CUPERTINO, California--August 31, 2007--Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.
"We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers."
Apple's agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.
Extortion was exactly the first thing I thought of. I'm sure many people will be losing their jobs over this decision, people who recommended that their company pay the extortion fees to cover their asses over a lie. That money would have been better spent defending the truth.
So, by this logic the Dev version, 3.1, would be GPLv2.
They really should've made the dev version 3.3 and the stable 3.4. It only makes sense.
Using 3.2 for a GPL3 release is the same kind of shit that Sun would pull to confuse us about which version of JACRONYM we are using, or which version of Solaris/Sun OS we're running.
This is the problem that comes when you're not innovating nearly as awesomely as your hype makes people think. If MS had actually done something amazingly different with vista, backwards compatibility might not have worked, but since just rehashing the same old stuff with minor differences. Go figure.
It's not like we're not used to having to fight to get games to work on older MS platforms, or even newer platforms.
It's not like we're not used to getting them to even run on completely different OSes.
As a good example, I just set up a Windows XP laptop for one of my sales associates. I spent an ungodly amount of time going thru "Genuine Advantage" this and "Genuine" that, along with some dozen or more reboots. It's ridiculously annoying...
Being a generous IT worker, when an employee's machine goes bad I'll sometimes give them my own machine if they need something fast. Last time I did this, a copy of Vista which I purchased directly from Microsoft's website suddenly became "not genuine". Not wanting to fuss with it, hoping I'd be able to get my machine back and make my copy of Vista genuine again, I ended up passing the time frame (30 days?) allotted for using the OS, then was locked out with a red screen saying "this copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Business is not genuine". This statement was clearly a lie if taken literally, but discussing vocabulary destruction through marketing would be quite a digression.
So, I went back to using my dual-boot linux partition and another spare PC for my day-to-day work.
Fast forward a few weeks...
Last Friday I got my laptop back, put the hard disk back in, and what's this? Vista still said it was not genuine. I tried to re-activate online but it said I couldn't do that because that key had already been activated. (Gee, you think? Maybe when I bought it?) So, taking the only course left, I called Microsoft on the phone and entered a series of numbers about 30 digits long. When the computer couldn't validate my install it forwarded me to some Indian call center, a place I'm familiar with because I've had to do this process more than a few times.
But this time was different... (Don't get your hopes up, it wasn't different in a good way. I was on the phone with a Microsoft offshore call center, remember?) Not only was my personal system down, but apparently their whole call center system was down. They were unable to validate my install and told me I'd need to call back later after they got their system back up and running. Apparently there was no other backup call center online, I simply had to hang up and call back another time when their system was back up.
Back to my trusty dual-boot Linux partition with its `sudo bash -c 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && reboot'`, or my Mac with its `sudo bash -c 'softwareupdate -i -a && reboot'`
Oh, and Jim Allchin can kiss my ass. "It's rock solid and we're ready to ship." Rock solid as in paper weight. What good is a stable OS that won't let you use it?
I always think it's funny when sites that are trying to show off style in Windows put up something Apple related in a screenshot or photo. Even though some people bash it, it looks like some people like to draft behind the reality distortion field, the iPod halo effect, or whatever negatively connoted word is being associated with successful design and marketing.
From the sound of the article he doesn't run any programs that come with Ubuntu. He runs OS X. That being said, neither Ubuntu nor OS X has nearly the resource hogging apps running on an initial boot, so there's little reason to disable anything. I can't tell you how many requests I've been getting in my IT office for Mac's, mainly from people who are up for upgrades and have heard people bitching and moaning about Vista but loving their Macs. Mind you, most of these people already run Linux on a second or third PC, so that's already a taken option. It's just Vista, it's chasing people away.
Wait, I thought they were supposed to fall down the stairs, not be trasnported safely to the next floor down. Screw the carrier, where's the pusher robot?
Because Win98 won't run natively on a Mac, and even if I could install it I wouldn't be able to do the system updates since the update server is down. However, I happen to have this virtual machine image that is fully updated. Maybe now I'll be able to play System Shock 2 on my Mac.
Apache has always been my example of how merely being the largest player in your field does not mean you will be the most hacked. Apache has a huge market share and a much better track record than other web servers, many of which have a much higher developer budget.
So, going back to the original question, yeah, there would be another vendor peddling the dominant OS, and there's a good chance it would be much more secure (if not only because every other mainstream OS on the planet is *nix, which is inherently more secure than MS's one-off security models.)
The AACS website tells consumers how they can 'continue to enjoy content protected by AACS' by 'refreshing the encryption keys associated with their HD DVD and Blu-ray software players.'
I went to their website. At the bottom of their news section there are links to articles with titles like "Want to know more about the nuts and bolts of AACS?" and "AACS 101: the history and background of this exciting technology". However, above that are blurbs that don't even have titles that just talk about attacks on their technology.
The AACS website tells consumers how they can continue to enjoy content protected by AACS by refreshing the encryption keys associated with their HD DVD and Blu-ray software players.
