Amazon, Apple and the price of music

Ever since Amazon began selling digital music and offering lower prices than rival Apple, the suspicion by many iTunes fans is that the music industry was in cahoots with Amazon.
In the comments section of our scoop Monday on Apple's MacWorld announcement that it was doing away with copy-protection software and changing its pricing policy, many iTunes fans asserted the often repeated allegation that the four largest recording companies were giving Amazon a price break.
Not so, according to two music industry insiders with knowledge of the negotiations.
The suspicion has long been that the record labels want to help Amazon's fledgling music service compete against the Apple juggernaut. The labels have hoped that an iTunes alternative would emerge and dilute some of Apple's control over digital music sales. The reality is, say my sources, that Amazon, Wal-Mart and everybody else selling downloads is paying the same wholesale price as Apple.
"As long as a retailer pays the label's price they can sell songs for whatever they want," said one of the sources.
What this means is that Amazon, which offers many songs for 10 cents less than Apple's former standard price of 99 cents, has likely chosen to lose money on music sales, say the sources. It's generally believed that Apple's profit margin is just a few pennies per song.
Amazon's motivation is obvious. The company is battling the country's largest music retailer and the maker of the best selling music player. Amazon needs a competitive advantage.
That's going to be tougher to find now. Apple's announcement Tuesday that it will remove digital rights management from songs and offer more price flexibility, including the slashing of catalog titles or older music to 69 cents, is bad news for competitors--especially Amazon. Amazon representatives did not respond to an interview request.
I've been hard on iTunes recently for failing to provide customers with DRM-free music and over-the-air downloads. But the reasons to shop for music at any other Web store are quickly dwindling.
Amazon launched an MP3 store in September 2007 and tried to play up the fact that fans could get cheaper music at a higher quality and free of DRM?
While iTunes on Tuesday raised the price of hit songs 30 cents to ($1.29), catalog titles were reduced by 30 cents. And there are a lot more songs in the catalog category. Apple can now make the claim that iTunes is cheaper than Amazon on most music.

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Basically, I think this article is trying to say is that Amazon is selling cheaper music than iTunes, but Amazon is losing money and iTunes has to improvise their policy to reply to their competitors. So as a result, iTunes lowered and highered some prices. Even though this is all interesting and stuff, i bet a normal person is just going to buy music wherever its cheaper and has reasonable quality with its price. =] ..aand do any of them sell Islamic music or Nasheeds? Hmmmm...I wonder......

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10138887-93.html?tag=rtcol;newsNow

IBM offers a 'Microsoft-free' desktop

IBM wants corporate customers to cut the cord with Microsoft.

The tech pioneer is launching a Linux-based collection of virtual-desktop applications that run on a server without the need for desktop hardware--or Microsoft software, according to a report on Wednesday evening by The Wall Street Journal. The Linux-based software package, which is available now, runs on a back-office server and is accessible to customers on thin clients, the paper reported.
The Virtual Linux Desktop ranges in price from $59 to $289 per user, depending on level of software and service desired, according to the report. IBM estimates that the software package could save corporate customers up to $800 per user, when compared with the cost of maintaining Microsoft's Vista operating system, Office suite, and collaboration tools, the newspaper said.
IBM is counting on the prevalent economic pressures to help make its "Microsoft-free" suite more appealing.
"Deploying your technology this way is going to save you something more than 50 percent of your total costs," Jeff Smith, IBM's vice president for open source and Linux, told the Journal. "As customers face an increasingly challenging economic situation, they're looking at everything they're spending money on."
Cost aside, however, corporate customers may not be ready to embrace an environment where their data is stored centrally instead of locally.

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If you wanna save money, this is the way to go! Im not sure exactly what i think of this so if anyone wants to share their thoughts, be my guest. =D

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10113197-92.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0

