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Week in Apple: Google drama, security, jailbreaking, and more - Ars Technica
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 2 Aug 2009 | 3:54 am Jury awards $675K in Boston music downloading case (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 2 Aug 2009 | 3:09 am Head of English Catholics warns about emails/textingLONDON (Reuters) - The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is concerned that excessive use of emails and mobile phone text messaging is creating shallow friendships and...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 3:02 am Head of English Catholics warns about emails/texting (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 2 Aug 2009 | 3:02 am UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTVmetrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 2 Aug 2009 | 3:02 am France's oyster industry hit by fresh crisisFor the second consecutive year, the French shellfish industry has been plunged into crisis, with a mystery ailment decimating stocks of young oysters. In 2008 French oyster farmers saw...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 2:39 am The Amazing Unseen Hitler FilmsJason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.Back when my old comedy group, the Van Gogh-Goghs, used to be in North Carolina, we often met to practice in one of our members basement. The basement belonged to Galen, who was fond of looking for interesting things at tag sales, estate sales, auctions, and the like. One night, after we'd resigned ourselves to the fact that not much was going to get done, Galen pulled out a stack of old 8mm film reels he'd purchased at a recent tag sale. It being a summer night in North Carolina, and Galen's basement being cool and relatively mosquito-free, we stayed to watch the films. I don't think any of us were really prepared for what we saw.  The films started our innocently enough: vacation films from a well-to-do Chapel Hill family, at the beach, some interesting aerial shots of Chapel Hill, lots of people in fussy clothes and hats looking at the camera and waving. Some were even color, which was a bit surprising.
The next reels got more interesting. The family apparently took a trip to Europe in the early '30s. Shots of snowy alps, quaint chalets, ski lifts, and then, rows of Nazi flags. Handheld camera shots walking down a street, until a brown-shirted Nazi covers the camera lens with his hand. Cut to a Nazi rally, with the camera in the crowd, as the cinematographer raises their hand, along with everyone else in the massive arena, in a Nazi salute. Pan to the stage, small from the distance and central, as a small, familiar figure walks up to the podium, the part of his hair the hypotenuse of his facial triangle, a square cursor of a mustache under his nose, as he then starts to harangue the cheering crowd, silently. Cut back to a North Carolina basement, with six stunned, creeped-out faces, as they realize they're seeing unknown footage of Hitler. Cheerwine and Mountain Dew are gulped, nervously. Galen still has these films, and none of us could really figure out what to do with them. Are someone's home movies of Hitler (and Mussolini, If I recall) as valuable as they seem? Or are there a number of these kinds of reels floating around? The films aren't digitized at this point, but if anyone has any good advice as to what to do with them, I'l pass it on to Galen. Thanks, internet; you always know just what to do. Source: Boing Boing | 2 Aug 2009 | 1:39 am The Amazing Unseen Hitler FilmsJason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 1:39 am 3 Quick and Dirty Business HacksMy mother was a high school mathematics teacher and understood that kids learn best when learning is fun, so at a very young age she started teaching me math “tricks.” In the second grade she...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Robert Shiller on Charlie RoseEconomist Robert Shiller was on Charlie Rose last week. Here is the video.Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 12:40 am Nissan unveils 'Leaf' electric carNissan unveiled on Sunday its first all electric car, the Leaf, vowing to open a new chapter for the troubled auto industry and take a lead over its bigger rivals in zero emission vehicles.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 12:23 am Coal fires up India farmers against power plantsRajni Ramakan Patil has a message for the energy companies that want to build coal-based power stations on the land that she and two generations of her family have farmed for more than 50...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 12:19 am Back August 8thOff to St Petersburg and Moscow. Back on Saturday August 8th.Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Aug 2009 | 12:03 am Tenenbaum Lawyers Now Passing the HatNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Just when you think this case couldn't get any stranger, it now appears that the defendant's 'legal team' in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum is passing the hat, taking up a collection. Only the reason for the collection isn't to defray costs and expenses of further defending the action, but to pay the RIAA the amount of the judgment so that their client won't have to declare bankruptcy. I would suggest there might have been a much better way of avoiding bankruptcy. It's called 'handling the case competently.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 2 Aug 2009 | 12:00 am Cab Calloway, Betty Boop and Max Fleischer: "The Old Man of the Mountain"Parenting in the Internet age is great: since I'm the one who gets up with the baby first thing in the morning (we're both early, 5AM risers), I entertain her until breakfast. Sometimes she'll carry my laptop over to me, climb up onto my lap, and we'll watch videos from the net; there's plenty of great stuff on YouTube, but lately we've been exploring the Internet Archive's collection of public domain animation and cartoons. This morning we had a great time with Max Fleischer's Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain with Cab Calloway. What I'm really hoping to find is those old Max Fleischer sing along follow-the-bouncing-ball cartoons, like "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" and "Give My Regards to Broadway," but haven't turned those up yet.
