By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: September 22, 2006
Friday, 22 September 2006
- Apple Slaps Podcast Ready with Cease and Desist ★
-
From Wired’s Listening Post weblog:
Apple Computer has slapped Podcast Ready with a “cease and desist” letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe on Apple’s trademarks, and that they cause confusion among consumers.
Ridiculous. “iPodwhatever”, sure, they own that. But not “Podwhatever” — and certainly not “podcast”, which Apple embraced a year ago as a grassroots movement and term. Apple should drop this.
- Wal-Mart Threatens Movie Studios Over DVD Downloads ★
-
Tim Arango, reporting in the New York Post:
But several weeks ago, in the midst of rumors that Apple was close to announcing a deal with Disney, Wal-Mart’s David Porter — the executive responsible for stocking the retailer’s shelves with DVDs and CDs and whose influence is so immense in Tinseltown that he’s been named to Premiere magazine’s annual power list — made the rounds of Hollywood studios.
His message, according to a studio exec involved in the discussions: that there would be “serious ramifications” if the studios hopped in bed with Apple.
“They threatened to hurt us in terms of buying less products,” said this person.
Scared of some competition, apparently.
- HP’s Dunn Resigns as Chairman and From Board ★
-
CNN:
Last week HP said Hurd would succeed Dunn as chairman following the company’s Jan. 18 board meeting, and that she would remain on the company’s board. But now Dunn will leave the board altogether, the company said.
Well, who didn’t see this coming?
- I Shall Rant About the Adobe Reader Installer Now ★
-
Derek K. Miller on trying to install the latest version of Adobe Reader:
There is no sensible reason why an application designed to read PDF files, created by the company that invented the format, should be this unpleasant an experience to install.
Adobe software really is unpleasant to install. (Via Michael Tsai.)
- iPod Tetris Controls ★
-
Josh Schoenwald on the iPod version of Tetris:
On the slower levels the game play is ok, but as anyone who’s used a (2G+) iPod knows, the capacitance-based clickwheel is anything but laser-accurate. This means the faster levels are all but impossible since you can’t move the blocks as precisely as with individual button presses. Why they didn’t go with an all-button-based interface is really beyond me.
- The Philadelphia Orchestra Online Store ★
-
Mark Pilgrim:
The Philadelphia Orchestra — indisputably one of the best orchestras in the world, and my personal favorite for two decades — has opened an online store to sell their own recordings. Some are on CD, others are available for download. For a fair price. In a free, open, lossless, non-patent-encumbered, non-DRM-infected format. Really.
Pretty damn cool. Go Philly.
- Matt Deatherage on Maynor and Ellch’s Credibility ★
-
MacJournals publisher Matt Deatherage is home and recuperating after being hospitalized for congestive heart failure (!). In a weblog entry updating MDJ and MWJ readers about his health (publication is set to resume next week), he offers the following observation regarding Maynor and Ellch’s AirPort claims:
If Maynor and Ellch had demonstrated it or shown code to just one Mac expert who could have verified their claims, they’d rightly be lionized for their work. Instead, they took credit for “hacking a MacBook” at security shows and in the international press while refusing to provide even the barest proof that they’d actually accomplished what they said they had, or at least what they wanted you to believe they’d said. Now that bugs and fixes are in the real world, there’s no way of ever knowing if what they say they found matches those bugs or not — when they had the chance to prove it, they refused. It’s like saying after the fact that you knew the answer to Final Jeopardy — you have to say it before it’s revealed to get credit for knowing it.
Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery, Matt.
- PCalc 3.2 ★
-
Free update to TLA Systems’s excellent $19
calendar, err, calculator app adds new window styles, Dashboard widget improvements, unlimited constants, and full speech support. Highly recommended. - Maynor and Ellch to Reveal ‘Complete Story’ at ToorCon 2006 ★
-
From the description of Maynor and Ellch’s upcoming presentation at ToorCon 2006:
Since the first details of our demo were reported two camps instantly formed, people who thought the work and research was good and people thought we faked everything and we are horrible people.
Paging Mr. Strawman…
The controversy is not about whether they “faked everything”; the controversy is about whether they had discovered any specific exploits against Mac OS X’s built-in AirPort drivers.
- Swimming With Sharks ★
-
Good Cringely column on iTV.