Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Apple: three billion titles sold on iTunes (apple.com)

Submitted by
allengineering
allengineering writes: "In a short official statement, Apple announces today that its platform of music on line has just passed the course of the three billion sold pieces, in a little more than four years of existence. Opened on April 28, 2003 then launched to France on June 15, 2004, the initially known service under the name of iTunes Music Store passes the course of the first billion sold titles on February 23, 2006. The second billion is then reached with the day before the MacWorld last, last January. With a catalogue which counts today according to the firm five million titles, 550 emissions TV and 500 films, the iTunes Store asserts today the place of third salesman of music on the American market, which they are pieces sold in numerical form or on a physical support."
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone Poll Says 9% of Cell Users Want It

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Steve Jobs stated at the unveiling of the iPhone that their goal is to capture 1% of the market by the end of 2008. If the recent poll by M:Metrics is accurate then Apple's new phone will blow past that figure before this year is up.
Announcements

Submission + - Intel ISEF Winners Announced

Submitted by
marshmallow soup
marshmallow soup writes: "Last Friday brought the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair to a close. Top honors and a $50,000 scholarship went to Jack Li of Maryland, Philip Streich of Wisconsin, and Dmitry Vaintrob of Oregon. Projects ranged from building robots to studying suspended animation to advanced proofs in string topology. You can find a list of winners here."
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Ballmer: iPhone isn't going to get marketshare

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "This is one of those statements that just may come back to haunt — if he indeed can haunted — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. In a wide-ranging interview with USA Today, the big man, when asked about Apple's passions and its iPhone said: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1467 0"
Music

Jobs Says People Don't Want to 'Rent' Music 203

Posted by Zonk from the money-can-be-exchanged-for-good-and-services dept.
eldavojohn writes "PhysOrg is running a piece on a recent speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs about DRM free music. While we know that Jobs is a self proclaimed proponent of DRM free music who's not all talk, he's now said that 'by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions. I think we're going to achieve that.' Jobs pointed out what's obvious to us, the consumers, but isn't obvious to the music industry — 'People want to own their music.' He also dismissed subscription based music as a failure, and claimed a lot of other music labels are intrigued by the EMI deal."
Music

Submission + - Faked Recordings Producer Comes Clean

Submitted by
thyrf
thyrf writes: "It seems as though those independent comparisons stated by the producer of the recently uncovered Hatto music fraud took an interesting turn, the BBC reports. Since it was first revealed, William Barrington-Coupe, the late Joyce Hatto's producer and husband admitted replacing the original tracks with those of other artists. However, all is not as it seems. Barrington-Coupe claims he first began to replace snippets of certain tracks where his wife, who had cancer, could be heard groaning in pain. "It is very touching and he does go through every detail and how he did it and he makes it very credible," Mr von Bahr of the BIS music label said. As he got better at replacing the material, the sections grew longer until they in some cases ended up being the entire piece itself. Though we don't quite know why he ended up replacing entire tracks, his confession is convincing enough to call off the legal-heavies. "I don't see how either myself or the industry can get any satisfaction for pure revenge, I think the whole thing is deeply tragic story"."
The Media

Submission + - Is Wired Trying to Kill Digg?

Submitted by
ClamIAm
ClamIAm writes: "Wired's latest article about Digg is interesting. But with the parent company of Wired also owning reddit, are there hidden motivations behind it? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch thinks so, and suggests that Digg sue Wired. From the article:

Reddit was acquired in late October. By December, Wired had predicted the fall of Digg, saying "Digg Becomes the New Friendster" without disclosing that they were a sister company to a competitor. .... Today Wired takes another, more elaborate shot at Digg. In a piece of investigative journalism, Wired reporter Annalee Newitz used a service called User/Submitter that pays people to Digg a story, which resulted in it getting to the home page of Digg.
"
Programming

Submission + - Driving Simulators with Real Maps?

Submitted by
K'Lyre
K'Lyre writes: "Why are there are no driving simulators that take advantage of the vast amount of map information available to let the user travel along any road they wish? Is it the marketability of such a venture? The vast amount of information it would need to include? This is one of the types of games I dreamed of when I was little. What's the big hold-up?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Script Kiddie Foils Microsoft

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A forum user (going by the handle Computer User) over at keznews has successfully created a brute force keygen for Microsoft Windows Vista. Within hours, the news had spread like wildfire to all corners of the internet, garnering public reaction ranging from disbelief to praise. Computer User shortly thereafter posted a statement of regret for 'hacking' Microsoft's unhackable validation. Sarcasm or sincerity?
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPod as flight data recorder

Submitted by
udamahan
udamahan writes: "Flight Global reports small aircraft manufacturer LoPresti is introducing a system that uses an iPod as a flight data recorder. The company states that they chose the iPod for its size, low power requirements, and the "thousands of developers passionate about writing applications for the iPod." The article notes that data recorders are typically used for maintenance, flight/safety analysis, or, assuming proper protection, crash investigation."
Privacy

Blizzard Exposes Detailed WoW Character Data 233

Posted by Zonk from the seatec-astronomy dept.
Gavin Scott writes "Blizzard has introduced a new web site called the Armory which lets you get information on any World of Warcraft character, extracted from their live databases, in near real-time. This exposes a great deal of information that was not previously obtainable including profession choices, skill levels for all skills, and the character's complete talent specification and all faction reputation data, along with all gear currently equipped. The complete roster of any guild or arena team is also available. Some players are upset about this, such as arena PvP teams who now have all their gear and talent choices exposed to the world, or players with non-standard or less-popular talent choices who fear they will have difficulty getting into pickup groups now that people can instantly find out everything about them. Are these complaints fair? Blizzard claims to own all the data and the characters, but at what point does this data represent personal choices and information about their players which would be covered by their own privacy policy? In a virtual society, should people be able to present a view of themselves that differs from (virtual) reality, or should all details be exposed?"

Slashdot Top Deals

Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer

Close