Google and the Phantom Town of Argleton

For ages, map makers have protected their own maps by adding little landmarks and towns that don't exist, sort of a hiding-in-plain-sight watermark. Well, the Telegraph UK reported that it had spotted one such town in a Google Map, which was using Tele Atlas data. Argleton, in Lancashire, simply doesn't exist, even though you can plainly see it. What happened? Apparently, the name was quite possibly sucked up with other data when Tele Atlas' map makers were busy inputting info from old maps. This isn't unusual, though you'd think there'd be a more rapid fact checking process. By the way, we didn't cover it because nowadays, the story isn't really whether or not Tele Atlas is stealing maps from old dead cartographers, but whether or not Google is stealing the map business from Tele Atlas. [Telegraph UK via Valleywag]

10 Years of Steve Jobs' Apple Product Unveilings

MacLife created a choppy but thorough video of Steve Jobs unveiling everything from the original CRT iMac to the video-camera equipped iPod Nano, with bits of Schiller thrown in out of necessity. It's a fun encyclopedic romp (though I'm sure some of you can tell me what's missing). The biggest reason we didn't post it? We didn't want to be sued for all the fanboys who suffered heart attacks—or the ones who maybe escaped cardiac arrest but came away with Teen Wolf palms. [MacLife via 9to5Mac]

AT&T's Foray Into In-Car Satellite TV Goes Miserably Wrong

After four months up and running, the CruiseCast satellite-TV service for cars bit the dust hard, with refunds and paid un-installations going out to current subscribers. What was AT&T and its partner, RaySat, thinking when they launched it? $1300 up front and no major sports channels or adult programming to speak of? That just doesn't—excuse me, didn't—make sense. Good thing zero point zero readers fell for it. Right guys? [Engadget]

Robots Will Soon Learn How to Smell Fear

Just as drug-sniffing dogs can be replaced by machines that aren't so prone to smack addiction, scientists are developing sensors—nowhere near ready but due in 2012—that home in on the pheromone released when people experience stress or fear. Like what Leslie Nielsen must have felt when he got that call from OJ, asking about the Naked Gun 10-year reunion. [PopSci]

UPDATE: And it can be yours on eBay starting at $90. Thanks, drelo!

In the rear there's video and audio outs, as well as a view of Steve's trademark Levis:

Bravo sir, bravo. [Mii Sculptures - Thanks, Miles!]

Apple Executives to Showcase Mac OS X Leopard and OS X iPhone Development Platforms at WWDC 2008 Keynote

CUPERTINO, California—May 13, 2008—Apple® today announced that a team of Apple executives, led by CEO Steve Jobs, will kick off the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, June 9, 2008 at San Francisco's Moscone West. This year's WWDC will showcase two revolutionary development platforms, the ground-breaking innovations of OS X Leopard® and OS X iPhone™, the world's most advanced mobile operating system.

The five-day WWDC event, which runs from June 9 to June 13, will feature the first ever iPhone track for mobile developers with in-depth sessions and hands-on labs to fully explore the capabilities of the OS X iPhone 2.0 software, including the iPhone SDK and the App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod® touch users.

The iPhone track will also enable mobile developers to work side by side with Apple engineers to create amazing applications that leverage iPhone's revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface, animation technology, rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa® Touch technologies, built-in three axis accelerometer and geographical location technology to deliver truly innovative mobile applications.

This year's Mac® track will give newcomers and seasoned veterans alike the technical foundation and techniques needed to develop world-class OS X Leopard applications with sessions that discuss every level of the system, including interface design and implementation, application frameworks, security, localization and networking.

WWDC 2008 will offer over 150 information-rich sessions and labs where Apple engineers will go in-depth on the innovative technologies that power OS X iPhone and OS X Leopard. Developers can bring code to the labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices gained from sessions to enhance their applications.

Other activities at Apple's WWDC 2008 include:

* presentation sessions led by engineers that provide an in-depth look at OS X iPhone, OS X Leopard and innovative tools and technologies such as the iPhone SDK, Cocoa Touch, Interface Builder, Xcode® and more;
* practical hands-on sessions where attendees can learn Apple's own coding strategies and techniques;
* technology labs where attendees can work one-to-one with Apple engineers; and
* special events, including the Welcome Reception, Apple Design Awards, Lunchtime Speakers and Stump the Experts.

Visit Apple's WWDC website for registration and complete session details at http://developer.apple.com/wwdc.

MacWorld January 2008 Keynote Rough Outline; draft 5

Greetings! Welcome to Moscone Center

Quick Overview: iPod/iTunes

- Today: 30 indie labels releasing their entire catalogs in iTunes Plus

- iTunes doing extremely well (sales figures/market share)

- Another new game today: Chess

- 3 iPod games released last month accidentally (supposed to be for today)

- Our new models are doing better than ever

- Sales figures, market share

- iPod has been extremely profitable for us this holiday season

- Many more to follow in the next few months

iPhone

- SDK is unveiled!