Mom: My new dvd player isn't working anymore. Me: You probably need to refresh the AACS encryption keys. Mom: *blinks*...what? Me: Your encryption keys need to be refreshed in order for you to play protected content. Mom: I don't have encryption keys or protected content, whatever those are, I just have this movie that won't play. Me: Right... in order for your movie to play you need to refresh the encryption keys that unlock the protected content on the disc. Mom: I never had to do that before. Me: No, no you didn't. Mom: So how do I do that? Me: I'm not really sure... I heard the assholes that made this all so hard in the first place have instructions on how to fix this mess on their website. I don't know if that applies to your model of HD DVD player though. Mom: So if it doesn't, then what? Me: Then you'll have to get the owners manual for your HD DVD player out and look through it. Mom: Why does this have to be so difficult? I just want to watch my movie...
Or something like that. Then she'd start crying because she's easily frustrated by technology when it doesn't work. My parents have called me from half-way across the country because they didn't know what button to press on the remote to get sound out of the TV. There's no way they'll be able to "refresh their AACS encryption keys" if it's not automatically done for them. It's not like there's a "Refresh AACS encryption keys" button on the remote that I can tell them to press...
DRM = media content + frustrating, crippling, broken security
The big problem with DRM is the fact that one leak is all it takes. After one person successfully removes the DRM from the protected media, it can be copied endlessly. So sure, HD-DVD might get harder to crack through physical lock-downs on the devices, but we'll still be able to download the results from a successfully cracked movie.
You no longer need to die to go to hell! RIM is bringing you hell on earth!
Seriously though, does anybody think that the Blackberry UI is awesome? Does the Blackberry really have any fans? I've never met one, though I've met numbers of the opposition, and am one myself.
put the disc in, install, then do a few hundred megs of updates
And then when you're done... no, wait, you're not done yet... you have to uncheck the box that wants to show you the many benefits of WGA, then click "ok" so you can continue installing the next few hundred megs of updates.
I much prefer `apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade` or `softwareupdate -i -a && reboot`
I concur, this new article is ridiculous. "Stuff that matters"?? Sure... deleted thread postings fucking matter. They're all I really care about anymore.
What bragging rights do they have for software update distribution? Outlook found its own update by itself? How archaic. Something like `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` would find all the updates for the entire system in one fell swoop rather than forcing applications to update themselves individually, and Windows only recently began moving in that direction with Microsoft Update as opposed to Windows Update. Moreover, applications that are accessing open standards and common libraries wouldn't need to "chew on data" for a while because the fixes could be implemented at a lower level. Those MS guys just don't get it... It's amazing to me how illogical so many things in Windows are, from UI to command line syntax to the registry to documentation.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in this thread, but saw it come through other RSS feeds of mine.
h tml
Shortly after Apple heard this, they dropped NBC from the next season completely.
Press release link: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/31itunes.
Press release text:
iTunes Store To Stop Selling NBC Television Shows
CUPERTINO, California--August 31, 2007--Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.
"We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers."
Apple's agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.
Extortion was exactly the first thing I thought of. I'm sure many people will be losing their jobs over this decision, people who recommended that their company pay the extortion fees to cover their asses over a lie. That money would have been better spent defending the truth.
If 99% of what you're doing in OS X is a pain in the ass, that's plenty of justification to switch to Linux.
So, by this logic the Dev version, 3.1, would be GPLv2.
They really should've made the dev version 3.3 and the stable 3.4. It only makes sense.
Using 3.2 for a GPL3 release is the same kind of shit that Sun would pull to confuse us about which version of JACRONYM we are using, or which version of Solaris/Sun OS we're running.
This is the problem that comes when you're not innovating nearly as awesomely as your hype makes people think. If MS had actually done something amazingly different with vista, backwards compatibility might not have worked, but since just rehashing the same old stuff with minor differences. Go figure.
It's not like we're not used to having to fight to get games to work on older MS platforms, or even newer platforms.
It's not like we're not used to getting them to even run on completely different OSes.
Being a generous IT worker, when an employee's machine goes bad I'll sometimes give them my own machine if they need something fast. Last time I did this, a copy of Vista which I purchased directly from Microsoft's website suddenly became "not genuine". Not wanting to fuss with it, hoping I'd be able to get my machine back and make my copy of Vista genuine again, I ended up passing the time frame (30 days?) allotted for using the OS, then was locked out with a red screen saying "this copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Business is not genuine". This statement was clearly a lie if taken literally, but discussing vocabulary destruction through marketing would be quite a digression.
So, I went back to using my dual-boot linux partition and another spare PC for my day-to-day work.
Fast forward a few weeks...
Last Friday I got my laptop back, put the hard disk back in, and what's this? Vista still said it was not genuine. I tried to re-activate online but it said I couldn't do that because that key had already been activated. (Gee, you think? Maybe when I bought it?) So, taking the only course left, I called Microsoft on the phone and entered a series of numbers about 30 digits long. When the computer couldn't validate my install it forwarded me to some Indian call center, a place I'm familiar with because I've had to do this process more than a few times.
But this time was different... (Don't get your hopes up, it wasn't different in a good way. I was on the phone with a Microsoft offshore call center, remember?) Not only was my personal system down, but apparently their whole call center system was down. They were unable to validate my install and told me I'd need to call back later after they got their system back up and running. Apparently there was no other backup call center online, I simply had to hang up and call back another time when their system was back up.
