Newsday reports that Greenwich (CT) motorists will soon have the option of passing on the parking meter and settling parking fees with their cellular phones. [textually.org] Very cool and I believe the first in the US. I don’t have a car and I don’t live in Greenwich, but I can certainly appreciate the convenience of … Read moreGreenwich OKs cell phone parking meters
You can share the music on your iPod as if it was a playlist in iTunes over your local network which works well – exactly as you would expect it to. You just need Music Publisher. Drag your iPod to the app’s preference panel (I had to switch the port from 3689 to 3690) and … Read moreSharing your iPod over iTunes…
If you’re looking for a different way to plant your Apple iSight Webcam on your desk or near your computer than the clips that Apple includes, Mac accessory maker MacMice has introduced the SightFlex. The SightFlex is shipping today and costs US$29.99. [MacCentral]
Pennsylvania State University has agreed to cover the cost of providing its students with a legal method to download music from a catalog of half a million songs. [New York Times] Taking student mandatory student fees does not classify as the school paying for anything. It’s the students who are paying for the service… just … Read morePenn State Will Pay to Allow Students to Download Music (not exactly…)
“Most of the money goes to the music companies,” admitted Jobs. “We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it’s not a money maker,” he said, candidly. So now we have it on record: the music store is a loss leader. Jobs said Apple would pay its dues to the RIAA, … Read moreITMS a loss leader…
A U.S. commander has created a commando force to hunt Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and key terrorists in the Middle East. [New York Times]
“RFID is a game changer for retailers, manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies to name just a few of the impacted industries,” Sun executive vice president Jonathan Schwartz said in a statement. “Sun is committed to providing open, standards-based RFID middleware software that leverages our Sun Java Enterprise System.” RFID (define) technology allows manufacturers, retailers, logistics providers, … Read moreSun To Open RFID Test Center
Cross platform iChatAV?? America Online is quietly testing a video feature for its instant-messaging products now that the government has lifted restrictions against launching such a feature. [CNET News.com]
Angry at what they see as a misuse of their funds, some Pennsylvania State University students are protesting their college’s new deal with the Napster music service. [CNET News.com] Perhaps making it a mandatory part of student computer fees was not the best idea…
With The Matrix Revolutions, the Wachowski Brothers have cemented their place in the pantheon of science fiction movie masters. While some people have been disappointed by this capstone of the trilogy, I thought it delivered on the promise of the last two movies very well, and will hold up in time. [Blogcritics] One word: IMAX … Read moreThe Matrix Revolutions
Dance Monkey Boy!! An avid Mac fan has taken the infamous Monkey Dance Boy video of Ballmer and repurposed it as an iPod commercial. The finished product is exceptional. (Caution! Stay close to volume controls.) It’s complete with glowing sweat-stained Ballmer pits and maintains the same enthusiasm present in the original video. [The Register]
A survey in the US has found that cell phones are the third most desired present this Christmas for teenagers. While the report found that computers, cd players and games consoles lead the stakes, some 30% of teenagers said that they are looking forward to buying a cell phone. Computers top the “must-have” holiday wish … Read moreTeens want phones for Xmas
If this is true, this would make Apple the defacto leader of digital music. A story appearing in today’s New York Post claims that McDonald’s is close to announcing a deal with Apple, whereby the fast food giant will give away up to 1 billion songs from the iTunes Music Store. Pepsi and Apple recently … Read moreMcDonald’s to give away up to 1 billion iTunes songs?
Is Microsoft’s new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, a radical innovation or a return to the company’s winner-take-all software strategy from a decade ago? Longhorn, which had its official coming-out party last week, marks Microsoft’s return to “fat client” application development–software that resides largely on desktop or portable PCs rather than on a shared server … Read morePlan A for Microsoft
Whether or not it has escaped the sun’s sphere of influence — known to astronomers as the heliosphere — Voyager 1 has exceeded all expectations and on Wednesday was more than 8 billion miles from Earth, or 90 times the distance between Earth and the sun. [Wired News]
Amazing results… In an interview with C|NET, Steve Jobs says that the .Mac renewal rate was 86-87%, a stunning figure. Jobs points out that many critics claimed that no one would pay the full $99 price for Apple’s suite of web services, but it turns out just the opposite is true. The renewal rate, he … Read more.Mac Renewal Rate: 87%
Evocative cover graphics are strictly optional now that so much music comes in digital form. [New York Times: Technology]
Soon anyway. While reading the latest NYT Circuits submission from David Pogue tonight I started thinking about how cool it would be to have one of the cameras he reviewed – the Panasonic D-Snap SV-AV100. It’s a credit card sized SD based camcorder that can record MPEG-2 quality video. The cards are still too small … Read morePocket sized but packs a punch!
“It’s perfectly technically feasible to port Panther to any processor,” Jobs said at a meeting with financial analysts. But Jobs said the company is happy with IBM’s PowerPC family of chips and feels the performance is “quite competitive.” “Right now we don’t see a compelling need to switch processor families,” Jobs said. “We have all … Read moreApple says could move to Intel, but happy with IBM