iTunes (Music) (Games) (Movies) Store hence the name! iTunes already left it’s origin a long time ago. Apple should work out some­thing (iMedia Store or what­ever). iTunes is a strong brand, but it doesn’t cover it’s orig­i­nal propo­si­tion any­more! Apple lost the Com­puter in it’s name to state: more then just com­put­ers. The iTunes brand has to be updated! It’s an online store where the con­sumer can buy music, games, movies, audio­books etc. not just music! If I’ve under­stood cor­rectly Apple’s is going to offer soft­ware in it’s line-​up. The iPhone/iPod Touch are the first to receive it’s apps through iTunes.

Online ser­vices are the next big evo­lu­tion­ary thing after Web 2.0. You already see some com­pa­nies making the shift, like Adobe with it’s Adobe Pho­to­shop Online (PSX), Adobe even branded the Pho­to­shop line with a new very much dis­cussed (Web 2.0 Aquaish) logo. Google is also exper­i­ment­ing with online apps (Cal­en­dar, Docs, Talk etc.) and Apple already has it’s .Mac ser­vices for years (thanks to WebOb­jects). I think and pre­dict that a lot of com­pa­nies will offer these kind of ser­vices in the future and see a tighter inte­gra­tion between web-​based appli­ca­tions and desktop-​based appli­ca­tions, maybe even elim­i­nat­ing their desk­top cousins and trans­form into a sub­scrip­tion based model.

The Show­down between Blu-​ray Disc (BD) and HD-​DVD is prob­a­bly over. Warner Broth­ers announced that they would be moving their titles from HD-​DVD to the Blu-​ray format. Many have sug­gested that this marks the end of the next gen­er­a­tion DVD battle, though two major stu­dios con­tinue to have exclu­sive HD-​DVD dis­tri­b­u­tion deals in place.
Warner Brother’s switch, places the major­ity of movie releases on Blu-​Ray.
Even before this new mar­ket­share advan­tage, Blu-​ray titles out­sold HD-​DVD offer­ings as much as 2 to 1, and had even been chosen for exclu­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion by Block­buster.
This is also a seri­ous jaw­breaker for de VC-1 format (sorry, Bill), BD which includes both AVC and VC-1 favors AVC. AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding) is from a tech­ni­cal point of view a supe­rior format.
Apple has been a member of the Blu-​ray consortium’s Board of Direc­tors since March 2005, but has not pub­licly announced their Blu-​ray plans. Let’s hope Apple will offi­cially launch Blu-​ray sup­port at Mac­world San Fran­cisco 2008.
Update 05-01-2008: It is now clear that New Line (Owned by Warner Bros.) will also drop HD-​DVD in favor of Blu-​ray. The announce­ment comes on a day that can only be described as a night­mare for the HD-​DVD camp.Rumor 08-01-2008: Para­mount Pic­tures is poised to drop its sup­port of HD-​DVD in favor of Sony’s Blu-​ray format, land­ing a deci­sive blow to the Toshiba-​backed next-​generation DVD format and all but assur­ing Blu-ray’s role as the future stan­dard for all high-​definition dig­i­tal video discs.

I have been very busy these days! We did a lot of pitches at the com­pany I’m cur­rently employed with. For relax­ation I gave my girl­friend a Ticket Deluxe for Cav­alia. Before the show we could enjoy a nice glass of cham­pagne (or other drinks) I had chosen the Palm Royal (man did it hit me). After 15 min we went inside the “big white giant tent” called the “Big Top” with room for up to 2000 seats. The show was mag­i­cal, all the sea­sons were visu­al­ized. The winter was “breathtaking”. It’s amaz­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing to see the bond between human beings an horses. It was a mix­ture of dra­matic visual effects, live music, dance, humor and acro­bat­ics. There were over thirty mag­nif­i­cent horses at the show, includ­ing the famous and incred­i­ble Lusi­tano stal­lions. After the shows we could visit the sta­bles and got a Audio CD and a cal­en­dar. We really enjoyed this well deserved evening together.

EMI announced today that their entire dig­i­tal music cat­a­logue will be offered in Stan­dard and Pre­mium ver­sions next month, Apple will be the first part­ner to sup­port it.
This means DRM free inter­op­er­a­ble files, in higher audio qual­ity 256kbps and at a price of €1,29 that’s €30 cents more then pre­vi­ous ver­sions. The same offer will be made to other music labels.

Apple and The Beatles’ parent com­pany Apple Corps said Monday they have entered into a new agree­ment con­cern­ing the use of the name “Apple” and Apple logos, ending a testy trade­mark dis­pute dating back nearly three decades. Under the new agree­ment, which replaces a pact from 1991, Apple will own all of the trade­marks related to “Apple” and will license cer­tain of those trade­marks back to Apple Corps for their con­tin­ued use. In addi­tion, the ongo­ing trade­mark law­suit between the com­pa­nies will end, with each party bear­ing its own legal costs, and Apple con­tin­u­ing to use its name and logos on iTunes.

…We love the Bea­t­les, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trade­marks. It feels great to resolve this in a pos­i­tive manner, and in a way that should remove the poten­tial of fur­ther dis­agree­ments in the future…

said Apple chief exec­u­tive Steve Jobs. The terms of set­tle­ment were not dis­closed. Now we only have to wait until their songs will come avail­able on the iTunes Store.

I have added an 5G iPod (Video), to our iPod line-​up. I was a little skep­ti­cal at first, but after having played with it at an Apple Centre I was con­vinced. The video/audio qual­ity of this device is really amazing!

harman/kardon today intro­duced The Bridge, a unique iPod acces­sory that con­nects a com­pat­i­ble iPod to a range of spe­cial harman/kardon The Bridge-​ready AVR 40 Series audio/video receivers, The Bride, which does not require a power adapter, pro­vides a direct audio and con­trol link between the iPod and the receiver. “Elegantly designed to match harman/kardon prod­ucts, The Bridge enables a host of advanced iPod capa­bil­i­ties, such as dis­play­ing on-​screen menus, on front panel dis­play of AVR 40 Series, on TV or video dis­play, pro­vid­ing oper­a­tion of the iPod via the receiver’s remote con­trol and charg­ing of the iPod.” harman/kardon’s The Bridge will be avail­able in Octo­ber 2005 for €100.