Apple increasing US iTunes music previews to 90 seconds. By Josh Ong Apple sent emails to music label representatives Tuesday notifying them that iTunes music previews in the United States will be extended from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. In an email (shown below) obtained by AppleInsider, Apple announced that it is "preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States.
" The letter was sent to label representatives from "The iTunes Store Team. " No time frame was given for when the extended previews will be available to U.S. customers. The letter explains that by continuing to make content available on the iTunes Store, the recipient is agreeing to the new terms. The new 90 second previews only affect songs that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with shorter songs keeping the original 30 second preview length. In late August, rumors swirled that Apple would announce extended iTunes music previews at its Sept. 1 special event. Apple patent application offers promise of stronger, scratch-proof stainless steel. Apple No Longer Flying under the Security Radar - PCWorld Business Center.
McAfee has compiled the wisdom and insight of its security researchers and produced the 2011 Threat Predictions Report. The report contains a variety of forecasts, prophecies, and educated guesses on what to expect for computer and information security next year, but one of the most notable is that Apple has achieved some level of critical mass that makes it a prime target. Based on trends in 2010--both trends in what and how technology is used, as well as trends in attack techniques and attack volume--McAfee surveyed the evolving threat landscape and made some projections for the coming year.
Those predictions include a rise in attacks focused on social networking, exploiting geolocation check-in data, and targeting mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets. That brings us, more or less to Apple's newfound prominence as a malware target. Apple is a leader in both the smartphone and tablet markets, and its Mac OS X platform has been steadily expanding its footprint. Amazon vs Apple for the future of entertainment. So much for Apple's much-rumoured, cloud-based music service: Amazon's beaten it to the punch with Cloud Drive, Cloud Player for Web and Cloud Player for Android.
Apple's own iTunes cloud service is expected later this year. We know that Google's currently using Google Music internally, so a release of that must be imminent. Spotify's been streaming music forever. And Microsoft... Where the hell is Microsoft? I'm beginning to think Microsoft has given up on home entertainment, Xbox games aside. Let's face it, all that Amazon's really offering here is a bit of free storage and a media player. There appears to be a bit of a problem with the vision thing. His name? Bill Gates. Ahead in the clouds Bill Gates was right, of course.
Streaming music is beginning to look awfully like the ebook market. Spotify's problem appears to be the record companies: while Sony and EMI are on board, the other big players aren't. Liked this? Amazon to Apple: Oh, it is sooo ON!!! Screenshot of Amazon.com browser window, showing the CloudPlayer; foreground window is the Amazon MP3 Uploader, copying iTunes playlists into Amazon CloudDrive. This is why I love my job. Today, Amazon enabled two new features to their site: Amazon Cloud Player and Amazon Cloud Drive. Cloud Drive is iDisk via Amazon storage, pretty much. You get 5 gigs of storage for free and can buy more as you need it.
Cloud Player…lets you stream all of the music you’ve stored on your Cloud Drive. And there’s a helper app that’ll scan your existing iTunes library for music files that are compatible with the service. The Cloud Player works through any web browser that supports Adobe Air. The Amazon MP3 app for Android devices...all of the music I've put into my CloudDrive is streamable.
I’ve already transferred four gigs of music to the cloud and yup, it works great. I tried opening the webplayer on my iPad and it warned me that I’ve got the wrong kind of browser. Well, isn’t this very interesting! Apple's App Store Dominated By Pay Apps, Google's By Free Apps. Apple adds demo video to MobileMe mail.
The MobileMe web app went down for scheduled maintenance last night, and returned this morning with an overview video. In about three minutes, it points out the features of the recently-redesigned Mail web app. Those who have been using it for a while won't find anything new in the video, but it's still a nice review. It starts by describing the different view options and how to enable each. Next the friendly Apple voice demonstrates how to create and apply rules, and finally moves on to several formatting options (another recently-introduced feature). Again, anyone who's been using the web app for the last few weeks won't find anything new, but it's still a well-done overview.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in. Macworld Mobile to orbit App Planet at MWC 2011 in February. Apple boots BitTorrent-related app from store | Utilities | iOS Central. Apple has given the boot to an iPhone application capable of managing BitTorrent downloads, the app's developer said Tuesday. Macworld has confirmed the program is no longer available from the App Store. “Just got a call from Apple. They're taking IS Drive down,” developer Derek Kepner posted on Twitter early Tuesday afternoon. “I'm seeing what I can do. I have a feeling I won't be able to change their mind.” The $5 application allowed users to check and manage downloads from ImageShack, which offers image hosting and free photo- and video-sharing, along with a paid ImageShack Drive feature that allows users to download torrent files to their ImageShack account.
Kepner told Macworld that an Apple representative on Tuesday cited Section 22.4 of the App Store Review Guidelines: “Apps that enable illegal file sharing will be rejected.” “There are users who have no intention to pirate anything. And Kepner noted that ImageShack’s torrent service requires a subscription fee. Apple Awarded a Patent To Prevent Texting "Objectionable Content" Apple has been awarded a patent that can keep you from sending or receiving "objectionable" text-messages.
The patent, filed in January of 2008 and approved today, will allow certain content to be filtered, based on parental controls. The description of the patent doesn't mention sexting, although that may be the main thing many parents would want to forbid. Rather, it gives the example of parents requiring a set number of words per day be included in emails for a child learning Spanish. And parental control applications to encourage language acquisition are, indeed, innovative. The abstract of the patent reads: Systems, devices, and methods are provided for enabling a user to control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device.
