We’re big fans of the unauthorized doc “Welcome to Macintosh” — a true love letter to the history of Apple and its community.
Now this indie film is available on iTunes.
Well, it’s also available on Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Netflix etc., but we love the idea that what is a totally handmade film (tagline: “a documentary for the rest of us”) is now worthy of being sold by Apple.
The audio manufacturer Shure is known for its excellent headphones, which makes it a favorite target of counterfeiters.
In May, Shure helped Chinese authorities bust knockoff shops run by two Shanghai companies that were making copycat Shure headphones. The raids uncovered large quantities of Shure E2c and E4c earphones, which sell for about $70 and $170 respectively, as well as headphones branded JVC and Audio-Technica.
Unlike copycats of yore, today’s counterfeiters are amazingly sophisticated and accomplished, turning out high-quality knockoffs that in some ways rival the originals. Flickr user digaderfox bought a pair of fake Shures on eBay last year, and documented the surprisingly high quality of the knockoffs on the photo site.
Apple is also is becoming a target of copycats, with amazingly good knockoffs of iPhones and headsets coming onto the market.
SEE ALSO:
Marvel At the Ingenuity of the Chinese iPhoney, iPhone Knockoffs Now Near Perfect
Paul Applebaum, Shure’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, said counterfeiters are increasingly sophisticated. Some are setting up convincing factory-direct websites, or hijacking U.S. eBay accounts to make it appear goods are shipped domestically.
Full interview after the jump.
Could this 7,500 square foot mansion at 36 Morningside Place in Memphis be Steve Jobs’s new mansion?
Jobs has reportedly bought a large residence in Memphis after receiving a liver transplant in March at one of the city’s hospitals.
Forbes reports that Jobs may have bought a mansion in Memphis close to The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute, a liver transplant center.
A finance reporter, Alexander Haislip, previously at Red Herring magazine, also says that Jobs has bought a mansion.
CC-licensed photo by Joohyun Jeon
Apple appears to be building a large, distributed helpdesk operation, either in anticipation of a major new product, or simply to sustain the company’s growing popularity.
Apple this summer is recruiting about 450 “At Home” technical support staff in at least six cities across the U.S., according to a document seen by Cultofmac.com.
Instead of locating these workers in a centralized call center, they will work out of their own homes.
“As a company who’s motto is ‘think different,’ our ‘work different’ philosophy offers you the opportunity to work independently in your home office,” the job ads said. “You will receive all the wonderful benefits of working for an amazing company without ever leaving your home.”
It’s no secret President Obama and much of his team are big Mac fans, or that some of their more publicized frustrations with the transition to power in DC have come with confronting the challenges posed by outdated Windows technology and requirements to meet legal guidelines for security and archiving of official communications.
Perhaps readers will recall, as well, Obama’s stated desire to continue using his Blackberry in office and the various and sundry security concerns that have arisen around that issue.
News Wednesday is that Waltham, Mass.-based Onset Technologies may be working on technology that could allow the President to use an iPhone, should that desire strike the Commander in Chief.
Many high profile government groups, including the US House of Representatives, the Senate and NASA, use Onset’s METAmessage ACT to secure correspondence on mobile devices, as do many private businesses. The technology can scan, block and archive all wireless communication on a device that uses it and keeps companies compliant with regulations like SEC, NASD, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, FINRA and the latest Privacy Act.
While Blackberry maker Research in Motion is Onset’s most high-profile partner to date, the company’s solutions are available on all the major US carriers and it is looking to expand its reach.
Onset expects to release new versions of METAmessage ACT for Windows Mobile and Symbian soon and yes, even hopes to make a version for the Apple iPhone.
Via VentureBeat
This prototype bedside lamp with an iPod dock and speaker has simple curve design, it’s exactly the kind of thing that is yes, useful, but that you could buy just for the looks.
Props to designer Sang-Hoon Lee, hope to give more details soon.
Via Yanko Design
The big tech news of the last few days is that Hewlett-Packard‘s 2008 earnings are better than analyst estimates — and this most recent quarter should be their strongest. It was a major bright spot from one of the world’s largest companies, showing that the current credit crisis doesn’t actually mean that the entire economy has shut down. Specifically, the tech sector might be in less trouble than everyone else.
And it made me wonder, yet again, why exactly stock analysts continue to assume that Apple can’t continue to grow and innovate in the coming years. After all, if one organization knows something about hitting the gas during a down time to get light years ahead of the competition, it is Apple. The stock chart I’ve reproduced above from Google shows the performance of AAPL since the introduction of the iPod in the depths of the post-9/11 and -Enron recession. Even with the recent precipitous drop in AAPL (it’s down almost 60 percent since January), the stock is worth about eight times what it was before the iPod (when you factor in the stock split in 2005).
The iPhone is burning up the charts. Apple has its strongest line-up of laptops in the history of the company and is gobbling up market share. The iPod touch and new nano has cemented Apple’s lead in the media player market. When people aren’t buying cars and houses, they still find time for personal entertainment — it’s a comfort when everything else is crazy. With Apple’s current technology and product pipeline, I believe that Steve has the organization poised to thrive once again. They’re going to maintain their position, continue growth, and get out ahead in creating new markets while their competitors are battening down the hatches and sticking to doing what they already know.
What Apple has to offer isn’t going away because credit is scarce. If anything, it may grow even more appealing.
You know what it’s like when you’re strolling around looking for networks. They’re all the same. They’re all called “belkin54” or “NETGEAR” or “BTHomeHub”. So generic. So default.
What we really need is networks with imaginative names. Names like “Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem”, as screenshotted here by Flickr user Ingridesign.
I’m now inspired to change my network name from the stupendously dull “16spring” to “The Network That Performs Somersaults”.
Is your network called something interesting? Something better than “Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem”? Do share.
Oh, and another thing: apparently someone announced some new laptops yesterday. You might want to look that up if you’re interested.
(Picture used with permission. Thanks to Ingrid!)
Former Forbes writer Daniel Lyons, uncovered last year by The New York Times as the man behind the blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, posted news today that his often hilarious and always outrageous character “Fake Steve Jobs” is sailing into the sunset.
Lyons wrote “Fake Steve is not really going away. He’s just taking on a new form.” But in a fashion true to form, the post left threads untied and destinations open to the imagination. Lyons begins work as a Newsweek columnist in the fall and is publishing a novel inspired by his work on the blog, according to a post today in the Times’ Technology blog.
Software developer Information Appliance Associates (IAA) leaps to the head of a line of design entrepreneurs helping Blackberry smartphone users “Macintoshify” their handhelds with the release of PocketMac Mac Themes for Blackberry. Counting on the likelihood that there are many, many Mac users who have and intend to keep using Blackberry mobile phones, the San Diego-based software maker is selling what the company claims is the first tool to transform the look and feel of a BlackBerry into a miniature Macintosh.
Available for a number of models of the Research in Motion (RIM) smartphone (with support for the Blackberry Bold on the way), PocketMac replaces the standard icons and images of the BlackBerry with those of original, yet very familiar Mac-like icons, complete with familiar colors and backgrounds, to create what some are calling a MacBerry.
“I’m a passionate Mac user. I love my Mac and I love my BlackBerry,” says IAA CTO Terrence Goggin. “We created the PocketMac MacTheme [because] all of our customers love the BlackBerry but they preferred something that reminded them of home… their Mac.”
