Apple iBooks in the making

Apple and a group of book publishers were accused in a lawsuit today of illegally fixing e-book prices to "boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing." - CNET [AUGUST 9, 2011]



The Amazon kindle, [a hand-held device that displays digital books or e-books] was released in 2007, turning out to be a world-wide success, selling out in less than six hours. To gain market share, take advantage of its first-mover advantage, and capitalize on the tremendous efficiencies associated with eBooks, Amazon set eBook pricing levels significantly below prices for physical books."



Apple knew that if Amazon could establish the Kindle as the dominant eBook reader by reducing the value of e-books, Amazon could then use the Kindle platform (and its large installed user base) to distribute other digital media. Which would make Amazon a real contender against Apple's iTunes on their iPod, iPhone and iPad line.



To stop this, Apple conspired with HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster to increase ebook prices. Introducing the "Agency model" which allows publishers set their own e-book prices, rather than the traditional wholesale model in which publishers set a retail price and retailers set their own sales price. In their attempt to stop Amazons $9.99 e-book price and Apple could smoothly enter the eBook market without having matching Amazons e-book cost.



"The Publisher Defendants and Apple implemented the unlawful agreement in January 2010, when five of the six major book publishers of fiction and nonfiction works almost simultaneously announced that they were switching from a wholesale pricing model to an Agency model for eBook sales."



iBooks (Apple's eBook store) was then released in late January along with the iPad, ("Apple's e-book reader").



Sources:

Apple named in price-fixed Lawsuit - CNET

Ebooks Complaint [PDF]

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Google & Perfect 10 Lawsuit Lost (Pornography site)

Perfect 10: An adult website providing nude pictures of female models in different positions for a monthly suscription.



Recently the U.S. appeals court has rejected Perfect 10's (an adult website) claim of Google costing them $50 million million worth of suscriptions by displaying their images in google search results; violating copyrights and in the long run ruining Perfect 10. Some articles are suggesting that due free alternative pornography sites, people do not see the point of paying a monthly suscription for nude pictures when they can get it for nothing. This is probably the main reason for their fall but their pictures displaying on Google Images didn't really them help either. The court dismissed the case saying their was not enough evidence that proved that Perfect 10 had lost the sum of money due Google images. Plus the fact that the developer of the site did not know how to operate robot.txts files (a convention to prevent cooperating web crawlers (eg. Google) from accessing all or part of a website which is otherwise publicly viewable.

Sources:

Porn Studio loses Google Lawsuit - Dr Jays

Perfect 10 fails where Google succeeds - WebProNews

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Android beats i0S

Apple may be the Biggest Smartphone maker but when you look how many phones run Android and how many phones run i0S its a whole different story. Android takes up a massive 40.1% of Smartphone market share while Apple makes up only 27%. The reason for this is simple, Android is an operating system used by multiple phone companies including: Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and Sony. So while Apple is the larget smartphone manufacturer, android phones are nearly doubly more popular.

Sources:

Android Hits 40% U.S. Smart Phone Market Share - Broadcasting & Cable

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Apple on a Suing Spree

Apple has recently gone on a 'suing spree' charging, Samsung, HTC, Motorola for infringing patients. After seeing apple's new ios 5 that included, a notification 'blind' that looks like Apple stole from android's mobile OS, a chat service which is sililar to Blackberry messenger and many other unoriginal features. Dosen't it seems very ironic that Apple is the one on the suing end of all this. So far apple has won a few lawsuits and slowly the android makers are shutting down; Amazon has stopped all submissions for its android Appstore in Germany and Samsung has halted their tablet sales in Australia.

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Apple is now the Biggest Smartphone manufacturer beating Nokia

Nokia phones have had an 'unsurprising' dip in the market, this dip accounts for the 47 percent loss in the Symbian handsets. Nokia's market share has dropped the most since, 1999. Despite the drop in market share, Nokia remains to be the Biggest handset manufacturer in the world. So whats the cause for this sharp drop in the market? I believe it is due to the symbian operating system running on them, a ticking time bomb that will discontinue at the end of this year, replacing with Windows Phone 7. Along with Nokia phones being quite thick and with the competition of iphones, windows phones and a wide selection of android phones, nokia dosen't really have a chance. Nokia stands 3rd just behind samsung, whose Galaxy line-up has proven very successful.

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3D in. 2D out? in the CINEMAS

Just a few weeks ago I went to the cinemas along with some co-workers to watch Transformers 3, we were going to see it in the 3D but because one of my mates has glasses we weren't really sure if he could wear them with the 3D glasses and actually see the movie. Anyway, so we altered to 2D version. We were slightly late arriving to the cinema but to our surprise no one was there, the movie suddenly starts and we sit down. We turn out to be the only ones watching the movie in 2D at that particular time. Which makes we wonder was everyone watching the 3D version? I mean is it that popular?

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NEW Look on Youtube and the NEW Google PLUS

When I logged on youtube it looked like it always did, but when I went on a video the bar below the video used to pause, forward and rewind were black. I think looks much better than the very dull grey and now that I think about it looked quite outdated. This is part of the new cosmic Panda update which is currently unreleased but you can try it out here. If you want to change to the old version just go to the same link and find the words "Older version" and click it.

Staying on google, the NEW google plus has now reached 10 million users. Which is quite large bearing the fact that to be a user on the new social network you need an invite which you can give when you are a member. I have not tried Google Plus but with the Competition of the huge Facebook and Myspace currently being exhumed from its grave.

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