Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th May 2010 15:34 UTC
Well, this was as inevitable as the tides rolling in. The New York Times is reporting that the US Department of Justice is investigating Apple's tactics in the digital music market. The antitrust probe is still in an early phase, and is said to focus on "the dynamics of selling music online".
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RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by Neolander on Wed 26th May 2010 20:37
in reply to "Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2010-03-08
Well this is a surprise. According to Slashdot and numerous other technology analysts, iTunes could never become a monopoly because there were so many better competitors out there like Creative, Real and Microsoft.
You forgot about recent versions of Winamp, sir
They've got a music store, too ! (Someday, I'll understand why so much people love that playlist+library mess, and what this model puts on the table except proprietary database that doesn't work with competiting software. In meantime, I just can observe how good software from the past can die through bloat and attempt to implement that messy model...)
Edited 2010-05-26 20:40 UTC
RE[2]: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by mrhasbean on Wed 26th May 2010 21:36
in reply to "RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2006-04-03
Someday, I'll understand why so much people love that playlist+library mess, and what this model puts on the table except proprietary database that doesn't work with competiting software.
That "proprietary" database is XML and can work quite happily with other software, which is why there are a number of such products available.
I find this whole thing rather interesting. Apple were responsible for building the online music market to what it is today. DRM was NOT their doing - and I say this as someone who's been involved in a project selling downloadable audio products for quite some years now. The idiotic position on this of the recording companies has to be experienced to be believed.
Apple are in fact one of our main competitors, and we don't think anything they are doing is in any way forcing the hand of the labels. Audible, the company who's been at the back end of Audio Books on the iTunes store has long been into forcing exclusivity deals - especially on product releases - and dictating pricing, and it's our understanding that Apple is in the process of shedding this contract partly because of the level of dissatisfaction amongst the vendors because of Audible's actions and policies.
While I agree that they need to be kept under scrutiny I really don't think they have anything much to worry about at the moment.
RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by jptros on Wed 26th May 2010 21:19
in reply to "Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2005-08-26
RE[2]: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by Kroc on Wed 26th May 2010 21:42
in reply to "RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2005-11-10
Not yet. It’s still early and I’m building it in spare time. I’m working towards getting the core basics working and then we could consider a small alpha testing group. All I can say (and Thom will back me up) is that it looks gorgeous, it’s not overdone in any way and it will be awesome.
RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by Nelson on Wed 26th May 2010 22:10
in reply to "Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2005-11-29
RE[2]: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by Kroc on Wed 26th May 2010 22:18
in reply to "RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2005-11-10
RE: Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on.
by Phloptical on Thu 27th May 2010 00:56
in reply to "Tech punditry: Not worth wiping your arse on."
Member since:2006-10-10
Well this is a surprise. According to Slashdot and numerous other technology analysts, iTunes could never become a monopoly because there were so many better competitors out there like Creative, Real and Microsoft.
And I suppose the iPhone will be dead before Christmas? Two years ago. However could they have got that one wrong?
The iPad will be next to go because Courier and NVidia’s Tegra are clearly superior.
P.S. OSnews v5 will be entirely Flash, with Silverlight for fallback. The special effects are really amazing. Flash is unquestionably the best technology for the future.
And I suppose the iPhone will be dead before Christmas? Two years ago. However could they have got that one wrong?
The iPad will be next to go because Courier and NVidia’s Tegra are clearly superior.
P.S. OSnews v5 will be entirely Flash, with Silverlight for fallback. The special effects are really amazing. Flash is unquestionably the best technology for the future.
Yep, sounds like slashdot.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-10
Well this is a surprise. According to Slashdot and numerous other technology analysts, iTunes could never become a monopoly because there were so many better competitors out there like Creative, Real and Microsoft.
And I suppose the iPhone will be dead before Christmas? Two years ago. However could they have got that one wrong?
The iPad will be next to go because Courier and NVidia’s Tegra are clearly superior.
P.S. OSnews v5 will be entirely Flash, with Silverlight for fallback. The special effects are really amazing. Flash is unquestionably the best technology for the future.