Microsoft going after Adobe?

Last week released a preview of Acrylic an illustration, painting and graphics tool.

Longhorn will contain a file format called Metro that will act just like PDF.

Podcasting comes to iTunes early and not from Apple

The BadApple Plugin for iTunes from BadFruit. Allows you to find and download Podcasts right inside iTunes

www.badfruit.com

Speculation the software may be from MP3Tunes.com which is the new company owned by former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson

The log file for the software shows several calls to a server at MP3Tunes.com

Some of the software code contains references to MP3Tunes.

The privacy policies for MP3Tunes.com and BadFruit.com are almost word-for-word identical

Some users are reporting issues with accessing the Apple Store after install and uninstalling does not fix it. Adds a line to the hosts file in Windows.

New Freescale chips may mean faster PowerBooks

The next generation of the Freescale processor currently in PowerBooks was debuted.

The MPC7448 is expected to be available in speeds up to 1.7GHz

Uses a 90nm manufacturing process that increases clock speed and significantly reduces power requirements

Apple sued over iTunes interface

Contois Music Technology has asked a judge to force Apple to stop distributing iTunes

Alleges iTunes infringes on a 6-year old patent for, "Computer Control System and User Interface for Media Playing Devices.", issued to Contois.

Exhibited at the 1995 COMDEX trade show and the 1996 NAMM music industry trade show.

Claim persons who were at the time employed by or later became employed by Apple were present at both trade shows and viewed Contois' software.

Also seeking unspecified damages.

Sony BMG and EMI make statement by locking out iPod

The companies are releasing copy protected CD that can't be transfered to iPods

Already half the CDs being released by Sony BMG have the technology and EMI is releasing it's first .

Have to register the disc and then can only rip into protected WMA format.

Only a problem on a PC and apparently you can get around it by holding down the shift key when you insert the CD on Windows.

Apple drops Virex from .Mac

According to MacFixit, Apple is dropping Virex from its stable of .Mac offerings, primarily due to incompatibilities with OS X 10.4

Interesting numbers

According to Entertainment Media Research 35% music fans download music from legal online music services. Close to the 40% that report downloading from P2P and other illegal sources.

Research firm In-Stat reports the iPods accounted for 30% of all MP3 players sold in 2004

When is an iPod not an iPod? When it's an Ipod MP4

Shenzhen Orderly Science & Technology has a 20GB portable media player they are calling the Ipod MP4

Does Apple even need a lawyer for this one?

Inventor of the integrated circuit dead at 81

Jack S. Kilby, an electrical engineer whose invention of the integrated circuit gave rise to the information age, died Monday in Dallas.

My 2 Cents with Curt

Play commentary

Response to Windows File Sharing

Play response from Per

iMac G5 fan noise clarification

Play audio comment

Publishing iCals to your .Mac

Play audio question

Puts it in a public area with no way to control it.

Was a great PHP project called PHP iCalendar, but it is not longer available.

Aging MUGs and iMic Issues

Play comments and questions from Kevin

Syncing iPod ratings

Listener Ryan was having issues syncing his song ratings from his iPod back to iTunes

Only works with auto syncing enabled

Sync-iPod AppleScript from Greg Townsend

Sync-iPod AppleScript

"Date Last Played", "Play Count", "Rating" and "Comments"

Feedback on Dittybot

Play audio from Andy

Garagband won't stay open

Play question from Scott

Make sure to update to 1.1

Repair permissions

Check for plug-in conflicts. ~/Library/Audio/Plug-In

Know issue with Digidesign hardware, 10.3.9 and Quicktime 7

Apple Discussion on Issue