Capture The Art Blog's

Many years ago a media levy was passed in the United States that applies a "tax" to "consumer digital audio" media (CD-R blanks, DAT, etc.) with the proceeds going to music industry/artists. The justification was to offset losses due to illegal copying of music in digital form (generational loseless copies). This to date hasn't been expanded to include devices like the iPod (at least I don't recall that taking place).

Which makes no sense. If they get compensated by blank CD/DVD sales to offset the money loss from pirating, then why the hell are they suing consumers for P2P?

Actually, I suspected Universal was going to do the same with the iPod, regardless of whether the Zune debuted or not. They obviously can manipulate Microsoft, they'll try and do the same with Apple.

And lets not forget, these are the same people who wish they could sue people for ripping their cds (and burning them again so as to do away with all the DRM **** they put on them).

As to why their music sales have been dropping, if half the songs on the market weren't about pimps and beating hos', probably a lot more people would buy it.

Was there any doubt it wouldn't be a lot faster? I mean, I know it was already plenty fast, but come on...

...There's no way in the world Apple would make as much money off of this as if they got in with one of the big guys. Just ask Disney - ESPN mobile is bombing as is Disney mobile....

They are failing because they believe media content is what is important to people. Pumping their phones full of media and "services" which only are really advertisements that don't help anyone but Disney and ESPN. They are phones with superficial artificial sustainance.

Technology wouldn't be such a boom if people couldn't advertise with it some way. Apple will only succeed if it can avoid this and make a product that is functional and serves a true purpose in the consumer's life without the bullcrap content.

Not really. Yorkfield is the 8 core follow on to Kentsfield in the Conroe class motherboard. Should be shipping by next Spring.

Next Spring??? Can you please point me to the source of that information.

I don't believe Intel can go to 8 core chip before going to a true 4 core instead of 2 dual cores on the MCM. That may have to wait till the process moves to 45nm and they have the Common System Interface worked out i.e. towards the end of 2007. This is all an educated guess on my part ... nothing concrete.

Why be limited to 2? Why not 3, 4, 5 or 6? I also want quad-10GHz Woodcrests with 20GB of DDR6-8000 RAM, with 2exobytes of HDD space. AND room to upgrade. Oh, and quad 7900GTXs. For �1000.

Ok, that never gonna happen, but it illustrates the point that people want more and more for less and less.

NO iPODS OR iPHONE I DON'T CARE FOR THEM ONE JOT

Ok, Stevie J, You can introduce the Mac Pro, the new XServe, and Leopard on Monday.

But please don't deny us our new conroe iMac with x1800XT! Release it on Tuesday!!! And Merom Macbooks and Macbook Pros. You will lose too many sales and potential switchers if you wait until the end of September!

Plus I'll cry.

We beggs of you Stevie J, we wants it, we needs it, it must come to me!
The iMac Ultra is mine. My own. My precious.

I'm finding it hilarious that you can put yourself into Stevie's reality distortion field even after the Intel switch. Maybe while Apple had PPC, you could have said that. But now that direct hardware comparisons can be made, don't you think it's stupid that sub-$1000 PC notebooks have better processors than the best Apple has to offer?

And yes, the MBP is a top-of-the-line laptop. Apart from 2'' thick behemoths, it was one of the fastest portables around, and it was priced accordingly. Now it's still priced as such, but times are moving, technology is advancing, and if you compare pound for pound, the MBP is behind.


No way are you looking at a sub $1000 PC notebook with a Core 2 Duo. (edit: haha the Core 2 Duo you linked is a POS... it might be a C2D, but it operates at 1/2 the core frequency... GG).

It's not a matter of comparing Dell/Alienware to Apple for myself. There's only one type of machine I would purchase. I wouldn't purchase the current Macbook/pro right now realizing that a refresh is coming. However, some people really wouldn't care. If I "had" to purchase one... I'd get the Apple hands down. I'd gimp a bit and get OS X.