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 11:04 pm Cab Calloway, Betty Boop and Max Fleischer: "The Old Man of the Mountain"Parenting in the Internet age is great: since I'm the one who gets up with the baby first thing in the morning (we're both early, 5AM risers), I entertain her until breakfast. Sometimes she'll carry my...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 1 Aug 2009 | 11:04 pm Contemporary photographers of DetroitHere's a gallery of photos by seven contemporary Detroit photographers: "These seven artists have been working in the city as explorers, adventurers and pioneers for years to capture the city as it changes,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 1 Aug 2009 | 10:55 pm Contemporary photographers of Detroit Here's a gallery of photos by seven contemporary Detroit photographers: "These seven artists have been working in the city as explorers, adventurers and pioneers for years to capture the city as it changes, evolves, devolves and transforms into something unbelievable, profound and heartbreaking. In the end they hope as a group to show Detroit as it is, not what it should be or what it was, but how it is. This in itself a provocative gesture as there are not many who feel content with the Detroit of today." The shooters are Corine Smith, Mitch Cope, Clinton Snider, Mark Alor Powell, Antonio Gomez, Ingo Vetter and Scott Hocking; and Mitch Cope, who assembled the gallery, wants to do a book of these shots. I'd buy it. 7 CONTEMPORARY DETROIT PHOTOGRAPHERS (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) (Image: Mark Alor Powell )
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 10:55 pm Bizwiki.com Launch Delivers Wiki-power to Small BusinessesCHICAGO, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Bizwiki.com launched across the USA today, promising to change the way local search works by enabling its users to build up the most detailed and up-to-date index of business in the United States.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 1 Aug 2009 | 9:08 pm Bizwiki.com Launch Delivers Wiki-power to Small BusinessesCHICAGO, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Bizwiki.com launched across the USA today, promising to change the way local search works by enabling its users to build up the most detailed and...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 1 Aug 2009 | 9:08 pm Unreleased OQO 2+ OLED Version Sells For $6,500psych787 writes "OQO's product line — much loved by their community at oqotalk — has recently suffered a slow, agonizing death. After dropping warranty repairs, not returning several units sent in, disconnecting phonelines, and leaving trash at their headquarters, a couple of units have survived and found eBay. The last one went for $4.5k. Now the only PC for sale to include an OLED has gone for $6.5k. At that price, perhaps a competitor bought the device to come up with something that meets the same market?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 1 Aug 2009 | 8:50 pm Lowdown on Lightweight Laptops - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 1 Aug 2009 | 8:40 pm What do you think? Decreased font size of iPhone access to MyAlltop pagesBy popular demand, we decreased the size of the font when people look at MyAlltop pages with an iPhone or Blackberry. Now you're able to see seven or eight headlines at once. If you don't have a MyAlltop...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 1 Aug 2009 | 6:38 pm YC-Funded FanChatter Takes Social Media To The Ball Game
FanChatter, a Y Combinator funded company that’s launching today, is a startup that’s looking to help fix this problem. The company is focused on helping major sports teams increase engagement both during and after games using user-submitted content, Twitter, and other social services. And while the company is still quite new, it’s already got some major customers, including the Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the University of Oaklahoma. One of the site’s core features is its photo gallery. During games, fans are encouraged to Email photos taken from their cell phones to a designated Email address, for the chance to have their photos appear on the stadium’s Jumbotron. Teams receive the photos in real-time and build photo galleries from them, which they can then use in place of the candid video shots we’ve all seen so many times between innings or during a time-out. Obviously teams aren’t able to display every photo submitted, but FanChatter also takes these photos and builds a shared photo album — one for each game — which can then be accessed by fans from the team’s home page. You can see what these albums look like by checking out the Twins’ page here. Fans will also soon be able to share their videos taken at the game, though these likely won’t be appearing on the Jumbotron as they take too long to filter through. Another of the company’s features is the ChatterBox, a widget that can display a stream of tweets relevant to a particular hashtag or topic (the Timberwolves have one that shows tweets with the tag #twolves). Fans can use this to communicate during the game, and to follow the latest news from home. The widget is similar to one that’s offered by Tinker, which launched earlier this year. FanChatter licenses its technology with fees set on a case-by-case basis, and has plans to extend its technology beyond sports to include other major events, like concerts. It also has plans to roll out iPhone applications, which would give fans a better way to interact with each other while they’re still at the game.  