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iTunes Radio could hit other English-speaking countries by early 2014
Rumors reported by Bloomberg indicate Apple's streaming music service could extend its reach beyond the United States just a few months. iTunes Radio launched in the US along with the iOS 7 / iTunes 11.1 update on September 18th, and if the "people with knowledge of the situation" are correct, it could beat current market leader Pandora to the UK and Canada. The rumor also covers Australia and New Zealand, where Pandora is available, and indicates Nordic countries are also on deck. Apple has mentioned the service will roll out internationally but hasn't put any specific dates or locations on our calendars, however between these hints and job listings spotted recently by 9to5Mac it appears things are moving quickly.
New Zealand Parliament bans software patents with a 117-4 vote
After five years of debate and a 117-4 vote, New Zealand's Parliament has passed a bill that says computer programs are not considered inventions and are therefore ineligible for patents. However, the phrasing of the bill is flexible enough to provide some leeway. Since "products or processes" are understood to be patentable inventions, software that is integral to the implementation of a process designed to improve hardware can be included in the terms of a patent application. The text of the bill, intended to replace the outdated Patents Act of 1953, states, "Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no 'inventive step' in software development, as 'new' software invariably builds on existing software." You can come to your own conclusions on the matter by checking out the bill at the source link below.
Kickstarter coming to Australia and New Zealand 'soon'
Clue's in the headline, really. Fresh from tours of the UK and Canada, Kickstarter is ready to land in Australia and New Zealand. The move will enable domestic pitches from Aussie and Kiwi inventors looking for your patronage -- not to mention the odd plea for cash from an established company that feels no shame. The site is preparing for the launch with some training events in Sydney and Melbourne on the 1st and 2nd of September ahead of a yet-to-be-confirmed start date. Notice how we got through that whole post without trotting out any tired stereotypes of shrimps, barbies or Harold Bishop? We thought you'd be proud.
Future finally arrives as Martin Jetpack approved for manned test-flights
Every morning, we wake up knowing that the writers of the '60s, who promised us pill-sized meals and flying cars by the year 2000, had lied to us. But now, a New Zealand-based avionics company has been granted permission to start manned test-flights on the ultimate piece of retro-futurism: the jetpack. The Martin Jetpack, which successfully carried a dummy 5,000 feet above sea level in 2011, has been given a test license by New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority -- and inventor Glenn Martin is hopeful that a military version of the device will be ready next year. After that, the ambitious engineer plans to release a general-purpose edition in 2015 and although the price has skyrocketed from $86,000 to around the $200,000 mark, we'd probably pay double that amount just to re-enact that moment from Thunderball.
iBook Lessons: Beyond the Story ships interactive book app for Almighty Johnsons, the best show you're not watching
The Almighty Johnsons is probably the best show you're not watching -- unless you live in Canada. Although the show airs in New Zealand as well, the viewer numbers there are roughly enough to put together a basketball team. On a good day. Crude, vulgar, hilarious and touching, the show is surprisingly well made, with a shoestring budget and a very real desperate sense of on-the-bubble/will-it-be-canceled-soon because of those pesty Kiwis who are failing to watch it. To put it in Canadian terms, it's as smart as Orphan Black, a lot funnier and more risk-taking than The Lost Girl. The show plays in Canada, the UK, Australia and, of course, it "airs" (not that anyone watches) in New Zealand. Today, Syfy announced a deal to debut the show in the US in 2014 (hopefully without too many edits for American tastes). Sadly, that air date means that the renew/don't renew decision might happen long before the US gets its first glimpse of the Johnson family. (You can still write letters of support to TV 3 in New Zealand, South Pacific Pictures or tweet a note of support/drop off a Facebook like.) That all said, the show has just jumped from the screen to iOS devices. Expatriate Kiwi developers Beyond the Story, based in London, but with Aotearoa accents, have been working with South Pacific Pictures, just recently delivering a show-specific app to the New Zealand and Canadian iTunes app stores. Their custom, enhanced-book platform was built over several years, with a 2.5 million pound development investment. Able to transform