Cult of Mac

Damian Kulash Jr., lead singer for the band OK Go, argues convincingly that in this day and age, file-sharing is essential for his band’s success.

In the New York Times, He writes:

“To be clear, I certainly don’t encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we’re not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won’t happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won’t happen without a fair amount of file sharing.

As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn’t put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren’t as fortunate.”

Eric Wolfe, a 17-year-old senior, met his girlfriend when he “jacked” into her iPod in a darkened cinema.

IPod jacking is when two strangers swap headphone jacks to sample each others’ music. It’s one way to discover new music, and can be used to break the ice. IPod jacking was a lot easier when iPods were rarer, and the white earbuds signified membership of an exclusive club.

Eric is from La Quinta, California, near Palm Springs. He met his girlfriend, Bailey Smith, at an outside mall called “The River,” which has a movie theater.

Here’s Eric’s story, as told via a recent IM-terview (which I’ve lightly edited to make it easier to read):

ERIC: so i was here at “the river” with a couple friends
i had my ipod on me, like i always do, (it’s as normal as taking my wallet)
and i saw a girl walk into the movie theatre with her friends….. i notice the famous white earbuds and knew she had an ipod.

i convinced my friends to move down a couple rows closer to the screen

so when i was walking down i plugged in my earbuds and put on a cute song real quick i thought she might like….. i sat 2 seats to her side
i waited till she glanced over at me( i was kidna lucky she ever did)
so i looked back at her and put on a small smile and said hi
she seemed friendly
so i asked what she was listening to while taking out her headphone and plugging in mine
she was a little confused at first but then laughed when she realized what i was doing

ME: cheeky

haha yeah…. i was kinda nervous but i pulled it off
we only had a couple minutes to introduce introduce each other and talk about music before the movie started
but that’s pretty much it…. i got her screenname
before we left

ME: what was the song you chose for her to listen to?

hopeless love by daphne loves derby

ME: and what was she listening to?

dark blue by jack’s mannequin

ME: so you approved of each other’s taste in music?

she liked what i had, i wasn’t too fond of jack’s mannequin, but its grown on me since

ME: how long you been going out?

3 months
a little over

ME: you have any other ipod jacking stories?

just one other… i “kinda” knew the girl though
she was an old friend’s little sister
i just used it to “break the ice”… it seemed more interesting than saying “hey, are you josh’s little sister?”

ME: so — you’re a serial jacker?

haha

ME: what kind of music do u like? name a couple of bands.

a thorn for every heart, boys night out, the academy is, armor for sleep, bloc party, brand new, dashboard confessional, the early november, emery, the faint, halifax, hellogoodbye, mae, matchbook romance, motion city soundtrack, northstar, panic! at the disco, park, the plain white t’s, the postal service, silverstein
typical ’emo’ stuff
that was a bit more than a couple, but thats just off the top of my head

ME: so it’s a good way to approach girls?

most definitely

This case for the iPod nano is swedish and designed by Johan von Konow.

It’s very thin – only 0.3 mm – which feels like a high priority for a case that surrounds a nano. Four colors to choose from, the three seen above and one transparent.

A smart feature is the holder for the earbud cable on the back of the case. Only available in Sweden right now, unfortunately.

So I just woke up and see that Apple is offering about a dozen new TV shows for download from NBC, USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Sorry for being the last person on the Net to post this.

The new shows include:

NBC’s “Law & Order,” “The Office,” “Surface,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,”

the USA Network’s Emmy Award-winning “Monk”

Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica”

classic TV shows including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Dragnet,” “Adam-12” and “Knight Rider.”

Pricing is a bit weird. Entire episodes of “Law & Order” cost $1.99, but so does a 10-minute clip of Conan O’Brien.

CNET:

The Princeton researchers that have done much of the work deconstructing SonyBMG’s recent controversial copy protection software have found an interesting new tidbit. According to their new findings, the Sony software had a hidden component that could convert songs from the CD, or other ordinary MP3s, into a file compatible with Apple’s copy protected FairPlay format.

That would mean that the songs could be played on iPods, which hasn’t been the case with copy protected CDs in the past. It apparently accomplishes this by using open-source, yet copyrighted code, a practice deemed a no-no in programming circles.

It’s not yet clear how this came about. Record labels have hoped to establish compatibility with the iPod for their copy protected CDs for some time, and EMI Music has even said that its CDs are close to reaching that point. Apple, for its part, denied EMI’s contention.

This is a big deal:

Britain’s independent music labels are about to make music available for podcasts, reports the BBC. Britain’s indie acts include Franz Ferdinand and The Prodigy.

Songs by acts signed to UK indie record labels are to be made available to podcasters on a trial basis.

The Association of Independent Music is selling six-month worldwide licence deals for its members’ music to be used on download radio programmes.