Back to my trusty dual-boot Linux partition with its `sudo bash -c 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && reboot'`, or my Mac with its `sudo bash -c 'softwareupdate -i -a && reboot'`
Oh, and Jim Allchin can kiss my ass. "It's rock solid and we're ready to ship." Rock solid as in paper weight. What good is a stable OS that won't let you use it?
I always think it's funny when sites that are trying to show off style in Windows put up something Apple related in a screenshot or photo. Even though some people bash it, it looks like some people like to draft behind the reality distortion field, the iPod halo effect, or whatever negatively connoted word is being associated with successful design and marketing.
From the sound of the article he doesn't run any programs that come with Ubuntu. He runs OS X. That being said, neither Ubuntu nor OS X has nearly the resource hogging apps running on an initial boot, so there's little reason to disable anything. I can't tell you how many requests I've been getting in my IT office for Mac's, mainly from people who are up for upgrades and have heard people bitching and moaning about Vista but loving their Macs. Mind you, most of these people already run Linux on a second or third PC, so that's already a taken option. It's just Vista, it's chasing people away.
Wait, I thought they were supposed to fall down the stairs, not be trasnported safely to the next floor down. Screw the carrier, where's the pusher robot?
He probably left out a decimal point or some other mundane detail.
This is a news article about a button. More comments after the jump.
Captain obvious was there and had this to say about it: "It's a slow news day."
Because Win98 won't run natively on a Mac, and even if I could install it I wouldn't be able to do the system updates since the update server is down. However, I happen to have this virtual machine image that is fully updated. Maybe now I'll be able to play System Shock 2 on my Mac.
It's a mix between a Bee, a Lizard and a Shark.
I've had 10% of our company in my office in the last 2 days with that svchost BS. *sigh*
I hope they compete like battle bots.
Apache has always been my example of how merely being the largest player in your field does not mean you will be the most hacked. Apache has a huge market share and a much better track record than other web servers, many of which have a much higher developer budget.
So, going back to the original question, yeah, there would be another vendor peddling the dominant OS, and there's a good chance it would be much more secure (if not only because every other mainstream OS on the planet is *nix, which is inherently more secure than MS's one-off security models.)
Let me guess. You changed it to the output of the original password fed into ROT26?
Exciting indeed.
Being attacked, I mean.
Me: You probably need to refresh the AACS encryption keys.
Mom: *blinks*
Me: Your encryption keys need to be refreshed in order for you to play protected content.
Mom: I don't have encryption keys or protected content, whatever those are, I just have this movie that won't play.
Me: Right... in order for your movie to play you need to refresh the encryption keys that unlock the protected content on the disc.
Mom: I never had to do that before.
Me: No, no you didn't.
Mom: So how do I do that?
Me: I'm not really sure... I heard the assholes that made this all so hard in the first place have instructions on how to fix this mess on their website. I don't know if that applies to your model of HD DVD player though.
Mom: So if it doesn't, then what?
Me: Then you'll have to get the owners manual for your HD DVD player out and look through it.
Mom: Why does this have to be so difficult? I just want to watch my movie...
Or something like that. Then she'd start crying because she's easily frustrated by technology when it doesn't work. My parents have called me from half-way across the country because they didn't know what button to press on the remote to get sound out of the TV. There's no way they'll be able to "refresh their AACS encryption keys" if it's not automatically done for them. It's not like there's a "Refresh AACS encryption keys" button on the remote that I can tell them to press...
DRM = media content + frustrating, crippling, broken security
The big problem with DRM is the fact that one leak is all it takes. After one person successfully removes the DRM from the protected media, it can be copied endlessly. So sure, HD-DVD might get harder to crack through physical lock-downs on the devices, but we'll still be able to download the results from a successfully cracked movie.
You no longer need to die to go to hell! RIM is bringing you hell on earth!
Seriously though, does anybody think that the Blackberry UI is awesome? Does the Blackberry really have any fans? I've never met one, though I've met numbers of the opposition, and am one myself.
And then when you're done... no, wait, you're not done yet... you have to uncheck the box that wants to show you the many benefits of WGA, then click "ok" so you can continue installing the next few hundred megs of updates.
I much prefer `apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade` or `softwareupdate -i -a && reboot`
Wall walking. A fine example of circumvention. The true hacker mindset: getting things done within the bounds of what you're given.
I concur, this new article is ridiculous. "Stuff that matters"?? Sure... deleted thread postings fucking matter. They're all I really care about anymore.
Give me a break...
What bragging rights do they have for software update distribution? Outlook found its own update by itself? How archaic. Something like `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` would find all the updates for the entire system in one fell swoop rather than forcing applications to update themselves individually, and Windows only recently began moving in that direction with Microsoft Update as opposed to Windows Update. Moreover, applications that are accessing open standards and common libraries wouldn't need to "chew on data" for a while because the fixes could be implemented at a lower level. Those MS guys just don't get it... It's amazing to me how illogical so many things in Windows are, from UI to command line syntax to the registry to documentation.