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 1 Aug 2009 | 5:43 pm YC-Funded FanChatter Takes Social Media To The Ball GameEvery day, sports fans congregate at their nearest big-league stadium to bask in each other's cheers, body paint, and beer, relishing their shared enthusiasm for the teams they love. But then the game...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 1 Aug 2009 | 5:43 pm Bootkit Bypasses TrueCrypt EncryptionmattOzan writes with this excerpt from H-online: "At Black Hat USA 2009, Austrian IT security specialist Peter Kleissner presented a bootkit called Stoned which is capable of bypassing the TrueCrypt partition and system encryption. The bootkit uses a 'double forward' to redirect I/O interrupt 13h, which allows it to insert itself between the Windows calls and TrueCrypt."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 1 Aug 2009 | 5:43 pm Hackers expose weakness in visiting trusted sites
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 Los Angeles Times | Astronaut doesn't change his undies for a month CNET News I know robots will soon be ordering us around like wait staff at the Ritz. But I am gravely concerned about an experiment that has been going on up there in space. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who returned to earth Friday, ... Shuttle Returns to Earth With a Special Passenger Shuttle Glides To Safe Landing NASA: Despite run of tough luck, shuttle lands safely |
The existence of Apple’s new so-called “Cocktail” music experience being created with the major record labels seemed to create headlines last week more for the side-talk about the Apple tablet, than the music element itself. And for good reason, because just as we wrote last week, it’s starting to sound like this is mainly another ploy to pull more money out of consumers’ pockets.
And interestingly enough, it’s also starting to sound like the music industry may be taking a cue from the rise of mobile applications, to position this new format.
Reuters has a new report today about the Cocktail plan. After you wade through the usual PR speak from music execs about how this will change the digital music experience for consumers, you get to the real nugget of information:
Will the Cocktail format drive greater digital album sales? Probably not, but that’s not what the music industry is expecting from it. Instead, label sources position it as a way to further monetize existing digital album purchases. While pricing information isn’t available, Cocktail-formatted albums will almost certainly cost more than the standard album available on iTunes.
Is there something to be said for the missing experience of opening a record or CD for the first time, and checking out things like the artwork? Of course. But if the industry execs really cared about that, they’d come up with a standard to offer that without jacking up prices on consumers to give them a better experience.
Instead, they have likely come up with a way to charge more for content, while wrapping it in some new marketing. And while the execs and most outlets are mostly pushing the Apple angle specifically, the idea is to get these new types of digital albums to all the big digital music outlets, as Greg Sandoval reported last week.
But it’s smart to push Apple’s role in this because it sounds like it is doing things a little differently than what the music labels plan to do with the rest of the outlets. And it seems like a good bet that Apple’s version could offer a better experience than the others. The reason is that Apple’s digital content is so tightly integrated with its devices. So something like Cocktail on an iPhone or iPod touch could be a lot nicer than simply trying to run it on a computer or a less capable mobile media player.
And from what’s being said about all of this, it’s starting to sound like these Cocktails may actually be album apps of sorts, that you open and interact with while listening to the music. Again, Apple has already proven itself in the app game.
It will be interesting to see if this new format takes off in Apple’s ecosystem, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the prime motivation for this is anything but a way for the labels to make more money.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Looks like the mythical Apple Tablet (or “Tapplet”) has been handled in prototype form. I can believe that this guy is telling the truth because he’s old-school journalism, working for Barron’s. Not that Barron’s is some infallible and extra-dignified news source, but it’s an establishment and they have to be extremely careful about respecting confidentiality. And since this article is so incredibly vague, I can only assume that Apple did actually show the guy something, but also told him exactly what he could and could not write.
Kind of sounds to me like one part journalism and two parts PR, but what do I know? I’m just a blogger. It could also be that he visited a less-scrupulous partner of Apple’s and got a prototype demo without many final features. That could also explain the lack of detail.
Anyway, I don’t mean to impugn the author’s reporting, it’s just funny that we get a “first hands on” that says exactly zero about the device. Basically, he just keeps saying it’s great without giving any specifics as to dimensions, specs, ports, or really anything. He does say that it will be announced in September and released in November. That’d be nice for holiday sales, but we’ve heard that it’ll actually be a Q1 2010 device.
