Charlie Stross on Amazons E-Book Strategy

post from Daring Fireball on 16 April 2012 01:03:47 PM. © Daring Fireball

Great piece by Charlie Stross on the DOJ’s e-book price-fixing lawsuit:

DRM on ebooks is dead. (Or if not dead, it’s on death row awaitinga date with the executioner.)
It doesn’t matter whether Macmillan wins the price-fixing lawsuitbought by the Department of Justice. The point is, the big sixpublishers’ Plan B for fighting the emerging Amazon monopsony hasfailed (insofar as it has been painted as a price-fixing ring,whether or not it was one in fact). This means that they need aPlan C. And the only viable Plan C, for breaking Amazon’sdeath-grip on the consumers, is to break DRM.

I think he’s right, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. DRM is a religion for old-school media executives. Rational thought could, but won’t, lead them to this solution because they’re starting with an unshakable irrational bedrock assumption: that there can exist a technical solution to defeat piracy. Their belief in DRM is a matter of faith, not logic.

If I’m wrong though, and the publishers see the light of day and start selling DRM-free ePub books, I think that’d be a win for Apple, in the same way that dropping DRM from music has helped, not hurt, Apple’s music business. Amazon is the one whose Kindle devices and apps do not support DRM-free ePub books.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strateg
y.html

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Zevrix Updates BatchOutput for Word: Adds New
Pagination Options

post from prMac on 16 April 2012 12:25:00 PM. © prMac

Zevrix Solutions announces BatchOutput DOC 2.2, a feature update to its popular output automation solution for Microsoft Word on Mac OS X. BatchOutput automates output of multiple documents and allows to carry out powerful professional PDF production directly from Word, eliminating the need for time consuming post-processing. The new version lets users specify the number of pages to print per paper sheet and addresses some stability and reliability issues.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-41335.htm

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Order of Magnitude Games announces Mother Lode
Goes Free

post from prMac on 16 April 2012 12:20:00 PM. © prMac

Hot on the heels of the Mother Lode retina update, Order of Magnitude Games releases a free version of their iPad board game. Players can sample a two-player human versus computer match before deciding to upgrade. Mother Lode is a family style board game where players control miners on the surface of a dying planet, trying to escape with the most ore. Players take turns moving their miners, removing land tiles from the planet, and moving creatures.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-41334.htm

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ScrapBook iPad Creativity Tool Debuts at top of
App Store

post from prMac on 16 April 2012 12:05:00 PM. © prMac

Left Coast Logic announced the launch of their latest productivity app, ScrapBook - Tell Your Story. ScrapBook is a tool for creating, showing, sharing and planning. More than just a photo book, the app integrates with live maps and voice recordings. It also features detailed notes and to-do's with reminders - a staple of the company's popular productivity apps. To celebrate the successful launch, the company is offering a one-week sale starting today.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-41333.htm

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Aspect Ratios and 4-Inch iPhones

post from Daring Fireball on 16 April 2012 12:03:57 PM. © Daring Fireball

Dan Provost on two different paths Apple could take to an iPhone with a 4-inch diagonal screen. Keep the 3:2 aspect ratio and make the device a little wider, or, switch to a longer-screen aspect ratio (say, 9:5, which is very close to 16:9) and keep the phone width the same. Where he goes wrong, I think, is with the mockup that assumes the longer-screen idea would necessarily increase the height of the device itself. I doubt Apple wants to make the device itself bigger in any dimension.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.therussiansusedapencil.com/post/21210935439/the-4-inch-iphone

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WikiNodes iPad App Makes Wikipedia Personal with
Notes and Presentations

post from prMac on 16 April 2012 11:30:00 AM. © prMac

The WikiNodes app, which displays Wikipedia articles as a visual constellation of related nodes, has a major update. The app is featured this week in the Apple App Store as "New and Noteworthy" for Education. New features make Wikipedia more personal, allowing readers to add text, audio and image/video notes to articles, label articles with tags, and sequence notes into presentations. Other new features include: sharing options, faster performance, better layouts, and full screen images.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-41330.htm

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Life Soundtrack is the new way to listen to music

post from prMac on 16 April 2012 11:07:00 AM. © prMac

Eternal Fight Dancers has announced Life Soundtrack 1.0 for iOS. This is the app that mixes music with emotion. It lets the user categorize iTunes music by adding tunes to emotions. The heart of the app is the four emotion buttons; Happy, Sad, Angry and Love. The user taps the emotion that fits her current state of mind and the music starts to play. Your favorite music at the tip of your fingers, as soon as you need it. To cheer up, to comfort or what the given occasion calls for.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-41199.htm

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New iPad overcomes last year’s supply chain
woes

post from Apple on 16 April 2012 11:03:35 AM. © Apple

On its third turn doing a global iPad roll out, Apple seems to have its supply chain humming along nicely this year. The new iPad, which is already for sale in 35 countries as of today, will be showing up on shelves in 12 new countries this Friday, Apple announced Monday. And by the following Friday, it’ll arrive in nine more countries, for a total of 56 in about six weeks.

The fast roll out stands in contrast to 2011, when the iPad had hit just 39 countries in about five weeks. Besides the fact that Foxconn, Apple’s chief contract manufacturer was struggling to hire enough people to get iPads put together and out the door, there were also supply chain constraints for much of the global electronics industry last spring as a result of the Japan earthquake.

Though Apple’s website shows new orders still take about one to two weeks to deliver, the rollout goes on. Those new countries, by the way, are: Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, South Korea, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

One of Apple’s most important markets still has yet to see the new iPad in stores: China. Several weeks ago, official certification documents surfaced indicating that the Wi-Fi-only version of Apple’s latest tablet was closer to being cleared for sale in the country.

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Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/new-ipad-overcomes-last-years-supply-chain-woes/

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Podbay for iPhone is the fastest and simplest app
for podcasts

Podbay is designed to be the absolute fastest and easiest way to start listening to your favorite podcasts on your iPhone. Instead of condensing the desktop iTunes experience, Podbay is built like a utility application: it's only purpose is to let you listen to podcasts quickly and easily. The minimal interface gives a frictionless experience, from the launch of the app to the moment it starts playing your selected podcast.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-41327.htm

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Lightworks is back: To the future

EditShare announces the official release of Lightworks is to be 28th May 2012 and demonstrates important new features including advanced Long-GOP editing for DSLRs and all popular camcorder formats. The hotly anticipated release of Lightworks includes a host of new features for editors, resulting in a lightning-fast NLE that runs on a wide range of PC hardware. Completely re-architected and optimized for multi-platform deployment, this will be the first time a professional NLE has been free.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-41329.htm

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