Nokia N91 with iTunes – Yes/No

Nokia N91 with iTunes - Yes/NoSpeculation about Reuters reported than Kari Tuutti, spokesman for Nokia’s multimedia division said, “There is no commercial agreement between Nokia and Apple to integrate iTunes into the N-series devices.”

Nokia N91 with iTunes - Yes/NoIn a making-the-most-out-of-a-difficult-situation way, Kari went on to say, “But since this is based on a computer platform, anybody — including Apple if they so wish — can very easily develop this kind of application and offer it to consumers, via the Internet for example.”

Apple have publicly been working with Motorola to take iTunes to some of their new phones, including the E680i and E725.

As you’d imagine with any story attached to iTunes, there’s been a lot of excitement and words written about the now long promised beauties from Motorola. As yet, they haven’t been seen in public – which we feel must be pretty embarrassing for them. Reuters reports that one of them should be with US operators by the end of September.

Nokia
Apple

Apple Cock-Up May Earn Microsoft $10 Per iPod

Apple Cock-Up May Earn Microsoft $10 Per iPodApple may be forced to shell out royalties to Microsoft for every single iPod it sells after it emerged that Microsoft was first to file a crucial patent on technology used in its iPod.

With Apple selling more than 18 million iPods in the past year alone, the total bill could result in hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into Bill Gates’ coffers.

Someone at Apple must have royally cocked up because although the iPod was introduced in November 2001, they didn’t get around to filing a provisional patent application until July 2002, with a full application only being submitted in October that year.

In the meantime, Microsoft submitted an application in May 2002 to patent some key elements of music players, including song menu software, letting them claim ownership to some of the iPod technology.

The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected Apple’s application in July, saying some ideas were similar to an earlier application filed by John Platt, a Microsoft employee.

Apple Cock-Up May Earn Microsoft $10 Per iPodThe application doesn’t identify the iPod by name (usual for such petitions), describing a “portable, pocket-sized multimedia asset player” capable of managing MP3 music files including “a song title, a song artist, a song album, a song length”

The dispute could lead to Apple having to pay a licence fee for the technology of up to $10 a machine

Microsoft, has magnanimously offered to licence the technology to Apple if awarded the patent with Microsoft intellectual property licensing and business development director David Kaefer smirking, “Our policy is to allow others to licence our patents so they can use our innovative methods in their products.”

Apple representatives have stated they will appeal the decision, a process that could drag on for up to 18 months.

iPod patent rejection shocks Apple

Teenagers Wanna iPod, Creative Suffer; Mac OS X On Intel PC’s?; Space Shuttle Still Cool – Teenage Tech News Review

Teenagers wanna iPod, Creative suffer
Creative MP3 PlayerApple legal team don’t stamp down on the whole operation and try to deny its entire existence as they have done with similar projects before.

Space shuttle continues to be cool
Shuttle Returns From Space SafelyFirst of all, space is cool from the perspective of a teenager, and there’s no worrying about how much tax payers money is put into these kind of projects. With this in mind, I was delighted to hear that the Shuttle returned safely from space, marking yet another success for man’s conquering of the heavens.

There was one little niggling thing at the back of my mind about space exploration though: What is its actual use? I mean, if you look at other scientists, you always get a result (well, mostly anyway) from their research, and they always seem to discover things. With Astronauts however, I sometimes fail to grasp how their work has any sort of similar results, and how they could be an advantage to mankind. Maybe it’s time for N.A.S.A. to put a little more of their money into telling people exactly what they are achieving, apart from making slinky space suits and gadgets that look cool. If they explained the good of their work a little more, maybe people would be a little more eager to see what they’ve been working at. (Velcro is the oft-quoted example of tech from space travel, but there must be some more recent examples – Ed)

Talking of space, I made a funny Discovery (Get it? Discovery! Sorry…) Anyway, apparently, N.A.S.A. has had to send pregnancy testing kits up into space to resupply the ISS. I wonder what they’ve been doing up there… ;-)