SitOrSquat

SitOrSquat is a handy service that helps you find the nearest public bathroom. Unlike MizPee, which has been doing this since October of last year, SitOrSquat has gotten its act together enough to put out two great apps for iPhones and Blackberry phones. The key benefit of these being the inclusion of GPS, which narrows down where you are with just one click. If you're in a hurry--which is inevitable when using a service like this, this feature is immensely helpful.
In addition to its GPS locating, the mobile application lets you take photos of the facilities from your phone's camera, which go into a central library others can eyeball before they go. You can also add new locations right from your device, which will get pushed up live to the service's network of bathrooms.
SitOrSquat throws in all the bells and whistles you'd expect for a bathroom-rating social network. Registered users can rate each location on a five-star scale. This meta-rating gets translated into a recommendation of whether your should sit or squat, with the latter being undesirable.
One thing that's missing from the mobile app, and present on the actual site is information on whether or not the bathroom has any sort of prerequisites to get in, such as a purchase or a key. It's also missing the hours of operation, something which can be helpful if you're trying to use the application at night or on the weekends when a business might be closed. Mizpee has both of these features, and they can be total deal breakers in your hunt for porcelain.
If you're an iPhone user you can pick up the app here (iTunes warning). BlackBerry users have the option to either download the app or run it as a WAP version over the air.

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Well, if you're in a hurry or in an unknown area, and you have an "emergency", this can come in pretty handy. =D

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10114835-2.html?tag=mncol

NASA Writes Mars a Rain Check

NASA's latest Mars rover -- a six-wheeled, laser-slinging space truck the size of an SUV -- has been plagued by engineering problems, causing delays and ballooning costs. The agency announced Thursday that it will have to postpone next year's scheduled launch to 2011, the next point at which Mars and Earth are close enough together to send out a probe. This change will come with a price tag of $400 million U.S. dollars!

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Seems like a waste of time and a waste of money also because they're already over the budget on this project and they're adding $400 million dollars to it like its nothing. Would it really be better if they send it in 2011 than 2009? =D


See the whole story here:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/NASA-Writes-Mars-a-Rain-Check-65387.html

Director Stitches 45,000 Photographs Into a Music Video

Good video doesn't always need a great video camera. A still camera, imagination and a lot of hours can also get you there.
Cesar Kuriyama, a New York animator and lighting technical director, has directed a visually arresting music video using an interesting technique.
Eschewing a video camera, he took 45,000 photographs with a Nikon D200 DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera and stitched them together to create the illusion of video.
The music video was created for the band Fat City Reprise and premiered at their homecoming concert in Philadelphia.
Kuriyama says he directed the talent in the video to move as best they could in slow-motion while he had his director of photography Tommy Agriodimas shoot JPG bursts with the Nikon D200.
The duo were able to get about 60 images per burst at about four pictures per second. "Obviously we did many takes for each shot," says Kuriyama. "Eventually one good take of them moving in slow motion would look great."
After that the team re-worked the frames in post-production to move closer to 24 frames per second.
Including the time for conceptualizing and creating the story board, it took Kuriyama about 14 months to the video. He worked on it after-work hours every day.
The whole video cost just about $3000 to make, says Kuriyama, "plus the endless personal hours."
The video also features an animated stuffed animal designed and created by a friend. Kuriyama rigged it with blue sticks coming out of its arms and legs and wore a black suit to hide him. Post-production tricks helped firm the illusion.
Much of the editing for the video, says Kuriyama, was done on his MacBook Pro in Final Cut Pro. He managed the photographs in iPhoto and did the effects in Eyeon Fusion.
Kuriyama's efforts is an interesting way to circumvent the challenge that photographers face when it comes to creating high quality videos at low cost.
Compact digital cameras, which have had video-recording capabilities for years, offer disappointing image quality. High-end video and movie cameras are bulky and can be very expensive.
But the $2700 21-megapixel Canon 5D Mark II capable of 1080p HD video and the $1300 12-megapixel Nikon D90, which can record 720p HD video could change the game.
The two cameras deliver very high quality video and still images and could help photographers move to a single camera for their needs.


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This would be fun and all, if you had good and fun friends working with you but this process looks time consuming. i would like to do this, but only for a limited time, not 14 whole months on one video. =D

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/along-with-his.html

Film Maker Plans to Install Camera in his Eye Socket

Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it's a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.
The eye he's considering replacing is not a working one -- it's a prosthetic eye he's worn for several years. Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic, giving him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.
Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision. The camera won't connect to his brain. What it will do is allow him to be a bionic man where technology fuses with the human body to become inseparable. In effect, he will become a "little brother," someone who's watching and recording every move of those in his field of vision.

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i wouldnt be comfortable if someone was filming me just by looking at me. It would be creepy even though it looks really cool and all. But just because i dont want to be filmed doesnt mean i dont want to film, hehe, i wouldnt mind having a camera in my eye, but only for a temporary time though and without pain too. Doesnt his eye hurt? =D

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/eye-spy-filmmak.html

SMILE like a MONKEY!! =D