Are the Beatles clinging to CD release for corporate spite?
So tomorrow’s iPod-centric Apple event won’t be including the Beatles coming to iTunes on the day the remastered CDs come to retail. Apple Corps (The Beatles) has fueded with Apple Inc (formerly Apple Computer), so you have to wonder if this is a continuation of that. I would think this isn’t some silly way of preventing Apple Inc from making money on Beatles music, considering the post-Beatles music by John, Paul, George and Ringo is available on iTunes. Do the artists (and their estates) have less control over their single-career music than Apple Corps does of Beatles music?
This music will still wind up in iPods/iPhones when CD buyers Import to iTunes. This seems like a weird sort of timing. Are the Beatles (and estates) looking for more money from an iTunes distribution deal than Apple Inc was willing to give? Is it the opposite, and there’s actually a super secret digital exclusivity deal with Apple Inc? It’s not like Amazon’s MP3 store announced that it’s digitally distributing this music tomorrow.
Or maybe the Rock Band deal has a timed exclusivity? I still don’t see how an MP3 competes with a Rock Band download. People already buy music licenses for different devices twice (or for cell phone ring tones, THRICE).
If Apple Inc doesn’t announce Beatles on iTunes tomorrow, it’s a weird bit of timing, and will probably result in whispered conversation wondering why that isn’t happening, and that hasn’t worked out so well for AT&T’s reputation, with them delaying MMS and tethering on iPhone.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/08/despite_date_beatles_not_coming_to_itunes_wednesday_report.html
UPDATE: Just a weird bit of timing, I suppose.
Google enters the netbook OS ring
Google announces development for open source Chrome OS for netbooks
That sound you hear is Microsoft and its third party support sweating (even just a little). The dominance of the market share is splintering further. Let’s see: Google is #1 in search, RIM’s Blackberry OS is probably #1 in mobile OS, with iPhone, Google Android and Palm Pre’s WebOS getting good reviews and growing fast, Microsoft IE is the #1 web browser, but continuously losing market share, and Windows is still #1 desktop/laptop OS (this is based on what I’ve read and seen and is not 100% fact, but I’d put money on this being REAL close). I hear more and more positive things about Linux, with netbooks getting more prominent as low-cost portable computer solutions.
Apple notebook sales are growing stronger than other manufacturers’ (in a lousy economy, too) and their marketing forced Microsoft to respond, and do so awkwardly. They’ve had to spend a lot of money to overcome Vista’s faults, such as the annoying security messages, initial driver problems, and most importantly, Microsoft’s business model that allowed third party hardware pre-installed with Vista without the specs to optimally run it. First they had Bill Gates hang out with Jerry Seinfeld to our amusement. Lately they’ve been marketing as the low-cost provider, sending people into a Best Buy with cash for a notebook, but leaving out the hidden extra costs involved, like a need for an annual anti-virus software license, the more expensive Windows 7 upgrade (when compared to the price of Snow Leopard for a Mac buyer/Leopard OSX owner) and the stark difference in brand consumer satisfaction. My earlier blog post was about the weird decision to use gross imagery to market IE8, in a desperate attempt for attention.
Google has the money and brand power to further split the market that Microsoft and Linux are sharing. This next decade will be very different from the 90s. VERY different.
Internet leading our next step in evolution?
You have to love the open-minded, scientific genius. Stephen Hawking things we’re in a new evolutionary step.
The Internet is certainly an enormous leap over print publishing with its speed and participant access to join the cultural collective consciousness, but so far, it’s been a sociological evolution. The speed at which knowledge is shared has evolved beyond even the first incarnation of the Internet. CD-ROM killed the print encyclopedia and Wikipedia replaced Encarta. E-mail was limited to who you directed the knowledge to be shared because you needed their e-mail address, just like you needed a mailing address for print letters. Chat rooms were limited to a specific time and group, not much difference from a conference call. The newer social web, with server-based storage of those interactions, which doesn’t require a specific time-frame (made possible by server storage and some nifty JavaScript work) or specific address (just search for them on Facebook). The more people expect others to be on Facebook, the more people will join. It is far more efficient for a participant’s time, like DVR-ing an on-going, digitally public conversation.
