HDMI Spec Updated to Ensure HD 3D Compatibility

The fine folks who work on HDMI have updated work on the 1.4 spec to make sure it can communicate all that upcoming Avatar-inspired HD 3D nonsense between display and source. Frankly, all this stuff is way over my head, and that's okay because dual-1080p streams in the home are still a ways off. From what I understand, HDMI will meet soon to discuss implementing the "Top/Bottom" format of 3D into HDMI, and the group is working to ensure that older 3D hardware will still work with the updated spec. Luckily, I have not been asked to participate in this discussion. But rest assured, HDMI is on the case. [Engadget]

Kindle eBooks Hacked!

An enterprising hacker named Labba has apparently managed to create a program that strips the DRM off Kindle-formatted ebooks, turning them into unprotected PDFs. The hack seems kind of too complicated to use right now, but Labba's working on a more consumer-friendly version as well. This isn't just hacking the Kindle to accept other formats—this is straight-up DRM elimination. Big win for hackers, not so hot for Amazon. [Engadget]

Steve Jobs Takes $1 Annual Salary for 2009

There've been a bunch of stories today about Steve Jobs' $1 salary that make it sound like a philanthropic exercise or some kind of response to the current recession—but Apple fans know that Steve Jobs has taken a $1 salary for about a decade. Of course, it's not like he needs a paycheck; his stock in Apple is valued at $1.1 billion, and his stock in Disney at $4.5 billion. Interestingly, he is usually reimbursed for miscellaneous expenses; last year, he was reimbursed $871,000, but this year only $4,000. He has been out on sick leave for a long time, but still, that's a big difference. This has been making the rounds (today I saw it on the AP, NYTimes, and HuffPo), but I'm sure you guys already knew it—so I tossed it into Remainders. [AP]

The Weather Outside Is Goddamn Frightful

Here are pictures of snow! [Boston.com]

I got an email from Steve Jobs (the night the laptop was revealed) he said you can't build it for a hundred dollars, and my answer was oh yes I can. He was actually a very good critic, and each time we got to a point, I did talk to him.

Surprised? I'm too. It's just too bad that Steve was right in the first place. Like our own Mark Wilson puts it:

The OLPC is such a piece of shit—the one I have here is completely misshapen from lousy production/materials, i dont know how these are supposed to last in harsher environments

I agree both on the spirit and the lettering. [The Digital LIfestyle]

True, reader Derek cheated a bit using the same photos over and over, but hey, if you think you can do better, go for it. (Click on the picture to embiggen.)

Apple didn't approve of the use of a private API in Pointy Heads Software's Knocking Live Video app, which allows iPhone users to stream live video to each other over 3G and Wi-Fi. After pleading to Steve Jobs to reconsider their verdict, Apple got back to developer Brian Meehan the next morning, promising that his request was being taken seriously.

Three hours later, with the order reportedly coming "directly from the top," the Knocking Live Video was available on the App Store, where you can download it for free now. Until Apple sticks a forward-facing camera on the iPhone, it's not ideal for video chat, but as Jesus pointed out in his rant yesterday, Apple's likely biding its time until it can smell the video chat competition.

Meehan's gone public with his story, telling Ars Technica that "Apple told me they are listening, and truly care about their developers and getting it right," giving hope to developers railing against them on the Apple Rejected Me hate-site, and hope for anyone wishing to use a private API in an app. With Apple loosening its grip in this instance, we could be seeing a lot more interesting apps launching soon. [Ars Technica]

Apple's decision to buy the ousted Jobs' NeXT Software was a last minute one. They were in fact looking to buy BeOS (now defunct), but the asking price was too high, and they went with NeXT for $400 million. Apple needed to buy the foundation for a new operating system, as their own OS development efforts at the time were, in a word, screwed. NeXTSTEP became the basis for OS X.

Mike, who saved a voicemail Steve left him about an "administrative issue" for years, considers a world without Steve Jobs. And you know, it's a scary thought. [TechCrunch]

Here's the letter he sent:

Dear Mr. Jobs,

My name is John Devor and I'm the co-owner of a small Mac shareware company named The Little App Factory and a long-term Apple customer and shareholder. I doubt you're aware but we recently received a letter from a law firm working on Apple's behalf instructing us that we had violated several of Apple's trademarks in our application iPodRip and asking us to cease using the name and Apple trademarks in our icons.

