It's entirely possible you were so busy drooling over the new iPods that you missed an interesting little role the devices are playing at one particular institution of higher learning. Faithful viewer Jeff Wiley forwarded us a CNET article which is mostly about the new 'Pod launch, but which mentions a deal with Duke University that has us almost wanting to go back to school. Almost.

Check this out: "Duke University will give Apple iPods to each of its 1,650 freshmen this fall, allowing them to access class schedules and course information, as well as play music via the devices." Now, it's been many, many years since any of the AtAT staff were college freshmen, but none of us recalls receiving anything like an iPod (or, since this was back at the dawn of civilization, a goat) just for showing up. Those lucky Duke froshlings will be using a custom version of iTunes that "will allow students to both buy music and download class information," with the latter material presumably settling into the iPod's Calendar and Notes. This is reportedly just a pilot program, but regardless of whether or not it takes off, the Duke freshmen get to keep the iPods. (To which we can only think, yeah, just try taking them back.)

Duke apparently sees the iPod experiment as more than a way of getting kids to class on time. Tracy Futhey, Duke's veep of IT, wants to see the school's faculty and students "think creatively about using digital audio content and a mobile computing environment to advance educational goals." So, what, then... recordings of lectures downloadable through the special DukeTunes? Audio-based homework assignments? Who knows? But there's a chance this could get interesting enough that we'd stop fuming in envy about all those freshmen getting free iPods. See, we're still wrapping our heads around the notion that what we paid for our 5 GB, 10-hour battery original 'Pods will now fetch a slimmer, lighter model with eight times the storage capacity and two extra hours of juice. But we digress.

From Apple's perspective, we can't help wondering if this is the first prong in an Apple plot to stifle all those college Napster deals popping up all over the country. After all, if the kids have iPods, they're going to use them-- and obviously not with Napster songs, which aren't compatible. Suppose Napster's twitching yet, knowing that it might have to shell out more of its nonexistent cash for more free hardware giveaways?