[MyAppleMenu] Feb 8, 2007

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/>
Mac news for Mac people

[News]

*** Goldman Bumps Apple From Conviction Buy List
<http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2478>
Katie Marsal, AppleInsider

Goldman Sachs on Thursday dropped Apple from its Conviction Buy list, citing the potential for negative speculation in the months leadingup to the company's June iPhone launch.

*** Apple May Ax Next-Gen HDD iPod In Favor Of All-Flash Models
<http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2476?www.reghardware.co.uk>
Katie Marsal and Kasper Jade, AppleInsider

Apple may begin transitioning its flagship iPod models away from hard disk drive (HDD)-based storage and towards solid-state NAND flash memory by the end of year. According to an "IT Hardware" report from Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora, the move would pave the way for smaller form factor players, a more diverse model mix, and improvements to both battery life and durability.

*** CEO Confirms "At Least Three" ARM Processors In iPhone
<http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4H2EGXISV3BFQQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=197003957>
Peter Clarke, EE Times

Warren East, president and chief executive officer of ARM Holdings plc, has confirmed that "at least three" processor cores developed at his company are present within the iPhone from Apple Inc.

*** Partners, Rivals React To Jobs' Anti-DRM Comments
<http://playlistmag.com/news/2007/02/07/drm/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Jim Dalrymple, Playlist

The recording industry's trade group urged Apple to license its FairPlay DRM to other companies, while one of the iTunes Store's biggest rivals called the advent of DRM-free online music inevitable.

*** Bill Banning iPods In Crosswalks Slated For Albany
<http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_037234835.html>
Lou Young, CBS

First it was cell phones in cars, then trans fats. Now, a new plan is on the table to ban gadget use while crossing city streets.

*** RIAA Misreads Jobs' Open Letter On DRM, Thinks He's Offering To License FairPlay
<http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/07/riaa-misreads-jobs-open-letter-on-drm-thinks-hes-offering-to/>
Peter Rojas, Engadget

We already knew that the majors are totally in denial about this stuff, but to pretent that his letter (however motivated) was anything other than a broadside against DRM is silly.

*** Birthday Gift For MacBU
<http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/archive/2007/02/07/birthday-gift-for-macbu.aspx>
David Weiss, Mac Mojo

We were celebrating MacBU's 10th anniversary!

*** Apple: None Of Our Products Are Windows Vista Compatible
<http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004178&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News>
Paul McDougall, InformationWeek

According to a document that Apple has posted on its web site, none of the software that it's made available for Windows environment has been updated for Vista compatibility. That includes not only iTunes, but QuickTime, Airport for Windows, Bonjour for Windows, iDisk utility and AppleWorks for Windows.

[Opinion]

*** Steve Jobs Likes To Repeat Himself
<http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/08/steve-jobs-likes-to-repeat-himself/>
Paul Miller, Engadget

We thought it would be appropriate to remind ourselves of his glorious RDF moments of yore, and there didn't seem to be much of a better way to capture it all in a nutshell than this, um, repetitive video of his favorite RDF-inducing expressions.

*** Send Jobs, Music And Money
<http://www.journalstandard.com/articles/2007/02/08/opinion/opinion84.txt>
The Journal Standard

The Apple guru is right -- let the music play unrestricted.

*** OS X Is The New Linux
<http://www.computerdefense.org/?p=250>
Computer Defense

I can't install OS X on my PC, so why should we expect Microsoft to allow the opposite?

*** Gil Amelio, Where Are You?
<http://sitegrinder.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/gil-amelio-where-are-you/>
Developing SiteGrinder

I still believe the idea of OpenDoc is sound. What's more, I think the idea is happening all around us, just in a very poor Greenspuns 10th law type of way.

*** Note To Self: Don't Tick Off Apple, iTunes Community
<http://www.louisgray.com/live/2007/02/note-to-self-dont-tick-off-apple-itunes.html>
Louis Gray

The inference i gain from iTunes' designation is that everything not purchased from iTunes would be not "purchased", i.e. "stolen."

*** The Cocoa Text Editor
<http://www.mcelhearn.com/article.php?story=20070207101428364>
Michael Blair, Kirkville

What's with the cocoa text editor? Who designed it? A writer? I don't think so. A programmer, probably.

*** On The DRM Front
<http://www.mikel.org/arch/2007/02/on_the_drm_fron.html>
Michael Boyle

Apple is saying that it believes that the iPod and iTunes and the integration of the two is so superior that it is willing to compete on no other basis.

*** Apple Has Been Telling Its Own Story For Years
<http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/02/07/apple-has-been-telling-its-own-story-for-years/>
Dan Gillmor, Center For Citizen Media

The company's (i.e. his) paranoid secrecy is specifically designed to hype those speeches, where most of Apple's real news is released.

*** Is Jobs Making Nice With Europe?
<http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/02/06/jobs-apple-drm-tech-media-cx_lh_0206jobs.html>
Louis Hau, Forbes

Jobs could simply be using a well-worn page from his playbook -- look where the market is heading, and get ahead of it.

*** Apple Is Now A Media Company
<http://www.scripting.com/2007/02/07.html#appleIsNowAMediaCompany>
Dave Winer, Scripting News

To me the clear subtext of the Jobs piece is that Apple is today a media company. When the CEO goes direct to the people he wants to influence, without using other media to carry the story, something not too subtle has changed.

*** Eight Reasons To Think Before Buying An iPhone
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/02/07/reasonstothink/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Ryan Faas, Computerworld

[Sidetrack]

*** If Music Has IDs...
Heng-Cheong Leong

As Steve Jobs explained clearly, DRM is never foolproof. The whole idea is to keep secrets -- because if the encrypted data, the encryption algorithm, and the decryption key are all in the hands of the same party, namely the customers, there is really nothing stopping the customers from cracking the code.

