it was before.
THR: Having been there so long, does the prioritization of music at the network ebb and flow?
Doyle: It really doesn't. There's always a steady stream of music on MTV, what changes is how it gets expressed. When we get into a conversation with an artist, it's not for a one-off. In other words, it's not just about the video they've got coming out, it's about putting together a global video premiere plan on both TV and online. Then we make sure we can get an interview that can be exclusive and on-demand to that artist's fans. Then (we can) talk about a live stream ... whatever we can we do to engage fans while that's happening so they can interact in real time with the artist.
THR: Where does viewership stand for the assorted screens?
Doyle: Next to MTV would be MTV2, which is in 77 million homes. MTV Hits, which is very pop-oriented, that's in 30 million homes. We have MTV Jams which is our hip-hop and R&B channel and that's somewhere between 22 and 25 million homes. And then MTVU, which has more of an indie spirit musically but is 24/7 music, is on 750 college campuses reaching somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million college students a week. All those channels have music at their core.
THR: One thing MTV has always excelled at is music placements. Have the labels seen a direct correlation between a song played on one of the network's show and sales?
Doyle: They absolutely see the impact. It's such a transparent world that we're living in right now. So literally a well-placed cue in "Jersey Shore" can affect the iTunes chart in less than 24 hours. The labels, the artists' managers, they're all seeing the impact on numbers in real time.
Take Florence and the Machine at the VMAs this year. The show wasn't even over yet but after her performance, iTunes was blowing up. It happened that instantaneously.
THR: Although it must be said that at this year's VMAs there seemed to be a disconnect in awarding videos that are only seen on the channel during the early morning hours, or not at all. Does that criticism concern you?
Doyle: No. It would if they weren't still coming to us to premiere their videos, but they are because even though they have so many choices now, they're still coming to us because they want that primetime premiere. They understand that their video premiering right after "Jersey Shore" gets more eyeballs than what used to be considered a typical video rotation.
THR: Did Lady Gaga single-handedly resurrect the music video as an art form?
Doyle: I think she shined the spotlight on the art form again. She inspired artists to really take creative control because when they do -- they don't leave it in the hands of someone else, it's their vision.
THR: Is Nicki Minaj the second coming of Gaga?
Doyle: She's got it all. When we met her, we started seeing the connection she was making with music fans and that she had this big personality. We really wanted to do something big and exciting with her that also shows people a side they haven't seen yet. She does live her life out loud. She's very active online. She's very connected to her fans and she gave us unprecedented access.
We've been with Nicki for the last three months of her life. She seems fearless and outspoken, to your earlier point about Gaga, and not afraid to be who she is. That was really refreshing to us. She didn't seem guarded, she didn't seem like she was trying to be someone she isn't. And that was when we fell in love with her.
THR: What does it take to get a video banned these days?
Doyle: We haven't done that in a long time. I don't know.
THR: Has the process gotten more lax over the years?
Doyle: I think it moves with culture. And the landscape of what people can see both on the Internet and on cable television has allowed us to always have an open conversation about what's appropriate and what isn't.

Fresh iPhone Apps for Nov. 17: Google Voice, Twitter update, Sam’s Club

t’s here! Google Voice has finally come through the gauntlet of the Apple approval process to land in the App Store. It’s full of all the great features you can get from Goolge Voice on the web and it’s free. Oh, and there are a few other cool apps, too. Go ahead and take a look below.

Google Voice (iPhone) Free

After a long wait, an Apple lockout and an FCC investigation, Google has finally gotten its first-party Google Voice app through Apple’s hurdles and into the App Store. Go forth, and download.
As we guessed back in September, the app is free and includes push notifications for voicemail and text messages. It also includes all the cool functions native to Google Voice -- free U.S. texting, voicemail transcripts and cheap phone calls. And any calls you make out of the app will carry your Google Voice number on caller ID: perfect for making calls incognito. Until someone Googles your number, that is.