any long form text into an interactive experience, Beyond the Story has previously produced the quite noteworthy Diary of Anne Frank and the somewhat less noteworthy After Earth: Kitai's Journal. They have worked with Penguin and Harper Collins on additional titles. When visiting New Zealand, this past February, a meeting with South Pacific Pictures gave rise to the Almighty Johnsons app project. Offering script novelizations, behind the scenes insights, interviews with the actors, character sheets and more, the app includes a great deal of fan-centric material. On the geeky technical end of things, the app provided some interesting implementation details. Apparently, this is the first-ever TV novelization that's delivered live as the series premieres. As each broadcast goes to air, the app enables each "chaptersode." This was a bit tricky when dealing with multiple geographies, and multiple screening times. The developers focused on not ruining the experience for anyone. You cannot access a chaptersode until that program has gone to air. (When the app goes live in the UK and Australia, it will coordinate to the local broadcasts there for the third series.) Is it a great app? It... feels a little like DVD extras. This includes the hokey background music and tap-to-jump menu structure. The novelization is, well, what it is. It's not horrible, but I'm a little confused as to why it was included. The writing is fairly stiff, bringing little extra insight or liveliness. The background text material, too, feels like it's been repurposed, although I'm not entirely sure of that as a fact. The app presentation itself and the underlying engine, on the other hand, did show great promise. I'd very much like to check out the Anne Frank app now after seeing this one. I'm told the Anne Frank book/app will release globally near October. The best bits, in my opinion, are the behind-the-scenes video snippets, even though some of them are extremely spoilery at this time, especially James Griffin's discourse on Yggdrasil (although I do adore his shirt-of-radio-art). So be warned. I did not encounter any of the instability that users have mentioned in iTunes reviews. I tested the app on a somewhat geriatric iPad 2 running iOS 6. Is it worth the Canadian $3.99? I can't see why not, although spoilerphobes will want to wait until the entire series has aired before picking up a copy. It's as cheap or cheaper than a TV show magazine might be, and probably will offer at least as much enjoyment.
Google Play Music All Access debuts Down Under, koalas and kiwis rejoice
Google has a history of rolling out its new services to unexpected markets, and the first non-US territories for Google Play Music All Access are no different. Mountain View recently tweeted that users in Australia and New Zealand can now can now take advantage of its subscription-based service, complete with the playlist sharing and track ratings tune hounds saw in the States. Naturally, there's a trial with the same 30-day restriction in place as on the internet giant's native soil -- after that, Kylie Minogue's home team will need to cough up $9.99 in local currency each month for unlimited streaming. That $10 deal only applies if you sign up before August, after that it takes a cue from kangaroos and, ahem, jumps to $11.99.
Google's Project Loon proposes internet distributed by high flying balloons (video)
No, we're not joking. Google is seriously proposing hot air ballon-powered internet access, and has already launched a pilot project in New Zealand with 50 testers trying to connect via a helium-filled, solar powered balloon. One of the Google[x] moonshot projects, there are a couple of videos embedded after the break explaining the issue, and the technology Google wants to use to address it. Project Loon's playful logo reflects the custom designed antennas users will use to receive their signal from balloons floating twice as high as commercial airplanes fly. The signal goes from ground based antennas, up to the balloon, which use their high-altitude placement to broadcast much further than other methods. In the future, the company envisions cell phone users connecting to the balloons to extend service where none exists today. According to Google, in "more than half" of the countries in the southern hemisphere and for two out of three people on earth, internet access is far too expensive. It's trying to set up pilot projects in other countries on the same latitude as New Zealand, so interested 40th parallel south residents should forward this info to the appropriate officials immediately. Meanwhile, curious Kiwis can sign up to take part in the project on its website, or attend the Festival of Flight in Christchurch on Sunday to meet the team and learn more about it. Update: Check out another video of the launch of the first balloons embedded after the break, shot via Google Glass by Trey Ratcliff and see even more photos on his site Stuck in Customs.
