News Corp. buys Dow Jones 4
That’s right. The same people who bring you such fantastic (as in fantasy) news coverage via Fox News just bought the company that owns The Wall Street Journal. Sigh.
Metal: The Intelligent Choice 3
The Telegraph recently posted an article reporting that many of today’s brightest children listen to metal as a way to relieve stress and relax.
“Participants said they appreciated the complex and sometimes political themes of heavy metal music more than perhaps the average pop song. It has a tendency to worry adults a bit but I think it is just a cathartic thing. It does not indicate problems.”
— Stuart Cadwallader, psychologist, University of Warwick
Metal to me is a useful tool, as well as something I generally just enjoy. It’s my main music of choice, so I listen to it all the time. When I’m working, it relieves some of the inherent stress. When I’m just lazing around, I enjoy the instrumentation and the words, they help me to unwind. And going to a metal concert is always fun to me.
Being a fan of metal myself (long hair and all), it’s a relief to finally see someone trying to dispell the myth that anyone who listens to metal is either on some kind of drug, dumb, or any of the other silly stereotypes.
Armstrong’s “A” Revealed 1
An Australian computer programmer has claimed he has found the missing “a” in Neil Armstrong’s famous quote, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The quote, as is, means one small step for mankind, and one giant leap for mankind, which, doesn’t make much sense, obviously. It makes a world of difference with the “a.” Read the article, it’s short, but kind of neat.
Apple’s New Store 3
It’s so sweeeet.
It’s got an all glass upper entrance, which leads to a metal and glass spiral staircase leading to the underground, 25,000 square-foot store.
I’ve the sudden urge to go to New York with lots of cash in tow.
The Apple-Disney-Pixar Czar 3
It has been announced that Disney is set to buy Pixar Animation for $7.4 billion (in stocks). This would make current Apple and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs a very powerful figure within Disney, as he will become the largest individual shareholder within the company, and a director of it as well.
Like he wasn’t rich enough already…
That Online Music Gravy Train 5
Apparently, the masses need appeasing; I don’t write and you all get antsy, geez.
Anyways, I caught word of this here news story while watching TV and thought I should put down some words about it.
Basically, if you don’t feel like reading the whole article, the gist of it is that album sales are down about 7% compared to this time last year, and music sales online have nearly tripled from where it was at this time last year. And the record companies are sad because they don’t get money from selling their $18 CDs (oh, boo hoo *cough*).
I’ll keep my point short and to the point. If the record companies can’t see that now is the time to get on the online music sales gravy train, completely, then they’re blind. With mp3 players jumping all over the scene, especially the iPod, and the demand rising, I think perhaps the big guys should maybe rethink they’re marketing strategy? You say not? Well, go back, compare +300% to -7% and enjoy your meal (that being your own heart). I’m not saying CDs should be done away with, because I know I’ll still buy and use them, they’re still a valid format. I just think the shift should be made now, gradually— if that isn’t glaringly obvious.
Today in Apple News… 8
I wanted to cover two stories today, and they both invovle Apple, so let’s have at it.
Rumors about a switch from IBM to Intel have been running amuck for a couple of weeks or so, now. Yesterday, C|Net’s News.com ran a story confirming the validity of the rumors by saying Apple will be making the switch from IBM’s PowerPC series of processors to Intel’s x86 processors, and Apple will announce this at this year’s WWDC so developers have time to make the transition. However, if you look at the story, it’s filled with lines such as “sources familiar with the situation said.” That sounds like more rumors to me, and I find it hard to believe Apple and Jobs would make a move like this considering the current success of Mac OS X. That’s just my view on the matter, though. We’ll see at WWDC what happens here.
Apple recently set-up another deal in Cobb County, Georgia, to provide students there with iBooks, the largest such initiative in terms of the number of iBooks. However, they have hit a legal brick wall, as, so the person filing suit claims, the citizens weren’t informed that a 1% tax hike was put in place for the purpose of buying the iBook. I feel sorry for the students in Cobb County. The iBook initiative here has been nothing but wonderful for me. I hope it works out for them.
Apple announced that they are, indeed, switching to Intel.
Flashweaverdreamshop? 19
Me, oh my, what will come of this:
Adobe just about swept up the entire web design world with this move. Not only do they make and distribute Photoshop, a must have for anyone trying to hack it in this business, they just snatched up Dreamweaver and Flash. There are only two possible scenarios I see coming from this:
- Adobe sits on it and does nothing with the products they just acquired, subsequently stagnating the market
- Adobe takes this chance and runs with it, and the industry prospers
I’m worried that the first is going to come true. There hasn’t really been anything spectacular coming out of the Adobe camp in a while; just mediocre updates to already existant software.
Time will tell, I just hope Adobe doesn’t throw this industry back into a dark age when we’re just starting to see some light.
We <3 IBM 5
And IBM seems to <3 us too. Not only are they backing PHP, but maybe they’ll finally get rid of that nuisance that likes to call itself the SCO Group (though the article has nothing to do with the lawsuit). Also in the article, they state that IBM is about to release some thirty-odd number of open-source projects on SourceForge.net, which is good news as well. Read the article. Have fun.
Internet Explorer 7 14
So Mr. Big Bill(ionaire) Gates announced it. Seems Firefox (and numerous other open-source, standards compliant browsers) has put the pressure on Microsoft to better comply with standards and to just be a better browser with less security holes, since they seem insistent on hogging 90% of the browser market share.
Previously, Microsoft stated that Internet Explorer would no longer be available as a separate product.
This is, or rather, could be good news coming from the Microsoft camp. IE7, if it corrected its current major flaws, stands to be the first major update IE has seen in a good 6 years (when IE5 was released). Beta comes in summer, maybe we can hope for an official release by the end of the year. Maybe. (via MezzoBlue.com.)
Editor’s Note:
Related article: The New Browser War
Also, the same day IE7 is announced, Firefox breaks through 25,000,000 downloads of version 1.0. See Blake Ross’ Post about it and a little something concerning IE7.
