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Blogs Computere og Internet Historier/Stories IT Guruer Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Technology

Passion for industrial design: The spotlight turns to…Jonathan “Jony” Ive

Jony Ive - Apple Senior Vice President - Design

Yesterday, the 14th of October 2008, Apple had an event titled “The spotlight turns to notebooks”, where they unveiled a refresh of the MacBook Pro, a new version of the MacBook in aluminium and a new Cinema Display.

Clever spin
All of these announcements were already confirmed and leaked days before the event, Apple can’t or won’t, contain the leaks, and the new strategy seems to be to use the leaks to drive the hype.

Remembering how secretive Apple events used to be, I sort of, expected Steve Jobs to pull something out of the sleeves of his turtleneck, “one more thing”, but he didn’t, or did he?

One more “thing”
One notable thing about the event was that Steve shared the stage to such a high degree. This is a trend that has been going for some time, especially when it comes to events that focus on the Mac, it’s a bit like Steve isn’t that passionate about computers.

Luckily others are, and at this event Jonathan “Jony” Ive shined – and I’m not referring to the reflections from his shaved head.

It was simply a thrill to see this low-key, soft-spoken, man talk about the manufacturing process involved in producing the new MacBooks, the attention to detail, the months spend refining the new trackpad etc. etc.

Over the years, speculation as to who might take over the position as CEO of Apple after Steve Jobs, has been growing, and my first reaction was that I’d love to see Ive in that position, he’d be a natural.

But really that would be such a shame, so I’m convinced that Ive will stay in his current position, and there’s many more iconic designs hidden in that shiny bald head of his.

So watch the video where Ive talks us through the manufacturing process of the new MacBooks, it’s simply breathtaking.

Risky strategy?
The MacBooks themselves? To me they ooze quality. Apple has obviously decided that they will not address the current trend towards cheap notebooks, aka. netbooks, when asked Steve called it a “developing market”.

The strategy is risky, it defies the market, but I welcome it, and it will only mean that Apple will grow it’s market share in terms of revenue, instead of units moved. With these new notebooks, there’s no doubt that Apple owns the high-end market, and that’s where it’s the most fun, and profitable, to be.

The old MacBook product line has been plagued by quality problems, hopefully the new MacBooks addresses this, I’ll bet that this is the case, these are, to me, the first true Intel based notebooks, designed from the ground up for the Intel chips.

I’m tempted by Ive’s new industrial sculpture

The picture of Jonathan “Jony” Ive, that accompanies this article, is a frame from the video issued by Apple for the launch of the MacBook Aluminium, it’s Copyright Apple Inc. I hope that my use here is considered “Fair Use”.

Currently the video is available on the Apple Website here, it’s likely to be moved, and it’s a good guess that it’s already on YouTube. The video is produced much like a documentary, really professional marketing on Apple’s part.

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Blogs Computere og Internet Historier/Stories Humor Open Source Technology

One final thing: How do you like them Apples? – The spotlight turns to notebooks

Applenotebookevent - The spotlight turns to notebooksA draft of Steve Jobs’ presentation for the Notebook Event titled “The spotlight turns to notebooks” scheduled to take place on October 14th 2008 in Cupertino, has been leaked.

Since rumour has it that Apple is softening up to rumour sites: if you don’t like me publishing this rumour: SOSUME.

“Gi’ mig Danmark tilbage” by Natasja is blasting the Cupertino speakers!

Steve Jobs takes the stage

(applause)

Welcome, and thank you for coming.

One first thing:
Apple has realized that we can’t compete with Linux and has decided to make an investment in Linux. So we’re discontinuing Mac OS X in favour of Linux with KDE, all Mac OS X developers will instead be working on contributing to Linux, ending years of, mostly, passive and luke warm support for the open source movement. Apple wants to appologise for this mal-pratice, and all code will be shared back with the community.

The next version of Mac OS X will be renamed Linux Snow Leopard, and it will be licensed under the GPL – meaning that it can be freely copied, and installed, on any computer.