No... I don't have a MBP... no... I don't have an Intel based Mac. I'm sitting on the two Macs in my sig. I won't upgrade them until they die.

I'm not in any sort of reality distortion field. I just understand paying a bit more and accepting the products offered is a better option that getting "leet" hardware. Best example for me is AMD versus Intel. AMD has offered a faster processor for years, which was actually cheaper (until recently)... However Intel has provided the quality/stability. Therefore I wouldn't touch AMD. (I did with the XP line... big mistake). I consider Apple to be in the same realm. Did you ever consider that Apple actually cares about the engineering, and might be working a few bugs out?

I believe the age of good enough and cheap is over for the PC world. The market is making a shift to better reliability/stability.

When they go shopping and see a brand new Android phone running a better OS with more apps than they had before, they will simply buy it. Especially since there will continue to be two for one offers and lots of competition

Seriously, what a crock of ****.

I heard about this.
This garbage is making me furious.
Microsoft, get your butt out of the music business, you're lame, so very lame.

My DM told me we can open anytime we want to no later than 8am. I have a best buy and ATT corporate store directly accross the street from me. Im waiting for them to announce when they are opening and ill be open 1 hr before them if they open at 6am, im openening at 5am.

I can't see Radio Shack being able to open and sell iPhones before Apple does. Granted your store isn't actually opening, it's for iPhone Customers only before normal business hours.

I am still waiting for my buddy that is a Manager to get an answer from his DM. He spoke up and asked about it on his Conference call this morning.

here we go again

Take a look at the Nokia E61. I just got one to replace my BlackBerry and love it. It's the European version and you have to buy it unlocked ($350 or so) but it works great. Cingular is coming out with a dumbed down version called the E62 but strips away some of the cool features like WiFi. Go figure - an American phone with less features than the one sold in the rest of the world.

With crappy phones and our pathetic broadband infrastructure, you'd think we were Third World rather than a "Superpower."

I don't care so much about the iPod capability, but I would like to see the result of a smartphone by Apple. I haven't jumped on the bandwagon of the Treos and Palms.

Call me a sucker, but I'd like somehting that could do all the mundane, make my life easier, organization crap, and have it look cool as well. Oh, and not run on a crap OS.

Who knows, the hot setup may be a refurb'ed MacPro 2.0Ghz, then drop in better CPUs!

Damn, yes, that would be the ultimate future hot machine - a second hand or refurb Mac Pro 2ghz, - I reckon by October they will about �1200 second hand, then in the new year, down to about �800, get one, then pop in 2 x 4 cores.

Anyone know if the chipset will be pin-compatible with the next generation quad-cores?

Seems we are stuck as far as increasing MHZ goes, 3ghz seems to be near the realistic limit. Now we're just adding more and more cores in. How many cores will be the feasible limit?

After that, what will be the next method of radically increasing computing throughput?

:apple:

That's all I have to say.

I had called BB multiple times (6 times over two weeks), each time resulting in the answer that they were sold out. They had a reservation list however.

So, I walked into Best Buy just to look at the iPad 2. As I was discussing this, the BB rep said they had one which had been returned that was up at Customer Service desk. After checking, the Manager got involved because they wanted to make sure the SIM card had not been activated.

At the same time, unbeknownst to my discussion, some guy who had called earlier was told by the Customer Service desk a returned unit was there and he could have it. When I went up with the manager to check it, the other guy was there and expecting the returned unit to purchase.

So bottom line, I actually ended up not with the returned unit, but with a brand new iPad after the manager who didn't really want to deal with the other guy, said he had a new one because that the 48 hour window for a reservation holder had expired.

So my take: BB probably had more iPads than they said they did. I also wonder if the 48 hour reservation hold window was something Apple was aware of.

Do you really need that amount of power? I'm guessing yes ;)

I'd love to see the performance on the Clovertown Mac Pro.