Oz Gov Give Away Data; DRM Chips On Motherboards; Apple’s Mighty Mouse – Teenage Tech News Review

Australian Government Sells Servers Containing Confidential Information
Australian Government Sells Servers Containing Confidential InformationLet’s start this week’s news with some nice, old-fashioned, technological paranoia: As a teenager, you start to realise that giving everyone your mobile number, letting people know where you live and freely handing out your email address can be a bad thing. Imagine my surprise then when I found out that the Australian government had sold 18 of its servers at a government auction, all carrying confidential information, without erasing any data from them. “Who did they sell these to?” I hear you ask … Well no, it’s not some big company, it’s an individual called Geoffrey Huntley, who has his own blog and who promptly wrote about the issue of these servers having confidential information on them at sale. Using a basic knowledge of AIX, the operating system these servers were running, it was then possible to access all the information on every server, including financial information and emails sent and received.

This sort of occurrence does make me think that it is unsafe to give anyone information, unless I know it is safe with them, as it could all too easily fall into the wrong hands. More must be done to safeguard people’s information in this age of hacking and phishing, where anything not bolted down to the virtual ground is electronically stolen by people who wish to use this information for profit.

The Australian government, it seems, has tried to hush the issue up, as the Web page that originally documented the sale of confidential information carrying servers has now been erased from Geoffrey Huntley’s blog, although it is still available, as above, from a mirroring service.

No DRMDRM on motherboards
As well as compromising people’s privacy, technology can also restrict people’s freedom: Everyone’s known it’s been coming for a long while, but DRM (Digital Right’s Management) chips have started to be incorporated into motherboards. Although at present these are only present in Apple’s new Intel developer machines, Windows looks set to follow suit in its next release and require these chips to be implemented. What these sort of chips do, is to enable applications to make sure that a file or program will only work on the computer which has the right DRM chip. If this sounds similar to the current ways of protecting intellectual property with serial numbers, then think again: These serial numbers will be built-in to computer’s mother boards, meaning that they cannot be changed. For me, this is quite a serious blow, as I like to have the freedom to choose what sort of media I want to play, and from where I get it. This sort of inflexible and likely uncircumventible control could also allow computer manufacturers to enforce people to use a certain OS or certain software. With Microsoft’s clout and their habit of making sure that manufacturers of computers are tied into an agreement of bundling Windows with their computers, they might also enforce them to bundle chips with their motherboards that make them only boot Windows. These upcoming technologies will doubtlessly hurt consumers, but it remains to be seen how restrictive they will be.

Mighty Mouse: Apple’s Multi-Button Mouse
Mighty Mouse: Apple's Multi-Button MouseIn other news: After years of Apple thinking themselves obviously superior by having just the one mouse button, and after years of jokes about how Mac users are inferior because they can’t use more than the one button, Apple has gone back and decided to bring out a mouse with not one, not two, but three buttons, as well as a four way scroll wheel. They have called their mouse, quite simply, Mighty Mouse. What’s so special about this though, and what sets it apart from the hordes of multi-button, Mac-compatible mice out there on the market? The answer is, the mouse has no physical buttons at all! The mouse incorporates iPod-esque touch sensitive technology to make the mouse appear button-less, but still work just fine. Very nice. An earlier argument of many Mac-users was that having just one button on a mouse made computing more accessible to beginners and so called technology-virgins, and I can agree with that statement: Teaching my Mum to use a PC is still a work in progress, and she still asks which button to click. Teaching her to use a Mac, on the other hand, was simply a matter of telling her how to turn the machine on, and what her login password was. Anyway, the new mouse from Apple, having no physical buttons, is programmable to have either one, two or three buttons, meaning that users can specify, on a user-specific basis, which features of the mouse they would like to have, and which ones they would like to leave well alone. What this means, is that You, your Gran, and your Mum can all use the same computer with the same mouse, but still all have as many buttons as suits them and their computing abilities. The mouse should also work just fine with a Windows computer, although from personal experience, trying to use Windows with one mouse button is a bad experience!

