Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media

Submission + - Report: NBC wanted a cut of iPod revenue (news.com)

Submitted by
mytrip
mytrip writes: "I will say this: NBC's Jeff Zucker has got serious stones.

According to a report in the venerable entertainment industry trade rag Variety, Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue as part of the failed negotiations between the two companies over a contract extension for the right to sell NBC's shows on iTunes. (Thanks, Valleywag.) If that's true, wow.

A source familiar with NBC Universal's negotiations confirmed that the company asked for a slice of iPod revenue but only after Apple refused to budge on variable pricing.

"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," Zucker reportedly told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta during a benefit for former football powerhouse Syracuse University. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.""
Media

Submission + - NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing (appleinsider.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the most colorful description yet, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.

"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,"
Security

Submission + - OS X Leopard firewall flawed 1

Submitted by cycoj
cycoj writes: German IT magazine Heise takes a look at the new OS X Leopard firewall. They find it flawed. When setting access to specific services and programs for example to only allow SSH access, they found that a manually started service was still accessible. From the article:

"So the first step after starting Leopard should be to activate the firewall. The obvious choice to do so is the option to "Set access to specific services and programs", which promises more control over network traffic. Mac OS X automatically enters all shared resources set up by the user, such as "Remote login" for SSH servers, into the list of accessable resources.

However, initial functional testing quickly dispels any feeling of improved security. A service started for testing purposes was able to be addressed from outside without any difficulty. The firewall records this occurrence."

Even with the firewall set to "Block all incoming connections" ports to netbios, ntp and other services were still open.

"Specifically these results mean that users can't rely on the firewall. Even if users select "Block all incoming connections," potential attackers can continue to communicate with system services such as the time server and possibly with the NetBIOS name server."
OS X

Submission + - Ars Technica's Review of Mac OS X Leopard (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
LKM
LKM writes: "This is it. The one you've been waiting for. The definitive Review of Mac OS X Leopard. John Gruber writes about the review: "Six major releases of Mac OS X. Six times, the same guy has written the best review." The guy's name is John Siracusa, and the review can be found over at Ars Technica. Quote from the part about improvements to the Mac OS X file system:

"With the addition of a public API for asynchronous file system notifications, Mac OS X has finally achieved feature parity with BeOS in all major areas of file system technology. There were compromises along the way, but also many advances. BeOS never had a persistent log of file system events, nor did it provide metadata indexing on non-BFS volumes. Leopard provides that and more (Spotlight can actually search across servers now too), all with a collection of extremely conventional userspace libraries and daemons running on top of only the barest few kernel hooks.

It's often seemed as if Apple has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future of file system technology, but at least it has finally come around. Yes, there have been bumps in the road, and things surely have not turned out exactly the way I expected them to. But in the end, it's the results that count."
If you're only going to R one FA this year, make it this one."
Windows

Submission + - Dell pulls support for x64 Vista? (neowin.net) 5

Submitted by
leighklotz
leighklotz writes: "This message is getting forwarded about with some concern by those who have to validate software on multiple platforms...it looks like Windows is beginning to see the fragmentation that Linux is so often accused of.

A user named "Morpheus Phreak" wrote on neowin:

I do a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Edition. The install finishes and my system reboots with in-box drivers for almost all of my hardware. The first thing I do is go to the Dell Support site and download drivers, or do I? It seems that Dell has decided to stop supporting all 64-bit editions of Windows, thus nothing to download.

I make a post on their forums asking if anyone knows if it's temporary and I receive this response from a Dell employee:

"It cost us in time and money to validate drivers. We built PCs with specific operating systems in mind. That is all we will support."


I mention to the Dell employee that he must be mistaken as that would violate their Vista Logo contract with Microsoft. At this point the Dell employee replied tersely with the following:

"Be assured, our legal team is on top of this decision."


At this point I'm stumped and a bit angry. After all the OEM Logo requirements state, "OEMs using x64 implementations must have signed drivers available to end users if shipping a 32-bit version of Windows Vista on the system."

