With a production time of 12mths definitely a long term project. Did it pay off? We’d say fu**ing yes!!! Our recommendation: listen and relax, folks…
[Muzaq] Dialektik’s Longterm Project “Spaceship Helmet” now on Preview…
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Tag Archives: Amazon
[Muzaq] Former Universal CEO Calls For Culture Flatrate
Former CEO of Universal Music Germany Tim Renner has called for a culture flatrate in the german Rolling Stone magazine.
Renner said, potential music buyers could be offered unlimited access to the music industry’s repositories for €12,90 (~US$17,50) per month.
Furthermore at the address of the music industry he argues: “Instead of fighting with ghosts, it’s all about starting a business”.
In 2004 Renner left Universal Music and wrote the book “Kinder, der Tod ist gar nicht so schlimm” (~”Kids, the death is not as bad as it seems”) – his personal opinion to the music industry’s future.
Links
» Tim Renner on Motor.de…
» Rolling Stone Germany: Renner fordert Kulturflatrate für 12,90€…
» Amazon.de: Kinder, der Tod ist gar nicht so schlimm…
[iPad] Apple Announces Slate Tablet in March
What has been rumored for so long has finally become reality. Apple today introduced the iPad or as Apple would put it: the magic experience of the internet. Worldwide product launch will be in March 2010.
Hardware
The iPad is a multi-touch device with a 9.7″ TFT display, without keyboard, but with a design and handling similar to the iPhone. It is run by an ARM 1GHz CPU and comes in flavors of 16, 32 or 64GB flash memory.
Prices
It comes as a WiFi only version or as a WiFi and 3G version.
- iPad 16GB = 499US$ (629US$ incl. 3G)
- iPad 32GB = 599US$ (729US$ incl. 3G)
- iPad 64GB = 699US$ (829US$ incl. 3G)
European prices have not been announced yet. In contrast to the iPhone the iPad seems not to distributed with carrier lock, but still via AT&T in the U.S.
Compatibility
App Store applications are in many cases compatible to the iPad, aswell. An external keyboard can be bought seperately. An e-book store called iBookstore will be available at product launch in march, aswell.
Our opinion
The display size and ease-of-use known from the iPhone will be nice for browsing the web from the sofa. It lacks a camera. The integration into Apple’s eco-system of products and services makes the iPad a danger to Amazon’s Kindle, we suppose.
Sadly from the aspects of an internet device, we suspect it will not support Adobe Flash, as it it rumored to be based on the iPhone kernel, as it prohibits multi-tasking.
This in turn will also mean that the platform will be be utilizing a similar chain of trust like the iPhone. Hello GeoHot? Got some time again after playing with the PS3? A new jailbreak might be required soon ;-)
What missing? Yes, Mr. iGAF. Sadly we haven’t read anything from him yet. But the ultimate test, why the iPad is so inferior to all Microsoft Windows based Slates will come. Be sure, not to miss Uncle Mossheimer on AllThingsD when it’s story time again…
And finally here’s Apple’s iPad propaganda vid. It’s become magical ;-)
[e-Biz] The Slate Tablets Are Coming
Tablet PCs seem to be the next big thing. After Apple’s smartphone revolution with their iPhone, it seems the next big market revolution might be the Tablet PCs.
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft introduced one of the Tablet PCs – a prototype of the HP Slate – last week on the CES 2010. In his presentation the HP Slate is of course running Windows 7, what else, but there are rumors it might also be shipped with Google’s Android. We suppose Amazon’s Steve Bezos will not really like it, because Steve Ballmer showed the HP Slate running the PC Kindle application.
Dell seems also be ready to enter the Touch PCs’ market with the Dell Slate. Gizmodo.de got photos of a prototype of Dell’s Slate. Dell’s Slate has a 5-inch screen, most likely an OLED, a SIM slot and a 5 megapixel camera.
If Apple was a typical tech company they would also have showed something to the public on the CES, but Apple isn’t. Anyway there are enuff rumors floating around about Apple’s Touch-Mac – rumored to be named Apple iSlate. According to Reuters Apple might be launching the iSlate in Q2/2010. It is expected to have a 10 or 11-inch display and a aluminium case. TheStreet.com reports that Apple’s Slate will be shipped with a P A Semi CPU, instead of Intel based Atom CPUs. This could be also the reason, why Atom CPU has been removed from Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s latest update 10.6.2. It is widely expected that Apple will announce the iSlate on Januar 27th, 2010.
Kara Swisher of AllThingsD interviewed Mr. Podfather Prefather Jon Rubinstein of Palm at the CES. Although he seems to have been highly involved in the development of Apple’s iPhone back in the days when he was Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, he said he never used an iPhone. Well… All in all he wasn’t telling too much, but when Kara asked him, if Palm will do a Tablet aswell, Rubinstein answered: “(..) we designed webOS to scale and it could be used in different form factors.”
[Games] EA Game “Spore” Ranks 1st on Pirate Bay
Storyline
The new game “Spore” by Electronic Arts hasn’t got much positive news since its release. In the first place potential customers would not buy it, because of its copy protection. Electronic Arts decided to combat potential piracy by applying a new version of the SecuRom copy protection.
Technical Details of the Protection
This new version requires to activate your legally purchased copy online. That’s nothing new. Many games and software applications nowadays require online activation. The point with this SecuRom protection is: it forces the players to re-validate their activation every 10 days. Thus meaning the stand alone game would not be playable for users being not connected to the internet.
The Reaction of the (potential) Customers
In the eyes of the customers this was unacceptable. Thousands of customers reviewed “Spore” with a single star on Amazon.com:
Anyway, by investigating this “Spore” issue a little bit deeper the german Golem.de (original article here, german only) found: people really like “Spore”, but they don’t like the copy protection. Within a week “Spore” has been transferred to 500,000 computers worldwide via the well known Pirate Bay Bittorrent Tracker. “Spore” currently ranks first on Pirate Bay downloads:
EA managers must feel this is real irony. Instead of protecting their investment into a very good game, potential customers are now downloading the already cracked copy without any protection from the internet for free.
Our Comment
Although we can’t tell from reality, we expect more people would have bought this game, if the protection wouldn’t have been so annoying to the masses. Anyway the “Spore” issue is one of the best case studies for the question how DRM is recognized by potential customers. In our opinion, media industry should begin to face four basic facts:
- DRM only deters potential customers from buying
- Protections only limit legal customers, thus punishing only them!
- Protections will always become cracked and
- Every digital good is available for free on the internet
Otherwise the problem of the music industry will repeat itself for the movie industry and the gaming industry aswell. Protections will never stop people from cracking and distributing digital goods on the net, but that’s not the point here. Everything here with DRM in general is about a feeling.
If customers feel like they are taken seriously as partners of the industry and consumers of their products, it’s more likely that they buy something they feel it’s worth it. People will never feel something worth buying if the limitations are so big that getting it the illegal way is much more stressless