Of course, we may as well be arguing about what kind of conditioner Bigfoot uses.
[via 9to5mac, where they have quotes if you can't read the Barron's article]
[also, it's caturday]
Everybody’s favorite OS X update, Snow Leopard, is hurtling in our direction, and Amazon has either been given the go-ahead to (or just gone ahead and) opened up pre-orders. They have caveats for both date and which update package to get:
Please note: Official release date has not been announced by Apple, though they have indicated this product will be released sometime in September.
Oh well. They’re also careful to point out that the $29 version will only work on 10.5 (Leopard) machines — nice to see an intervention there to prevent any less-savvy 10.4 users from thinking they found a great deal. They also point out that it’s “the world’s most advanced operating system, finely tuned.” Okay, I know that’s Apple talking, Amazon, why’d you put it up top? Anyway, here are the links:
Snow Leopard (upgrade from 10.5) $29
10.5 upgrade 5-pack $49
Box set (full upgrade, iLife and iWork) $169
Box set 5-pack $229
Snow Leopard Server $499
We’re all pretty pumped about the update; the major new features should make OS X better than ever. With Windows 7 right around the corner, I’m thinking both my PC and my Mac are going to a little bit more awesome by the end of the year.
[via MacRumors]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Another day, another RIAA trial victory. Joel Tenenbaum was ordered to cough up $675,000 to the record labels. It works out to $22,500 per song he downloaded off Kazaa years ago.
And while it’s so, so easy to say, “Boo, RIAA,” Tenenbaum sees the verdict as a sort of admission by the jury that his defense worked. (He was facing up to $4.5 million in damages.) He told Ars that he was “disappointed, but not surprised,” with verdict, recognizing that, yeah, things could have been much worse.
His lawyer, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, wasn’t happy with it, noting that it’s a “bankrupting award,” because Tenenbaum doesn’t have a cool $675,000 to pay for a couple of songs.
I never did understand how you could walk into a Best Buy, physically steal a CD, get caught, and still not have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. My guess is that RIAA lawyers have convinced juries and judges that for every song you put in your shared folder, and for every person that downloads, that represents lost sales. Still, it seems excessive.
Tenenbaum will appeal, of course, so there’s no point in freaking out just yet.
And, frankly, RIAA stories have lost all heat.
Hey, guys, I don't mean to interrupt your Saturday or anything, but AT&T has something very important to say regarding the letter from the FCC it received.
Hey, guys, I don’t mean to interrupt your Saturday or anything, but AT&T has something very important to say regarding the letter from the FCC it received.
It is, and I quote directly from the e-mail AT&T just sent us:
AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it.
But of course. So casual, despite the fact that the FCC is breathing down its neck.
The first sentence represents, I think, AT&T throwing Apple “under the bus,” to use that dumb cliché. A sort of, “Hey, guys, don’t get mad at us. Apple’s calling the shots here.”
You have to assume that Apple and AT&T aren’t the best of friends right now.
What a giant, unnecessary headache all of this is. And for what, really? A silly iPhone App? Come on.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FROM APPLETELL - Apple has pushed out the iPhone 3.0.1 update, defeating the SMS security hole that had been in the news of late. The update is strictly for the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, and is 280 MB.
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Where were you when Firefox passed 1 billion downloads? It happened sometime yesterday, some five years after its first release, in 2004.
It’s been a heck of a ride, I guess. Once named Phoenix, Firefox now has something like 31 percent of the Web browsers market. Internet Explorer—now with a free Nickelback song!—still has 60 percent of the market. Other browsers, including Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Opera, come in at less than 5 percent.
As to the question, where were you when Firefox hit 1 billion downloads? I was probably on the couch, watching Real Madrid get smashed by Juventus.
And this is what Firefox 4.0 (for Windows) will supposedly look like. If you like this look, may I recommend the Chromifox Add-on? It sort of gives you the look and feel of Chrome, but with good ol’ Firefox under the hood.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Here’s an update to something I touched on the other day: Does Fedor’s inclusion in EA’s MMA video game preclude him from fighting in the UFC? Apparently not, if you believe what UFC president Dana White said at a press conference yesterday.
The press conference yesterday addressed a number of issues, including the return of Tito Ortiz and a deal with ESPN UK. (ESPN is launching a new channel in the UK, primarily to showcase all the Premiership games it just won the rights to.) But what concerns us here at CrunchGear is that EA MMA game.