By removing their x64 driver support they have now violated their contract with Microsoft. Any x64-based systems they sell now with the logo are illegal. One can only help but wonder, why would Dell put themselves in this position?

I'll kindly step down from my Soapbox now, but I ask one question to all of you.

Where do we go from here?
"
Software

Submission + - Steve Jobs confirms native iPhone SDK by February

Submitted by vallette
vallette writes: Looks like developers will get their wish. The following message (from Steve himself) is posted on Apple.com's Hot News webpage:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers' hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once — provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones — this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than "totally open," we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone's amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone Not the Cause of Duke's WLAN Problem

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few days ago, Slashdot covered the news of Apple iPhone flooding the WLAN at Duke University. Kevin Miller, assistant director, communications infrastructure, with Duke's Office of Information Technology, blamed the built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flooding sections of Duke's pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, which temporarily knocked out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Today, Macworld quoted Julian Lombardi saying the iPhone may not be the problem after all.

Duke University is taking a softer stance on the cause of its wireless networking problems on Friday. Earlier in the week Duke administrators put the blame squarely on Apple's iPhone, but a report due today from the university may exonerate the iPhone. "We are presently looking into it and we have not been able to conclusively pinpoint where the problem is," said Julian Lombardi, assistant vice president of academic services technology support for Duke University. "We hope to have a resolution in the next few hours."
Oops! Shame on Duke's IT people for going public with hastily drawn conclusion and blaming Apple for "one-way communication".
Software

Submission + - Steve Jobs WWDC keynote

Submitted by Denis Troller
Denis Troller writes: Steve Job unveiled some news about the future of Leopard and the iPhone in its WWDC keynote on monday:

- Games are coming to the Mac. EA announced a series of games, and ID software gave a quick demo of their engine running on MacOS. ID said there would be more at E3.

- The features of Leopard are basically as presented last year. No mention of ZFS, even when presenting Time Machine (which seems to be a backup solution on a separate hard drive)

- The Finder gets an updated look, with a unified theme (no more inconsistent looks throughout the system) and complete integration of Spotlight (even with Time Machine, alloing a spotlight search to be browse across time). The Finder now sports "Quick Look", a system-wide preview system for any kind of files (through plugins) that tie in with a "cover flow" (a la iTunes) new folder view, and with iChat, allowing to preview any file in iChat as part of a videoconfenence.

- The iPhone WILL have third party apps, through Safari and AJAX. Those apps can feature the iPhone look and tie in with phone functionnality (demo of a corporate ldap based contact manager which can place phone calls).

- Safari will be available for Windows XP & Vista. A beta version is downloadable from Apple's website. This might be more a way to allow Windows developper to test their iPhone app than anything else.

Check out http://www.macrumorslive.com/ (or your favourite mac lore-mongering website) for a complete feature list.
Software

Submission + - Safari to joins the Windows browser race (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
BIGjuevos
BIGjuevos writes: "Safari is to join the battle of the Web Browsers on the Windows Platform. But the question remains, can the average computer user handle having to choose from 4 mainstream Web Browsers in order to fulfill their browsing experience?

'Apple has launched a version of its web browser Safari for Windows, competing head to head with Microsoft's Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Chief executive Steve Jobs said Apple "dream big" and wanted to expand the 4.9% market share Safari currently has. Mr Jobs was speaking at a conference of developers for Apple products in San Francisco, California. He said Safari was "the most innovative browser in the world, but also the fastest browser on Windows".'"
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - ZFS To Become Default File System In Leopard (macrumors.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Posted on macrumors.com:
Perhaps overcome with excitement (and forgetting that Apple doesn't like such pre-emptive disclosures), Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announced today at Sun event in Washington D.C. that Apple would be making ZFS "the file system" in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard (video link, requires RealPlayer).

Quote: In fact, this week you'll see that Apple is announcing at their Worldwide Developer Conference that ZFS has become the file system in Mac OS 10. Rumors of Apple's interest in ZFS began in April 2006, when an OpenSolaris mailing list revealed that Apple had contacted Sun regarding porting ZFS to OS 10. The file system later began making appearances in Leopard builds.

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Close