Industry Intel

You ever wonder why Apple can't get a proper deal done with the TV Networks to put their content online?  Do you know who they are really dealing with?  From the Viacom vs. Youtube lawsuit:

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Classy.

Viv Mag created this "Sin City" effect iPad demo:

Photographer Alexx Henry, along with co-directors Cory Strassburger and Ming Hsiung have produced an amazing motion magazine cover and feature spread for Viv Mag, an all digital magazine. The interactive article uses video, sound and print in a remarkable way that really makes you think about the amazing possibilities available in this emerging world of “digital print.”

Experience the making of the video below.

Everyone's favorite media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, had some kind words for Apple's iPad and some harsh words for Google's search engine (at the begining of the clip). Steve Jobs seems to have won him over as THE way to deliver all of Rupert's glorious content.

He also seems to think bigger iPads are coming?   Maybe

"The iPad will be pretty small to start with [makes hand gestures to the size of the current iPad] , but there will be more iPads…"  He then goes on to list other Slate computing devices out there which makes the statement a little bit ambiguous. Interesting nonetheless. 

Electric Pig via Distorted Loop

As we reported in October, Amazon was working on a Macintosh version of their Kindle reader.  Today, they have quietly released it to the masses (download link).  

"Kindle for Mac is the perfect companion application for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX," said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle. "For those customers around the world who don’t yet have a Kindle, Kindle for Mac is a great way to instantly access and read the most popular new releases as well as their old favorites."

It will be interesting to see if Apple releases an iBookstore for Mac as well.

Press release below...

OK, it is low brow, but this Steve Jobs vs. Eric Schmidt stuff is getting a little bit entertaining.

The New York Times has a four page report on the deterioration of the Google-Apple relationship and specifically the relationship of their leadership.  It was recently reported that Steve Jobs hates Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt.  The article is a great read with a lot of details on the recent spats between the companies.

Many of those meetings turned confrontational, according to people familiar with the discussions, with Mr. Jobs often accusing Google of stealing iPhone features. Google executives said that Android’s features were based on longstanding ideas already circulating in the industry and that some Android prototypes predated the iPhone. At one particularly heated meeting in 2008 on Google’s campus, Mr. Jobs angrily told Google executives that if they deployed a version of multitouch — the popular iPhone feature that allows users to control their devices with flicks of their fingers — he would sue. Two people briefed on the meeting described it as “fierce” and “heated.” While Google listened to Apple, it rarely backed down. “I don’t think they made many accommodations,” says a former Google executive who was briefed on the discussions. “Google is not a company that is particularly afraid of anyone, including Apple.”

Apple sued HTC a month to the day of when they released multitouch on the Nexus One.

Fortune reports that Apple is going after handset manufacturers over what it sees at infringement of its IP.  In January '09 Tim Cook said:

"we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we'll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal."

Jonathan Schwartz (AKA My Little Pony), the recently ousted CEO of Sun, says today in his blog that Steve Jobs threatened to sue Sun for their Project Looking Glass and its graphical effects.

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

That's when Schwartz had a Delicious Monster moment

HP has a new product called the Slate that will be released "sometime this year".  Steve Ballmer briefly showcased the device at CES running the Kindle application.  It didn't impress many people, and that was before the iPad was announced.

Clearly, the one obvious advantage that it has over the iPad is its ability to play Adobe Flash and Air media. This isn't lost on HP or Adobe which have put together this video:

Not everyone in the Apple camp is happy with Apple's decision to sue HTC.

Here's Wil Shipley's thoughtful Open Letter to Steve Jobs concerning the HTC lawsuit.  

John Gruber from Daring Fireball says: "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em".  That applies to Nokia and it applies to Apple.

And below, here's Steve Jobs back before he was surrounded by lawyers, who might have also disagreed with 2010 Apple: