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iTunes Music Store opens its doors: Today in Apple history

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April 28: Today in Apple history: iTunes Music Store launches April 28, 2003: Apple opens the iTunes Music Store, revolutionizing the music industry and digital distribution of content.

At a time when getting music online mostly means illegal downloads from pirate services like Napster, iTunes quickly proves that customers will pay for songs — provided the service is good enough.

iTunes Music Store opens

The ability to share free music was one of many major disruptions the internet brought in the 1990s and 2000s. Faster connections made downloading and sharing tracks less painful. And the widespread presence of CD-RW drives (which shipped on around 40% of new PCs by winter 2000) made sharing songs or even whole albums quick and easy.

Surprisingly, Apple — traditionally ahead of the curve on multimedia — initially missed out on letting users burn their songs to CD. Although the company marketed the iMac G3 as an internet computer (one of the words the “i” in its name evoked was “internet”), it took until February 2001 for an iMac to ship with a CD-RW drive.

I felt like a dope,” Steve Jobs later admitted, having made a rare misjudgment about where the industry was headed.

iMac lets users ‘Rip, Mix, Burn’ CDs

The 2001 iMac rolled out with an advertising campaign describing the computer’s ability to let users “Rip, Mix, Burn” their own CDs. This earned Apple the ire of entertainment industry moguls, who suggested that the company condoned piracy.

The Apple ads coincided with the launch of iTunes 1.0, which started out as software for ripping music from CDs and then organizing it on Macs. Later in 2001, Apple launched the first iPod, which rapidly grew to become the company’s biggest-selling product. The combined success of the iPod and iTunes made Jobs contemplate ways to simplify online music sales.

Apple already led the way with high-quality movie trailers, thanks to its QuickTime technology. Apple’s online store also proved a big hit with consumers, demonstrating that the company could pull off internet-based sales.

iTunes Music Store changes the music industry

The challenge for the iTunes Music Store came in convincing music labels that digital distribution, which risked further diminishing CD sales, made sense from a business perspective. Other companies’ previous attempts to sell MP3s failed, due to limited catalogs, ugly user interfaces and an insistence that users pay subscription fees.

Apple planned to change that. However, to do so, it needed to sell record labels on breaking down albums into individual tracks costing 99 cents each.

Jobs eventually won over the heads of the “Big Five” record labels — BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. As a result, the iTunes Music Store launched on this day in 2003 with more than 200,000 tracks on offer. Within six months, the number of songs in the iTunes store doubled.

iTunes Music Store becomes a hit

The iTunes Music Store proved to be a massive success for Apple. By December 15, 2003, it celebrated its 25 millionth download. By the following July, Apple sold its 100 millionth song. Today, Apple has sold north of 40 billion songs.

These days, downloaded songs have given way to streaming on services like Apple Music and Spotify. However, the opening of the iTunes Music Store remains immensely significant. It showed Apple’s willingness to move into a new market. And it also created a new profit-splitting revenue stream for the company.

The later expansion of iTunes to sell TV shows, music videos and movies also helped turn Apple into a full-fledged media company. Cupertino continues to build on these efforts today by creating its own original video content for Apple TV+.

Without iTunes’ breakout success, it’s questionable whether Apple would have even created an App Store.

What was the first song you ever downloaded on iTunes? Leave your comments below.



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This security flaw could let hackers unlock hotel doors across the world by hijacking keycards

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Security researchers have found a relatively easy and cheap way to clone the keycards used on three million Saflok electronic RFID locks in 13,000 hotels and homes all over the world.

The keycard and lock manufacturer, Dormakaba, has been notified, and it is currently working to replace the vulnerable hardware – but it’s a long, tedious process, which is not yet done.

Although first discovered back in 2022, the researchers have disclosed more information on the flaws, dubbed “Unsaflok”, in order to raise awareness.

Cheap card cloning

The flaws were discovered at a private hacking event was set up in Las Vegas, where different research teams competed to find vulnerabilities in a hotel room and all devices inside. A team, consisting of Lennert Wouters, Ian Carroll, rqu, BusesCanFly, Sam Curry, shell, and Will Caruana, focused their attention on the Dormakaba Saflok electronic locks for hotel rooms. Soon enough, they found two flaws which, when chained together, allowed them to open the doors with a custom-built keycard.

First, they needed access to any card from the premises. That could be the card to their own room. Then, they reverse-engineered the Dormakaba front desk software and lock programming device, which allowed them to spoof a working master key which can open any room on the property. Finally, to clone the cards, they needed to break into Dormakaba’s key derivation function.

To forge the keycards, the team used a MIFARE Classic card, a commercial card-writing tool, and an Android phone with NFC capabilities. All of this costs just a few hundred dollars, it was said.

With their custom-built keycard, the team would be able to access more than three million locks, installed in 13,000 hotels and homes all over the world.

Following the publication of the findings, Dormakaba released a statement to the media, saying the vulnerability affects Saflok systems System 6000, Ambiance, and Community. It added that there is no evidence of these flaws ever being exploited in the wild.

Via BleepingComputer

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Today in Apple history: eWorld closes its virtual doors

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March 9: Today in Apple history: eWorld closes its virtual doors March 9, 1996: Apple confirms that it will shut down its eWorld online service at the end of the month.

