The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.
Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.
But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, iPods, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.
Experts said the sanctions effort — being co-ordinated under the United Nations — would be the first ever to curtail a specific category of goods not associated with military buildups or weapons designs, especially one so tailored to annoy a foreign leader. U.S. officials acknowledge that enforcing the ban on black-market trading would be difficult.
After securing a deal with Microsoft to take a small cut of every Zune sold, reportedly as a buffer against royalties lost to piracy, Universal is hoping it can secure the same deal with Apple.
It’s thought the record label receives $1 for each of the $250 Microsoft music players sold. Universal CEO Doug Morris said at the Reuters Media Summit he believes there’s room for a similar accord with the iPod maker, according to Reuters.
It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do that… but maybe not in the same way,” he said.
iPods claimed five of the top ten spots in Amazon’s consumer electronics chart over the key US shopping weekend.
Apple’s portable music players took another five of the top 25 bestsellers, with Microsoft’s heavily marketed Zune so far behind that it was outsold by an iPod accessory. The Microsoft player was number 75 behind Apple’s USB power adapter at 65.
Apple’s own stores aside, a recent survey found that 70 per cent of retailers recommend iPods in preference to other players.
Speaking at the FT World Communications Conference, Nikesh Arora, Google’s VP of European operations, told delegates that, in the coming years, the plummeting price of storage and its increasing volume-to-size ratio will give iPods almost unlimited potential to hold music and video.
Arora said, by 2012, iPods could launch at similar prices to those on sale now and yet be capable of holding a whole year’s worth of video releases. Around 10 years down the line that could be expanded, creating iPods that can hold all the music ever sold commercially.
He said: “In 12 years, why not an iPod that can carry any video ever produced?” The Google exec said tech is now pursuing a price volume game - searching for the price point at which content will take off for the mainstream.
He added: “It’s clearly begun happening,” citing iTunes’ 99¢ per song download model.
As of December the 8th Ofcom will be lifting the ban on the use of itrips and other FM transmitters.
The current law, the Wireless and Telegraphy Act of 1949, states that low powered transmitters are illegal due to the possibility of interfering with other legitimate broadcasts. The law changed as the transmitters currenlty on sale have low output so are very unlikely to interfer with another source.
Finally the Griffin iTrip and Xtrememac Airplay2 will be available to use legally in the UK
Rumours that Apple will be releasing an iPod Phone next year are increasing. With one online betting site opening a book on whether Apple will announce the iPhone at MacExpo next year.
Some suggest that Apple will release Two versions of the iPhone. A 3G version and a GSm version, which copuld be available as early as next March. Apple hasn’t confirmed anything on the iPhone as yet, although it has been reported that they have registered “iPhone” in several countries and control the domain iphone.org.
A school in the US is using iPods to help teach children. The move comes after college professors began giving their lectures out to download. The Louisa-Muscatine Elementary School is using the iPod in tests, the test was scanned into a computer and transferred to an iPod. Audio was added. The questions popped up on the screen as heard in the headphones.
Though aimed at special education students at Louisa-Muscatine, the iPods are also used to download videos for use in mainstream classes. Scores on worksheets and quizzes have improved, teachers report.
A lost mushroom picker was spotted and rescued after search teams saw the glow of his iPod early Friday morning. 25-year-old Pini Nou of Vancouver, Wash., was spotted by a member of a Benton County Search and Rescue unit in the deep woods of southwestern Benton County at 1:12 a.m.,
The underbrush was so thick, it took the searchers a full 22 minutes to reach Nou, who, lacking a flashlight, had been trying to use the faint glow of his iPod Nano display as a light source. It took several more hours to get him safely out of the woods,
Nou, however, helped searchers by making calls from his cell phone when he could find a signal, describing his surroundings as best he was able.
“We worked with the Hull-Oaks people, who were wonderful,” Peirson said. “Very knowledgeable about the area. … We had little bits of information — it was like a detective case.”
Channel 4 will soon be offering a catch up download service from 99p per episode.
Each programme will “disappear” from users’ computers 48 hours after they start to watch it. It will be kept in a personalised library until it is first viewed, and then can be accessed an unlimited number of times during that two-day period.
It promised that numerous classic series would be available when the service launches on 6 December, including dramas GBH, Teachers and Queer as Folk. Peep Show, Spaced, Whose Line is it Anyway? and US import The Daily Show would be listed in its comedy line-up. Whether the videos will be viewable on an iPod Video are unknown at this time.
As reported earlier this week (Apple Teams Up With Airlines to Deliver iPod Integration), it appears Apple may have acted too soon in anouncing the deal to have iPod integration on airlines. Air France and KLM have said that “It’s way too early to confirm any such details,” an Air France spokeswoman told Reuters, “It’s very premature what Apple [is] saying,” said a KLM spokesman. Apple responeded with a statement, “Clearly we have had a miscommunication with AirFrance-KLM, but we are excited about announcing iPod integration with in-flight entertainment systems on Continental, Delta, Emirates and United today.”