The Music World Reconsiders DRM.

According to the BBC News website, almost 2/3 of music industy executives believe DRM restrictions should be removed from digital music, as this lock music down, for example Apple's AAC encoded music only can be played on iPods, and Windows DRM can only be played on compatible devices. They have other limitations as well, such as songs can only be burnt to CD 10 times, and cannot be shared. If you buy an CD, you can rip music from it and you can virtually do anything you want to with it, as it has no restrictions. If these DRM restrictions were removed, in theory it should be possible to buy music from iTunes and play it on a Microsoft Zune, which could open up the possibilities for many people, and allow them to purchase cheaper music. This may also stop some people from using file sharing websites, if music can easily be purchased from your own home.

Apple profits surge.

Apple has reported a 78 percent increase in profits, boosted by strong Christmas sales of the iPod. Their net proft for the first quarter rose to $1bn, from $565m a year earlier. They also sold 1.6 million computers and more than 21 million iPods in the first quarter, and shares have also risen 5 percent.

Apple iPhone

Apple have just unveiled their new product, the iPhone at the annual Macword Expo in San Francisco. The only problem is, that it already exists.

Yes, it's already been made. By Cisco. Doesn't really look as nice as an Apple product though does it? Of course, the inveitable has happened. Cisco have filed a law suit against Apple, seeking an injunction preventing Apple from "infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark". In fact, it's not even like Cisco trademarked it upon rumours of a phone by Apple- they recieved the iPhone trademark when they bought the business that owned it. Despite all this controversy, investors are still confident on it's potential, and shares in Apple are still rising.

Anyway, lets look at the actual Apple iPhone itself.

Nice looking, isn't it? Apple appear to have combined a widescreen iPod, (The picture on screen can flip to the right, and become widescreen, a feature that appears to be stolen from the Microsoft Zune) mobile phone and internet browser. They've even developed a new user interface, which looks to be even better than the one on the iPod - no scroll wheel though. Instead, Apple has implicated touch screen technology. They've even implicated a movement sensor, which allows the screen to change aspect when it's been turned 90 degrees.

This phone appears to have conquered the goal of being a jack of all trades, and master of them all too. It has either 4GB or 8GB of memory, which is plenty enough space to store some peoples entire music libary (Or photo albums, or video collection) , and it also has a 2mp camera. It even runs Apple OS X, the operating system on new Macs. One of the major minus points though, is even the smaller model costs $499, and we all know in England that we pay more than we should - It'll probably cost us more around £300. If the 4GB model isn't big enough for you, the 8GB model is $599.

Minimum Wage Crackdown

Beware, businesses underpaying their employees. The government has introduced a fine for those who fail to pay their employees the minimum wage, which is now at an all time high at £5.35. Owners who do not follow the guidelines risk a £224.70 fine per worker, so it's better to pay them really.

Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6243307.stm

First Post

Welcome to Rich's Business Blog, This being my first post.