(oooooh)

Linux Snow Leopard is available as a free download from Apple AppStore, and it is available…NOW!

(applause and cheers)

The reason for this change is that captalism, as we knew it is dead, instead of competing to death and the focus on economic growth, that is destroying the planet, human kind will instead work to improve the quality of life for all.

Democratisation of technology will be instrumental in bringing these changes.

Apple wants to be part of this.

(Steve moves the cover on the table, pulls out a picture frame with a picture of Richard Stallman on one side and Nicholas Negroponte on the other side, from this frame he pulls out a beautiful sub-notebook)

So today I’m happy to announce the insanely great TuxBook, developed in coorporation with Asus.

Asus is bringing the change, and since our old notebooks really weren’t anything but repackaged Asus products anyway, we’ve decided that Jonathan Ive will now be working full time making Asuses look cool.

The TuxBook comes with 2GB RAM, 32GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, a 3G modem and A-GPS. It sports 8 hours of batterylife, and can, optionally, be solarpowered.

Demo:
(The splash screen is a Penguin holding an Apple)

Isn’t that beautiful? KDE 4.1: BOOM!

The TuxBook will be priced at $99, and it is available…NOW!

Thank you all for coming, and Karl Marx was right.

(applause)

One more thing:
Since you can’t make money on stock, APPL will be unlisted from the stock exchange, Apple will in the future be a Section 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charity.

One final thing:
How do you like them Apples?

(standing ovations and wild cheers: T-U-X what’s that spell? TUX!, what’s that spell? TUX!)

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Computere og Internet Frivillig arbejde Hackers Historier/Stories Macintosh Mactopia Resources Technology

Æbletræet.dk fylder 2 år – stort til-held-og-lykke og Elvis har forladt bygningen

Elvis Smoking - By Esben ThomsenI går, den 3die April, kunne Æbletræet.dk fejre sin 2 års fødselsdag. Æbletræet.dk er et Internetbaseret, indholdsdrevet, fællesskabs projekt der startede som en idé om at skabe en begynderguide til Mac, men er endt med at være en af de, ja måske det, største Danske online fællesskabsdrevne indholdsdrevne Internet projekter. Projektet er dog, for længst, gået skridtet videre, og indeholder nu artikler om meget andet end Apple.

Historien om Æbletræet, eller MacWiki som det oprindelig hed, er dokumenteret på Wikien, hvilket er ganske unikt, som du kan finde på http://www.theappletree.dk (jeg bruger – bevidst – den Engelske version – da projektet – naturligvis – som nogle af de første – benytter en IDN (International Domain Name) – nogle skulle jo starte, og det blev os.

Ideen til Æbletræet udsprang af det danske forum for Apple fans, Macnyt.dk, en gruppe af faste brugere var blevet trætte af at besvare de samme spørgsmål om og om igen, så det blev diskuteret om man kunne skrive en bog eller lignende.

Fra start af var det klart, for mig, at man absolut ikke skulle skrive en bog, men lave det online på Internettet, og jeg havde noget i baghånden, MediaWiki, det samme system som driver Wikipedia – der er åben og fri software.

Første møde blev afholdt den 3-April-2006, og da jeg kom hjem installerede jeg MediaWiki på min server og oprettede de første artikler.

Der gik noget tid inden de andre projekt deltagere forstod ideen, og indlæringskurven for MediaWiki er ikke just lav, derfor opsatte jeg også et traditionelt forum, som stadig kan findes på http://macwiki.kimbach.org/portal, og diskussionen flød.

Det er fantastisk at arbejde sammen om at producere indhold, og når man kan se at der er mange rettelser på MediaWikis recent changes, så virker det simpelthen ganske inspirerende, og man får lyst til at skrive mere.

Jeg føler det er nødvendigt at aflive nogle myter, da den slags opstår når folk ikke taler sammen.