Twitter update (iPhone) Free

The first-party Twitter app of the same name is, naturally, among the best Twitter clients on the iPhone, with a lot of great qualities and an easy to use interface. Its recent update adds one very cool and necessary feature -- push notifications on @ mentions.
For the Twitter uninitiated, @ mentions are messages sent from a person that include your Twitter name. The @ symbol notifies Twitter that a person’s username is being referenced, turning the name into a link into that person’s profile. The Twitter app arranges all your @ mentions into a specific tab, and the update allows you to get notifications whenever someone speaks to you directly, mentions you in a Tweet, or sends you a private direct message.

Sam's Club (iPhone) Free

It can be pretty good to be a Sam’s Club member. The stores offer discounts on all kinds of items and lots of the stores carry extra services, like car tire and battery changes, gas stations and photo developing. And it also offers this cool app, that lets you search for nearby stores by what services they offer and check to make sure the store you selected actually has the items you want.
Sam’s Club’s app has one other great built-in feature: you can take it into the store once you’ve found it and use your iPhone’s camera as a barcode scanner, instantly pulling up information about whatever you’re looking at. Forget having to track down a sales associate ever again -- everything you need for your shopping trip is already in your pocket.

The Beatles on iTunes: a day “you’ll never forget”?

No question about it — snagging the rights to sell digital versions of the Beatles' classic catalog represents a major coup for Apple, and surely must be a source of personal satisfaction for Steve Jobs, a well-known Beatles fan who's been dropping hints about the Fab Four coming to iTunes for years.
It's a big deal for the music industry as well. The Beatles were among the very last of the digital-music holdouts. A few major acts — like AC/DC, Garth Brooks and Bob Seger (go figure) — are still refusing to go the MP3 way, but the Fab Four was arguably the biggest digital-music domino yet to fall.

But for the rest of us? Frankly, I wasn't losing any sleep over the fact that the Beatles weren't on iTunes yet, and I'm guessing I wasn't alone.
After all, it's safe to say that most big Beatles fans long ago ripped their entire collections of the Fab Four's music to MP3 for use on their iPods, Zunes, or other digital music players.
And for die-hard Beatles fans looking for the best sound quality, it'll be hard to beat the remastered Beatles CDs and box sets that came out last September — all of which, by the way, are available online for less than the digital tunes (or, to be more precise, the 256 Kbps AAC files) on sale through iTunes. The remastered CD of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," for example, is on sale for $8 on Amazon, versus $13 on iTunes.
Now, if Apple had simply posted its "The Beatles, now on iTunes" banner on its home page Tuesday, with no prior warning, the Beatles-on-iTunes news probably wouldn't have been such a letdown.
Instead, Apple decided to hype the announcement a bit, plastering a teaser on Apple.com Monday morning that read: "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget," adding that we should "check back" Tuesday for "an exciting announcement from iTunes."
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the tech press (including, I'll admit, yours truly) and the Apple faithful jumped to some rather grand conclusions about what unforgettable thing might be on tap today.
Perhaps, we thought, the news would be something about all those rumors of a cloud-based iTunes — you know, a digital locker for all your music (and maybe even videos), stored and streamed from Apple's mammoth new data center in North Carolina.
Or, perhaps we'd be talking a music-subscription service, something along the lines of Rhapsody or Pandora. Besides, didn't Apple buy (and subsequently shutter) a music-streaming company called Lala late last year? And what about all that talk about Apple sniffing around Spotify, another popular online music site?
Those would've been some pretty big developments for iTunes — granted, perhaps too big to be announced with just a single day's notice.
Still, Apple was promising something we'd "never forget," right?
But dreams of iTunes in the sky or a subscription-based music service began to fade as Monday wore on, with All Things Digital's Peter Kafka pointing out that if Apple had indeed struck deals to stream tunes from the major music labels to iTunes users, his (well-placed) sources in the music industry certainly hadn't heard about it.
And the whole "Tomorrow is just another day" thing … isn't "Another Day" the title of a solo track from Paul McCartney? Yep, it sure is, and within hours, the cat was out of the bag.
While I'm probably not the only one who thinks that Apple way oversold its Beatles announcement Tuesday, there are still a few key benefits to finally having the Fab Four's albums available on iTunes.
1. For the first time ever (well, not counting old-school 45s, which came with "B" sides in any case), you can legitimately buy a single track of Beatles music. If, for example, you want to get "With a Little Help from My Friends" without having to pony up for the entire "Sgt. Pepper's" album, you're now free to do so, sacrilege or no.
2. A younger generation of music fans who've never even heard of (or don't really care about) John, Paul, George, and Ringo can now experience their tunes with a click of a button. (Assuming, of course, they haven't already done so through Pandora, which has been streaming Beatles songs for some time now, or using the dark magic of BitTorrent.)
3. You will never, ever, have to read another story speculating about when the Beatles will arrive on iTunes. (And I'll never have to write another post about Beatles-on-iTunes rumors, either.)
So, on a scale from 1 to 10, how big is Apple's news about the Beatles arriving on iTunes? Will you buy any Beatles albums online, or will you stick with the CDs?

