What Did Apple’s Five Fingers Say to NBC’s Face? SLAP!

Apple just slapped NBC down hard. Responding to reports NBC was pulling out of the iTunes Store, Apple announced that it was prematurely canceling their partnership — Because NBC wanted $5 per episode of its shows!

Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Incredible. NBC has benefited from iTunes more than anyone else, and they’re throwing out crazy price increases. I mean, that would have made Friday Night Lights Season 1 cost $110! NBC is selling the DVD for less than $20 brand-new with more special features! If this is any indication of Hulu’s pricing scheme, it’s screwed out of the gate.

Via Daring Fireball.

Rick James pic from CBC.

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Analysis: defense of Miss Teen South Carolina and Maps and Such as

Regarding the ongoing internet fun-poking at Miss Teen South Carolina and her love of maps, Jason Schultz says,

In response to the recent call to action by Miss Teen South Carolina, Maps For
Us started a blog of important maps: Link. My favorite is the map of Sparta: Link.

In BoingBoing's comment section, reader Tim Howland shared this revelation:

I think that everyone has missed something important here; she's actually been pioneering a new art form- a combination of Hindi Ghazal poetry and blank verse.

Look at the transcription:

I personally believe that us americans

are unable to do so
because osama.

People out there

in our nation

don't have that,

And I believe that our education

like such as south africa and

such as the Iraq.

everywhere "such as".

And I believe our education

should help the US

should help the south africa

and the iraq

and the asian countries

so we can build up

our future.

The themes are clear; she's worried about the way we are reacting to the war on terror, the way Osama Bin Laden still is free, and the way that we are being "educated". The irony is simply dripping from the last stanza.

She was able to deliver this call to revolution absolutely deadpan, cunningly pulling the wool over America's eyes- and people here have the temerity to mock her intellectual accomplishments? She is the latter-day heir to Rosa Luxemborg- only, without the boathook.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Tube Map for Miss SC: The Iraqs and Everywhere, Like, Such As.

Miss South Carolina says we need more maps (video)

(Via Boing Boing.)

Tube Map for Miss SC: The Iraqs and Everywhere, Like, Such As.

Many BoingBoing readers sent in copies of this lovely Tube Map, composed for Miss South Carolina after her most inspirational speech at a recent beauty pageant about the people of Iraq and Such As. Link to full-size at Morning Toast blog, and better grab a hanky before you watch that video Mark posted earlier. (thanks, Method77, Nev Cornforth, Rick P.)

(Via Boing Boing.)

Welcome to the new Boing Boing!

I'm writing this from Boulder, Colorado, which seems like a good place
to make this announcement -- it was in this town that Carla Sinclair
and I launched bOING bOING as a print zine in 1988. During the past 19
years we've gone through many changes -- from zine to webzine to
directory to blog. Today, Boing Boing is changing again, in three
exciting new ways: a redesign, the return of user comments, and a blog
about personal technology.

The new look comes from Jemma Hostetler of Studio Sans Nom. Her
redesign is cleaner, easier-to-read, and built to incorporate
additional new features that we'll be adding to Boing Boing in the
near future. The redesigned logo and new character mascots were
created by the fun-loving folks at eBoy, a collective of awesomely
talented pixel-pushing artists from Germany and New York.

We're also happy to be reintroducing comments to Boing Boing, a
feature we reluctantly dropped a couple of years ago. At that time, we
lacked the resources to manage the comments, and felt that a lousy
comment system was worse than no system at all, so we pulled the plug.
We've never felt good about it, though, because our readers' comments
added a great deal of value to the blog. To correct this, we hired a
terrific community manager to oversee the conversations: Teresa
Nielsen Hayden. At her own blog, Making Light, Teresa has proven
herself to be a wonderfully wise and talented tender of online
conversations. Teresa worked closely with our designers to develop a
commenting system that supports the Boing Boing community while
preventing noise from drowning out the signal. "We want this new
community system to make Boing Boing even more fun and informative,"
says Teresa. Under her supervision, we're sure it will be.

Our third major change is the launch of a brand new blog:
Gadgets.boingboing.net. While Boing Boing has always covered personal
technology, the four of us (Cory, David, Xeni, and I) believed a
critical, intelligent, optimistic, and selective blog about personal
technology and consumer electronics would be a fine addition to Boing
Boing. But who could we trust to oversee a tech blog that the four of
us would want to read? Actually, it wasn't hard to find that person.
We went straight to Joel Johnson, a former Gizmodo editor and founder
of Dethroner. Joel is smart, funny, knowledgeable, and curious about
technology. He was our first, and unanimous, choice to run
Gadgets.boingboing.net. And we're grateful he agreed to come on board.