We have been distributing iPodRip since 2003 with the aim of providing a method to recover music, movies and photos from iPods and iPhones in the event of a serious hardware failure on their Mac which leads to data loss. Our goal has been to provide the highest quality product coupled with the highest quality service in a bid to resolve some of the angst that is generated by such an ordeal; service befitting of an Apple product. In this department we think we have succeeded as we have approximately 6 million customers, many Apple employees, music artists and other notable people in society. In fact I'd argue that our customer service is the best of all competing applications in our niche as many of them are scams and frauds that leave Apple customers with a terrible taste in their collective mouths. We fear very much that tens of thousands of Apple customers looking to recover their own music and having heard of our product via word-of-mouth or otherwise, will instead find a product produced by one of our competitors, and will wind up the victim of a scam (one closely-named competitor charges a hidden monthly fee, for instance).

It is quite obvious that we mean Apple no harm with the use of the name iPodRip, or of the inclusion of trademarked items in our icons, and in fact I believe that we have been providing an excellent secondary service to Apple customers that has potentially caused you many repeat clients. In fact, we are quite aware that Apple support and store staff have recommended our software on numerous occasions as far back as 2004 so we have felt that we were doing something right!

With this in mind, we are in desperate need of some assistance and we beseech you to help us to protect our product and our shareware company, both of which we have put thousands upon thousands of hours of work into. Our company goal is to create Mac software of the highest quality with the best user experience possible. I myself dropped out of school recently to pursue a path in the Mac software industry, and you yourself have been a consistent inspiration for me.

If there is anything at all you can do with regards to this matter, we would be most grateful.

Best,

John Devor

And Steve replied:

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

So they changed the name of their app to iRip. Fair enough! [CrunchGear]

We believe there are only two significant brands in the film industry—"Disney" and "Steven Spielberg". We would like to establish "Pixar" as the third. Successful brands are a reflection of consumer trust, which is earned over time by consumers' positive experiences with the brand's products. For example, parents trust Disney-branded animated films to provide satisfying and appropriate family entertainment, based on Disney's undisputed track record of making wonderful animated films. This trust benefits both parents and Disney: it makes the selection of family entertainment that much easier for parents, and it allows Disney to more easily and assuredly draw audiences to see their new films. Over time we want Pixar to grow into a brand that embodies the same level of trust as the Disney brand.

This letter was available on the Pixar website until 2006, when Disney, utterly trounced by Pixar in the world of animated features, bought the company. [The Pixar Touch via David Cho]

That's the starting eBay bid for this motherboard. According to the original invoice included in the auction package—dated December 7, 1976—he also was the one filling the sales forms. At least this one, which says Steven. Since it was only him and Woz at the time—and the latter was always busy creating beautiful electronics and calling the Pope—it's pretty safe to say that this was indeed Apple's current CEO and then CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, and CLSDI. The original package has Steve Jobs' parents as the return address:

It includes:

• The computer itself
• The original shipping box, with Steve Jobs' parents' house as a return address
• The original manual, with schematics to build your own Apple 1
• The tape interface card
• The manual for the tape interface
• A plain Scotch-brand cassette tape with a simply-typed label "BASIC" that came with the unit
• A letter, signed by Steven Jobs in 1976, explaining connecting a keyboard and monitor, as well as detailing when dealer applications would be available
• An original full-page glossy advertisement for Apple, included when the Apple 1 computer was shipped. (The ad is almost unrecognizable as an Apple ad due to its elaborate Isaac Newton logo. The artist who drew that logo was the third original partner in Apple Corp. His stake in Apple was bought out for a couple thousand dollars when the company started getting serious).
• Photographs of all prior owners of this unit.

The Apple I was the first Apple computer. The two Steves started to sell it on July 1976. The price then was $666.66. At the time all computers needed to be assembled, but the Apple I was a motherboard—assembled by themselves at Jobs parents' garage—was ready to connect to a keyboard, monitor, and cassette player. [eBay via Tuaw]

Here is the full quote in context from the program Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great.

"Well, he's done a fantastic job," Gates said. "Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape. In fact, most likely it wasn't going to survive."

He continued: "And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it's great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I've worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company."

Awww...how touching. [AppleInsider]

The turtle neck and glasses are there, but I don't know what's up with that "where's the bathroom?" pose. Cute, but strange. [Artist Dax Norman via Walyou]

On December 27th, 1996, Apple had $1.8 billion in cash and securities. Today it has $34 billion.

(Thanks to reader Cory Padfield for this chart idea.)

Some of us from Silicon Valley were invited to a dinner in Palo Alto. It was 1983. At one point during the meal, Steve stands up and yells: "Nobody over 30 can possibly understand what computing is all about."

