Linked List: August 25, 2007

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Windows Genuine Advantage Suffers Worldwide Outage ★

What a wonderful idea, centralizing “validation” for the world’s monopoly operating system. Bravo, Microsoft.

New Criterion Collection Release of Terrence Malick’s ‘Days of Heaven’ ★

Lee Kline, on supervising the new transfer:

As we kept moving forward I began to realize how many people just love Days of Heaven. When folks would ask me what I was working on lately, and I told them it was Days, they would light up.

Consider me lit up. (Via Coudal.)

Update: Pre-order from Amazon; debuts on October 23, same day as the Kubrick DVDs. The cover art is beautiful, just perfect.

X-Rite Buys Pantone ★

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer:

X-Rite announced on Friday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Pantone for US$180 million. X-Rite is known for its color measurement and matching products, and Pantone is recognized as a world leader in color design and is also the creator of the industry standard Pantone Matching System, or PMS.

Java Needs an Overhaul ★

Russell Beattie:

I like Jonathan Schwartz a lot, but I think that unless some drastic changes are made to Java, the move to JAVA as Sun’s ticker symbol is going to be as relevant as changing it to COBOL.

Regarding Engadget’s Story on iPhoneSIMfree.com ★

Ryan Block at Engadget:

It’s high noon, Apple and AT&T — we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It’s all over, guys.

Really? What’s over?

The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple’s iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don’t have a copy of the unlock software, so don’t even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they’re officially the first to break Apple’s SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It’s done. Seriously. They wouldn’t tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they’ll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so).

I believe that Block witnessed a demo. But if it’s not released, how does that qualify as “done”? Wake me up when it’s released.