China Mobile Seeks Smartphone Way Into Other Industries

China Mobile is moving away from being just a provider of phone calls, and instead wants to satisfy people's everyday needs, from buying cars to furniture, said the company's chief executive.
"We have to change our traditional strategy. We have to make every attempt at integrating mobile services with our customer's lives," said Li Yue at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
China Mobile currently has 569 million users, making it the world's largest mobile operator in terms of customer numbers. But the company's CEO made the comments as many telecom operators across the world face the challenge of rising costs from dealing with higher volumes of traffic.
"I still believe mobile carriers have a huge opportunity. The opportunity is in innovation," Li said.
Smartphones will pave the way for that innovation, as users grow to rely on the devices for their daily needs, he added. China Mobile believes it can tap that potential by helping users easily reach services from all kinds of different industries via their smartphones.
"In our e-commerce market, we may sell furniture, we may sell cars. We could sell anything," he said. "We want to help the users connect with these different industries."
China Mobile was the first of the country's three mobile operators to launch its own app store in August 2009. Now the store's total downloads exceed 25 million.
But China Mobile has also been branching out into other forms of media downloads. Users of the company's mobile video services have reached more than 6 million, while paid users for China Mobile's music downloads have surpassed 3.2 million.
The popularity of such downloads have caused revenues for China Mobile's data services, excluding SMS, to grow to 30.5 billion Chinese yuan (US$4.6 billion) in the first half of 2010 from 22.7 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) in the first half of last year.
Still, challenges remain with rising costs caused by data traffic and how to translate that into revenue more quickly.
In the case of China Mobile, the emergence of smartphones has produced data volumes ten times that of a standard cellphone, Li said. At the same time, growth in revenues has been sluggish.
"In 2009 and before, our revenues were increasing in the double digits. But in 2010 our revenues only have been increasing in the single digits." he added. "Every year the data volume is doubling, every year the data side of the business is giving us pressure."

Mozy 2.0 improves backup performance, interface

Mozy has announced Mozy 2.0 for Mac, a major upgrade to the company's subscription-based online backup service. Mozy 2.0 features performance and stability increases, as well as an interface redesign that makes it easier and faster to it easier and faster to run, monitor, and restore backups.
Mozy makes regularly scheduled backups of your data to its secure online servers, keeping all of your data safe in "the cloud" and away from the hazards of theft, individual hard drive failure, or floods. After the initial backup, Mozy makes incremental backups of new or changed portions of files, much like Apple's Time Machine does.
Mozy 2.0 for Mac brings a number of the enhanced features and functionality of its Windows counterpart to Mac users, including faster upload speeds generated by optimized bandwidth usage and quicker file scanning.
Mozy's interface has received a facelift that should make Mac users feel right at home. Also, its backup process is now more transparent, with more information available to the user about which files are being backed up.
Mozy 2.0 comes in two flavors: MozyHome, aimed at the home user, and MozyPro, designed for business servers. The software—which runs on OS X 10.4 or higher—is available as a free download, but you must pay a monthly subscription fee for your online backups. Licenses for each desktop computer you wish to back up costs $3.95 per month + $.50/GB per month, while a server license costs $6.95 per month + $.50/GB per month.