  • Jeg har ingen ambitioner om at være leder eller bestemme noget som helst
  • Jeg er blevet beskyldt for at tage Æbletræet som gidsel – det kan jeg ikke se – grunden til at vi ikke er på PHP5 – som jeg helt ærligt – ikke forstår er så vigtigt – er at vores udbyder Site5 ikke understøtter det, og da projektet er baseret på gratis og frivillig arbejdskraft, så har det været svært at få ejeren af serveren til at bruge tid til at få flyttet server

Og så et par ord om hvordan jeg fungerer: jeg bliver stresset af at tænke på produktions-problemer, og i påsken forsøgte jeg at opgradere Æbletræet.dk, det gik ikke helt som ventet, jeg bad derfor om, først at få os på PHP5, derefter ville jeg installere MediaWiki 1.12, og så flytte til Gigahost (hvilket jeg ikke tror er så god en idé), hvis man spørger kan man jo få svar, og jeg venter på min frivillige hjælper.

Fundamentalt hader jeg simpelthen drift, og her mener jeg ikke den første installation, men de problemer der – næsten altid – opstår når man skal opgradere serveren – så vidt jeg husker – så har vi nu ikke haft de store produktions problemer – en enkelt gang var vi nede i 48 timer – fordi Site5 havde skiftet IP adresser.

En grundregel – som gælder al drift – er: “if it ain’t (totally) broke – don’t fix it” – på Dansk: “pil ikke ved noget der fungerer, også selv om det ikke fungere helt optimalt”. At dette så betyder at “change” ikke sker, er uheldigt, men det er simpelthen ikke noget man kan byde frivillig arbejdskraft – så ting tager tid!

Jeg har – længe – forsøgt at få vores server opgraderet til PHP5, men igen – frivillig arbejdskraft skal man ikke presse – man må væbne sig med tålmodighed. Tro mig, jeg ved det – for 3 år siden prøvede jeg at køre et del-projekt i min Frivilliggruppe hårdt, det faldt ikke i god jord – og folk hadede det jeg producerede, men jeg producerede! Siden dengang har jeg væbnet mig med tålmodighed.

Efter 2 år kan projektet dog, sagtens, stå på egne ben, og jeg føler at min fortsatte deltagelse i projektet ville betyde en fragmentering af fællesskabet, der – efter min mening – ganske enkelt ikke brug for endnu et Dansk Apple site, og nøj hvor er det imponerende med de nye Apple fora, som i kan se havde vi et Drupal baseret forum allerede for 2 år siden.

Jeg vil derfor, fremover, ikke deltage i projektet som andet end bidragyder, med mindre jeg bliver udelukket – hvilket jo ikke kan udelukkes (pun intended).

Faktisk er det eneste jeg er ked af, at jeg har mistet en fantastisk god ven – det bedste minde jeg har er dengang vi bagte en kage til brug for Dansk Flygtningehjælps 1000 flere arrangement, og jeg undskylder MANGE MANGE gange for Beyoncé, som blev Skypet til dine sarte ører mangen sen nat.

Det sjoveste er faktisk at vi, mest fordi vi havde en åben proces, blev udsat for en domænehaj. macwiki.dk blev registreret af en af den slags personer ,der ikke burde have lov at betræde Internettet, sjovt nok blev navnet jo æbletræet.dk, så fjolset brændte inde med domænet LOL.

God vind kære Æbletræ, det har været fantastisk sjovt! Specielt tak til David, Esben men også Thomas x 2, Wendelboe, Sebastian, Allan, Liv for at have holdt mig ud så længe, noget af en bedrift ;-).

Et par fakta – Æbletræet.dk kører videre, så længe det ønskes. Hvis der er interesse i at bevare navnet, hvilket jeg da tvivler på, så kan det redelegeres, jeg ejer det p.t. I øvrigt sletter jeg aldrig indhold, men da vi ved at dublikeret indhold er noget Google ikke bryder sig om, trækker jeg stikket så snart der er flertal for det.

Jeg er blevet beskyldt for gidseltagning – intet er mig fjernere – jeg er SUPER stolt af at have været med til dette – og det var det jeg kunne få jer med til. Fremtiden tilhører egen-produceret indhold, som man selv hoster og ejer, websitet er dødt! Elvis har forladt bygningen.