The social web is happening just as the mobile web is transferring from “business class” to “coach”. A brilliant scientist can write from anywhere to potentially everyone. It’s stored somewhere, for all to see, and they can instantly share it with everyone they know, who can then share it with the next group level out, and the knowledge spreads super fast. Unfortunately, the same power is given to an idiot who can’t string a sentence together in the comments section of a website.
A mobile web device is a world-wide communicator. Combined with a social web site, it’s a powerful tool and is not limited to some silly fad for celebrities or for moms to post baby pictures. It’s being used for potential social change. I love that the State Department specifically requested that Twitter delay shutting down for maintenance because it was a great subversive tool to embrace the public outcry in Iran and undermine Ahmadinejad’s re-election. The Internet used as a foreign policy weapon without the bad PR of a loss of American blood and money.
But again, that’s all sociological change. Evolution would require some change to our biological existence.
Will we achieve eugenics altering technology before, after or concurrently with cybernetic enhancements? Either way, Hawking brings up a good point: we’ll have evolved on our own terms. It sounds very cool: less hereditary diseases, on-board knowledge at any second, but it’s also very scary:
Resistance is futile
I need to watch this again.
What happens to our species when we direct our own evolution?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
You stay classy, Microsoft
Microsoft is using an ad online featuring a woman projectile vomiting from seeing something in her significant other’s browsing history to market Internet Explorer 8. They’re promoting the new private browsing feature, hosted by TV’s former Superman, Dean Cain. Yep, it’s real. I wish I was kidding: http://mashable.com/2009/07/01/ie-vomiting/
Another example of Microsoft’s horrendously awful marketing lately. Apple uses Justin Long and John Hodgman. Fun and clever. Microsoft uses bullshit laptop buyers in a Best Buy going for cheap instead of quality, and now, projectile vomiting.
Ironically, it’s how I feel when writing CSS bug fixes for IE6.
What will we see from them to market Windows 7? Someone with a stomach virus and diarrhea thanks to a lesser operating system? I can’t wait.
Safari 4 supports HTML 5 features and CSS 3
No longer in Beta.
http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html
Nice to see advanced web design/development feature support. It’s nice to see a major computer company pushing innovation on the web.
The browser wars wage on.
Apple’s blind spot
The Mighty Mouse is just not up to par with the rest of Apple’s hardware design quality. The scroll ball is constantly glitchy, the glossy plastic is not great for precise, non-slip mousing and an old supervisor showed me that Logitech seems to create mice way better. I would love to see this quirky thing replaced before Steve Jobs announces the new iPhone models next week.
Internet Explorer 6 is a jalopy
Internet Explorer 6 is the most widely used browser from a Dark Age of stifled innovation, but as of April 09, 17.52% of surfers are still using it. How far down the Information Superhighway will these users need to be before they brake down and finally enjoy the free upgrade to 2006’s version 7 (or even better, IE8)? Not long, apparently. Microsoft has lost a lot of ground, and the future does not look bright for the browser once brought to you at gunpoint. The browser options are becoming more diverse by the year.
I’ve been asked why I haven’t fixed some issues with my site that come up in IE6. I’ve decided that, while I could (and maybe should), I’d like to encourage an IE6 user who checks out this site to come enjoy the tastiness of tabbed browsing and more web standards compliance. Experience the web applications that will change your future, like Gmail and Mobile Me, with unique features made possible by new browsers.
And that’s where cars differ from web browsers. While some classic cars can still be restored and have an elegant beauty and design, justifying a wave of nostalgia, few look back at old computer technology like 5.25″ and 3.5″ floppy drives, read-only CD-ROMs, and dial-up Internet access and think “Wow, I really want to go back there. It was better.”
Nope, those things are jalopies. Wikipedia states: “When a jalopy gets to a state in which its maintenance becomes too expensive, its owner would be required to make a decision about its fate.” IE6 is a resource-guzzling mess and should be retired as soon as possible. It’s becoming too time-consuming and expensive to justify resources used for hacks and fixes. We designers and developers have a responsibility to encourage its demise. Innovation depends on it. Let’s take the hand of IE6 users and pull them out of the Dark Ages.
Get Firefox, Safari, Opera, or at least Internet Explorer 8.
UPDATE: Probably the best solution on how to deal with IE6 style sheets that I’ve seen. I will adopt this method immediately, although I’ve kind of done that already by informing my clients that the site won’t match pixel-for-pixel in IE6. But I won’t ever leave them hanging on the functionality.