Apple Mighty Mouse Announced

Apple Mighty Mouse AnnouncedApple has announced its latest product, the button-bedecked Mighty Mouse, revealing their first departure from the company’s traditional preference for single button input devices.

The new mouse carries four independently programmable buttons and a Scroll Ball that lets users scroll all over the place – up, down across and even diagonally.

Apple Mighty Mouse AnnouncedApple’s stubborn refusal to include more than one button on its standard mouse has long brought scorn from the Windows community who were at a loss to understand why Mac users were being deprived of the clear productivity benefits of multi-buttoned mouses (Mice? Micii?)

Up to now, professional Macheads have long complained at being forced to shell out for third party products to enjoy the same button-tastic functionality as their Windows counterparts.

Extra buttons are particularly useful in video and graphic design applications, so Apple is hoping that their four-buttoned and programmable Mighty Mouse will prove a hit.

Apple Mighty Mouse AnnouncedNaturally, Apple have added a little bit of pizzazz to the design, hiding the touch-sensitive technology under a plain shell. This detects which part of the mouse is being clicked, letting users left- and right-click.

Notably, the mouse is a cross platform product, and PC users will be able to tweak and customise the mouse settings using the Mouse control panel on Windows systems.

Sadly, the mouse is a corded device, so we’ll be sticking with our dockable, rechargeable wireless Logitech device for now. And that’s got seven buttons and doesn’t come with a silly name – take that Jobsy!

Apple Mighty Mouse AnnouncedApple’s new feast of buttons will work on Mac OS X (programmability requires Mac OS X v10.4.2 Tiger or later) and Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Pricing is £35 (~€50, US$62~) in the UK or a considerably cheaper US$49 (~€40, £28~) in the US.

Kodak

iBook And Mac Mini Range Beefed Up By Apple

iBook And Mac Mini Range Beefed Up By AppleApple Computer has unveiled updates to its iBook laptop and Mac Mini lines, lobbing in new features, more memory and built in wireless technology – although the anticipated widescreen models failed to run up at the launch party.

Mac iBook

Apple’s new iBook line now comes with a scrolling trackpad and a clever sudden motion sensor which helps protect a spinning hard drive if some clumsy klutz drops the notebook.

EU RulesThe new iBook G4s now come with a faster Power PC G4 processor running up to 1.42 GHz, with 512MB memory as standard, higher performance graphics and built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

The enhanced range features the ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32MB of dedicated video, with machines either offering a slot-load SuperDrive (for burning DVDs and CDs), or a slot-load Combo drive (for watching DVDs and burning CDs).

Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 (Enhanced Data Rate), 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet and integrated AirPort Extreme 54 Mbps 802.11g WiFi wireless networking is provided as standard, with Apple claiming up to 6 hours battery life.

EU RulesThe 1.33 GHz PowerPC with 12″ screen G4 iBook retails at £699/US$999 and its bigger 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 iBook with 14″ display knocks out for £899/US$1299.

‘The new iBook is the perfect portable for the go anywhere, do anything digital lifestyle of consumers and students,” roared David Moody, Apple’s VP of Mac Product Marketing.

“With improved performance, double the memory, and new mobility features like the scrolling TrackPad, Sudden Motion Sensor and Bluetooth, the new iBooks are an amazing value,” he positively insisted.

Mac Mini

iBook And Mac Mini Range Beefed Up By AppleThe diminutive Mac Mini range features three new models – the 1.25 GHz Mac Mini, 1.42 GHz Mac mini and the new 1.42 GHz Mac Mini with SuperDrive – with memory upgraded to 512 MB throughout.

Prices start at £349/US$499, with a version featuring built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth selling at £429/US$599.

A further model offering DVD and CD burning capabilities via a SuperDrive will knock out for £499/US$699.