Firaxis' Haunted Hollow appears on, disappears from the App Store
There's good news, bad news, and the best news on this one, and I'll give you the good news first. Firaxis' Haunted Hallow appeared on the App Store this morning, which means the game is just about ready for prime time. The free-to-play strategy title was one of my favorite games I got to see at GDC a few months ago. It's a board game, basically, in that you move various monsters around a board trying to claim and conquer space as best you can, though there's a fun house-building mechanic as well, in the way you choose which monsters to summon and fight for you. Firaxis, the creators of Civilization and the recent hit XCOM: Enemy Unknown, are some of the most experienced strategy developers out there, and Haunted Hallow is a free-to-play gift from them straight to the App Store, so it's great to see the game is almost done. The bad news, however, is that while I was writing this post to let you know the game was out, the title has disappeared from the US App Store. It is still available on the New Zealand App Store, so if you want to change your country to download the app from there, you can do that. But presumably this means the app wasn't supposed to be live on the US Store yet, so either there's more testing to be done, or we'll have to wait until this evening, as new App Store titles go official across the world. The best news is that Haunted Hallow is just the beginning. Firaxis has also announced that it's porting XCOM to the iPad in the future, and there are some other, not-yet-announced exciting strategy titles on the way as well. Firaxis has some great things planned for iOS, and this game is only the first. At any rate, Haunted Hallow is almost ready, and that's worth getting excited about. It's free to play (you get a certain number of monsters to start with, and you'll be able to buy more via in-app purchase), so whenever it is ready to download in your region, it'll be a must grab for sure. Update: 2K has confirmed that this was an accidental release. The game will be available worldwide next Thursday, May 2. So we just have a short wait until then!
The Hobbit will be first movie to support UltraViolet in New Zealand and Australia
Peter Jackson's homeland hasn't been too hot on UltraViolet until now, despite the cross-platform library tool's growing popularity in the US and UK. That'll change with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is set to launch on DVD and Blu-ray in New Zealand on May 1st and will allow both Kiwis and Aussies to purchase the movie on disc and then watch it on PC, Mac, iOS, Android and hopefully even Xbox via a redemption code and a Flixster account in the cloud -- with no DIY required. In wider UV-related news, the technology is also scheduled to reach France and Germany by the end of Q3 of this year, which should add a few names to the 12 million account holders around the world who've already used UltraViolet to watch 9,000 different titles.
Google Play Music spreads to Australia, New Zealand and five European nations
Google has been on something of a tear spreading its Google Play media services around the world; don't look now, but it's picking up the pace. The search giant is expanding Google Play Music today to cover Australia, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Portugal. That small deluge of new countries can now shop for their favorite tunes as well as store up to 20,000 of them online for streaming, either on the web or on Android devices. Large swaths of the world remain uncovered by the service -- ahem, Canada -- but we'll still welcome a big step toward cloud music for everyone. [Thanks, Chris]
Surface RT coming to six more countries in late March, Pro in the 'coming months'
Microsoft's Surface is continuing its global retail rollout, expanding its reach well beyond the western hemisphere. In late March the RT model of Redmond's in-house tablet effort will begin popping up in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan, (though, not necessarily at the same time) adding to the pile of European nations where it's already launched. Meanwhile, the Surface Pro will finally be leaving the Americas and heading for Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the UK sometime in the coming months. Unfortunately Microsoft isn't getting any more specific about when its full-blown Windows 8 machine will appear in countries other than the US and Canada. All we can do now is await the promised follow up post on the Surface blog for more details about availability. If you're a fan of press materials (even those that don't provide a ton of information) you'll find some after the break.
Daily Update for February 14, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
New Zealand police department will distribute 10,000 iOS devices to officers
Businesses are not the only entities handing out iPhones and iPads to their employees. In New Zealand, police officers are also being outfitted with the iOS device en masse. According to a report in The National Business Review Online, government and police officials have announced a new program that would outfit 6,000 officers with iPhones and 3,900 officers with iPads. The iOS devices will operate on wireless carrier Vodafone, which has negotiated a 10-year deal with the government department. NZ Police Chief Information Officer Stephen Crombie told NBR that the department chose iOS over Android based on police officer feedback.