We'd like to thank the happy mutants who helped make this major
relaunch possible. These folks went under the hood and untangled the
mess that Boing Boing's code had snarled into, and created an elegant, powerful system that positively
shines. Federated Media's Jonathan Schreiber and Ivan Kanevski did an amazing job of
dealing with the technical aspects of the redesign. Our beloved system
administrator Ken Snider worked his magic on the server side and made
sure all changes to the site wouldn't impact the speed of page reloads or clobber us with high bandwidth costs. David Jacobs at Apperceptive upgraded Boing Boing to the newest
edition of Movable Type, and designed and implemented the new comment system
to Teresa's specs.

Special thanks go out to the gang at Federated Media: John Battelle,
Chas Edwards, Josh Matison and everyone else that
contributed a significant amount of time and hi-octane mental effort
on making this relaunch a success. We're grateful to all of you for
everything you've done. Extra special thanks to FM's Jason Weisberger for
endless advice, encouragement, and, well, adult supervision.
Thank you!

We hope you enjoy the new Boing Boing. Let us know what you think by
clicking on the "discuss" link and adding your thoughts.

(Via Boing Boing.)

It’s on: Apple event slated for September 5th

Filed under: Portable Audio

Well the rumors have been floating around for a few days, and now we've gotten official word -- in the form of the invite you see above -- that Apple will be holding a "special event" on September 5th. Let the speculation begin!

]

(Via Engadget.)

Maybe iMovie ‘08 isn’t such a bad change after all

Filed under: iLife, Software, Blogs

Many folks who were used to the array of features iMovie '06 offered were understandably upset when iMovie '08 uprooted just about everything they knew. After all, they had the figurative rug pulled out right from under them. Eric at no one sequel, however, doesn't see this as a bad thing. Eric's entire post is definitely worth a read, but to summarize: while iMovie '06 is a good product, it doesn't exactly live up to the Apple and iLife reputation of "just working." iMovie '06 users need to learn a little too much about video editing - time codes, time lines, "rendering", etc. - causing a significant portion of the public to avoid the practice altogether. I agree with Eric - perhaps it isn't Apple's job to bring pro features and workflows to the general user. Instead, maybe it's their job to to eliminate the need for those features to exist in the mind of said user, greatly simplifying the barrier to entry in video editing so that more can use these otherwise complicated tools.

By completely rethinking the practice of video editing and redesigning iMovie around the new paradigm, iMovie '08 could perhaps be the first product that really captures the attention of the larger mass that hasn't caught the bug yet (no pun intended). Sure iMovie is lacking a few features everyone can enjoy, such as a few effects and transitions, but users no longer need to learn what a 'timecode' is just to cut together the summer vacation or a cute puppy montage. It's just skim, click and drag and poof - a video.

Isn't that the way Apple products are supposed to work?

[via Daring Fireball]

Read s.tuaw.com/~r/weblogsinc/tuaw/~4/148874894" height="1" width="1"/>

(Via TUAW.)

BREAKING: Alberto Gonzales Resigns

The New York Times reports Alberto Gonzales will announce his resignation later this morning:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not announced immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

U.S. News reported this weekend, “The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he’s got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.”

UPDATE: In March, Gonzales said, “I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.” In June, he promised to “sprint to the finish line” to “accomplish all the goals that are important to me.”

UPDATE II: In April, Gonzales said he would stay as long as he felt he could be effective:

I will stay as long as I feel I can be effective, and I believe I can be effective. Obviously, we’ll be working with the Congress to reassure them that we’ve identified the mistakes that have been made here and that we are taking steps to address them. But I can’t just be focused on the U.S. Attorney situation. I’ve also got to be focused on what’s really important for the American people.

UPDATE III: CNN’s John King: “This is the last of the Texans who came with President Bush to Washington in the close White House circle to have a senior job. Karen Hughes, of course, still at the State Department — she left and came back. But Karl Rove leaving recently, now Alberto Gonzales leaving as well. This President does not have the old Texas posse around him anymore.”

UPDATE IV: The AP reports, “A senior Justice Department official said that a likely temporary replacement for Gonzales is Solicitor General Paul Clement, who would take over until a permanent replacement is found.” FDL has some background on Clement.

UPDATE V: Gonzales will be reading a statement at 10:30 a.m. ET. President Bush is expected to make a statement about Gonzales at 11:30 a.m. from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

UPDATE VI: Gonzales said, “Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government service as attorney general of the United States effective as of September 17th, 2007.” He offered no reason for his departure.

UPDATE VII: Gonzales’s resignation letter HERE.

Digg It!

(Via Think Progress.)

Gateway plans to acquire Packard Bell BV

According to reports, Gateway will be exercising its right of first refusal (or ROFR) to acquire control of Packard Bell BV by nabbing all of the shares of the PC-maker's parent company. The computer giant first gained the ROFR in Summer of 2006, in an agreement made with the former owner of eMachines, Lap Shun (John) Hui. Apparently, Mr. Hui proposed sale of the his share in PB Holding Company, S.ar.l, based on a price offered by a mysterious "third party." It's all becoming clear to us now... Acer is interested in purchasing Gateway so they can get to the diamond-in-the-rough that is Packard Bell! Very sneaky guys.

(Via Engadget.)