'Baby Shaker' game pulled from iPhone store after public outcry

Apple Inc. pulled a 99-cent iPhone game called "Baby Shaker" from its iTunes store yesterday after its premise – quiet a crying baby with a vigorous shake – prompted outrage by the public.

According to screen shots posted on several websites across the internet (and some youtube videos), "Baby Shaker" displayed black-and-white line drawings of a baby. The iTunes description included this line: "See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!" Once the iPhone owner finishes shaking the device, the onscreen baby is depicted with large red X's over its eyes....um...what? This is supposed to be some sort of fun game?

Public outcry ensued, with organizations including the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation condemning Apple for approving the game's sale.

The application was designed by Sikalosoft, which also makes a 99-cent "Dice Mosaic" iPhone program that converts digital photos into black and white mosaics made from dice.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said "Baby Shaker" went on sale Monday, and confirmed that Apple removed it yesterday. She would not comment on why the program was initially approved for sale nor say how many people downloaded the game. Apple itself screens each iPhone application, a process some prospective iPhone application developers have complained can take weeks or months. Others have said Apple gives little feedback when it accepts or rejects a program.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has rejected apps that let iPhone users throw virtual shoes at President George W. Bush or watch clips from South Park. It has accepted numerous programs that simulate flatulence.

I wasn't able to find the website for Sikalosoft, but I did find an email address for contacting them, What I would urge, is for my readers to do, is contact them and express your disgust over this very stupid game... WHO at the company actually thought designing it was a good idea? WHO at the company gave the go ahead? WHO allowed it to be released? and while you're at it and have your email open, contact Apple, and ask them HOW they could have approved the game for sale on Itunes, when things normally take weeks, sometimes longer to get approved for sale on there...how did this one slip through??

Upgrade your iPod to 240GB -- unofficially

Size matters (Admit it- it does), especially when it comes to how many songs, podcasts and videos your iPod can carry. If you're toting around an iPod Video, which originally shipped with 30GB, 60GB or 80GB hard drive, you can now upgrade to a whopping 240 gigabytes of storage for your pocket player.

A 240 GB drive can hold roughly 60,000 songs, 300 hours of video or 50,000 photos.

Leading online electronics repair service Rapid Repair just announced the world's first 240 GB hard drive upgrade for iPods, using a new 1.8-inch Toshiba drive compatible with fifth-generation (5G) iPod Video players.

The cost for the drive is US $294.99, but Rapid Repair is offering free installation for the time being if you'd prefer them to handle the switch for you. (You must send your iPod to them, at your expense. It takes 1 to 2 days in the service center to switch drives.)

Data recovery and transfer from the old drive to the new one is optional, but adds to the cost ($75US). Otherwise you'll receive your iPod with a fresh 240 GB drive installed (media-free) and your original drive, too, unless you want to trade it in for a credit towards a future purchase.

The Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company says these drives use an exclusive mechanical and firmware design for enhanced durability, as well as a 33 percent improvement in overall energy efficiency over past Toshiba drives.

A warning: If you open your iPod it voids Apple’s warranty. Rapid Repair says their drives come with a 1-year manufacturer’s warranty against defects.

Rapid Repair is currently testing the use of the Toshiba 240 GB hard drive in other iPod Classic and Zune 2G media players.

iPhone jailbreaking violates our copyright: Apple

Apple recently told the U.S. Copyright Office that it believes iPhone jailbreaking is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringes on its copyright, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF is trying to get the Copyright Office to grant a DMCA exemption on behalf of iPhone owners who have chosen to jailbreak their iPhones, or bypass the restriction Apple places on standard iPhones that only allows the installation of applications from approved sources: the App Store. In its response to the Copyright Office (click here to view the PDF), Apple disagreed that such an exemption was proper because the very act of jailbreaking the iPhone results in copyright infringement.

Current jailbreak techniques now in widespread use utilize unauthorized modifications to the copyrighted bootloader and OS, resulting in the infringement of the copyrights in those programs. For example, the current most popular jailbreaking software for the iPhone, PwnageTool (cited by the EFF in its submission) causes a modified bootloader and OS to be installed in the iPhone, resulting in the infringement of Apple's reproduction and derivative works rights.

The EFF's argument is that jailbreaking your iPhone is protected under fair-use doctrines, and that the Copyright Office should grant an exemption because "the culture of tinkering (or hacking, if you prefer) is an important part of our innovation economy." But Apple's response is that few users of jailbroken iPhones actually jailbroke it themselves; instead, they downloaded software created by other parties to make that happen.

Don't expect Apple to come knocking on your door if you're using a jailbroken iPhone;They used a similar argument in the Psystar case and no one has confiscated my open computer yet. But Apple could be trying to build momentum behind the recognition of jailbreaking that does more harm than good; already this week, iPhone developers have been discussing writing software that only works on jailed iPhones as a way of preventing application bootlegging....Or will that just encourage it?

Thoughts?

Apple gets sued over iPhone screen technology

Two related companies are suing Apple over screen rendering technology used in the iPhone and iPod Touch, according to reports.

Picsel Technologies and Picsel Research, based in Glasgow, Scotland, filed a patent-infringement lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Dow Jones reported. The suit alleges that Apple is violating a Picsel technology that accelerates the process of updating a device's display.

According to Macworld, the suit is focused on Picsel technology that people use to zoom and pan documents, sites, and images. Apple's devices wouldn't function as fluidly without the technology, alleges Picsel, which wants compensation for devices already sold.

Picsel's site says its customers include Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Sharp. According to Dow Jones, Apple declined to comment.

Wal-Mart to sell iPhone

Wal-Mart finally confirmed Friday what everyone who follows Apple already knew:

Walmart will begin selling Apple’s IPhone 3G at nearly 2,500 Wal-Mart stores starting (Get out that red marker, you can circle your calendars now) Sunday Dec. 28 — three days after Christmas.

It's been reported that Wal-Mart will sell the red-hot mobile device for $197 for the 8GB model and $297 for the 16GB model, (or $2 off their current prices.) There had been rumors that Wal-Mart would sell a $99 iPhone, but hey, Wal-mart is "The place with the falling prices" so perhaps soon sometime soon?.
Wal-Mart, however, appears to be giving individual store managers some wiggle room on prices. According to the press release, the company’s price match policy will allow stores to “match the price of any local competitor’s advertised store price on the same item within the same promotional period.”

Best Buy is currently offering the iPhone for $190 for the 8GB and $290 for the 16GB models.

Getting the iPhone into Wal-Mart is something of a coup for Apple.

Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retail chain — by far — with more than 7,000 mega-stores around the world and some 2.1 million employees.

Walmart finished its last fiscal year with nearly $380 billion in sales — earning it the No. 1 slot in the Fortune 500.

The move represents the fourth major expansion of the iPhone’s retail presence outside Apple’s own 200-plus stores. The phone was sold first at AT&T’s 2,000 retail outlets, then at nearly 1,000 Best Buy outlets, and then at the tens of thousands of points of sale (many of them no more than mom-and-pop kiosks) that carry iPhones for Apple’s overseas partners.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has estimated that Apple could easily sell as many iPhones through Wal-Mart stores in 2009 as it sells through its own Apple Stores — by his calculation, about 4.5 million units.

Will the move work? we'll have to wait and see, Am I going to rush on over to Walmart to pick one up? ummm.. not just yet... It's been at the Rogers Video, which is only 10 minutes away from me right now, taunting me each time I walk in and I haven't gotten one yet, Walmart, takes me a little bit longer to get to... a $99 Iphone... maybe, Maybe when the monthly price plans from Rogers get a little bit better and more affordable.