They may be pat-on-the-head teensy, but Mac Minis come stuffed with connectivity options, including one FireWire 400 and two USB 2.0 ports, DVI (supporting VGA), and built-in 10/100 BASE-T NIC.

All of the machines ship with Mac OS X version 10.4 ‘Tiger’ OS and iLife ’05

“Mac Mini has been a popular choice for consumers getting started with Mac OS X and iLife ’05,” beamed Moody.

“With double the memory and new features like built-in wireless networking and DVD burning, the new Mac Mini delivers an even greater value in an innovative compact design,” he purred.

Apple

Mac Mini Overheating Issues?

Mac Mini Very Susceptible To Weather Induced Heat IssuesWhat with the summer in full swing, and the weather in the good old UK being as warm as it has been, I have observed some serious heat issues while using my Mac Mini.

On particularly warm nights, the fan never seems to switch itself off, and seeing as it’s in my bedroom, I have to switch the computer off so I can sleep.

It’s also my Web server (I’m on a budget, get over it!), and so this means my Website is unavailable on warm nights. This fan issue is also accompanied with terrible performance, and occasional freezes and crashes, which is something that never otherwise really happens on a Mac.

Mac Mini Very Susceptible To Weather Induced Heat IssuesAt first, I had put it down to my Mac simply not running as well as it used to for whatever reason, but today it’s been considerably cooler because it’s rained, and all of a sudden my Mac Mini is running perfectly again.

Whether this issue is widespread or not isn’t clear at this point, but I for one, can vouch for the inability of this computer to run properly in hot weather. Is it Apple’s way of getting people to go outside on a hot day, or is it simply Apple cutting costs and making sub-standard products? Who knows, but I sure find it irritating not to be able to check my emails reliably on a hot day!

So, word of warning: Either pack your air conditioning unit along with your Mac for those warm days, or forget using your Mini when the sun’s shining.

Makes me want an iFridge ;-)

Is this a one off or have you had problems with this too? Get in touch and let us know.

vPod: Apple Closer To iPod Video Player?

Apple To Create iPod Video Player?The rurmour mill continues to hum with speculation that Apple are set to introduce a video playing iPod-like device in the near future.

Apple are already said to be talking to major music labels like Warner, EMI, Vivendi, Universal Music and Sony BMG about acquiring licenses to sell music videos through their hugely popular iTubes online store.

The videos are expected to start appearing on Apple’s online store in September at US$1.99 per download (~£1.15~€1.54)

The Business 2.0 blog reports that Apple is trying to strike similar deals with Disney, ABC News and ESPN.

As ever, Apple are keeping Mum on any proposed new hardware, although Steve Jobs has already commented about how the current iPod screen isn’t ideal for watching videos.

Apple To Create iPod Video Player?This has led to speculation that the company will be revising the iPod to create something like the ‘vPod’, a concept device created by design firm Pentagram which was published in Business 2.0 Magazine in March.

The magazine’s mocked-up machine looked like a version of the classic white iPod, stretched out to accommodate a wide-format screen.

An oversized iPod form would be unlikely to find favour with Jobs as he has already dismissed larger devices such as the Creative Portable Media Center for being too bulky and cumbersome to be a truly convenient portable player.

In fact Jobs has adamantly said ‘no” to video on several occasions, commenting in October that video on the iPod is “the wrong direction to go … there’s no content” and competitors providing video are “digging in the wrong place.”

Trouble is, Jobs is well known for trying to confuse competitors with double speak and bluff – he made much the same negative claims about Flash-based music players before releasing the Shuffle.

For many, the smart money is on Apple leaving the iPod as it is and introducing a completely different video player that will aim to grab the public’s imagination in the same manner as the iPod captured the music download market by the MP3s.

Apple To Create iPod Video Player?The big problem with trying to create a multimedia device is that people demand quite different things for mobile audio and video.

Music listeners want a small device that can fit into their sweaty jogging pants, while video buffs want a big wide screen for their moves that won’t be obscured by a few flakes of popcorn.