Billedet der ledsager denne artikel er en manipulation udført af Esben Thomsen, det er Copyright Esben Thomsen, men jeg håber at dette falder under fair use. Esben kender mig bedre end de fleste, og det “grønne skrig” opsumerer “mig” ganske godt (man kunne sige perfekt)

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Blogs Computere og Internet Historier/Stories Macintosh Mactopia Resources Technology Undervisning

ICT Mythbusters Episode 2: Attack of the Clones! Or Is Microsoft just copying Apple? Or A Tale of Type

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Welcome to ICT Mythbusters Episode Two – this time we’ll be investigating the myth that Microsoft is just copying Apple. The post is indeed subtitled “Attack of the Clones”, but bear with me, I have to take a detour to the world of digital typography, before returning to the real topic, so if you’re the impatient type (pun intended), just proceed to the end of the article.

ICT Mythbusters is inspired by the great Discovery show Mythbusters, and you’ll find Episode One here.

Is Microsoft just copying Apple?

Among Apple Macintosh faithfuls, it’s considered common knowledge that Microsoft, with Windows, just made a bad copy of the Apple Macintosh, but who’s copying who?

Erik Spiekermann from the Helvetica DocumentaryWhat triggered me to revisit this myth, that I’ve covered in detail before, was the screening of the great documentary, Helvetica, that I went to yesterday.

In the Helvetica movie Apple Computers was very much the supporting actor, and Apple was indeed mentioned in the credits. More prominently one of the Gurus of Type design, Erik Spiekermann, stated, as a fact, that Microsoft Windows was nothing more than a clone of the Apple Macintosh.

Spiekermann’s statement sounded just like the Apple marketing hype, and the fact that it was being stated by a very influential person in the industry, triggered me.

Firstly: I was somewhat surprised to hear this in a documentary about type. There’s no doubt that all the graphic designers interviewed for the documentary were already using Apple hardware, but I found it strange that Spiekermann’s statement didn’t end up on the cutting floor.

Show some love for the Mac

First there’s no doubt that Microsoft, and Bill Gates always has been great fans of the Apple Macintosh, as the clip below documents:

To create a new standard, it takes something that is just not a little bit different, it takes something that is really new, and really captures people’s imagination, and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve seen, is the only one that meets that standard

Case closed: Bill Gates just admitted that Windows is nothing more than a cloned stormtrooper.

Now wait a minute…As you might notice the clip is quite old, and at that time Microsoft was working on creating one of the key selling points, even to this date, for Apple hardware, the Excel spreadsheet.

Excel was originally developed for the Macintosh, and it wasn’t released for Windows until the the dying moments of the 1980ies. In fact, Microsoft has done more for the proliferation of the Apple Macintosh than any other software manufacturer, and you could argue that the commitment to the Macintosh platform that Microsoft guaranteed at the famous MacWorld keynote in 1997, was a pivotal turning point. Steve Jobs even declared:

We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to loose. […] The era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft, as far as I’m concerned that is over.

And then Jobs went on to establish the fact that Apple and Microsoft, together, is the standard with a combined market share of 100%. Whatever Apple and Microsoft does is the standard.

Well I’m sure the $150 million investment by Microsoft, and the televised image of Bill Gates in the background, had something to do with it, but Steve Jobs was just saying exactly what the stockholders and board-members wanted to hear.

What’s your type?

The market for Apple Macintosh was very much created by the fact, that the Macintosh Computer was the first desktop computer capable of doing print quality design, this revolutionised publishing.

Really it wasn’t so much Apple’s technology that helped create this market, as it was the PostScript technology developed by Adobe.

Until PostScript, all fonts used by desktop computers were so called bit-map fonts, it meant that the fonts were digitised to a specific resolution, and they looked horrible if you tried to scale them to a different point size than the one that was provided with the operating system.