I pulled him aside, waved my finger, and lectured him, telling him, "You're incredibly arrogant. You don't know what you don't know." His response was, "Teach me. Tell me what I should know."

Yes, a total twunt, but you have to admire how he turned it around, nonchalantly. Mr. Grove says that they later had lunch together, talking mostly about personal stuff. He thinks that he didn't teach him a single thing. Instead, time has, as he points out the irony of Steve's words during that dinner:

He was wrong when he singled a generation out. How old was Steve when the iPod came out — 46?

Indeed. [Fortune]

The Oracle CEO had all the money lined up, ready to buy the triumphant return of Caesar. But Steve didn't want that kind of comeback. He thought that, if he proceeded with a takeover, people would think he was just greedy, wanting to make money out of the company. In Ellison's own words:

He explained to me that with the moral high ground, he thought he could make decisions more easily and more gracefully.

My guess is that it wasn't only that. Steve wanted to be wanted. He knew he was loved by the public and the press. After all, everyone likes the story of a legend coming back—to see him succeed or, better yet for Hollywood drama, fail. More importantly, the company was his company. He didn't have to buy it! That was absolutely preposterous, he probably thought at the time. He knew he was going to return as King once again, acclaimed by his troops and his people, so why spend any money?

He was right. As we know now, it all worked out. He returned, first as i(nterim)CEO bringing the iMac that wasn't going to be the iMac, then as official CEO. He turned the company around from insignificance and certain oblivion to the most recognizable and successful brand in consumer electronics. Which, apparently, is the reason why Fortune has named him CEO of the Decade. [Fortune]

That's according to the man who named it, Ken Segall, who talked to Leander at Cult of Mac. Segall worked at Apple's agency TBWA\Chiat\Day, and not only christened the iMac, but was the man behind Apple's pitch-perfect "Think Different" campaign.

It's ironic that Segall, who knew iMac was the perfect name and pitched it to Jobs over and over after being rejected again and again, thought that the computer itself was stupid: "We were guarded. We were being polite, but we were really thinking, ‘Jesus, do they know what they are doing? It was so radical."

It strikingly highlights the difference between people who create things and the people who sell them: Apple could see they had a brilliant product, but a terrible way to sell it. TBWA saw a terrible product, but had a brilliant way to brand it. Unfortunately, Segall won't actually reveal Jobs' terrible name, fearing it would open the ninth gate of Hell and bring forth the Apocalypse choo-choo.

Steve never actually told Segall he'd accepted iMac—he just started silk-screening it on prototypes to see how it looked.

Check out the full interview over at Cult of Mac, there are way more tidbits, like how Segall came up with "iMac," that definitely make it worth the read. [Cult of Mac]

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]

Over the last few weeks I've been talking to people within the comics industry to try to sniff out Apple's plans, including Neal Adams, developer of an upcoming motion Astonishing X-Men comic on iTunes, who also told me the French saying. Everyone in Adams' line of work is buzzing about the tablet and what it can do for their masterpieces.

It's an easy presumption for comic book fans. The Sun Times' Andy Inhatko is betting that LongBox, a digital distribution platform for comic books, will make an appearance on Apple's upcoming tablet. More than just an appearance, really:

I'm pretty sure that Apple is entering into a formal alliance with LongBox. When I asked [LongBox CEO Rantz] Hoseley about what kind of partnerships the company is forming, he spoke vaguely of what was taking up most of his time at the moment: a lengthy and complicated agreement with a seriously large company operating in the media space.

One problem: Several sources I spoke to over the last couple of weeks, including top-level executives at giants like Marvel and DC, have said they've not heard a whisper from Apple—despite a nearly desperate hope that Apple would come a-courtin'. One executive said to me, when I mentioned the possibility of putting his comic books on the Apple tablet, "If you've heard anything from Apple, please tell them I'm ready to do it."

That means that LongBox may be the only distribution option for comic books at the tablet's launch, through some sort of dedicated LongBox app. And if LongBox's distribution plan for the Apple tablet is just an app, why would they need to do any negotiations with Apple? Launch the LongBox app, sell the content, and go. No Apple nod necessary.

We know that Apple has been reaching out to select publishers. It was Andy Inhatko who passed on the rumor about "trucks loaded with books" earlier this year. It all fits with the moves we already know Apple is making in its outreach to magazine and newspaper publishers. For Apple, the tablet is about cleaning up; with the addition of books, newspaper, magazines and comic books, there isn't a single vector of mass media that Apple won't be able to distribute through iTunes. With the success of the App Store—a success I think even Apple wasn't expecting to such a degree — they're even a major distributor of software and games.

