iPhone Rebates & Power Of The People

from GigaOM by Om Malik

The $200-price cut announced by Apple (AAPL) yesterday turned into a bit of a PR disaster for the company. The cuts penalized the fanboys (including yours truly) for being early adopters, and prompted iPhone owners to express their outrage across the web and beyond. In an interview in USA Today, Steve Jobs remarked:

That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.

Now there’s a way to annoy the people who have stuck by the company through thick and thin. Today, realizing that Apple’s goodwill was at risk, Jobs announced a $100 credit to all early iPhone buyers, promising to do the right thing.

Is it really the right thing? Not in the classic sense, because unlike the 14-day-returnees, you aren’t getting cash back. It’s a sop, really — albeit an admittedly good-natured one — since the $100 you get back is only good for another Apple product.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

I wonder if Steve Jobs’ open letter, and the $100 credit, would have happened in another time when social media tools weren’t as prevalent as they are today. Regardless, the good thing is, Apple listened.

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Polls: Facebook Picks an iPod

Augustine: talk about real-time stats...  these products were announced yesterday and we are getting real user data which corroborates iPod Touch will do great for Apple, men most prefer the Touch while women most prefer the Nano, and customers of all ages prefer the newly released iPods (with screens) to the Shuffle

from Gizmodo by Ben Longo

After weighing all of the GB options and touchscreens versus scroll wheels, we're still not completely sure which iPod or iPhone to get yet, but those profile-happy kids over at Facebook seem to know. With a commanding 31% of the votes the iPod touch is the victor this time around. Although that doesn't tell you the whole story does it? Now for the poll breakdown.

• By Gender•

While the iPod Touch did win in overall votes, women actually preferred the iPod nano more. The tiny competitor received 32% of their votes. And the poor shuffle, no matter what gender, only picked up 4% of the votes with either sex.

• By Age•

With the 13-17, 18-24 and 25-34 crowds all favoring the iPod touch, there seems to be a trend going on here. Although the aging Facebook'ers, 35-49, gave the finger to the iPod Touch (Get it? The Finger. Touch. Sorry-BL) and heralded two new winners, the iPod nano and the iPhone both coming in with 30% of the geriatric vote.

[Facebook ]

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The Tech Industry Wants You To Support The Fight For Fair Use

from TechCrunch by Duncan Riley

Popout Listen very carefully to the copyright statement in this clip. Thinking about discussing last weekend’s game with family and friends? The NFL clearly states that viewers cannot talk about the game to anyone without permission

Insane statements like this, and others, are the target of a FTC complaint by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a group backed by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Oracle and a range of other leading tech firms (full list here). The complaint argues that statements made by groups such as the NFL are illegal and deceptive, as ultimately viewers have rights under the US Constitution by way of Fair Use.

The CCIA isn’t stopping at a FTC complaint alone: they want your support in backing consumer rights to fair use. A new site, Defend Fair Use, has been launched and comes complete with copyright abuse examples and a petition that can be signed in support on the CCIA’s case before the FTC.

For those not familiar with the term, Fair Use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders*, or in laymen’s terms it allows anyone to use a clip, extract, or part thereof of copyrighted material in our own works, for example quoting a book in a blog post, displaying a snippet of a presidential debate in a video etc. The concept of Fair Use is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Commonwealth equivalent of Fair Use is Fair Dealing.

There are any number of causes floating around the tech industry. The more left wing inclined may support movements including Creative Commons; many of these movements tend to be anti-copyright. The fight for Fair Use is not one that is anti-copyright; fair use does not disown copyright nor seek to overthrow it and replace it with some sort of Utopian socialist vision of a free for all where content creators would no longer be able to own their works. Fair Use is about allowing, as the name suggests, fair use of copyrighted materials in a free and open society, be that by the press or by content creators such as bloggers and others. It’s a noble cause, if only because the alternative is absurd. Would we want to live in a society where you would need permission to discuss a football game due to copyright restrictions?

Those interested in signing the petition can do so here.

(in part via Ars)

*Wikipedia

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Hulu Translates To “Cease” and “Desist” in Swahili. Oops.

from TechCrunch by Michael Arrington

Congratulations are in order to YouTube-competitor Hulu, which took just five months to come up with a name after announcing itself in March. CEO Jason Kilar says the name “captures the spirit of the service we’re building” in an open letter published today.

Just don’t translate that name to certain languages, because the name may capture significantly more of the spirit of the service than NBC and News Corp., the media giants behind Hulu, intended.

Hulu means “butt” in both Indonesian and Malay. But that’s nothing compared to Swahili, which 80 million or so people speak in sub-Saharan Africa. In Swahili, Hulu means, among other things, both “cease” and “desist.” See here as well.

Given the litigious nature of online video, that is some serious irony. And you can bet that Hulu, and its parent companies NBC and News Corp., are going to be sending out one heck of a lot of cease and desist letters as soon as this thing launches.

Perhaps they should have just stuck with Clown Co. after all. And someone should ask for a refund from the very expensive consultants that this billion dollar startup undoubtedly used to help them come up with a name.

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Toshiba's new 1080p REGZA LCD lineup gets official in US

from Engadget by Darren Murph

You know those oh-so-sexy RF350U LCDs that Toshiba has slated for Japan? Yeah, they're heading stateside, too. According to Tosh, the latest duo of REGZA LCDs boast 1080p resolutions, the "world's thinnest LCD TV bezel" at less than one-inch wide, and PixelPure's 14-bit internal processing. The duo will be available in 40- and 46-inch flavors, and will tout a "high-gloss black with chrome trim," xvYCC signal support, DynaLight backlighting, an uber-slim SoundStrip2 speaker system, and a trio of HDMI inputs with CE-Link control. Both of the REGZA Super Narrow Bezel (SNB) models will be landing this month, and while the 40RF350U will cost $1,899.99, the 46RF350U tacks on another $600.

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