Part messaging service, part news aggregator — and all with Apple’s customary premium prices — the short-lived eWorld proved ahead of its time. Apple tells disappointed eWorld subscribers they can switch to America Online instead.

Apple eWorld closes

Apple launched eWorld on June 20, 1994, less than two years before shuttering the service. It represented Apple’s first deep dive into providing internet services. It came several years before Steve Jobs returned to the company and embraced the importance of going online with devices like the iMac G3 and iBook.

The impetus behind eWorld was a proto-social network called AppleLink that connected Cupertino with its dealers and support centers. In the early 1990s, when John Sculley still ran Apple, the company decided to transform this concept into a consumer-facing service.

To pull it off, Apple acquired a data center in the San Francisco Bay Area from banking giant Citigroup. It also came to a licensing agreement with AOL, the company that built the basic technology eWorld was based upon. This was years before Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, iCloud and other internet-based services.

Now, of course, Apple’s services division alone is worth more than most countries. A 2022 Wall Street estimate pegged the value of Apple services at $1.5 trillion — more than a third of the company’s total market cap.

Apple’s first go at the internet

Apple eWorld: The electronic village comes to life, with virtual buildings the user clicks to "enter."
The electronic village comes to life.
Photo: Apple

Typically for Apple, the idea was for eWorld to be a “walled garden” so Cupertino could totally control the user experience.

Today, Apple’s carefully moderated approach to running the App Store makes it something of a rarity. (But change, forced by EU antitrust regulators, is here.) In the 1990s, however, this perspective basically proved the norm. AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe all attempted to do similar things.

Still, nobody seemed quite sure what the internet would ultimately turn into.

eWorld didn’t just contain material written by Apple. A bit like the Apple News app, it served as an aggregator of news and entertainment from other sources, all filtered through a familiar Apple interface.

Why Apple’s eWorld failed

Eyeing eWorld now, the big surprise for a lot of people will be how cartoonish it looks. The notion of turning the internet (or, at least, a version of it) into a SimCity-style settlement, with different buildings representing different services, seems very unnecessary — and non-workable — today.

It makes sense, though, when you consider that eWorld narrativized an abstract idea. In fact, the approach worked much the same way the graphical user interface borrowed the metaphor of a physical desktop to explain computing concepts to a new audience. Full web-browsing support didn’t arrive in eWorld until 1995.

The other massive shock for modern audiences will be how expensive eWorld was. Two off-peak hours with eWorld’s dialup service cost $8.95. (That’s the equivalent of more than $17 today.) Hourly costs beyond that (or during the day) set people back $4.95.

These days, Apple typically gauges the right moment to leap into new technologies. Sadly, in the 1990s the company did not seem to possess such perfect timing. eWorld only attracted 147,000 users at its peak.

Do you remember eWorld? Leave your comments below.

 



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OpenAI GPT Store opens its doors to Plus and Enterprise users

OpenAI GPT Store opens its doors to Plus and Enterprise users

The highly anticipated launch of the new OpenAI ChatGPT Store has finally happened. Providing an innovative marketplace that is reshaping the way artificial intelligence (AI) can be used and monetized. This new platform is currently exclusively available to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Enterprise subscribers and offers an extensive selection of Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) that are designed to improve various aspects of work and learning, including writing, productivity, research, programming, and education. Subscribers to the service have the opportunity to browse through a variety of featured GPTs, keep up with the latest trends, or seek out tools that are specifically suited to their individual needs.

What sets the ChatGPT Store apart is not just its array of pre-existing tools, but also the ability for users to create custom GPTs. These can be seamlessly integrated with a company’s own APIs or specialized knowledge bases, adding a personalized dimension to AI solutions. This level of customization provides an unmatched degree of flexibility, enabling users to adjust GPTs to perfectly align with their unique requirements.

The platform is particularly beneficial for experts who possess niche knowledge. They can upload and incorporate their specialized expertise into GPTs, thereby crafting intelligent models that have a deep understanding of specific contexts. This significantly boosts the performance of the GPTs and makes them more relevant and effective for the tasks at hand.

OpenAI launches its GPT store

Looking ahead, OpenAI plans to roll out the GPT Builder Revenue program. This initiative is designed to reward creators by offering them a way to earn money based on the engagement their custom GPTs generate. This program is poised to create new financial opportunities for innovators who are active in the GPT ecosystem.

Here are some other articles you may find of interest on the subject of creating custom GPTs you can share and make money with in the GPT Store :

Another upcoming feature is ChatGPT for Teams, which aims to cater to the needs of businesses and organizations. This service will provide an extended context window and tools that are optimized for collaborative work environments. It demonstrates the potential of GPTs to transform how teams operate and collaborate.

The ChatGPT Store also seeks to recognize the contributions of GPT developers by allowing them to set credit settings. This can help drive more traffic to their personal websites, fostering a community that is supportive and encourages the discovery of high-quality GPTs.

In response to a lawsuit filed by the New York Times concerning fair use and training data, OpenAI has taken steps to address the legal issues raised. The company has reiterated its commitment to ethical AI development practices, ensuring that it remains a responsible player in the field of AI.

The launch of the ChatGPT Store marks a significant milestone in the commercialization of AI. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for both individuals and teams to explore, tailor, and benefit financially from GPTs. As the platform continues to evolve, it is expected to become an indispensable resource for those looking to harness the power of AI to drive innovation and enhance efficiency.

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