Walt Disney this week confirmed it continues to enjoy strong sales of its television shows and films through iTunes. CEO Bob Iger confirmed the company to have sold 23.7 million episodes of its television shows and an additional two million films through Apple’s media service.
Back in November the Disney CEO said that the company had sold 500,000 films and 12 million television show episodes since such content reached iTunes. Disney hit 1.3 million films sold in February.
“We continue to view the broadband-enabled internet as an important entertainment medium, and our creative and technological investments in Disney, ESPN, ABC.com are designed with that premise in mind.”
Iger was also pleased with the iTunes pricing plans, he said that he could make as much profit on a actual shop sale as one on iTunes.
“There are cost of goods that are factored out of the iTunes sale, which allows them to sell at a lower price. That’s their decision and it allows us to take revenue out that is equal to, in terms of a per-click sale, store sales. So, yes, we’re quite comfortable with iTunes,” Iger explained.
Categorized in Apple, Technology and Television
For the second time, and not by the same people mind you, the Swedish Warez site the pirate bay has been hacked. The bandits have taken off with the user database, with all usernames and passwords. Those Swedish need to tighten their guard.
“User data stolen but not unsecured
Hi, we have some sad news, but don’t be alarmed…
Some people (and yes, we know who) found a security hole on our web site (in fact, actually in this blog).
They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords. But, the passwords are stored encrypted, so it’s not a big deal, but it’s still very sad that it’s out there. All e-mails are for instance encrypted as well, they will most likely not be able to decrypt them either (they are _very_ encrypted).
We encourage all our users to change passwords as soon as possible – and if you have the same password on the bay as other places, you should update them as well.
Sorry for the mess, but we are all human and we miss something sometimes.
Posted Y-day 13:48 by bkp”
Not Good.
Categorized in Interesting and Technology
Previously I posted a Zelda mod of the Wii case, and this has been followed up by it’s little brother, with the DS Zelda Mod. This is really cool, and I wish I could own this DS.
Categorized in Funny, Gaming, Interesting and Nintendo
The unique music site Pandora, which allows users to stream their own radio station of their favorite artist, and recommend artists to the user, is to shut out all non-US customers, as of this evening. All registered users outside of the US found this out yesterday when they received a warning email.
As the site operates under DMCA law , and has to play the rights holders inside the US, however there is no system for that over here in the good old European Union, so the site must close. The site must sign deals with the rights holders directly if they wish to continue, and this simply ” would take too much time and effort” and is an impossible task.
The site did not allow non-US users before, but signup was still possible by using a fake Zip Code. However the use of IP filtering will not completely eradicate the access to the site.
This is a shame. I enjoyed using the Pandora site and thought it a really good idea. However this was going to happen, with people hacking the site to download the music as it played with Java add-ons and rights problems the Pandora service was on rocky ground from the start. This isn’t the end for the US, but still everyone else will miss out. The filter is by-passable , but it will take a lot of detailed proxy’s which isn’t really worth it.
A copy of the email is shown in the continued story:
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Categorized in Interesting
A revolution took place on the Digg site yesterday as the management had to intervene to remove a HD DVD Decryption Key. A post submitted containing the decryption key for HD DVD’s was removed from the front page after a take down 
demand, and then the trouble started. In revolt the users of the site began to post the key repeatedly on the front page, and these post were also subsequently deleted, but this was not going to last long.
The flood of posts containing the key could not be quelled and unless Digg went into full scale lock down and kicked half it’s users, there was no point fighting. The Digg CEO, Jay Anderson, responded to the event saying, on the Digg blog, that he did not understand why the user’s were doing this., however this only made matters worse. The co-founder, Kevin Rose, posted later on the digg blog saying that he could now see what the Digg users wanted, and that they would rather “go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company” and vowed “not to delete stories and comments containing the code”. He also said that they would “deal with whatever the consequences might be”
Lets hope that the Digg users have not just shot Digg in the face. But this just shows the power of people.
Categorized in Interesting
A Sony Press conference to promote God of War II for their PS3 console, in which they beheaded a live goat and then asked attendees to reach inside, has seriously backfires.
Daily Mail reports that Sony apparently decided to turn things into a true Roman spectacle in the UK for the launch of God of War II by decapitating a live goat and having revelers reach inside to feast upon the goat’s innards. “Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach”
The official PS3 magazine, already sent to it’s subscribers contained images of the slaughtered goat and images of topless women who were also entertaining at the event. However the main launch of the magazine this month, pushed by the Daily Mail, has been cancelled. The two page article in this magazine is to be re-designed and then reprinted, all 80,000 copies of it.
It seems silly to me that Sony would make such a mistake. I realize that this is just another Political Correctness fiasco, and this county maybe thinks too much about it, but was this a step too far?
Categorized in Funny, Sony Playstation and Technology
Nintendo are to develop 45 software titles for the Wii console and another 79 games for the DS Portable System President Satoru Iwata said at news conference in Tokyo today. The next batch of games will be introduced to the market at the end of “summer,” he said. Nintendo’s sales have soared lately and this shows a hopefully future ahead.
This is damn good news for any owners of the console, and for me personally, reinstates the motivation to buy a Nintendo Console. The lack of games on the old system, the Gamecube, was it’s main downfall. The introduction of games aimed at the older gamer, such as Call of Duty, have put Nintendo back on the map, after a shaky period. With rumors that the Take That, Producers of GTA , are going to be closely working with Nintendo , the new horizon looks promising.
Categorized in Interesting and Nintendo
Users of the Vista Betas, and avoiding the hefty price for the actual product, are in for a nasty shock straight from the top. You, as beta
users are starving Microsoft of their well earned profits, so they are going to stop your beta, unlucky.
Anyone running Vista Beta 2 RC1 or RC2 will begin to receive warnings in a few weeks telling you that your operating system installation is about to expire. On May 31st the error messages will cease and the beating will begin. You’ll be able to logon for 2 hours in order to retrieve your data, but after 2 hours your computer will automatically reboot without giving you the opportunity to save your work. After August 28th, even these 2 hour logon sessions will be disabled and then you are stuffed. Beta users are entitled to an upgrade disk which refrains from having to completely backup all your data.
This forces beta users to upgrade and help fund the empire, and Darth Gates, but thats no suprise.
Categorized in Interesting, Microsoft and Technology
In the last part of my improve Mac productivity article, we discovered Quicksilver and how it can be used to make the whole of the Mac operating system only a key shortcut away. Now we move onto one of OSX’s most unique features and learn how to improve it further. The Mac dock makes the access to files, applications , folders and even web pages faster than any other way of working. However the dock can be easily cluttered and soon becomes a screen real estate hog.
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Categorized in Apple and Technology