That's why all DRMs will eventually be broken -- whether you're talking about FairPlay or PlayForSure or Zune.

That's why the music industry's cry for an industry-wide DRM solution makes no sense at all technically. It can never work.

But there's a solution out, if the music industry truly believes in music portability across devices and companies. And that's GUIDs.

Each piece of music sold can be tracked by an identification code, or a certificate, that can be verified to be authentic. (I'm a bit hazy about details here, but I'm thinking if it works for SSL, it should work here too.) An iTunes certificate for a particular song, for example, will authentic that the song has been legally purchased from iTunes store. With this certificate, the customer can, for example, play the music on five different computers or iPods.

But what if one of the computer is a Zune, which, obviously, iTunes doesn't support? Well, all the customer need to do is present the certificate to the Zune store, and the Zune store will simply verify the certificate with the iTunes store. If everything works out, the customers can download another copy of the same song from the Zune store encoded in a different DRM, and have that piece of music playable on the Zune.

Ironing out the policy issues -- such as how many devices is playable, the B2B interfaces and the matter of who pays for all that downloads -- is not trivial, of course. But if portability is what the music industry is going after, they need not pursue an industry-wide DRM system.

(Of course, a DRM-free world is even better.)

Will this work technically? Or, even if this works technically, is this a bigger mess than what we already have today? Feedback at webmaster at myapplemenu.com <mailto:webmaster at myapplemenu.com>.

The Tomorrow Weblog
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/tomorrow/>
Emerging Technologies. Innovative Applications. New Economy

[News]

*** Programmers Are Brain Surgeons
<http://blog.saush.com/?p=157>
Saush.com

I believe programmers are not given enough respect that we deserve.

*** MIT Says Optical Chips Coming In 5 Years
<http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2091475,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532>
Bryan Gardiner, ExtremeTech

Engineers and physicists at MIT have devised a new method for integrating photonic circuitry onto a silicon chip, a discovery that could soon add the power and speed of light waves to traditional electronics.

MyAppleMenu Reader
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/reader/>
The other things in life

[Tech & Science]

*** Can Ageing Be Stopped?
<http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=8152>
Philip Hunter, Prospect

Gerontologists consider the maximum lifespan for humans to be about 120 years. But with rising evidence for a genetic "death programme," which in principle could be amended, some researchers are starting to believe the limit could be extended.

[Life]

*** The Truth About Beauty
<http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200703/postrel-beauty?ca=buhxGSajR%2BPnatiIH5CMmEP2PS%2FCrnyqA07r2wCqyyU%3D>
Virginia Postrel, The Atlantic

Beauty exists, and it's unevenly distributed.

*** Time For Reading
<http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=2d5vgc4cyyyt05hqy3kxw5kln981j0wl>
Lindsay Waters, Chronicle Of Higher Education

The role of literature is to mess with time, to establish its own time, its own rhythm. A new agenda for literary studies should open up the time of reading, just as it opens up how the writer establishes his or her rhythm. Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don't even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words.

SingaporeSurf
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/singapore/>
Life in the city

[News]

*** Singapore And Malaysia Agree To Work Towards Opening Up Singapore-KL Air Route
<http://news.asiaone.com/a1news/20070208_story15_1.html>
AsiaOne

Singapore and Malaysia today agreed to work towards giving their respective airlines unlimited access for the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur sector, ahead of the 2008 Asean timeline to free up air travel to capitals in the region.

*** Singapore's New NKF Wins Civil Suit
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/257345/1/.html>
May Wong, Channel NewsAsia

Former NKF chairman Richard Yong, former board member Matilda Chua and former treasurer Loo Say San have all thrown in the towel.

*** MFA Responds On That Indon Extradition Treaty
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/170714.asp>
Jasmine Yin, Today

An MFA spokesperson said: "There has indeed been progress in the negotiations on an extradition treaty but some difficult issues still need to be settled."

*** A Word Of Thanks To Thailand
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/170719.asp>
Ng Hun Wei, Today

Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo is confident that Singapore and Thailand will be able to "put (their) relations back on track" because both countries share extensive and deep-rooted links, and have many common interests.

*** Leak Of Info? If So, HDB Will Fix It
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/170668.asp>
Lee U-Wen, Today

HDB has launh an internal investigation to find out if information about the Walk-in-Selection exercise was leaked.

[Opinion]

*** Leaks And Squealers
<http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2007/02/leaks-squealers.html>
Mr Wang Says So

Unlike yesterday's newspapers, every blog post stays online forever unless the blogger decides to delete them. Years from now, whenever it's relevant to bring it up again, all it takes is a hyperlink to remind readers of the story of the Great Leak.

*** Love Airways Flies Nowhere, Shortbus May Not Arrive
<http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2007/yax-710.htm>
Yawningbread.org

In other countries where newsstands offer plastic-sealed magazines, you can rightly expect that those are porn. In Singapore, it simply means they might offend the Bible-thumpers.

*** Under Dr Lee's Microscope
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/170703.asp>
Lee Wei Ling, National Neuroscience Instittute, Today

To attribute the investment by biomedical companies in Singapore to our multibillion dollar research drive is inaccurate... Mr Yeo is strategising about biomedical research directions in an ivory tower.

*** Big Brother In Cyberspace - Anonymously
<http://theonlinecitizen.com/2007/02/07/big-brother-in-cyberspace-anonymously/>
The Online Citizen

What should one make of this seemingly confusing and contradictory message that the government is sending out to Singaporeans?