DSLAMngu writes "Freshman students at Duke University received their complimentary/paid for (however you want to look at it) iPod portable music players on Thurday. This deal was previously mentioned on /. here. After waiting in line, I eventually got my Duke-engraved iPod at about 9:00 PM with the rest of the freshmen at Brown dorm. I've written about the experience at my blog, and also included a copy of the Program Agreement and some photos of what the students received."

An anonymous reader writes "As reported on Cnet and others, an open source java iTunes client named ourTunes has been released under the GPL by a group of anonymous hackers. Unlike the Apple iTunes for Windows and Mac, ourTunes allows a user to queue up and save to disk the music shared by other users. Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products.'"

drpickett writes "The Financial Times are carrying an editorial by James Boyle concerning the nascent battle between Apple and Real. Good comments on the DMCA issues. Article sort of portrays Apple as a bunch of close-system types who got the 5% market share that they deserve for shunning interoperability. No mention is made of Real as the poster child for closed formats and cheap spyware tactics." And no mention noting what Real and Apple are really fighting over: who gets to profit from the destruction of the users' freedom.

Beelsebob writes "Apple have put out a recall on a certain group of PowerBook G4 batteries. If you have a PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) 15" and your battery's model number is A1045, and its serial number starts HQ404, HQ405, HQ406, HQ407, or HQ408, then you could be at risk of it overheating."

BunkAsInBed writes "CNET reports RealNetwork's recent campaign against the iTunes music network that involved tactics like slashing the costs of their downloads in half, reverse engineering Apple's FairPlay format (Harmony), and recently an online petition and bulliten board have received the opposite reponse that was anticpated."

Dave B writes "The Register has been fishing at the patent office again and found that Apple has a new patent for "a computing device [which] includes a housing having an illuminable portion. The computing device also includes a light device disposed inside the housing. The light device is configured to illuminate the illuminable portion". While this gives us the exciting prospect of an iMac that is all five fruit flavors at once surely the original iMac with its glowing power button, or indeed a-thousand-and-one other electronic gizmos represent prior art?" Update a couple of users noticed this Slashdot Story from 2002 which looks familiar.

Blano writes "Marc Liyanage recently posted a great article on getting up and running and optimizing OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X. He includes some tweaks and helpful configuration tips." Another option is getting the software on CD.

gz76 writes "Apple's high-performance motion graphic design and production application lets you explore new creative territory using self-propelled behavior animation, character-by-character title animation and a powerful new interface. Motion integrates seamlessly with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro 3, making it quicker and easier than ever to create motion graphics for film, video and DVDs. About time!"

Durin_Deathless writes "XCode 1.5 is now available to the general public through ADC. Highlights include dead code stripping, remote debugging, Subversion support, and improved editor speed. There's also a new GCC, which is supposed to compile faster, and lots of AppleScript changes. Also, code completion now works in Java and AppleScript." djabbour writes "Blizzard Entertainment develops its games simultaneously on the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. This article claims Xcode Tools 'play [a] critical role.'"

worm eater writes "The Register reports that Apple has filed for a European design trademark on a tablet computer. El Reg speculates that this could may make Apple Expo Paris more exciting that previously thought. Could this be the tech that finally brings the Mac desktop, iPod, and AirPort Express (and let's not forget the iPhone) together into the media household of The Future? (Of course, we've heard speculation about this before.)"

Gentu writes "OSNews posted some exclusive screenshots of a new project in the Mono community: Cocoa#. Apparently there are a couple of Apple engineers helping out the project that allows developers to create graphical Cocoa applications under Mac OS X using the C#, Python or Basic language. Mono seems to be doing well in the Windows land too, allowing developers to use GTK# instead of Windows.Forms to create multi-platform apps."

womby writes "DVD Jon has just announced that he cracked the encryption in Apple's AirPort Express. 'I've released JustePort, a tool which lets you stream MPEG4 Apple Lossless files to your AirPort Express. The stream is encrypted with AES and the AES key is encrypted with RSA.' No real details of the process employed in cracking the unit but newsworthy none the less."

allgood2 writes "John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a great article exploring the myth that Apple could/would be Microsoft if only they had licensed their operating system. This myth has oft been purported in technology and business media."

derphilipp writes "Apple just released 10.3.5 via software update. On the list of changes were - among others - new graphic card drivers, support for reading filesystems and a better samba support. Its size is 43 MB and its available via softwareupdate. Happy updating." Update: 08/09 22:46 GMT by T : EverLurking writes to note that Apple has also released the 5.3MB "'Security Update 2004-08-09' for OS 10.3.4 (along with OS Update 10.3.5) via software update that patches the security hole in the libpng libraries that could crash applications opening up malformed PNG images."

worm eater writes "The Register reports that VirginMega (Virgin Group's online music venture in France) is asking the French antitrust authorities to force Apple to license the FairPlay DRM. If France agrees with Virgin, will this be a blessing in disguise for Apple, making their DRM format the defacto standard, or will it be the downfall of the mighty iTunes Music Store?"

sloopy writes "Terra Soft Solutions has released the long awaited and overdue next version of Yellow Dog Linux - version 4.0, for ydl.net enhanced subscribers and pre-installed on new machines, with full release to hopefully soon follow in the coming weeks. With this new release, they finally include native support for the new G5s (32-bit kernel/toolchain currently, full 64-bit soon) and continued support for the G4s and newer G3s."

pizen writes "The folks over at CNet have the scoop that a new version of CrossOver Office (3.1) now supports Apple's iTunes. The preview version of the software is being tested and is currently only available to current CodeWeavers customers. They expect a final version to be available later this year." Reader snowtigger contributes a link to this screenshot. White demonstrated iTunes on a Linux machine at OSCON as well; a rendering glitch marred that demo, but he was still able to demonstrate playing back a song which he'd purchased from iTMS using iTunes on Linux.

hrbrmstr writes "Apple released an update to iPhoto, bringing it up to version 4.0.2. From the horse's mouth: 'iPhoto 4.0.2 addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books, and provides notification when new versions of iPhoto are available.' Get it from Software Update or from Apple support."

Nagen writes "DrunkenBlog has an intriguing essay arguing that the mobile phone is the primary convergence point for digital devices and will soon cause iPod sales to evaporate. Perhaps more interesting is the idea that the iPod is an expendable pawn in a larger battle of who will control the gateway of all legal content to the user."

Zycom writes "Reuters reports that doctors successfully removed a cancerous tumor from the pancreas of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. In an e-mail he sent out from his hospital bed after the surgery he explained the disease, saying, "I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which represents about 1 percent of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year, and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was)." He will not need to have any chemotherapy or radiation therapy and has an excellent prognosis. While he is recuperating, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations, will run the company."