By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: May 30, 2007
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
- Macworld’s Live Coverage of Gates and Jobs Joint Interview ★
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More live coverage from the D: All Things Digital conference.
Bill Gates’s opening remark: “First, I want to clarify, I’m not Fake Steve Jobs.”
What’s funny about all these references to Fake Steve at this conference is how ruthless he’s been regarding Walt Mossberg.
- Pixelmator ★
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Vaporware image-editing app with HUD-crazy UI, based on the image manipulating mojo of Mac OS X’s Core Image APIs. Supposedly available in “late July” for $59.
Update: I don’t want to read too much into it, but it’s amusing that Pixelmator’s downloadable “press images” were created using Photoshop CS3.
- Google Gears ★
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Open source browser extension from Google that provides a JavaScript API for persistent local database storage for web apps. No Safari support, yet.
- Once Beleaguered, Now Big League ★
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Valleywag on Apple’s market cap passing the $100 billion threshold:
If you haven’t already, it’s time to reevaluate the strength and power of the company that nearly went out of business ten years ago… as well as the power of consumer technology in an industry once dominated by the enterprise.
- iTunes Store Terms of Service Disallow Use of Purchased Music as Ring Tones ★
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From the iTunes Store Terms of Service, section 9:
(viii) You may not use Products as a musical “ringer” in connection with phone calls.
There’s no way to enforce this restriction with DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks, of course. Anyone know if this EULA restriction is new?
Update: It’s new. Here’s Google’s cache of the previous iTunes Store terms, which contain no mention of phone ringers.
- Fission Loves iTunes Plus ★
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Because the iTunes Store’s new “Plus” tracks are DRM-free AAC files, Rogue Amoeba’s Fission can edit them losslessly.
- Apple Announces YouTube Integration, 160 GB Capacity for Apple TV ★
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Apple:
Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalog is available this fall.
Apple also announced a second Apple TV configuration with a 160 GB hard drive, available tomorrow for $399. (The standard Apple TV has a 40 GB drive and costs $299.)
- Steve Jobs at D: All Things Digital, Live Coverage ★
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Macworld’s Peter Cohen and Jason Snell are providing live coverage of Walt Mossberg’s interview with Steve Jobs at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California. Among the highlights:
- YouTube integration in Apple TV, as a free update in “mid-June”.
- Jobs on the enthusiastic reception to iTunes for Windows: “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”
- Asked about the Fake Steve weblog, RSJ admits he’s read it and finds it funny.
More coverage, including photos, here, from John Paczkowski on the official D weblog.
- The Strange Allure (and False Hope) of Email Bankruptcy ★
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Merlin Mann:
Email is such a funny thing. People hand you these single little messages that are no heavier than a river pebble. But it doesn’t take long until you have acquired a pile of pebbles that’s taller than you and heavier than you could ever hope to move, even if you wanted to do it over a few dozen trips. But for the person who took the time to hand you their pebble, it seems outrageous that you can’t handle that one tiny thing. “What ‘pile’? It’s just a fucking pebble!”
I know the feeling. Current unread count for my @daringfireball.net inboxes: 5,548.
- Apple Launches iTunes Plus ★
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Apple:
Apple today launched iTunes Plus — DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings — for just $1.29 per song.
Not coincidentally, iTunes 7.2 is out, too.
My brief experience: I bought a new iTunes Plus album, and it worked perfectly. Unsurprisingly, the Plus tracks contain embedded metadata with the name and email address from your Apple ID/iTunes account. The upgrade feature seems broken, though: I own a bunch of tracks that should be eligible to upgrade, but when I click the “Upgrade to iTunes Plus” link, iTunes says none of my tracks are eligible. Update: My fault. Ends up all my eligible tracks were purchased using a second iTunes Store account; after I logged in using that ID, I upgraded successfully.
- Last.fm Acquired by CBS ★
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Announcement from Last.fm founder Richard Jones. According to CBS, the deal was for $280 million.
- Security Update (QuickTime 7.1.6) ★
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QuickTime-specific security update, for both Mac OS X and Windows. Closes security holes that potentially allow malicious web sites to execute arbitrary code or read your web browser’s memory, both via QuickTime for Java.