Tag Archives: Apple

Have you spotted Spotify?

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Spotify is the latest music website and maybe the smartest. The music industry has been trapped between fending off the Napsters and disliking Apple’s dominance of paid-for music downloads through its itunes services.

The music industry’s overly protectionist approach to copyright has made music often exorbitantly expensive for certain users – like community radio stations in rural areas with small populations. It has seen clever and successful experiments like Coldplay’s, in releasing new material straight to the web for download at a price decided by the user. It has been beset by a variety of piratic assaults on its stronghold. And itunes still rules.

The industry knows it has to change, finding a way to protect artists’ rights fairly by finding the line between burning off potential users and being endlessly vulnerably to the latest piracy.

So now there’s Spotify – with a very new take on using music. You can listen to what music you like via the site – but you cannot download it. The deal is that you listen to an advertisement every twenty minutes – and that’s where the money comes from.

The site is supposed to be a beta vesion accessible only by invitation – but we were able to download the software and open an account without an invitation – so go check it out and share your reactions here.

What is Spotify?

Spotify

Glasgow’s Picsel Technologies takes a legal bite at Apple over iPhone and iTouch related patent

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Picsel Technologies, based in Glasgow, has filed a suit in Delaware against Apple over what it alleges is the Mac company’s illegal use of its own patented technology in Apple’s hot sellers, the iPhone and iTouch.

The function in question relates to the iPhone and iTouch capacity for users to scan and pan screen content quickly.

Nixon Peabody, Picsel’s  legal representives in America, are quoted as saying: ‘Picsel claims that Apple has implemented a key component from Picsel’s mobile rendering functionality, which enables users to scan through all kinds of on-screen content without experiencing prolonged screen update cycles. Without Picsel’s technology, users can be subjected to prolonged delays while ‘zooming’ and ‘panning’ documents, web pages and images. This core rendering feature is a key contributor to the unique visual experience delivered by Picsel’.

Picsel is looking for compensation for the units already sold (and how many is that in two hugely successful products?), unspecified damages and patent damages.

Happy 40th Birthday, Mouse – will it make 50?

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No it’s not Mickey Mouse, it’s the ever serving computer mouse. The device that revolutionised the way in which we use computers was first demonstrated on 9 December 1968.

That first mouse was built of wood, had two wheels and a single button. But it was the thick cord that connected it to a computer and resembled a tail that gave the device its name. The mouse was considered a revelation at the time. 40 years on – and we take it for granted.

It was a visit to Xerox’s PARC research centre in December 1979 by Apple founders Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin that sealed the future of the mouse as the near-universal means for controlling a computer. The mouse and the idea of the graphical user interface that Jobs and Raskin also encountered for the first time at PARC were core components in the development of the first Mac, introduced in 1984.

The mouse’s fortieth birthday comes as some are predicting its imminent demise, with Apple’s iPhone pre-eminent in the minds of those who see touch screens as the future. But for the time being its future seems secure; touch has its charms, but for all gestures in the world cannot yet provide the
flexibility and degree of control that the humble mouse offers.

Computer Mice
by Todd-Michael St. Pierre
Can anyone give me advice . . . ?
What to do with computer mice?
At night they come out
And race all about.
Each mouse and it’s spouse
Invading my house.
They wreck my office
And they’re not too nice.
What to do with computer mice?
Wait, I hadn’t thought about that -
Perhaps, I’ll get a computer cat!

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