Much to the chagrin of the Recording Industry Association of America, internet users quickly caught on to digital music as a free alternative to paying for albums. In fear of declining album sales, record labels filed lawsuit after lawsuit against online services Napster and MP3.com for hosting digital music, as well as Diamond Multimedia, a Korean company that released an MP3 player called the Rio. Clearly, for the recording industry, change wasn’t easy.
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Steve Jobs to be at D8
Apple CEO and Co-founder Steve Jobs will appear at the eighth D: All Things Digital, in an interview on the opening night, kicking off our tech and media conference that will also include famed Hollywood director James Cameron, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among others.
Too bad I want to stab my computer every time I see Kara Swisher on the screen.
No 2010 Apple Design Awards for Mac Apps
iPhone Developer Program members can submit nominations for iPhone and iPad apps that deserve to be recognized at the Apple Design Awards during WWDC.
No Mac awards is a great way to show Mac developers Apple is focused on the desktop platform.
Shoebox Apple Store
On the Apple LaserWriter
Benj Edwards has a great piece over at Macworld about the importance of the LaserWriter. It really did a lot to shape Apple into the company it is today.
Simplenote for iPad
I’ve become a huge fan of Simplenote over the last 6 months. It pained me that they didn’t have an iPad app available at launch.
Well, today they’ve announced Simplenote for iPad, and I am happy to say the app was worth the wait.
It works just like Apple’s Notes app, but the UI is far, far cleaner. I’m not sure there is anything else the designers could have taken out. In landscape mode, a list of notes is shown down the side, and in portrait mode, the entire screen becomes a note. It is perfect in its simplicity.
Transmit 4 Released
Holy crap, this is amazing.
Shield Laws, Stolen Property and Gizmodo
A Brief Journalism Lesson
In place since 1972’s Branzburg v. Hayes Supreme Court case, shield laws are in place to keep journalists from being legally obligated to expose their sources in court. This is from the court’s finding in the case:
The First Amendment does not relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation, and therefore the Amendment does not afford him a constitutional testimonial privilege for an agreement he makes to conceal facts relevant to a grand jury’s investigation of a crime or to conceal the criminal conduct of his source or evidence thereof
Nick Denton Raises the Journalist Question
Gawker CEO Nick Denton has chimed in on Twitter about the police raid on Jason Chen’s house:
Do bloggers count as journalists? I guess we’ll find out.
The bigger question is “Did Gawker break the law?” If the answer is yes, then it doesn’t matter if bloggers have the same rights as butchers, really. Stolen property is stolen property, no matter whose hands end up on it. Denton’s question is a straw man, nothing more.
On Charts
The purpose of a chart is to illuminate; if it’s harder to read than a raw-data table or a paragraph of text saying the same, then don’t use a chart. And if your goal is simply to create a pretty graphic, then don’t try beefing up your science cred with this “information” stuff.
Arranging data in an aesthetically pleasing way with no regard for how the arrangement affects the viewer’s understanding is simply dishonest.
Police Search Jason Chen’s Home
Last Friday night, California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team entered editor Jason Chen’s home without him present, seizing four computers and two servers. They did so using a warrant by Judge of Superior Court of San Mateo. According to Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker Media LLC, the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code.
I would go with the judge’s interpretation of the law over that of the COO of Gawker’s.
Steven Frank Unboxes the iPad
This is the most recent in his series that started with his iPhone 3GS unboxing.