Too Much Apple News

Sorry I had to delay the Friday post, but I've made up for it with this picture of the new HD TV at the UT football stadium (the Darrell K Royal Memorial), which is supposedly the biggest in the nation. By the way, I think we did pretty well considering the players we've lost (and McCoy was good for a redshirt freshman QB), but it's going to take a miracle for us to beat Ohio State next Saturday. Anyway, there was so much Apple news yesterday that it would be odd for me to not make it today's main topic. It looks like they'll be having a special event on September 12 in San Francisco to be streamed in London as well, which has been corroborated by a few sources and sounds rather legit. This would probably mean the announcement of new products for the fall, including Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros and Merom-based iMacs, and we'll probably see a souped up Mac Mini as well (see my earlier posts for more on why). And if that wasn't enough, BusinessWeek believes that movies on iTunes will be $15 for new releases and $10 for the older stuff, which isn't much cheaper than buying a hard copy, so what's the point? Maybe they'll have them sooner on iTunes than on DVD? The problem is that if it's too cheap then retailers of DVDs will be upset, so I'm curious to see how the movie studios are handling this. Don't worry though, I can guarantee you that we'll see more buzz in the days to come. In the background of all this, Apple has opened up a repository for open source Mac-based projects called Mac OS Forge. This is admittedly a few weeks old, but it's good stuff nonetheless. Lastly, if you use iTunes, you'll like myTunes, which strips DRM for your purchased music so you can store it the way it was meant to be stored: without having to deauthorize/authorize computers.

While I'm on music, the National Music Publishers Assocation has decided to go after tablature sites like Olga.net that simply host people's interpretations of songs in very low-tech text documents because they call it stealing. I think this is even worse than going after lyrics sites since I don't understand how you can sue someone for sharing with others how they learned to play a song they heard on the radio based solely on their own talent rather than official music notes. Instead of suing sites, why not actually provide notation for more music? If you've ever run into Google Image results that make no sense, you can now help fight such bad results by labeling the good ones so that everyone can more easily find them. I think it's a great idea and really fun because you label them at the same time as someone else and the matched labels get actually used. ISPs are starting to get smart to encrypted BitTorrents by throttle even those file transfers. I personally don't see how it's their business to restrict a technology just because it takes a lot of bandwidth since it's only their job to provide internet service, not to tell you how to use it (unless your doing illegal stuff, which isn't necessarily true with torrents). Intel has brought a lot of promise with their Core line of chips, but AMD is eating away at their market share so much that they've decided to lay off thousands of employees to be able to afford to stay competitive with AMD. Some market analyst at TI was actually talking about how badly Intel was doing at a department meeting I attended, but I almost couldn't believe it because of how well Core 2 was being received and how small AMD still is compared to Intel's sales. I do respect them for being proactive and trying to handle the situation now rather than having to fire even more people later on if they were to get in ever deeper trouble.

We finally have a sub-title for Pirates of the Caribbean 3: it's A World's End. That wasn't announced, but the screenwriter confirmed it, whom I would call a pretty reliable source. The 22nd Bond movie has been pushed back to November 2008 so that it's at a healthy distance from Casino Royale, but I don't see how they can announce a release date for this movie this early without having to change it again. AICN received a great review of Mike Judge's Idiocracy, despite its sordid history (from lawsuits to supposedly horrible test screenings). The man brought us Office Space, and it's frightening that Fox doesn't trust him to deliver another great movie, especially with such a cool idea behind it (essentially just a dumbed down society in the future). AICN's own Capone gave a pretty decent review for I Trust You to Kill Me (the documentary starring Kiefer Sutherland on managing a band), but I'll admit that I'm just going to see it to see what Kiefer is like outside of being Jack Bauer. Lastly, in case you care, Yahoo Movies has a clip from School for Scoundrels.

I'm going to try a different meme this week called Weekend Musings:

1. What type of music do you generally listen to?
Mostly alternative and hip hop, but I'm open to a few other genres as well, including salsa, Bollywood, dance, and some pop among others I'm sure (there are a number of rock and indie groups I like).

2. Is there a particular type of music you listen to when you need something to lift you out of the dumps? If so, what kind?
Not really, but I guess hip hop would be the most logical choice.

3. Do you sing along with the music as it plays? Maybe play a little air guitar?
I do if I'm alone at home or in the car. If it's a really good song though, I'll sing along even if someone else is around (someone I know though, not just a stranger).

4. Do you have a guilty secret when it comes to music? (i.e. You listen to what your friends listen to but when you're home on your own, you put on something your friends would never let you live down.)
My guilty pleasure is old school Mariah Carey and Savage Garden.

5. The Price of Gas Is Going Down: I filled up the car yesterday at $2.59 a gallon. What's the lowest gas price you've seen this week?
Wow, I want your gas! I've only seen it as low as like $2.70, but I'm sure it'll go down more this week. I still have 3/4 tank left though, so I don't know whether to fill up or not soon!