Have Laptop Will Travel

Apple’s Steve Jobs Calls For DRM-Free Music

Originally posted on February 6, 2007 @ 3:45 pm

Steve Jobs posted a letter on Apple’s Web site today supporting the online sale of music without copyright protection software, saying DRM systems have failed to halt music piracy.

In the letter entitled “Thoughts On Music,” Steve Jobs blamed major record labels for the proliferation of digital rights management systems.

Without offering them DRM protection, an online music store would not be able to get a license to distribute tunes from the likes of Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI, which together distribute more than 70% of the world’s music, Jobs said.

By throwing Apple’s support behind DRM critics, Jobs is adding the weight of the owner of the largest online music store on the Web and the leader in the digital music player market.

Did you know that the Apple iPod accounts for more than three quarters of the players sold worldwide? Yeah, Apple has one huge chunk of music market share.

Jobs said the industry had three choices:

  1. Choose to continue with the current system where each of the major online store owners and manufacturers of players, Sony, Microsoft and Apple, have their own DRM that tie their music to their hardware.
  2. The companies could license their copyright protection systems to each other.
  3. Abolish Digital Rights Management entirely.

“This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat,” Jobs said.

“If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.”

Of course, rival players would in theory also be able to play iTunes music and vice versa, which would bring dramatic changes to the online market.

Rather than buy music and a player from one vendor, people could buy music anywhere on the Web for any player.

Be sure to check out Steve Jobs Thoughts on Music. It’s a worth while read for sure.

UK Cops Caught Playing PSP In Squad Car

Originally posted on January 29, 2007 @ 9:40 am

Two police officers in London are under investigation after one of them was photographed by a passerby playing a game on a PlayStation PSP while on duty in his squad car.

Sony PSP

The Sun newspaper reported that the officer and his partner were supposed to be guarding a wall in danger of collapse in the neighborhood of Chingford in east London.

A construction worker who took the photo told the newspaper that the officers were so engrossed in the video game that they weren’t paying any attention to keeping people from getting too close to the wall.

A police spokesman told the newspaper, “The use of the games console was inappropriate and unprofessional. Senior officers are dealing with the matter.”

Wal-Mart Moves Into Video Downloading

Originally posted on February 10, 2007 @ 9:29 am

Wal-Mart has entered the video download business, joining the likes of Apple, Amazon and Netflix.

The product, in beta, allows consumers to choose from more than 3,000 movie and television titles and download them to personal computers usually at a cost less than that of iTunes, the Apple Inc. online store that began selling video downloads more than a year ago.

Wal-Mart would really wow audiences if it offered what it’s known for: lower prices, giving customers a good reason to try downloads.

The movie download business got even more competitive on Tuesday February 6, 2007 when Amazon.com said its service, Unbox, has teamed with TiVo Inc. so that downloaded movies can be viewed on TV screens.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Internet video download business is expected to be worth $3.7 billion in annual revenue in 2010, when DVD rentals and sales as a business will amount to about $29.5 billion.

While Amazon.com launched Unbox without movies from the Walt Disney Company and iTunes offers only movies from Disney and Paramount, Wal-Mart boasts:

They also offers TV shows from Fox, Fox Reality, 20th Century Fox Television Classics, Comedy Central, VH1, MTV, Nickelodeon, the CW, Warner Bros. and more. Wal-Mart initially will not offer shows from ABC, CBS or NBC.

Wal-Mart is selling TV episodes for $1.96 and movies, depending on how new they are, at price points ranging from $7.50 to $19.88.

Looking at the licensing agreements that Wal-Mart currently has in place, it looks like they could dominate the internet video download market.

Only time will tell.

Microsoft Patches For February 2007

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 8:20 am

Microsoft WindowsIt’s that time of the month again Windows users, Microsoft patch Tuesday.

The updates for today range in security severity from “Important” to a highest Maximum Severity rating of Critical.

I highly recommend that you be sure to grab these updates for your Windows machine to keep you running smooth and secure.

Microsoft is planning to release the following security updates:

  • Five Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows.
  • Two Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Office.
  • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Visual Studio.
  • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
  • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Step-by-Step Interactive Training.
  • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Microsoft Data Access Components.
  • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Antigen, Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint.

Keep in mind that some of these updates may require a restart of your machine. Yay Microsoft Windows.

To wrap up your update Tuesday Windows patching, Microsoft plans on releasing a couple Non-security High Priority updates on MU, WU, WSUS and SUS:

  • Microsoft will release two NON-SECURITY High-Priority Updates for Windows on Windows Update (WU) and Software Update Services (SUS).
  • Microsoft will release eight NON-SECURITY High-Priority Updates on Microsoft Update (MU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Although Microsoft doesn’t anticipate any changes, the number of bulletins, products affected, restart information and severities are subject to change until released this morning. Your mileage may very.

Happy updating!

GoogleOS Rumors

Originally posted on January 27, 2007 @ 9:16 am

If there is anyone bold enough with a large bank account who can compete with Microsoft it’s got to be Google.

Maybe this obvious choice was the reason for circulating rumors about a mysterious web-based GoogleOS.

While the rumors lie entirely in a realm of pure speculation, one thing is clear:

The world-wide-web of geeks is eager to see a light-weight web-based OS, not as much to replace but to complement Windows.

Some of the most commonly discussed GoogleOS evocations include:

  • A web based desktop (not really and OS)
  • A full featured Linux distribution
  • A lightweight Linux distribution bundled with BIOS

Even though there is no concrete information on a GoogleOS, including even if there is in fact such a project, it is conceivable that Google can come up with a product similar to the one being discussed on forums and blogs by incorporating its online services into a lean, mean and hopefully sexy package.

While we can’t live without Google search, to the best of my knowledge, not to many people use Google Docs and Spreadsheets, both of which are web-based Google productivity services.

The services are no doubt useful for those who don’t have Microsoft Office but it doesn’t offer any compelling reason for existing Microsoft users to switch. Maybe in the future?

All said, GoogleOS even if it does come out is likely to be a web-top application running on Windows.

Here’s an idea… wouldn’t it be cool if Apple, which now uses Intel hardware could beat Microsoft on the desktop OS market?