Having these sorts of controls may be one more step in keeping Apple devices safe from porn. Would Copyright Work Better If It Was Treated More Like Property? Lawyer Terry Hart, who we linked to last month for his discussion about whether or not it was okay to call infringement theft has now written another piece arguing that those of us who point out that copyright is not property may also be making a mistake. Specifically, he points to a recent paper by Christopher Newman, which suggests that the problem might be that we don't treat copyright enough like property, and that if we treated it even more like property, many of the problems with copyright law, specifically in the area of derivative works, would be more efficiently handled.
In many ways, Newman's paper is quite similar to the argument of Bessen and Meurer in the patent realm. Their research details how much the patent system is hindering innovation, and they chalk up the problem to the fact that patents are not enough like property, in that the boundaries are not clearly defined. Newman appears to take a similar position, with a few more specifics having to do with copyright. Starbucks Puts Quality Over Quantity - Megan McArdle - Business. Starbucks is taking a step that at first seems a little odd: the firm has ordered its baristas to slow down. Instead of grinding the beans at the beginning of the day, they're to recreate a little theater by grinding them fresh for each batch; instead of working on a bunch of drinks at once, they're to handle only two at a time, beginning the next while the previous drink is processing.
The result will be a more consistent coffee experience. As the company has grown, its struggling with the problem that plagues any organization which tries to scale: controlling worker output so that the customer experience is roughly the same every time. Naturally, this problem is largest in service organizations. But while the "burger stream" arguably delivered a better hamburger, it also meant throughput was bottlenecked; you got one burger every few seconds, no matter what. So Burger King tended to deliver a better burger during slow times, but McDonalds could handle the highest volume periods. Fox channels go dark amid financial dispute. Please Explain Why Angry Birds is Addictive. Angry Birds is often described as an addictive game, which helps explain why the full version’s launch for Android phones is big news.
Starting today, the game can be downloaded for free through GetJar, a third-party app store, and it’s coming to the Android Market over the weekend. If you’re one of the folks who’s hooked on Angry Birds — and please don’t take this the wrong way — I don’t understand why. Angry Birds is a clever game, for sure. It has cute characters, elegant design and simple goals. But addictive? Video game addiction is often associated with massive multiplayer online games, like World of Warcraft.
The other prominent class of addictive games are repetitive puzzlers, like Tetris and Bejeweled. Somewhere in between these two classes lies the recent wave of social games like Farmville. Thing is, Angry Birds doesn’t fit into these descriptions of addictive games. So here’s my theory: Angry Birds is not an addictive game. Let me know if I’m way off base. Slipstream - How Aging Populations May Crimp the World’s Finances.
Sky defends Anytime+ data cap issue. Sky is adamant that users of their base level broadband package can get a decent experience out of the forthcoming Sky Anytime+ VOD service, despite the data cap meaning that people could be charged extra for watching more than 180 minutes of television a month. Anytime+ is Sky's forthcoming video on demand through a broadband connection, which will only be available to people on Sky's broadband packages. Sky's most popular broadband package is its well received unlimited package – but for those people on Sky Broadband Lite, its entry level offering, the arrival of Anytime+ could be a rude awakening.
Data cap The 2GB data limit would restrict viewing severely by being included along with any other form of internet traffic, a different approach to the likes of BT Vision and Virgin Media, neither of which includes VOD usage in its limit. As a point of clarity, it should be pointed out that Sky's existing push VOD Anytime does NOT count towards any data limit. Not excluded Confusing for some. Notorious Patent Troll NTP Locates A New Target: Yahoo.
Patent troll extraordinaire NTP Inc. has already sued just about everyone in the mobile industry (famously Research In Motion but also Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless) and now appears to have found a new target, one that is already in a corner where punches are being dealt: Yahoo. NTP alleges that Yahoo infringes patents it owns, more specifically covering wireless email technology and radio frequency antenna design. About half of the US patents held by NTP were originally assigned to a company called Telefind, which was partly owned by the late inventor Thomas J. Campana. The company is now out of business, and NTP apparently decided that suing the world for infringement of patents it acquired was a much better business model than actually building something useful. The complaint is embedded below.
Complaint-yahoo. More transparency and control over location. We’ve always focused on offering people the most relevant results. Location is one important factor we’ve used for many years to customize the information that you find. For example, if you’re searching for great restaurants, you probably want to find ones near you, so we use location information to show you places nearby. Today we’re moving your location setting to the left-hand panel of the results page to make it easier for you to see and control your preferences. With this new display you’re still getting the same locally relevant results as before, but now it’s much easier for you to see your location setting and make changes to it. Your location setting is now always visible on the left side of the search results page.
We do our best to automatically detect the most useful location, but we don’t always get it right—so in some cases you’ll want to change the setting. Click “Change location” to specify your location preference. Mobile. Slate Showdown: iPad vs. HP Slate vs. JooJoo vs. the Android Tab. Apple, Mac, iPod and iPhone News, Reviews, Help and Tips | Macwo. A not-so-brief chat with Randal. So we set up a call with Randall this morning to discuss some of the profoundly stupid things his guy Ralph de la Vega said recently about creating incentives that would encourage people to stop using AT&T’s data network so much. Point of the talk was, when you’re lucky enough to create a smash hit product — when the stars align, and the hardware is great and the ecosystem is great and the apps are great and the whole experience is great, and everything you do just makes everything else better, and you’re totally on a roll and can do no wrong — when that happens, you do not go out and try to fuck it all up by discouraging people who love your product.
What you do, instead, is you fix your fucking shitty ass network you fucking shit-eating-grin-wearing hillbilly ass clown! First off, before we even start the call, we’ve got problems, because shithead won’t get on the phone unless I’m on the line first. So fine. We wait a bit, and he calls. He sighs and says, Okay. So let’s talk traffic. Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About.