How Apple can resolve this quandary and come up with a competition-crushing compromise is anyone’s guess, but B2.0 editor Paul Sloan feels confident that they’ll manage it:

“If the past is any measure of what’s to come, Jobs will enter the arena late (as he did with the iPod) only to leapfrog over the competition with some entirely different device. And that could leave everyone from Microsoft’s Bill Gates to Sony’s Howard Stringer once again racing to copy their far smaller rival.”

Business 2.0

Apple To Become Mobile Phone Operator?

Apple To Become Mobile Phone Operator?The Apple rumour mill has been cranking into overdrive over the weekend after Forbes reported that the company may be considering becoming a mobile phone operator.

With Apple already rumoured to be developing a hybrid iPod/cell phone with Motorola, the article claims that “the pieces are in place for it to happen later this summer”, adding that companies like Virgin and Walt Disney have already proved that a new network model can allow all kinds of businesses to easily enter the mobile market.”

Disney will be launching its family-centric ‘Disney Mobile’ wireless phone network sometime next year, aiming to serve up a family-friendly mobile service with custom handsets and premium phone content (i.e. irritating ringtones and Disney-based games).

Since all the calls will be routed through Sprint’s national cellular network, Disney won’t have any infrastructure investment costs, but will gain access to a dedicated, direct marketing channel to da KidZ, scooping up network revenue and gaining a new content outlet.

Forbes predicts that Apple’s reputation for creating cool, user-friendly handheld gadgets could ease their transition into the mobile business.

In July last year, Apple announced its partnership with handset maker Motorola to create an iTunes-capable phone, but the product failed miserably to materialise at its scheduled CeBIT March 2005 launch.

Apple To Become Mobile Phone Operator?However, a report in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday claimed that Motorola will finally “unveil the first fruits of its partnership with Apple next month with the launch of its iTunes mobile phone at the V Festival.” The festival runs from 20th to 21st August 2005.

So far Apple is keeping Mum on the rumours about it entering the mobile market, although Steve Jobs has frothed enthusiastically about the cellular marketplace in the past:

“The mobile phone market…is a phenomenal opportunity to get iTunes in the hands of even more music lovers around the world.”

Forbes.com concludes that Apple is not the only big company that might roll out a cellular service this year with analysts suggesting that uber-brands like Nike and Wal-Mart could be planning their own networks.

Forbes

iTunes Live8 McCartney/U2 Track Fast Release

Apple iTunes Releases Live8 McCartney/U2 TrackHot on the heels of the hugely successful Live8 concert in London, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has made the opening performance of The Beatles’s “Sergeant Pepper” (sung by McCartney with U2) available for purchase through its store.

With the Guinness Book of Records monitoring proceedings to see if the venture qualifies as the fastest-ever global release of a live track, the speedy release reveals how digital technology has vastly accelerated the distribution of content.

Straight after the live performance, the opening track was transmitted by satellite to BBC TV Centre in London and then relayed to UK radio broadcast company, Capital Radio.

A direct digital recording was captured there for Universal Music, which edited, mastered and transmitted the track to its production centre in Hanover, Germany.

The final master was forwarded on to Universal’s global electronic distribution warehouse in the US, and made available for real-time delivery to online retailers around the world, ready to be purchased as the “first Live 8 download”,

Apple iTunes Releases Live8 McCartney/U2 TrackDistribution is to be exclusively digital, so there will be no physical product. All profits are to be donated to Live 8, “and the fight for the future of Africa”, according to the iTunes Website.

A further message on the site reminds users: “100 artists, a million spectators, one billion viewers, and one message: stop extreme poverty in Africa”.

Despite battling hard with unhealthy levels of cynicism all week – a feeling not helped by Apple’s self-serving publicity and the presence of Bill Gates at the Live8 show itself – I can only applaud anything that raises awareness of the obscene disparity of wealth in the world.

Let’s just hope that people don’t think that downloading the track is anywhere near enough.

iTunes
Live 8