Dana White has said in the past that anyone, with the exception of Randy Coture, who signs up to be in the EA game will not fight in the UFC. Fedor looks to be another exception. White said that he offered Fedor an “assload of money,” a deal that he’ll never find anywhere else in mixed martial arts. For whatever reason, Fedor’s people didn’t agree to the deal. (Rumor has it that Fedor’s people want to co-promote any possible UFC fight, presumably against Brock Lesnar, something that UFC doesn’t want to agree to.)
So, reading between the lines, Fedor’s inclusion in the EA game should have no effect on any possible UFC fight(s). Other things may hold up the deal, but it doesn’t look to be the game.
National Security State
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 11:29 am
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I finally got around to uploading this 2007 video of our guest blogger, Jason Torchinsky explaining how his Dorkbake oven works.
In 2007 Machine Project in Los Angeles held the Dorkbake competition. Contestants were given a 100 W incandescent bulb and had to make an oven out of it. I think Jason came in second place.
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 11:20 am
Section: Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle
Being able to charge gadgets whenever and wherever are important, especially nowadays when most people can be found using something electronic almost all the time. Their main selling point with the MiLi charger is the fact that it can charge gadgets in many different countries. If you have ever traveled abroad before, then you probably know that each country has a different electric output. However, the MiLi combats this issue as it comes with four different interchangeable adapters, with countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and the rest of Europe.
No universal, portable charger would be good without having the ability to charge in the car. The MiLi also offers a special adapter to charge in the car on the go. Conveniently enough, the MiLi allows you to plug in the device’s original charger to charge the device without the need for additional chargers. In case you need to charge gadgets fast, be sure to take advantage of its dual charge capability. Basically it can charge two devices at once and it will let you know via LED light color when one is done charging.
In case you care about aesthetics, the MiLi comes in nine different colors, including blue, purple, green, yellow, and orange. It is available for pre-order now and it is set to ship on August 14 at a price of 20 euros, or $28.50.
Read [BeamBox]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Don’t expect to see an Apple e-book store anytime soon. No, not because the recently-turned-heel company hates books (or you) or anything, but because, well, running an e-book store is hard.
This whole hullabaloo started after the Financial Times reported that book publishers “have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about their services being offered with the new computer, which could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle.” (The new computer is the company’s rumored tablet or netbook or whatever you want to call it.) Yeah, you can extrapolate that to mean, I guess, “Oh, dear, Apple’s getting in the e-book game!” but that’s just not the case.
Alley Insider spoke to a “source connected to the e-book business,” who says that, no, Apple isn’t starting an eBook Store or whatever. Why?
One, there’s no money in e-books (there’s hardly any money in music, either), so it doesn’t really make sense for Apple to start an e-book store, and all that entails, when there’s no pot at the end of that rainbow.
Two, there’s already a few halfway decent e-book stores (Amazon’s and Barnes and Nobles’ among them), and it’d be a heck of a lot easier to just license those books for the new tablet.
Three, you or I could start an e-book store that uses iTunes and Apple will make 30 percent for every book we sell.
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
FROM APPLETELL - The MobileMe iDisk app was released by Apple this week. But don’t fret, I’ve found a number of awesome apps that are 100% free, no strings attached.
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Two weeks ago, restaurant chain Pizza Hut launched an iPhone application (iTunes link) with a bunch of bells and whistles, and apparently users were hungry for it. Downloads of the app for iPhone and iPod Touch have exceeded 100,000 downloads just before the weekend, the company informs us.
Good for them, because Pizza Hut really made an effort with the software program, which they amusingly dubbed a “killer app for your appetite”.
Aside from the ability to order food, the app boasts a bit of entertainment to spice things up. It includes a so-called “virtual fridge” where you’ll find coupons to add to your order and a free game called “Pizza Hut Racer” that you can play while you kill time waiting for your food to arrive.
More of this, please.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Sharp eyes have spotted a certain “PlayStation 3 Konsole slim” on Amazon’s German Web site. The listing, which has no price attached, is still up as I type this (around 11:30 A.M. EDT).
Does this mean that, yes!, Sony is working on a PS3 Slim? Of course not. I mean, we did see photos of a so-called PS3 Slim a few weeks ago, taken at a Chinese factory, but that, too, didn’t mean anything.
The rumors come from the fact that Sony eventually released revised, slimmer models of the PS1 and PS2. So why wouldn’t Sony want to do the same with the PS3, maybe even drop the price while it’s at it?