Another problem with the bit-map fonts was that they required a lot of storage, laser-printers use a resolution of 300 DPI (dots per inch), a point in typography is 1/72 of an inch, meaning that 12 point X roughly requires 50 x 50 pixels = 2.500 pixels, and you needed that matrix for all 256 possible characters in the character sets used until the 90ies, a rough calculation yields 640.000 pixels, in bytes that is 80.000, meaing that you’d need approximately 80KB to represent a 300DPI bit-map font. Multiply that by several factors, because the italic and bold versions need their own representation as well, and that should once again be multiplied by the number of fonts installed.

Today this doesn’t sound like much, but remember that the first Macintosh came with only 128KB of RAM, and NO harddrive. In those days a Linotype typesetter had a resolution that was a factor 16 higher, so Houston we have a problem.

Mathematics to the rescue

The PostScript technology used mathematics to describe the fonts (quadric Bézíer curves), making them scalable to all sizes, and a special “hinting” algorithm that reduced the processing power needed when rendering the types.

The technology is known as Adobe Type 1. Adobe had also secured licensing deals with Linotype, the dominant player in the type-foundry business, and owner of a huge share of the mainstream fonts.

The fact that that you could do close to print quality proofs on the desktop, and then simply send the PostScript files to the Linotype typesetter, for print quality, and be confident that the result would look the same as the proof, was nothing short of a revolution.

Fight the power – TrueType this

So heavenly bliss, we had scalable fonts of “infinite” quality, and thanks to the software Adobe Type Manager (ATM), type 1 fonts also worked on the screen, delivering the holy grail of desktop publishing, true WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

So what was the problem with this? The problem was the exorbitant licensing fees that you had to pay Adobe to use the technology and Linotype for the use of their copyrighted fonts.

One of my favourite parts of the Helvetica documentary, is in the scene where we’re taken to the “holiest of holy”, deep below the HQ of Linotype, where they keep the original Hass designs for Helvetica, it’s their “precious”.

Another problem with Adobes technology was that it was very processor intensive, making the screen rendering of the fonts quite slow. Anyone that has ever used ATM on early 90ies hardware will know what I’m taking about.

So Apple was developing a competing technology, TrueType, and later Microsoft and Apple worked together to create an alternative to type 1. Microsofts work included the introduction of replacements for the predominant fonts of the day, Helvetica became Arial, Times Roman became Times New Roman and Courier became Courier New.

Microsoft has contributed a number of major enhancements to TrueType, mainly ClearType, which is an anti-aliasing technology to improve the readability of screen fonts. The technology, which is bundled with Microsoft Reader, has failed to make to much of an impact, but anti-aliasing of screen fonts is the standard today.

Back to the real topic – who’s stealing from who

Oh well, this was a long talk about type, fonts and technology, and proof that the competition between Microsoft and Apple mostly takes place in the minds of the faithfuls (devotees?) of the “Church of Steve Jobs”.

Why is it that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs really want to talk about copying, well it’s because Windows AND Mac OS both are clones.

Xerox Star 8010The work that is the foundation of all graphical user interfaces was done at the Palo Alto Research Center of XEROX, but XEROX being a hardware company, also developed hardware, and the XEROX Documenter or XEROX 8010 Star that really was the first modern computer.
The Star was introduced on April 27th in 1981, several months earlier than the IBM PC. The Macintosh, Windows and GEM shipped 4 years later.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t until the introduction of the NeXT computer, that the mainstream computer industry delivered anything remotely akin to the Star, XEROX failed to make the Star a mass-market product

Attack of the clones! MYTH BUSTED!

Today most people are oblivious of the fact that the Imperial clones were ordered by the agents of the Empire, the ICT equivalents of Count Dooku and Palpatine: Apple and Microsoft. The praise for creating the fantastic tools we have in our hands today should go the XEROX, the Palo Alto Research Center and the amazing people that worked there, for instance Alan Kay, whom Steve Jobs often quotes.

Mythbusted

References

The picture of the real myth busters, Adam Savage and Jamie Heyneman, actually is a banner add, but I make ABSOLUTELY no money from it, if you click it and make a purchase, all proceeds go to the Jamie, Adam and of course Café Press. I hope this will settle any copyright issues with them.

