I was interviewed this afternoon by Matt Cooper of Today FM’s The Last Word in a follow-up piece to the Irish Blog Awards.
Matt raised the recent proposal in France to make it legal to crack DRM - this was reported by Reuters yesterday:
France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker’s popular iPod player.
Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format.
It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management — the codes that protect music, films and other content — if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another, said Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in France.
“It will force some proprietary systems to be opened up … You have to be able to download content and play it on any device,” Vanneste told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.
What I should have said in the interview is that Apple may be forced to close the iTunes Store if this law is passed. My understanding is that Apple are required by their agreements with the recording industry to put DRM on the music. Of course if they did have to close their store, I imagine the sales of music for allofmp3.com in France would soar!
I muddled through the interview but if any of you want to hear what I sound like when the interview mike is pointed the other direction (it isn’t pretty!) - I’ll be on sometime between 6pm and 6:30pm I was told.
Steve Jobs has managed to sell Pixar Animation Studios to Disney for $7.4 billion in stock. As part of the deal, Pixar shareholders will receive 2.3 Disney shares for every Pixar share they own. Steve Jobs currently owns 50.6% of Pixar so this deal will mean that Steve jobs is going to become the single largest share holder in Disney!
I guess that means Steve has a lot more content for his iTunes Store!
I’m back at the computer again and furiously making my way through the backlog of email which built up in my absence. If you sent me an email in the last week or two and I haven’t responded, please re-send it just to poke me!
The break was great and Santa was very generous - he gave me the fabulous digital SLR camera iIhave been lusting after for so long (I must have been a really good boy!). I’ll have to start playing with my dormant Flickr account now. Or maybe if Riya get their Mac support together (they say they are working on an iPhoto uploader now), I might try them out.
In the meantime, I must keep an eye on the MacWorld Expo which kicks off today - I’m looking forward to seeing what Steve Jobs (the consummate CEO showman) has in store. As usual, the rumour mill is buzzing with what is expected to be announced (new Intel based laptops, new version of iLife, new iPod Shuffle, etc.) - no doubt Stevie will pull a few surprises though as he has done every ime before.
Mark pilgrim has written a simple step-by-step guide to ripping DVDs so that they can be played on your shiny new video iPod.
The guide is incredibly straightforward and has large screenshots to make it completely idiot-proof (even I could do it!).
Obviously this will only be of interest to you if you want to watch your own DVDs on your video iPod - anything else would be illegal!
At the San Jose event today Steve jobs also announced a new iMac G5. See here for more
The new iMac is thinner than its predecessors, it has a built-in iSight camera for video conferencing, and it has a new application called Front Row. Front Row is a program which allows imac owners to use their iMac like a media centre - playing music, photos, videos and DVD’s from the comfort of the sofa, using the iMacs 6 button, iPod-like remote.
As Tom Dunmore of Stuff Magazine says:
Obviously, Front Row will be the perfect way to enjoy music video bought from the iTunes Music Store 6. But is it too much to ask for a TV link? Oh, ok, we’ll be happy with what we’ve got. For now…
Apple, after much anticipation, released the video iPod at their “one More Thing…” event in San Jose today.
The new model is 30 percent thinner than previous models, has a larger 2.5-inch QVGA display with 324 x 240 resolution, at 30fps, 260,000 color 2.5-inch display, H.264 support, and either a 30 or 60GB hard drive allowing up to 150 hours of video.
A new version of iTunes (version 6) has been released to con-incide with this launch. iTunes 6 will allow download of music videos, and tv shows (like Desperate housewives and Lost! - you hated them on TV - you can now hate them even more on your video iPod!).
The new iTunes also has built in functionality for:
- Buying videos
- Buying songs for friends
- Reviews and
- Recommendations based on previous purchases
Videos will cost $1.99 each.
UPDATE:
Engadget have more here and Cnet have coverage here.
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