… “We believe there will be huge global demand for the AIM podcast licence,” (said an AIM spokeswoman)

As one of the BBC’s interviewees points out: “I see podcasting and subscription services as playing a big role in where the music consumer wants to go.”

Steve Wozniak:

My best computer prank involved counterfeiting twenty thousand brochures for a phony computer. I did it at the West Coast Computer Faire, where the Apple was introduced.

Bruce Damer’s ever-excellent Digibarn Computer Museum has a scan of Wozniak’s proudest prank.

What’s the most expensive Mac money can buy?

According to Gadget Madness, it’s a “2.5Ghz Quad-core PowerPC G5 with 16GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, Quadro FX 4500 graphics card with 512MB of memory, 16X dual-layer Superdrive, and two 30″ Apple Cinema HD displays.”

Cost — a cool $24,000 — but shipping is free.

UK blogs Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny have named the iPod Shuffle as this year’s “Must Chav Gadget.”

A chav is slang for a member of Britain’s “peasant underclass” — a lowlife, in other words.

Says Tech digest:

The shuffle is perfect for chavs. It’s cheap. It’s by a cool brand, and you can let others know you have one as it is designed to be worn round your neck. As it is white it also accessorises well with those classy gold chains Chavs wear. The sad part is that the shuffle is the worst player in the Apple range — more like some dodgy back street knock-off than the excellent other iPods. The fact it has no screen so you can’t program it or choose a track — it chooses the music for you — also saves Chav brain cells for the much more important business of, ahem, pimping their rides.

Second prize went to the Motorla Razr — “standard fixture for every Tom Dick and Chav.”

The New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen “podcast” as the Word of the Year for 2005.

Podcast will be added to the next online update of the dictionary in early 2006.

EIC Erin McKean said, “Podcast was considered for inclusion last year, but we found that not enough people were using it, or were even familiar with the concept. This year it’s a completely different story. The word has finally caught up with the rest of the iPod phenomenon.”

The runners-up included:

bird flu
IED
lifehack
persistent vegetative state
reggaeton
rootkit
squick (“cause immediate and thorough revulsion”)
sudoku
trans fat

Here’s a cheap way to boost the range of your Airport Express Wi-Fi base station: stick it inside a steel wire-basket ladle.

This idea is to put the Airport Express in the middle of the parabolic kitchenware. In other words to make a kind of a passive wifi antenna enhancer. Et voila!

… Positioning this area of the AE in the focal point of the parabola with some sticky tape can even marginally improve the range extension. You could also use a bigger chinese kitchenware.

(Via MacBidouille)

Apple’s mega Cinema Display is to about get some competition: Dell is prepping its own 30-inch flat panel, according to a post on the NeoWin forums.

I’ve no idea how reliable the post is, but it says the monster monitor will ship four days before Christmas, have WQXGA resolution (2560 x 1600), two DVI-D links and one HDCP port.

The big question though is price — will it be a lot less than the $2,500 Apple charges?

Unlike Sony, which is using fake graffiti to promote the PSP, this iPod graf from New Zealand appears genuine.

Think Secret says at Macworld in January Apple will unveil an online media distribution system for streaming tons of content to the living room, including feature-length movies.

One of the analysts interviewed wondered whether the Mac mini, which Think Secret says will be revamped, could be based on Intel’s new Viiv platform, a set of branded chip technologies for home entertainment devices.

Among other things, Viiv (which rhymes with “five”) provides a secure platform for sharing copy-protected media among devices in the home, as well as out of it — like loading TV shows on handhelds and laptops, for example.

Intel has been busy signing up dozens of partners in consumer electronics, as well as Hollywood and the music biz, according to the WSJ (registration required). Tivo is a partner, as is British Sky Broadcasting and Movielink, a joint movie-download service from five major movie studios.

Viiv works with Microsoft’s Media Center and the upcoming Windows Vista, but could Apple also be involved, basing the new Mac mini on Viiv?

Either way, publications like the Enquirer and Hardware Analysis, think Viiv is bad news for consumers.

The technology will allow content to be locked down, limiting what consumers can do with movies or music they buy in digital format, even if it’s within their “fair use” rights.

In addition, “unauthorized” hardware like homebrew Linux boxes will be locked out of the legitimate digital content market. As I suggested before — this is the real reason Apple is switching to Intel — so that it can sell copy-protected digital entertainment securely online.

It may not be all doom and gloom. Intel says Viiv will play unprotected content.

According to the WSJ: “With Viiv, Intel tried to make sure that consumers can still use unprotected content — such as CDs they rip — as they can now, Mr. Corbett said.”

But note the telling phrase: “Intel tried to make sure that consumers can still use unprotected content.”

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be giving the first of three short talks in the Bay Area about my new book, Cult of iPod.

The talk will be a brief intro to the book and what it’s about: fast-growing iPod culture.