Oh right, there's also music and video.

Marvel content, especially, seems like a given. Disney bought Pixar, putting Steve Jobs on the Disney board. Then Disney buys Marvel. Marvel has already dabbled in publishing content through iTunes, with a new "motion comic" version of The Astonishing X-Men hitting iTunes on October 28th.

I spoke to Inhatko on my tiny Apple tablet last week about his story. He's increasingly persuaded that Apple is content to let print publishers distribute their content through apps, not through the iTunes store itself.

He may very well be right, at least at the tablet's launch, especially given Apple's reticence to even acknowledge the tablet's existence, let alone provide publishers with detailed, unified specifications for an "iRead" format. But it also strikes me as an inelegant solution at best, especially considering iTunes 9's iTunes LP format is an HTML- and JavaScript-based 720p format that would work just wonderfully for a digital magazine and comics format.

Could just be wishful thinking on my part—I'd rather manage subscriptions through iTunes like podcasts, rather than individual apps—but either way it's a win for Apple, who will happily get their cut no matter what system of digital print distribution ultimately takes off. If you have any leads on comic book tablet activity, by all means, send us a tip.

There is one shocker I discovered in my discussions with Marvel folk: It's been confirmed to me that Hulk is stronger than Thor. Chew on that one for a while — at least until you can buy Hulk vs. Thor on iTunes. Excelsior!

Joel Johnson has a blog, but your best bet may be to follow him on Twitter @joeljohnson.

Among other disclosures, an operating system presents one or more advertisements to a user and disables one or more functions while the advertisement is being presented. At the end of the advertisement, the operating system again enables the function(s). The advertisement can be visual or audible. The presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made as part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as the operating system, for free or at reduced cost.

The advertisement could appear as:
- a pane on top of any other pane in a user interface of the device
- in a designated area of a background of the user interface
- in a window for an application program
- inserted in content from an application program
- through an audio output of the device; and combinations thereof.

Microsoft Office Starter 2010 aside, ad-supported software has pretty much gone out of fashion. However, it does show that Apple, too, has at least contemplated the idea. [USPTO via MacRumors]

Yes, the world is a much better place now that many of us are hopelessly addicted to Apple products. I was going to say something about weeping for future generations, but it appears that the choices given to respondents didn't make a damn bit of sense either. Here's how the results broke down:

•Steve Jobs (35 percent)
•Oprah Winfrey (25 percent)
•Tony Hawk (16 percent)
•Mark Zuckerberg (10 percent)
•The Olsen twins (seven percent)
•Kimora Lee Simmons (four percent)

According to Junior Achievement, the list of entrepreneurs was chosen based on "people who had started business enterprises themselves, as opposed to licensing their names and images to products produced by someone else." While I agree that Jobs belongs on or near the top of any list of entrepreneurs, I can't help but wonder—where the hell is Bill Gates? You know...Microsoft...one of the biggest philanthropists of all time? [Junior Achievement and TGDaily via Crunchgear]

Good old Stevesy runs pretty much the most profitable retail chain in the country, the Apple Store, and coincidentally also owns Pixar—and thus sits on Disney's board. So he heavily consulted with Disney when they decided to totally redesign their retail store's image, and it shows. From minor details like mobile checkout (employees carry small receipt printers on them) to bigger philosophies like community (there'll be a small theatre, like in Apple Stores) and interactivity (karaoke, touchscreen kiosks, "live chat with Disney stars"), Steve's fingerprints are all over the new concept. Hell, Disney store employees will even carry iPhones (or iPods Touch) to communicate. And that's a good thing, in our opinion: Apple Stores certainly aren't perfect, but they are a decidedly individual and interesting shopping experience, which Disney needs. A Disney rep, apparently a fan of Fox angryface Gordon Ramsay, even described some of the current Children's Place stores (former Disney stores which still sell licensed Disney merch) as "a dog's breakfast."

Update: After speaking with a Disney rep, it looks like a few things need clarification. Steve Jobs did consult with Disney on the project, but only once, so while the new Disney stores do have a clear Apple Store influence, Jobs himself did not have as heavy a hand in their design as I first thought. Sorry for the confusion.

Disney is rebooting 340 of these stores, with a possible flagship store in, of course, Times Square, and is spending about $1 million to do it. They're still working with real estate agents and ironing out the final details, but this could actually work out: Disney + Apple has previously equaled Pixar, and that formula has worked out pretty spectacularly. [NY Times]