Of course, Amazon listing could be nothing more than the clever work of a rogue Amazon employee, so that he could turn around and show his friends, “See, look what I did now!”
via Kotaku
Section: Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video
The RIAA has won another outrageous settlement. A Boston student has been ordered to pay $22,500 each for the 30 songs he admitted to downloading and sharing. That’s a total of $675,000. A judge in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts found him guilty of infringement and asked the jury to decide damages. They were told to charge him between $750 and $30,000 per song.
6 weeks ago a Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay the RIAA $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. She is appealing the case. There is no word if the Boston student, Joel Tenenbaum, will do the same. While the RIAA has agreed to stop suing people for file sharing, it insisted on litigating the cases it had already filed.
The RIAA’s sue-happy stance and the ridiculous judgments probably won’t help them make any friends. They continue to fight against digital music, which has long since replaced the CD as the music distribution system of choice, just as CDs replaced cassettes and cassettes replaced LPs. The huge success of iTunes and the growing popularity of streaming music and internet radio have proven digital music is here to say. Unfortunately the RIAA seems determined to destroy it, between their lawsuits against file sharers and they insistence on charging internet radio stations such high per song royalties that many of them face going out of business altogether.
How do you feel about the RIAA’s actions? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Read [PCWorld]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Marilyn sez, "Bobby McFerrin uses the pentatonic scale and an audience's expectations to demonstrate neural programming at the World Science Festival 2009"
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 9:11 am
MTV Splash Page blog editor Rick Marshall says, "I interviewed Stan Lee during Comic-con, and asked him about that late-'90s deal that almost had him and Michael Jackson buying Marvel Comics. During his response, he mentioned that Jackson wanted to buy the rights to Spider-Man so he could make a movie... or possibly to star in it?! It's an intriguing "What If?" scenario, if nothing else." Neat video of Mr. Lee's reply to that odd question is here: What If Michael Jackson Made 'Spider-Man'? Stan Lee Explains How It Almost Happened!
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 8:29 am
We just got back from a pleasant morning at the London Zoo in Regent's Park with the baby. Just before we left, we stopped at the cafe for a snack. I took care of the kid while Alice lined up to buy some goodies. As the queue moved along, she grabbed a packet marked "Carrot Stix" thinking that they must be, you know, carrot sticks. Or maybe dried carrot sticks. Something that was, approximately speaking, food.
After all, the company that makes it is called "Organix." And they have a "No junk promise." And they say that there's "reduced salt" and "reduced fat."
Wait, what?
I didn't know carrots had fat or salt.
In fact, they don't.
That's because "Carrot Stix" are not, in fact, carrot sticks.
They're cheezy-poofs: deep fried powdered corn/potato snacks, dusted with "powdered carrots." They are not, in fact, carrots.
They're not even food.
Caveat emptor.
Carrot Stix
Source: Boing Boing | 1 Aug 2009 | 8:28 am
Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.
On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC’s way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet.
Today there are two different sets of rules for applications and devices on the Internet. On the wired Internet, we can connect any type of PC or other computing device and use any applications we want on those devices. On the wireless Internet controlled by cellular carriers like AT&T, we can only use the phones they allow on their networks and can only use the applications they approve. This was fine when the wireless networks were used mostly just for voice calls. But now that they are increasingly becoming our mobile connections to the Internet and mobile phones are becoming full-fledged mobile computers, an argument has been growing that the same rules of open access that rule the wired Internet should apply to the wireless Internet.
While Apple and AT&T cannot be too happy about the FCC investigation, Google must secretly be pleased as punch. It was only two years ago, prior to the 700MHz wireless spectrum auctions, that it was pleading with the FCC to adopt principles guaranteeing open access for applications, devices, services, and other networks. Now two years later, in a different context and under a different administration, the FCC is pushing for the same principles.
In its letters requesting more information from all three companies, the FCC cites “pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497). That first proceeding on open access dates back to 2007 when Skype requested that cell phone carriers open up their networks to all applications (see Skype’s petition here). Like Google Voice, Skype helps consumers bypass the carriers. The carriers don’t like that because it erodes their core business and turns them into dumb pipes.
But dumb pipes are what we need. They are good for consumers and good for competition because they allow any application and any device, within reason, to flower on the wireless Internet. So if you look at the questions the FCC is asking, it wants to know why the Google Voice app was rejected and whether AT&T (the carrier) had anything to do with that rejection:
2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications? . . .
3. Does AT&T have any role in the approval of iPhone applications generally (or in certain cases)? If so, under what circumstances, and what role does it play?