Vudu instant-streaming video service coming to PlayStation 3

At long last, PlayStation 3 owners will get to rent and purchase HD movies that start streaming instantly, thanks to a freshly inked deal with Vudu.
Starting next week (or November 23, to be exact), the PS3 will get access to Vudu's calalog of more than 4,000 HD movies—all of which are available in Vudu's proprietary "HDX" format, which offers 1080p video and streaming picture quality that's as close to Blu-ray as anything I've seen.

Vudu's HD videos also come with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtracks, similar to the sound quality that PS3 users now get from select Netflix instant-streaming titles.
Meanwhile, the Vudu interface will be getting a makeover next month, with cleaner lines and a slightly more polished look. You will still, however, be able to filter movie searches by genre and rating, as well as click on an actor or director's name to see all their available films.
Up until now, PS3 owners who wanted to rent new releases on their consoles had but one option: the video store on the PlayStation Network (which, by the way, isn't going anywhere, or at least not yet.)
Sony offers the usual selection of new releases and catalog titles on its PS3 video store, but they top out at 720p in terms of video quality, and movie rentals must be downloaded to the PS3's hard drive. While you can start watching before the entire file has been downloaded, videos are often subject to buffering—meaning you have to stop and wait for more data to download.
Streaming videos on Vudu, however—even those in 1080p—should start instantly for anyone with a decent broadband connection.
The arrival of Vudu on the PlayStation 3 means that the console can finally match the streaming 1080p video rentals that have been available for Xbox Live "Gold" members for more than a year now.
Indeed, the Xbox 360's ability to instantly stream 1080p movies is the main reason I'd largely abandoned my PS3 when it came to renting movies. My movie-streaming loyalties might be about to shift.
Then again, Vudu reps told me that their deal with Sony for the PS3 isn't an exclusive, leaving the door open for Vudu to arrive on other game consoles. For now, though, Sony is crowing that the PS3 is the "first and only system with dedicated gaming functionality" to get access to the Vudu application.
Vudu offers movie rentals ranging from about $3 to $6 a night, with the priciest rentals reserved for new releases in the high-quality HDX format.
There's also a selection of older, catalog titles available for $2 for two nights, representing a rare case of an online movie rental that you can access for longer than 24 hours.
Vudu started out as a video set-top box company back in 2007. Early this year, Vudu announced it would stop selling hardware, instead offering its services to HDTV and Blu-ray player manufacturers.
Just last month, Boxee announced it would start offering Vudu on its desktop video app and for its just-released set-top box.