The other appearances will be at the Stanford Bookstore in Palo Alto on Dec. 8 at 2pm — where there’ll be a raffle of an iPod Shuffle — and Borders San Rafael on Dec. 10 at 7pm.

Here’s the details of Saturday’s event:

LOCATION/TIME
Borders Books (Stonestown) Details and MAP
415.731.2025
255 Winston Dr.
San Francisco, CA 94132

Sat 12/03/05 (4:00pm)

Hope to see you there.

Skwat is a Belgian T-Shirt designer who sells a range of Apple-themed “Wear Different” t-shirts featuring Japanese anime-style characters.

The shirts depict chibi iPod users giving the thumbs up, and Steve Jobs holding an iMac. There’s even Jobs and Steve Wozniak holding an early Mac.

The site (Flash — eugh) allows you to send some of the images as e-cards.

(Thanks Michael Agustin)

This bed from New Zealand has a built-in iPod dock. It’s billed as “the world’s first iPod compatible bed.”

Of all the attributes of a bed, iPod compatibility is about the last thing you’d look for, I’d think. But it’s actually quite handy if you use the iPod’s sleep timer and alarm.

Most of all it illustrates the iPod’s incredible impact on audio — the bed is now another iPod accessory!

Says the website:

“Optional accessories include a minimalist side lamp and aluminium tray, but perhaps the most exciting feature is how the shelves can seamlessly accommodate an iPod and Bose speaker system.”

(Via MacFeber)

If you’re worried about iPods selling out over the holidays, consider the alternative: a fantastic book about iPods and iPod culture — Cult of iPod.

And if you order it here, I’ll autograph the book and write a personal inscription to its lucky recipient. Just fill out the “Your Inscription Here” box on the Paypal order page.

Author Jim Heid has just posted a very nice review.

Earlier this week marked 20 years since the premiere of Windows 1.0.

Microsoft has been surprisingly quiet about the anniversary, except for a couple of things in Japan.

Over at Download Squad, there’s a list of 20 things you didn’t know about Windows 1.0.

One of the things on the list is that Bill Gates wanted to call the operating system “Interface Manager,” but was persuaded by marketing exec Rowland Hanson that Windows was the way to go.

(Via Maximac.se)

Coverbuddy is a program that lets you navigate your iTunes library via album artwork rather than lists of songs or artists. It’s nice, but pretty useless.

But now a new version of the software allows iTunes to be accessed via any web browser, including the browser on the Sony PSP, which turns the little game machine into a remote for iTunes.

The FluffPod is now available for the iPod nano, its NYC manufacturer announced:

Slip into something more comfortable.

Fluffpod nano comes in two silky bright colors, a fabulous white and luscious pink. Both feature super silky soft satin lining and a poofy soft fur top.

If you don’t get an iPod this Christmas because they’re all sold out, download and print out this gorgeous paperPod.

This Japanese site also has a charming classic Mac.

LaCie’s newest hard drive is a 500GB brick — literally.

The $400 hard drive is shaped like a Lego brick, and is stackable to boot.

Available in late December, the USB 2.0 drive will be available in a range of capacities, starting at 160GB for $120.

Crafted by the world-famous designer Ora-Ito, the new Brick expresses a ludic playfulness in a user-friendly high-performance hard drive. Stack & Play multiple LaCie Bricks together to brighten your desktop and your mood.

Microsoft’s MSN site suggests websurfers using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the Mac switch to another browser!

Fire up that dusty old copy of Explorer and — if you haven’t changed the default homepage — you’ll be greeted by a message at MSN that says:

“If you are using Internet Explorer for Mac, we recommend that you use another browser to have an optimal experience of MSN.”

Of course, Microsoft stopped updating Explorer in 2003, shortly after Apple released Safari.

It looks like Microsoft’s done an Apple with the XBox 360. Of all things, the standout feature in early reviews is not the graphics, but the user interface.

That’s surprising, given Microsoft’s reputation for astonishingly crappy interfaces.

In a discussion of the UI, BusinessWeek concluded: “Microsoft certainly seems to have done just about everything right.”

Wired News said: “What’s impressed me most thus far about the 360 is how it streamlines and refines the user interface.”

And Columnist John Dvorak said: “The Xbox 360 explores new menu structures with a unique and pleasant GUI… I have not seen a hardware/software system this well thought out for a decade or more.”

According to a press release, the UI was developed by a UK consultancy, Akqa, and was perfected using good-old usability testing:

To arrive at the new Xbox 360 player interface, Microsoft and AKQA formed a multidisciplinary team of user experience, interaction design, user insight and behavior specialists, who built several functioning prototypes, working hand-in-hand with the Xbox 360 industrial design team. In-depth testing of the prototypes followed, with immersive workshops, usability sessions and interviews with customers taking place worldwide. The prototypes were then refined and re-tested.

BetaNews has a bunch of screenshots, and it does look surprisingly clean and uncluttered.