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the official Linden Blog features the transcript of yesterdays Town Hall talk with Cory Linden, CTO of Linden Labs. obviously, Cory mostly addresses issues regarding the recent open sourcing of the SecondLife client-software, like possible plugin-infrastructures, the installation of CVS and if/when Linden’s server-software is following the client’s path into public. not very much definitive info, but there is a roadmap promised to be released later this quarter.

Arrington predicts the death of DRM. so be it. and quick!

all the hype & gorgeous pics about Apple’s iPhone aside, consider what David Pogue from the NYT - one of very few with actual hands-on experience - is reporting:

Both in the onstage demo and during my hands-on hour, the Web speed was OK—not great, but OK. But all of this used the phone’s built-in Wi-Fi, not Cingular’s notoriously slow Edge network. I couldn’t help wondering how bad the speed will be when you’re connecting over the cellular airwaves.

lets hope Apple adds 3G-support until this sweety is launching in europe (Q4/2007).

Ryan Carson points out that the iPhone is the first mobile platform really suitable for mobile web-apps. I’ld like to add that it really is the first mobile device capable of running AJAX-apps (given that it runs a fairly decent port of Safari, with full Javascript-support). since the phone is based on Mac OS, I’ld also bet that a Flash-plugin isn’t too far away.

sitepen has an interesting post on how offline web-applications implemented with the Dojo Offline Toolkit (DOT) could look & work like. including detailed mock-ups of a - fictional - offline Gmail-prototype. offline webapps could be the next big thing, but DOTs approach (basically installing a local proxy-application) doesn’t seem very intriguing to me.

less than a week after allofmp3.com has released their whole catalogue in a free offering called “MusicForMasses”, the DRM-system in use - preventing the 128kbit mp3’s from being played on mobile players or outside the MusicForMasses Windows-software - already has been cracked. downloadsquad links to MusicForMe, the utitlity used to remove the copy-protection by “dumping the mp3 files from memory after MusicForMasses has already decrypted it”. when trying out, please keep in mind that using MusicForMe is most probably illegal in your country, as well as allofmp3’s service itself!

update: apparently, allofmp3 has updated and distributed their DRM through an enforced upgrade of their MusicForMasses-player, rendering MusicForMe useless - for now!

those crazy russians! after Mastercard and Visa have been shutting down allofmp3.com’s creditcard-processing earlier this week (therefor virtually destroying the russians controversial business model), allofmp3 now strikes back with a new offering at least as outrageous as their past ones: titled “Music for Masses”, the service allows registered users to download the entire allofmp3-catalogue for free! tracks are encoded in 128kbps and use a yet undisclosed DRM-system (”.mp3x”), which is preventing the files from being played on other computers or media players than the crappy “Music for Masses”-player (screenshot below, Windows only).

normally I’ld expect such service to be shut down within few days, but regarding the fact that allofmp3 successfully resisted international pressure now for many years, I guess the only way to get rid of them is blackmailing the russian government with a possible WTO-membership… those crazy russians!