The picture of Erik Spiekermann above, is a still from the Helvetica film, and it is copied from the official site of the Helvetica film. The picture is copyright Gary Hustwit, but I consider my use here to be fair use.

The picture of the XEROX 8010 Star is copied from the wonderful DigiBarn website. The picture is copyright DigiBarn, but since it is under a CC-NA-SA license, I can use it – the wave of the future!

The MYTH BUSTED picture was copied from the webiste of MARIJNBOSCH.COM, there’s no copyright notice on the site, and I consider my use here to be fair use.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Design Kim Blog (English) Resources Technology

iPhone Dev Center – Apple opens the iPhone and iPod touch for developers

Iphonedevcenter Loginbanner
iPhone Dev Center – Apple Developer Connection

Apple means business with their promise to open up the iPhone and iPod touch platform to developers with the launch of the iPhone Dev Center, and it looks quite impressive, even though it’s mainly information on how to develop web-applications, and links to already existing information for Mac OS X.

Below is a quote from the mail I just received from ADC:

Available to all ADC Members, the iPhone Dev Center is your complete source for technical information, resources, and expert advice on how to design, code and optimize web applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Take advantage of the iPhone Reference Library, web development guidelines, and sample code to build or optimize your web application. Through ADC on iTunes, you can watch iPhone experts discuss everything from user interface design to optimizing your web applications and content for iPhone.

Once your app is ready, or if you have an existing web app, submit it for possible listing on the Apple web apps page. Log in now and access all the resources of the iPhone Dev Center today.

Unfortunately I don’t think Apple is going to make the platform available to other hardware manufacturers, which is typical Apple, but wouldn’t it be great with Mono ported to the iPhone and iPod touch? And I’m confident that Mono and even Silverlight/Moonlight will be ported to the iPhone platform.

Another brilliant touch (pun intended ;-)), is that the developer resources only is available to registered ADC users, something that the open source communities would barf at, but Apple will get away with it, as usually, and I think that the open source communities should take lessons from Apple.

I think ADC will receive a huge influx of registered users because of this, and it’s a direct path to marketing of the WWDC, which will see an unprecedented surge in attendance next year, which I predict will force Apple into move towards two WWDCs every year, one for mobile and non-mobile devices.

This is yet another brilliant move by Apple – and is that a Steve Jobs version of “the monkey dance” I see on the horizon? Developers, Developers, Developers!

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Blogs Computere og Internet Education/Undervisning Hackers Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Open Source Technology

Bad Penguin: “Linux – The OS I’ll – eventually – wear”: Kim Bach – still Mac user :-(

Bad PenguinClick here for the most popular videos

So I thought that Linux was ready for prime time, but not just yet – it was hurting my productivity too much :-(. I need some help setting my system up, and will attempt to get that when I soon will attend LinuxParty in Roskilde.

It did make for a couple of interesting Jaiku presense stream though (Kim Bach: Former Mac user and Installing Ubuntu on my new Lenovo V100 – Firefox on WiFi from the Live CD while my drive partitions. Have I died and gone to heaven?.

Performance of the applications is really great though, and I hit on one of the biggest obstacles, non-functioning DVD playback due to patent issues – really amazing that the International anti-thrust organisations haven’t looked into that :-(.

I hope to return to the Linux world soon, Ubuntu keeps improving

But the future really lies in simpler technology, and “the puck” is moving elsewhere than the monolithic computer. My mobile is increasingly my primary Internet access terminal, and Apple might just have got it right with the iPhone. The iPhone is actually much more Linux than people realise, it’s powered by FreeBSD and contains source code form from several open source projects, most noticeably KHTML which is the basis for the Safari browser.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Open Source Technology Undervisning

“Linux! The last OS you’ll ever wear”: Kim Bach – Former Mac user

Bad Apple

Overheard during Software Freedom Day 2007, September 15th in Copenhagen, Denmark:

I don’t know much about Linux! And you’re an open source activist?

