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This article explains why iPhone will be great and is different.

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=2 &entryid=233

"The iPhone's relevance lies not in its convergence of phone and iPod or even the mobilization of OS X, but that it's the first-ever, mass-market computer with a third-generation UI."

Well, CNN had reported that Nintendo had shipped 2 million Wii units which is double expected if I remember correctly. Reportedly, The Wii is sold out everywhere. I can certainly attest to this fact. I tried 8 different stores in an 1 hour 30 min driving radius and failed at every turn. The closest I got was at my third try. A Toy 'R Us which I stood in line 90 minutes only to have them run out of tickets 5 people ahead of me...I can't find any solid game sales numbers, but the shelves have been pretty bare and Zelda's missing from most online retailers.

Sony's launch in Japan sold 88,400 units but only 0.98 games per machine...

Sony's US launch doesn't appear to have hit the intended 400,000 units. One group estimates a lowly 100,000 while others guess at closer to 150,000 to 200,000 neither of which are more than half the hoped shipping amount. We can safly say that all of them sold, but who knows how many games are being sold?

While the US launch certainly puts Nintendo in a good position this holiday season, the PS3 has the head start in Japan, since the Wii doesn't launch until December 2nd and even then, it'll only be 400,000 units. Personally, I can't wait to hear when the second US shipments start rolling in...

We managed to produce our first transistorized radio in 1955 and our first tiny "pocketable" transistor radio in 1957. It was the world's smallest, but actually it was a bit bigger than a standard men's shirt pocket, and that gave us a problem for a while, even though we never said which pocket we had in mind when we said "pocketable." We liked the idea of a salesman being able to demonstrate how simple it would be to drop it into a shirt pocket. We came up with a simple solution. We had some shirts made for our salesmen with slightly larger than normal pockets, just big enough to sli

When Sony introduced what was the world's smallest transistor radio in 1957, it advertised it as "pocketable" but there was a problem -- it didn't actually fit into a shirt pocket. The solution was to issue salesmen shirts with slightly larger pockets.

According to: http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=62 27 the company coopertating with Tesco is FormJet. They'll distribute via http://www.tescosoftware.com/. FormJet has a Website online (a bit difficult to find from their homepage) where the products are listed: http://www.formjetplc.com/500-products.htm. They list an office suite there called "Ability Office".

The "Ability Office" website is at: http://www.ability.com/sales/products/office.php?l n=en and has a wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ability_Office.

This is not just one of the usual OpenOffice forks.

Just because you don't see a TPM on a motherboard pic doesn't mean that the same functionality hasn't been integrated into the silicon of another chip.

On the Intel 945G mobo, this is exactly what has happened.

There, the TPM functionality is inside the chipset that accompanies the CPU. The chipset typically handles the interface to DRAM and controls the flow of data to output devices, among other things. By the time the MacTels roll out, the TPM will most likely not be a separate chip anymore (to sibling: that's how the developer configuration and the final configuration can be workalikes.)

Those of you who plan to be looking for a chip labelled "TPM" on the board as a way of determining the truth of Apple's claims by that time will be wasting time. The only way to know (for the moment) is to look for a TCG-conformant chipset model instead. In the future, you will have no need to check because all Intel chipsets are to be TCG conformant. So, unless Apple is claiming they will use an older chipset, the most stringent DRM capability ever released to the mass market under the bizarro term of "Trusted Computing" will be in there.

Note that on the Cell processor, the TPM is already in the CPU itself, with no external signals to tap into, though IBM claims it is not a full-bore implementation. In the future, as they try to cram more transistors into a smaller space, Intel may also integrate most of the chipset (and the TPM along with it) into the CPU. AMD has already integrated the memory interface into the CPU on some of its processors, and has also jumped on the TCG bandwagon (either that or be run over by it), so it is only a matter of time for them to add a TPM as well.

The only thing that the pictures can prove is which stage of TPM integration is being used by some developers :) None of it should be interpreted to mean that Apple will not have a TPM somewhere. Their claim is not credible, in my humble opinion.

Weta studios had an absurd number of IBM IntelliStations (Maya, Renderman, Alfred).

Seems a venerable KDE was their desktop of choice. More here.

Intel quietly adds DRM to new chips

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=49 15

Some high lights:
1) However, Tucker ducked questions regarding technical details of how embedded DRM would work saying it was not in the interests of his company to spell out how the technology in the interests of security.

2) Conversely, Intel is heavily promoting what it calls "active management technology" (AMT) in the new chips as a major plus for system administrators and enterprise IT. Understood to be a sub-operating system residing in the chip's firmware, AMT will allow administrators to both monitor or control individual machines independent of an operating system.

3) Additionally, AMT also features what Intel calls "IDE redirection" which will allow administrators to remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems. Both AMT and IDE control are enabled by a new network interface controller.

Hey, OS X might run on your standard Intel / AMD box and they might compete with MS. I would rather have Apple stay on their own hardware and keep the DRM (hardware based) out of the picture.

Blu-Ray has had 8 layer 200gb discs for almost a year now: http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=44 30

I haven't decided whether or not it's really lame or cool yet, mostly because I haven't watched any movies that use the technique. Also, the only movies I know of using this technique look sorta lame.

Choice quote:

But the result isn't quite like viewing something truly filmed in 3D. Most of the 3D effects are "from the screen backwards, (with) no off-the-screen effects," Harman says. This could be a disappointment to aficionados of 1950s guilty-pleasure flicks, who know that the whole point of watching a 3D movie is to see various objects (mostly monsters) popping out of the screen.

Digit Magazine has rumors of the G5 powerbook showing up in February 2004. Source

Apple stock drops on Universal music speculation.

Apple shares fell more than eight per cent on Friday after investors learned of talks the company could be in to acquire Universal Music Group from Vivendi Universal. Apple's stock closed at $13.20, down $1.17, or 8.14 per cent.

Comparing the deal to the AOL Time Warner merger, investors are concerned that an Apple/Universal deal would deplete Apple's healthy cash reserve, estimated at over $4 billion.

To "get involved with" a record label doesn't necessarily entail taking on colossal debt to actually buy one.

I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment.

Yes, Linux needs to grow up and have a single, consistant interface, just like Windows. Look at the many products which accept the need for conformance under Windows. Products like Softimage (example) (though they may have an advantage, being owned by Microsoft for a while), LightWave [6] (example, check out the conforming buttons and tabs), and Kai's Power Tools (example)

Media players naturally conform to the standard Windows look and feel. Winamp led the way. Soon there were competitors like K-Jofol and Sonique which felt that they could make their mp3 players conform even better to Windows GUI standards. RealPlayer quickly followed. Apple realized they couldn't rehash the Macintosh interface for QuickTime, and delivered a version that perfectly matched the Windows standard. Not to be out done, Microsoft released a new version of the Windows Media Player which perfectly complied with the Windows standards for interfaces.

Even the next version of Windows, Windows XP, has been carefully crafted to conform to existing standards. With such strong and unwavering leadership, no one would even think of using an alternate shell or replacing the entire widget set.

Thank you, Microsoft, for getting the world to agree on one graphical environment. Thanks to your efforts to end competition, there is no risk of the Windows platform fragmenting into a pile of inconsistent applications, each making their own rules.