Apple to Close iTunes if Royalty Increase Passes?

Some rather shocking headlines have been making the rounds this morning, from who else but Apple. By this point, I'm sure many are aware that the record industry is chalk-full of the greediest people on earth, and as a result, the consumer and retailers have been affected. Music costs more, it's harder to find in a retail store and the bands who deserve the cash, don't see it. Bad situation all around.

Well, the execs still aren't happy and are looking to increase their share of the pie from digital music sales, which would affect all of the digital music stores available now, including iTunes. The prospected increase is so extreme that Apple has stated that they will consider closing down iTunes if they go through, which is rather extreme in itself.

If the rate increase does goes through, it will come to a point where iTunes isn't near as profitable as it is now, and in some cases, they might even take a loss. Even still, it would seem highly unlikely that Apple would ever consider closing the online music store, and I really can't see it happening even if this increase proceeds. They'd not only lose money on iTunes, but iPod sales as well.

It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out regardless. If Apple doesn't close iTunes, they could very well increase their rates, despite claiming that they refuse to. It's a business, after all. But then, who wants to pay $1.15 per song rather than the $0.99 we've been used to? It's a bad situation.

The National Music Publishers' Association, however, argues that the royalty increase will help everyone and will not hurt online music growth. David Israelite, president of the NMPA, the organization which is requesting the increase, stated, "I think we established a case for an increase in the royalties. Apple may want to sell songs cheaply to sell iPods. We don't make a penny on the sale of an iPod."

Source: DailyTech

Google Brings Back Their 2001 Index

As hard as it might be to believe today, the Internet hasn't been around all that long (~13 years in full force) and Google has been around even less - only since 1998. To help celebrate their tenth anniversary, the company has been offering many cool features on the site to help both bring you back to 1998 and also allow you to view a timeline to bring you back up to the present.

Their latest feature addition is a search engine that utilizes their earliest index snapshot, which they say was captured in January of 2001. Anything you search for here will essentially put you back in that year. If a site didn't exist, it won't be found, it's that simple. It's a cool way to go back and search for yourself though, to see if you even existed online by your name or online moniker, or your company for that matter. There are many possibilities.

I'm not sure how entirely full this index is, though. I searched for a few sites that were launched long before 2001 (such as Shacknews) and it didn't give a single result related to the site. Still, if you do happen to get results, you are sure to be captivated. If you see a result that intrigues you, you can click on the Wayback link beside it rather than the link itself to see if there is a copy of the page or website in the web archive.

It's a very cool tool, and I know I lost about fifteen minutes with it. It's incredible to see just how much the 'net has changed in only seven years. Google has gone from spidering 1.3 billion pages at that point in time, to now spidering well over 1 trillion - and they are adding billions more each day. Try to wrap your head around that one!

Source: Google's 2001 Search Engine

GIMP 2.6 Released - One Step Closer to a True Photoshop Replacement

It's been less than six months since we've seen the launch of GIMP 2.5, but 2.6 is here and becomes one of the biggest upgrades the software has seen in quite some time. The most-common complaint about GIMP (besides the name) is that it's not a competent Photoshop-replacement. That argument might not hold much salt soon though, as 2.6 paves the way to achieve that goal.

The most noticeable change in the latest version is a more streamlined GUI. No longer will there be multiple items in the taskbar open for each image or related window (finally!), and the main application window will be shown at all times, with the images and toolboxes settled within, similar to how Photoshop currently works.

Other new features include an ability for 32-bit floating-point RGBA color, although the legacy 8-bit code paths are enabled by default and will remain so until the GEGL framework is considered completely stable. There are far too many more new features to talk about here, but I'd recommend checking out the release notes page that explains everything, in addition to the Ars article below.

There are a number of important functionality improvements that will be welcomed by users, too. The freehand selection tool now has support for polygonal selections and editing selection segments, the GIMP text tool has been enhanced to support automatic wrapping and reflow when text areas are resized, and a new brush dynamics feature has added some additional capabilities to the ink and paint tools.

Source: Ars Technica

NewEgg's Canadian Counterpart Launched

If you happen to be a computer enthusiast who lives in Canada, you are probably well aware that purchasing equipment isn't the easiest of processes. The absolute first e-tailer I ever learned of was NCIX, and since then, I've used them for most of my PC equipment, but their selection is sometimes lacking. There's Tiger Direct, but their shipping options (and shipping prices) are asinine. Aside from these two, the competition has been rather slim.

One common complaint from fellow Canucks was that American's have NewEgg... the "ultimate" e-tailer. They offer almost anything most people need, and at reasonable prices. So when we first learned back in July the Californian-based e-tailer would be making their way up to Canada, people got psyched. Well, the new website has finally opened, and I have to say, I'm not too impressed.

At first glance, their prices seem competitive for non-sale items, but NCIX offers sales each and every week that trump almost any popular item. Seagate's 1TB drive, for example, is $144 at NewEgg.ca, while it's been $136 at NCIX for the past few weeks with their weekly sale. The same thing applies for all other items I checked as well, including processors and graphic cards.

The biggest caveat seems to be the fact that the Canadian website ships their product from their US warehouse, which means that Canadians will almost positively receive duty fees once the product arrives. I could be wrong, but I have never ordered from a US-based retailer and have not had that happen. The second issue is that they only offer shipping through UPS, who I've found to be completely and utterly unreliable. Hopefully NewEgg will eventually give us a reason to go through them, but so far, I don't see a single one.

We define an excellent shopping experience to be one that combines unsurpassed product selection, abundant product information and fair pricing. With thousands of tech products in stock and numerous tools to help customers make informed buying decisions (detailed specs, how-to’s, customer reviews and photo galleries), we have earned the loyalty of tech-enthusiasts and novice e-shoppers alike.

Source: NewEgg Canada

Tech Roundup - October 2, 2008

Motherboards & Processors
• AMD Phenom 8750 Black Edition - InsideHW
• ASRock AOD790GX/128M AMD 790GX - Think Computers
• ASUS Rampage Formula - PC Perspective

Displays & Video Cards
• ASUS 9800GT Hybrid Power - t-break
• ATI Radeon HD 4550 vs. EVGA GeForce 9500GT - Motherboards.org
• Gainward GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB - TweakTown
• Samsung PN50A450 Plasma TV - Digital Trends
• Sapphire HD4850 Dual Slot Heatsink - Overclockers Club

Memory & Storage
• iStarUSA xAGE-N99-US External HDD Dock - Hardware Logic
• NANYA Elixir PC3-12800 - HardwareOC

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Das Keyboard Professional Premium Mechanical Keyboard - TweakNews
• Nova Master 8000dpi Professional Mousepad - OCModShop
• NZXT Sentry LX - XS Reviews
• OCZ Dominatrix Laser Gaming Mouse - i4u

Cooling
• Ninja HS Notebook Cooler - FusionMods
• Zalman CNPS-9300AT CPU Cooler - Bjorn3D

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Akasa Infiniti Zor Case - Overclock3D
• Gigabyte 3D Mars - Tech Report
• GlacialPower GP-AL650A Power Supply - Dreamware Computers
• Lian Li PC-A01 - Aluminium Tower for Micro-ATX - TweakPC
• Super Flower PSU Amptac AMP-1000 R14HE - Technic3D
• Thermaltake V9 Gaming Case - Pro-Clockers
• Tuniq Ensemble 1200w Power Supply - Virtual-Hideout

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• The State of Kernel Mode-Setting - Phoronix