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Moonlighting: Microsoft Delivers Silverlight 1.0, Extends Support to Linux

Microsoft Silverlight LogoMicrosoft Delivers Silverlight 1.0, Extends Support to Linux: “Entertainment Tonight” HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment showcase new online experiences; more than 35 partners commit to Silverlight Partner Initiative.

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 4, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today released to the Web (RTW) Silverlight™ 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the Web. In addition, Microsoft will work with Novell Inc. to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, and based on the project started on mono-project.com.

Silverlight significantly reduces development and deployment costs and provides enhanced Web audio and video streaming and playback using industry-leading Windows Media® Technologies. Microsoft unveiled new Silverlight customer experiences on “Entertainment Tonight,” HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment, and also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.

“Our expectations for compelling, immersive experiences on the Web are increasing daily,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect. “With today’s release of Silverlight 1.0, we’re making it possible for developers and designers to deliver to individuals the kind of high-def experiences they crave by integrating data and services in rich and unique ways. Silverlight will further accelerate the growth in rich interactive applications by giving developers and designers new options for delivering great experiences that span the Web, PC, phone and other devices.”

I think my jaw just hit the floor, this exceeds my wildest dreams – let’s hope that it’s not just that – and that it will materialise.

This is the validation that the Mono Project needed! Flash will now – finally – get serious competition – or rather a run for it’s money – from a company that understands, and listens to, developers (no “monkey dance” here – they just do!).

It’s WONDERFUL news. GO RAY OZZIE, Microsoft will be “insanely great” – unlike “another” company – that no longer has ANY interest in computers!!!

And guess what: I just started as a Microsoft developer again – seems that I got the timing right.

Get Silverlight 1.0 here (yes: it’s ALSO for the Mac)…

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Apple – QuickTime – September 2007 Keynote Address

Ipods Special Event 20070905Apple – QuickTime – September 2007 Keynote Address

Apple Special Event from today is now available for streaming, Steve is looking sharp, great seeing him playing with iTunes Ringtone Maker: “All we are saying is give peace a chance” – “that’s for when NBC calls” LOL.

And the iPod Touch – should be called the iPod Ouch – Ouch there goes my recent resolution: “No more gadgets!” AGAIN! I am however going to wait until I can try it, before buying. I have some questions…

  1. Can I update my calendar and address book and have it synced back to iCal and Address Book? My guess is no.
  2. Does the Danish localisation include a Danish touch screen keyboard, including æ, ø and å, Steve only showed the US version?
  3. It doesn’t look like it works with Nike+.
  4. It doesn’t look like it supports Bluetooth, so no wireless headsets or integration with phones and cameras
  5. When will there be a Starbucks in Copenhagen (hey isn’t there one in CPH Airport? Guess I just have to travel some more!)

As a spin off from the Special Event today, I’ve created a Jaiku channel for the Danish Apple community called #appletalkdk, join the fun here.

The picture is Copyright (c) 2007 Apple Inc., I consider my use here to be fair use.

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Blogs Computere og Internet Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

And the beat goes on…

I got hold of a copy of Steve’s manuscript earlier today…

*Cue the music
*His Steveness enters
*iTunes growth has been OUT OF THIS WORLD, WE’RE “BEAT”ING THEM ALL
Everyone is on iChat these days, let’s see, hmm…Hi Sir Paul!
Do you have an iPod? Yes, yes I have SEVERAL, you keep making new ones. Well I might have a surprise for you later, and tell us about the merger of Apple Inc. and Apple Corp…
*BOOM!!!
*Do you remember what the BIG jeans pocket was for? Now you can put it to use again, with the brand-new iPod Video, if you can get it to fit next to the iPhone you’ll need as well to get it online.
*Phil can you show us how that works? (Phil is in the audience with his Power…ahem MacBook – oh there you are! – Phil is on iChat with the new Leopard default theme).

*And now back to you Sir Paul.

*Oh one more thing…NAH! That’s so last year:

*Thank you and goodnight!