As usual, here's a lot of the fluff that hung around inside my inbox after all the trivial news was dealt with:
- Gruber on Harmony (RealNetworks' lame approach at iTunes integration).
- Getting rid of Internet Explorer. I can't understand what all the fuss is about, but then I have been using Firefox for, like, forever with the XP SP1 "Preferred Applications" applet. Maybe it's too damn obvious.
- BSquare discontinues handhelds. There goes the Maui.
- The Official Doom 3 Hardware Guide. People are going to build entire machines dedicated to the single purpose of running Doom at 2048x1536 resolution - think Final Fantasy with blood and gore. I wish I could waste my time that way. Or rather, that I had time to waste (maybe I should just buy a G5 and get it over with).
- The iAudio/U2. Phone manufacturers better get their act together real soon - the pitiful 32MB we're getting these days is nothing next to 1GB in cigarrette lighter format.
- Savvy users think MMS sucks. First it was Steve, now it's Russell. It's no surprise to anyone that nearly all half-decent moblogs are updated via e-mail, not MMS. Carriers seem to be missing out on a business opportunity here, but then I can't really comment.
- Lots of people are genuinely afraid that carriers will lock out iTunes-enabled phones. Hmmm. I can't even begin to enumerate the number of historical precedents either way.
- Bruno's PhotoalbumSoftware Wiki node. Some real neat stuff, picked out with simplicity in mind. I still like my approach better (after all, my gallery has been working great for years now), but I'm considering picking up zphoto and seeing if I can Ming the hell out of it.
- On the business front, operators, vendors, handset manufacturers and digicams seem to be doing well. I'll be trying to compile a neat little table with some figures, but so far we're only seeing raw growth and relative adjustments, no real shifts in position - those will likely only be visible after next Xmas.
- emotemail. Conceptual. Emotional. Not to be confused with the ancient X-Face e-mail header (which lives on, by the way) and Mail.app's picture feature (which I use extensively)