Apple to require in-app subscriptions for periodicals by March 31st, fine print still a bit fuzzy

By Ross Miller posted Feb 2nd 2011 11:05PM We knew The Daily was to be just the first drop what's destined to be a flood of titles with in-app purchases for the iTunes store, but we weren't quite sure how hard Apple would be twisting the faucet -- until now, that is. According to The Wall Street Journal, Cupertino will reject any newspaper or magazine app that doesn't take subscription payments through the iTunes store. It doesn't have to be solely Apple's store -- developers can still sell through websites in addition to the mandated in-app option. (If you recall, this is the same issue that Sony Reader for iOS just faced.) There are a few big questions lingering out there: will the 70 / 30 revenue sharing apply? Does the "rejection" apply to apps already in the store like Amazon's Kindle? You bet your (virtual) bottom dollar we'll be finding out soon enough.

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Music Video Made on Microsoft Kinect Is Ghostly and Lovely

Hacks of the uber-popular Microsoft Kinect have become an art form of late, and a recent music video created for the band Echo Lake is no different.

Reminiscent of Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video, the above vid — created by filmmaker Dan Nixon — has a tech-flavored spin.

Nixon says in a blog post on the band’s Tumblr: “As far as I know (and I’m scared of checking) this is the first music video to be made with the Microsoft Kinect camera. The footage was shot on that piece of £130 equipment and recorded to custom software running on a laptop. The depth data was then manipulated to get the whole band in one ’space’ and then the fun started.”

The single in the video, “Young Silence,” comes from the band’s upcoming disc by the same name, which debuts on Valentine’s Day.

From choose-your-own adventure formats, to crowdsourcing, to HTML5, to 360-degree mobile apps — music videos are getting more and more creative these days, especially as technology continues to flourish and change.

What do you think is on the horizon when it comes to aural and visual storytelling?

[ht: Ooh, Brilliant]

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WikiLeaks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

A member of the Parliament of Norway says he has nominated WikiLeaks for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Snorre Valen, a member of the Socialist Left party, announced his decision to nominate the whistle-blowing organization on his blog.

“WikiLeaks have contributed to the struggle for [human rights, democracy and freedom of speech] globally, by exposing (among many other things) corruption, war crimes and torture — some times even conducted by allies of Norway,” he wrote. He also cited WikiLeaks’s role in the recent uprisings in Tunisia, which resulted in the abdication of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after 24 years of rule.

In mid-January, former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer gave WikiLeaks information about the bank accounts of more than 2,000 prominent individuals, many of whom may have committed tax evasion.

The nomination period for the 2011 prize ended Tuesday. The committee received 237 names for the prize in 2010.

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LG teases Optimus 3D, only without the 3D (video)

We're not sure what's going on with the new teaser video released by LG. It looks like the handset that Phandroid pegged as the Optimus 3D a few days ago and has since become the poster-boy for the device that will officially include a glasses-free 3D LCD and "dual-lens camera for 3D recording." While we can see the front-facing cam, try as we might we just can't see that pair of lenses on the back of the handset teased in the video. In fact, we don't see any camera at all leading us to believe that LG might be manipulating the image for a big reveal in a few weeks. The video does drop some spec hints with phrases like "something bigger" and "dual core -- multi channel" which would seem to indicate a 4.x-inch display (presumably the 4.3-inch 3D display we spotted at CES), dual-core SoC (like LG's Optimus 2x), and multi-channel RAM as originally rumored by Phandroid. Guess we'll have to wait for Mobile World Congress to know for sure. Get your monster truck on with the teaser video embedded after the break.

Update: We've been told that the phone is definitely a manipulated Optimus 3D.

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Android Market web store hands-on

Google's new Android Market web store is a pretty awesome and simple idea in theory -- browse and buy apps through the web, hit install, and watch them appear on your Android phone or tablet. Of course, there are a lot of things that could go wrong along the way, but that's certainly not what we're finding in our early use. Sure, it took Google some time to turn on the login function after opening up for business this afternoon, but once we were finally able to log in, we were installing apps right and left, and then watching them almost instantly "or automagically" pop up on our Motorola Droid 2 Global and Dell Streak 7. (You can actually select which device you'd like to download the app to.) Yep, it's pretty convenient stuff.

The web store interface itself is simply laid out, and just like the mobile app, it's easy to find apps by searching or just browsing the categories listed on the left rail. However, there's no doubt that selling apps is top of mind now for Google -- it's no coincidence that in each category, the Market defaults to showing paid apps on the first tab and free ones the second. In addition, Games has been moved up to the top of the category list, and considering games are one of the most popular paid app categories, it clearly makes those racing and arcade titles hard to pass by. Speaking of forking over money for apps, you can do just that through the web store checkout process -- put in your credit card right on your computer screen, save for later use (if that's your thing), and you're good to go shopping. Now just give us carrier billing and we'll be all set. We could go on and on, but that would just be boring -- try it out for yourself and let us know in the comments if you encounter any glitches.

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