- iPhone is coming to Japan in March with NTT DoCoMo

- Four times the memory as original iPhone for the same price

- Starting today: 8GB $399, 16GB $499

- Much more than the 1% market share we asked for in January

- Sales beyond our wildest dreams

- Sales figures, market share

- Best iPod ever

iPhone/iPod Touch SDK

- Automatic updating wirelessly or docked

- Users buy/download in iTunes Wi-Fi Store / iTunes Store (Mac/PC)

- Set your own price: Apps $0-$6.99, Widgets $0-$2.99

- Specify iPhone or both iPhone/Touch (certain features iPhone only)

- Developers submit programs as source code, not executable

- Using Cocoa with Objective-C

- Apps and Widgets

- If using microphone or GSM, iPhone only; otherwise, available for both iPhone and iPod Touch

- Submits source code to Apple for validation (make sure that people aren't abusing the system, prevent malware and viruses)

- Demonstration of exporting from XCode 3 to iTunes Store

- Apps can be free or up to $6.99; Widgets free or up to $2.99

- Developers recieve 70% of revenue for their products

- Licensed under Apple Mobile Software License

- Can download wirelessly from iTunes Wi-Fi Store or docked to computer from iTunes Store

- Demonstration of wirelessly downloading (and running) the app submitted earlier

- Apps and widgets can be rearranged on front screen; front screen scrolls to show all apps/widgets

- Resubmit updated versions of apps; when added to store, iPhone/Touch will ask you to update it next time you use it (or next time you dock the iPhone/Touch)

- Developers can get their hands on a beta version of the SDK tomorrow on ADC and start developing; final version due early February

- iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch Software update 1.3 allowing for Apps mid-February

Example apps/widgets

Apps:

- One of our partners made something cool: Last.fm (scrobble tracks played on iPhone/touch wirelessly without syncing w/ computer)

- RSS Feed Reader (coming with 1.3 update) (read feeds online or off)

- iChat (coming with 1.3 update) (AIM, Jabber/Google Talk)

- Quick demonstration

Widgets:

- Another partner: Twitter (update your Twitter on the fly, see your friends tweets)

- Sports Ticker (coming with 1.3 update) (choose your sports and teams, get updates on their progress)

- Yellow/White Book (coming with 1.3 update) (search for contacts, add them to your address book directly from the app, will sync back with address book on your Mac/PC)

- Dictionary (coming with 1.3 update) (quickly look up words, translate, use wikipedia)

- Quick demonstration

- Try these out on the show floor today

Mac

- Selling extremely well; estimated to overtake Tiger in terms of marketshare by June if you only count the new Macs that come with it preinstalled; even quicker if you include boxed copies

- Sales figures/market share

- Hardware sales figures/market share

- Sales are getting better and better every day

- Leopard released October; doing spectacularly

- 10.5.2 out today - many bug fixes, also addressing a lot of issues and complaints users had such as list view with stacks and certain HIG non-compliance issues

New MacBooks!

- What would MacWorld be without a new Mac? (sorry about last year)

- Completely redesigned MacBook

- Completely aluminum body like MacBook Pro

- 13″ screen at 1440×900

- Two colors: Black and Silver

- Looks gorgeous at 0.8″ thin

- A major feat of engineering - patents abound

- DVD drive pops open on side when eject button is pressed

- New on all notebooks and iMac: iSight HD (720p)

- New backlit keyboard based on recent Apple Keyboard revisions (keys slightly lighter than that of laptop casing, colorwise)

- New matching MagSafe cable (Aluminum ends, cord color matches that of keyboard)

- New matching Apple Remote (slightly smaller with larger overall buttons)

- Intel GMA X3100 graphics

- 3 models

- Completely phasing out the combo drive on all product lines today

- BTO models can upgrade all the way to 2.6GHz/4GB Memory/320GB hard drive

- 4.5 hours of battery life

- Starting at $1199

Product Refreshes

- Refreshing Mac Pro and Mac mini today

- Mac Pro now with Penryn!

- Base model 2×2.8GHz dual-core/1GB/NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB/250GB(1×250GB)/1×16x double-layer SuperDrive

- Upgradeable to 2×3.2GHz quad-core/16GB/NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB/4TB(4×1TB)/2×16x double-layer SuperDrives

- Starting at $2,499

- Mac mini gets slight speed bumps and double-layer SuperDrive in all models

- Base model 2.0GHz IC2D/1GB/100GB

- BTO Upgradeable to 2.4GHz IC2D/4GB/320GB

- Starting at $599

One More Thing

- Been brewing for a while

- YouTube's been in Apple TV and iPhone/iPod touch: now it's in iTunes

- Download YouTube videos straight to iTunes or from iPhone/iPod Touch for later offline viewing (sync back to computer)

- Coming in iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch 1.3 updates

The Keynote Index Fund, however, lays out exactly how much each previous keynote raked in in terms of dollars and percentages if you bought and dumped either on the day or the following. Even though the past two rounds have been fantastic thanks to the MacBook Pro and the iPhone, you risk taking a loss if you look at the four years previous to that—when things were less OMG! PONIES! and more OMG! MY MONEY! [Keynote Index Fund]