Apple launches back-to-school promo in Australia, New Zealand
Apple is back again with its annual "Back to School" promotion to kick off the school year in Australia and New Zealand. The promotion offers gift cards for a Mac or iPad purchase and is similar to the one offered last year in the US and Europe. The promotion is open to any student, faculty or staff member from any grade level. It'll give each educational customer a AU$100 or NZ$125 (US$100) gift card for a Mac purchase and a AU$50 or NZ$65 (US$50) gift card for an iPad with Retina display purchase. An app and accessory buying guide will help students get all that they need for the upcoming school year. [Via MacStories]
iBookstore lines its shelves with paid content in New Zealand, 17 Latin American countries
iDevice owners in New Zealand and 17 Latin American countries are no longer restricted to a diet composed of free content when it comes to their respective iBookstores. A quick search of the storefronts will reveal virtual shelves stocked with paid-content that haven't yet found their way to the shops' homepages. Reside in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru or Venezuela? Head on over to the appropriate store and books with price tags will be available for purchase. If this is any sign of what Apple has up its sleeve for tomorrow, we suspect that "a little more" will involve a bit of reading.
PlayStation Store redesign goes live in Australia, Europe and New Zealand with a rocky start
Sony vowed a long (long, long) overdue PlayStation Store remake starting this week, and it delivered just that today with launches in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand. As promised, the PS3 shop's cleaner design scales more elegantly from standard to high definition, brings more intelligent searching and makes it easier to find everything related to a given game. We still wouldn't be too eager to dive in just yet, as there's been hiccups early on -- the sheer amount of traffic has reportedly brought the new store to a crawl, on top of teething issues with adding funds and recognizing PlayStation Plus memberships. Sony has promised fixes, but we're suddenly not feeling so bad about having to wait for that October 23rd North American launch.
Kobo to buy Aquafadas, get magazines, academic texts, comics and children's books in the process
Canadian-born, Japanese-owned e-reader maker Kobo announced its intentions to acquire digital publishing company Aquafadas today, an agreement that'll bring rich content like magazines, academic texts, comics and children's books, amongst others, to Kobo users. The deal also builds out Kobo's self-publishing offering, bringing more tools to the table, along with additional languages like German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch. Kobo's also taking the opportunity to announce exapanded offerings in New Zealand, thanks to partnerships with Booksellers NZ and The Paper Plus Group. Back in September, the company announced a trio of new devices set for release this month and next in the States.
PSA: iPhone 5 available in 22 more countries, on Cricket and US regional carriers galore
Disappointed that your country or favorite carrier missed the initial cut for the iPhone 5 launch? Odds are that you're all good now. Worldwide, 22 more countries have joined the mix as of today, including wide swaths of Europe as well as New Zealand; you'll find the full list in the release here. Americans also don't have to turn to the big carriers, as they can now opt for prepaid carrier Cricket in addition to a slew of extra providers that include C Spire as well as regionals like GCI and nTelos. In some cases, you'll even snag a discount by going with one of the smaller networks. If you bagged an iPhone in Barcelona, or caught one on Cellcom, let others know how it's going in the comments. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iTunes in the Cloud movies find their way to Australia, Canada, the UK and 32 more countries
The advent of movie support in iTunes for the Cloud was a boon to Apple TV owners as well as any iTunes user with a tendency to hop between devices -- within the US, that is. Apple today swung the doors open and let Australia, Canada, the UK as well as 32 other countries and regions around the world get access to their movies whenever they're signed in through iTunes or an iOS device. Not every studio is on the same page, as many American viewers will know all too well: it's more likely that you'll get re-download rights for a major studio title such as Lockout than an indie production, for example. Even with that limit in mind, there's no doubt more than a few movie mavens glad to avoid shuffling and re-syncing that copy of Scott Pilgrim to watch it through to the end.
Bing Maps piles on 215TB of new Bird's Eye imagery, proves it's a small world after all
Did you think Microsoft was done with Bing Maps updates after it threw a whopping 165TB of satellite imagery at virtual explorers? You've got another thing coming. The mapping crew in Redmond has thrown another 215TB of data over the fence, this time targeting its Bird's Eye views. Most of the attention is on Australia, Europe, New Zealand and Tokyo, although Microsoft has seen fit to sharpen up some of its US visuals in the process. All told, there's over 88,800 square miles covered by the new and updated aerial shots -- enough to make sure that we'll never have trouble finding Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland.