The FCC also wants Apple to explain the arbitrariness of its app approval process:
4. Please explain any differences between the Google Voice iPhone application and any Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications that Apple has approved for the iPhone. Are any of the approved VoIP applications allowed to operate on AT&T’s 3G network?
5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers? If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?
6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications? What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?
Good questions. Hopefully, the FCC will share Apple’s answers with the rest of the us. It is all a bit absurd, though. Why does it take a formal request from a government agency to get Apple (and AT&T) to explain what the rules are to get on the wireless Internet? More importantly, why are these companies allowed to be the gatekeepers to the wireless Internet? The iPhone needs to be smashed open, and the FCC is swinging the hammer.
Update: AT&T responded to this post with the following statements:
AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it.
Customers can use any compatible GSM phone on our network, not just the ones we’ve approved and sell. And they also can use apps we don’t approve. We don’t approve iPhone applications.
So there you have it. You can use any mobile app you like on AT&T—unless it is an iPhone app (that’s been rejected by Apple). Does Apple ever reject apps at the request of AT&T though? Maybe they’ll give the FCC a straight answer.
(Flickr photo credit:Stephen Heywood).
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Ever since I’ve started blogging about technology a couple of years ago, I’ve been consistently growing an immense feeling of hate towards press releases, and it’s not getting any better.
It’s not that I dislike the PR industry in general, although I often wonder how so many of these firms continue to be in business when the large majority of them have been doing it exactly the same way for the past few decades, instead of evolving.
When media distribution and usage was less fragmented than it is now, I guess it made sense for PR firms or consultants to write press releases using a given ‘best practice’ and pushing it out to a list of contacts in the publishing industry, hoping for as much coverage as possible. Regular TechCrunch readers know how we think about the PR industry - and some of its proponents - in today’s world, and in particular our stance towards embargoes.
I’d like to tackle a different problem in this post, one that reporters from around the world, whatever field they cover, will no doubt recognize. The issue I have with press releases, and the reason I think they are a thing of the distant past in their current form, is that they basically all look alike. Sure, the companies that are talked about can be different, and the type of news coming from them can be different, but the copy, form and style are often so much alike that for large parts of the announcements you could just as easily swap the names of the companies and keep the rest of the words. Oftentimes, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
My biggest gripe with press releases is that for basically as long as they’ve been around, they’ve contained the same damn words, rendering them completely meaningless in most cases and contexts. I wonder what the world would be like if these words were henceforth permanently banned from all press releases:
1 ) LEADING / LEADER
You know the kind: “Initech, the leading blah in blah blah blah, has partnered with Initrode, leader in blah blah blahblah blah blah blah.” Every single time a press release carries either one of these words in the first sentence, I cringe. Why? Because if everyone is leading, no one is. Period. PR people, next time you start writing a news announcement, ask yourself if you really should be using the words ‘leading’ or ‘leader’ just because it’s easy and everyone is doing it.
2 ) BEST / MOST / FASTEST / LARGEST / BIGGEST / etc.
Emphasizing the strengths of the company you’re pitching is obviously a good thing. But does anyone realize how meaningless these terms become when they are followed up by something so blatantly untrue or tied to a small niche that it’s just painful to read? I’m specifically thinking about press releases that commence with something like “Initech, the largest manufacturer of red staplers engraved with our company logo, has just won the Buzo Award for the most uncreative use of the word ‘largest’ in the history of mankind.” Handle these words with care.
3 ) INNOVATIVE / INNOVATION
The mother of all voidness. How many truly innovative products are launched on a yearly basis, regardless of the sector? How many times have you seen something get the ‘innovation’ label without merit? Unless you or your clients find a cure for all cancers, simply stop using it, starting today. Now that would be innovative.
4 ) REVOLUTIONARY
Much like the above, terrible word to be using in press releases. What exactly about your product is going to make people leave their houses to demonstrate, oppose their government, riot, etc.? Oh, sorry, you mean the company you’re pitching is not going to change the world but it is going to completely change the way an industry thinks about your business? Safe bet: it’s not going to. Likely you’re just doing the old ‘wishful thinking’ routine, and everyone knows you are.
5 ) AWARD-WINNING
Trust me, telling anyone willing to listen that you’ve been recognized with this or that award won’t be providing you with any goodwill right off the bat. There are exceptions to this rule, but very few (they include the Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer, a Crunchie or a Europa Award). Basically it’s like going around a party informing everyone that you’ve had sex with a human being last week: I’m sure it matters to you a great deal - and hopefully to the other person as well - but the rest of us likely don’t give a hoot. We also think it’s kind of sad that you are looking for someone to confirm or recognize your accomplishments that way. A tip: unless you’re announcing that you’ve actually won an award (which by the way is only very rarely newsworthy), leave it out.