Beatles' songs are finally available on iTunes

LOS ANGELES – Nearly 50 years after the Beatles took television by storm, the Fab Four's songs became available on iTunes on Tuesday, setting the stage for a possible new outbreak of Beatlemania — this one online.
After many a hard day's night of negotiations, Apple announced a deal Tuesday to immediately begin selling the Beatles' music by the song or the album. Until now, the biggest-selling, most influential group in rock history has been glaringly absent from iTunes and other legal online music services.
"The Beatles are one of those groups that parents and young people can kind of come together on, no pun intended," said Craig Marks, editor of Billboard magazine. "There are kids and there are baby boomers and people in between who, for whatever reason, never did download those Beatles songs because they weren't on iTunes, and now they're going to have the opportunity to do so."
Within hours of their availability Tuesday, eight Beatles recordings were at one point among the top 25 albums sold on iTunes, including a $149 boxed set at No. 13. The eight also included "Abbey Road," "The White Album" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
Apple would not release first-day sales figures or the number of Beatles albums or singles downloaded. ITunes' top albums list is a fluid, real-time chart that changes several times throughout the day; the 25th album may sell only a few thousand copies in a week.
It is unclear how big the Beatles could become on iTunes. After all, many Beatles fans already have copied the group's CDs to their iPods.
"It seems like too little, too late," said Kerry Sullivan, 24, a senior at Saint Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, N.Y. "Everyone who wants the Beatles catalog probably already has it. If, you know, they really wanted the Beatles, they know somewhere else to get it already."
Forty years after the Beatles broke up, Apple is selling 13 remastered studio albums, the two-volume "Past Masters" set and the "Red" and "Blue" greatest-hits collections. People can buy individual songs for $1.29 apiece or download entire albums, at $12.99 for a single album and $19.99 for a double.
Apple is also selling a special digital boxed set that includes all the albums and a download of the 41-minute movie of the Beatles' first U.S. concert, "Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964."
Apple struck the agreement after on-and-off negotiations with the Beatles' recording label, EMI Group, and their management company, Apple Corps.
Apple Corps had resisted selling Beatles music on iTunes in part because of a long-running trademark dispute with Apple. The feud was resolved in 2007 when the companies agreed on joint use of the apple logo and name. Many people saw that as paving the way for an agreement for online access to Beatles songs.
EMI Group CEO Roger Faxon would not say whether the Beatles had gotten a special deal from Apple, which usually keeps 30 percent and gives the rest to the label and the artists.
Even without digital sales, the band was making money. The Beatles have sold 600 million albums worldwide since the 1960s, and last year's remastered versions sold 18 million. Cirque du Soleil used Beatles music for the soundtrack to its "Love" show. And "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game came out last year.
Lance Grode, a lawyer who worked for the firm that represented Beatle George Harrison in the late 1970s, said there was fear that once the Beatles embraced iTunes, the music would be so easily available that it would be harder to promote such special releases.
But ultimately, Grode said, the Beatles probably concluded that "there was too much money being left on the table. This is a money play, pure and simple."
In a statement, the two surviving Beatles — Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr — as well as Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, and Harrison's widow, Olivia, all gave the deal their blessing.
"I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes," Starr said.
The deal gives Apple a sweet public relations boost at the start of the holiday shopping season, but sales of Beatles music probably won't make much of a financial impact on the company.
Brian Marshall, an analyst for Gleacher & Co., said he believes Beatles fans with iPods and other digital music players have already converted their CDs into digital tracks.
Even if people do rush to their computers for a "Yellow Submarine" fix, iTunes is not a big moneymaker for Apple compared with its other businesses. In the most recent quarter, Apple's revenue was $20.3 billion, and iTunes sales made up just 5 percent, Marshall said.
For the music industry, the arrival of the Beatles for download might mean even less.
"The digital music market — and the young music fans record labels desperately need to get engaged — need new music products, not yesteryear's hits repackaged," said Mark Mulligan, a Forrester analyst.
Moreover, about 90 percent of music online is downloaded illegally, music lawyers say.
Steve Gordon, a former Sony Music business executive and author of "The Future of the Music Business," said the Beatles-iTunes deal could generate as little as $5 million in the first year. "Sure, there'll be a preliminary burst of sales," he said. "If it's enough to bring the music industry back is another issue."
Younger fans may not buy Beatles albums, but that doesn't mean they're not listening.
Glenn Gass, a professor of music at Indiana University, has seen enrollment grow in the Beatles course he has taught since 1982. He is now teaching children of baby boomers raised on the Beatles.
"The Beatles are very approachable, accessible to kids," Gass said. "The melodies are so catchy. The songs have such personalities that an 8-year-old could love them."
Garth Brooks, Kid Rock and AC/DC are among the remaining major artists who refuse to sell their work through Apple. Some want more control over prices or the ability to force shoppers to download entire albums instead of individual songs.
Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, couldn't resist celebrating the Beatles' arrival with an obvious quip Tuesday. "It has been a long and winding road to get here," he said in a statement. "Thanks to the Beatles and EMI, we are now realizing a dream we've had since we launched iTunes 10 years ago."