6 ) DISRUPTIVE / DISRUPTION
Newsflash: a product or service is only very, very, very rarely disruptive. If there is a truly ground-breaking one, it’s also never disruptive out of the gate, for it can take years or even decades to turn an entire industry upside down. The fact that you’d use the word in a press release speaks volumes about your ability to tell your head from your ass: anything truly disruptive doesn’t happen overnight, and you can’t capture ‘disruption’ in a news announcement pushed out at a given time and date. Besides, if something is genuinely disruptive I’m sure it will require little push from PR people or firms to get the word out there.
7 ) CUTTING / BLEEDING EDGE
In the same boat as the words ‘innovative’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘disruptive’: so often misused in the past that it now looks like you’re practicing your skills to write quality satire when you use it to tout a company or product in a press release.
8 ) NEXT-GENERATION
Overused. If you have an updated version of your product to announce, why not just say so? I simply cannot understand what people are trying to tell me when they say their new release is ‘next-gen’. Is it too advanced or complex for me to use and will only young children have the ability to understand what you’re doing when they grow up? Did your previous product version stink so bad that you needed to skip an entire generation of iterations to finally get it right?
9 ) STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Partnering with other companies can be good - and newsworthy too, though not often - but it doesn’t help you get more attention or goodwill when you announce a strategic partnership, agreement or relationship. We’re assuming it fits in both your strategy and the one of the company or companies you team up with, otherwise you wouldn’t be forming an alliance, right? It’s not like your agreement suddenly gets a whole other dimension because it’s labeled ’strategic’, honestly.
10 ) SYNERGY
Simply defined, synergy means that the whole in combination is greater than the sum of the individual parts working on their own. Used properly, the word can describe the magnified effects of two drugs taken together, parasites that enforce each other’s destructive effects and compounded health risks due to toxic chemicals. When applied to corporations, it means a financial benefit that a company aims to realize when it merges with or acquires another corporation. As history teaches us, there’s rarely any synergy involved when companies melt together or one takes over the other (cough, AOL-Time Warner). PR people, you’d be doing yourself a serious favor banning this one from all future press releases.
Bonus words: enterprise-grade, world-class, turnkey, premier, unparalleled and unrivaled.
Can you think of any others that should be given the kibosh?
Update: awesome! The Gobbledygook Manifesto (PDF) by David Meerman Scott.
Also, if you have links to press releases that are ridden with the terms I’ve grown so resentful of, do let me know in comments. I’ll help you get started with this one about Akamai and Delve Networks’ recent forming of a strategic partnership:
“Delve Networks, a leading provider of video platforms, announces a strategic relationship with Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, that will enable Delve to offer customers a comprehensive and innovative video publishing solution that includes video management and delivery including support of next generation variable bit rate streaming technologies.”
See what led me to this post?
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So, we’ve been tracking the progress of Google Chrome on the Mac for a while. The daily builds of Chromium seem to be getting better and better, and close to being ready for prime time. One major thing missing however has been the lack of Adobe Flash support in the browser. Well, don’t look now, but it’s finally working — kind of.
Okay, to be honest, you can’t pause or stop Flash videos on sites like YouTube, but the important part is that when you click on a YouTube link, the videos actually play. That is great. I’m very, very close to using Chrome for the Mac on a daily basis already, and this may have just put me over the edge of at least using it as a secondary browser.
It’s clear that we’re getting very close to a release of Chrome for the Mac that is stable enough for regular web surfers to use. If the team has implemented Flash support, I have to believe that they are close to where they want to be in terms of a general release schedule. Of course, they have already released developer versions of the browser for the Mac, but they encouraged people not to use them. I think soon that mentality may change, and we may see a public beta.
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Every day, sports fans congregate at their nearest big-league stadium to bask in each other’s cheers, body paint, and beer, relishing their shared enthusiasm for the teams they love. But then the game ends. Everyone is forced to head back to their normal lives to trudge through their day jobs once more, at least til the next home game comes round. Social media can offer them some comfort, giving them a chance to take the community home with them. Unfortunately, many professional sports teams are still failing to tap into this effectively.
While “groundbreaking” isn’t technically on our 
Day two of this ridiculous juice cleanse experiment and I feel like a new man. By which I mean, I feel like my insides aren’t fully developed, I have no strength in my arms or legs and the idea of eating solid food is just a distant dream.