Sir Mal Fet writes "iTunes Match, Apple's service that allows re-downloading all your music, ripped CDs, and other music files across all your libraries using the iCloud service, has been made available in most of Latin America, the Netherlands, and the Baltic states. " Here's one user's review of the service. Is it worth the $25/year? Do you use the service?"

Apple TV is a little device you hook to your television. Ubuntu TV (motto: "TV for human beings") is going to be inside your TV, says Peter Goodall, Canonical's Product Manage for Ubuntu TV. At CES, he described Ubuntu TV to Timothy Lord in detail. Join them via Slashdot Video to see what's up with this Ubuntu venture, which has lots of competition; "Smart TV" was a major CES catchphrase this year.

An anonymous reader writes "One persistent theme from this year's CES is that television manufacturers are racing to establish the concept of 'Smart TVs,' sets that integrate modern browsing features, control through voice or motion, application support, and even upgradability. This article suggests the living room will be the location of the newest tech war. Quoting: 'To compete, the companies will have to offer carefully curated, high-quality applications and be open to supporting mobile devices such as tablets. Other media companies have already started: Comcast, for example, announced that it's going to allow OnDemand streaming not only to Samsung Smart TV's but also to the iPad. The TV makers are hoping that the multitude of additional features will be enough to trigger turnover like the industry saw after the introduction of flat-panel screens, Bloomberg noted. It's a big market, if the television makers can figure out how to crack it.'"

MrSeb writes with a piece on Google's renewed push for Google TV adoption. From the article: "In spite of a mediocre launch caused by an overpriced device and low consumer adoption, Mountain View is attempting to breathe life into Google TV in the way of a major marketing push at CES 2012. By announcing partnerships with companies like Marvell and LG, and an effort to cut costs by switching to ARM architecture, Google is hoping to finally achieve the mass adoption it has been hoping for with the service. Is this a case of too little, too late?"

Morty writes "In 1961, C.S. Lewis nominated JRR Tolkien for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tolkien did not receive the prize. 50 years later, the archives for that year have been made available, so now we know why. Tolkien's prose was viewed as low quality."

Barence writes "Canonical has unveiled the first screenshots and details of Ubuntu TV. Plans for versions of the Linux distro for tablets, smartphones and TVs were unveiled last year, and now the television is — perhaps surprisingly — the first of those to arrive. 'It's a simple viewing experience for online video, both your own and routed over the internet,' Jane Silber, Canonical's CEO told PC Pro. Movie streaming services will be supported as well as live television broadcasts. Ubuntu TV will be integrated into television sets, but Canonical was unable to confirm any manufacturers. It will be released later this year."

ananyo writes "An Irish mathematician has used a complex algorithm and millions of hours of supercomputing time to solve an important open problem in the mathematics of Sudoku, the game popularized in Japan that involves filling in a 9X9 grid of squares with the numbers 1–9 according to certain rules. Gary McGuire of University College Dublin shows in a proof posted online [PDF] that the minimum number of clues — or starting digits — needed to complete a puzzle is 17; puzzles with 16 or fewer clues do not have a unique solution. Most newspaper puzzles have around 25 clues, with the difficulty of the puzzle decreasing as more clues are given."

redletterdave writes "Apple has allegedly threatened to sue Chinese company 'In Icons' over its eerily realistic 12-inch action figure of Steve Jobs, the company's late founder and CEO. The 1:6 scale model, which was said to be distributed by DiD Corp. in late February, comes with the clothes and accessories popularized by Jobs, such as the black faux turtleneck, blue jeans and sneakers. The figurine is packaged in a box that looks like Walter Isaacson's 'Steve Jobs' biography cover, and also comes with a 'One More Thing...' backdrop, as well as two red apples, including one with a bite in it. To make it extra creepy, the doll's realistic head sculpt features Jobs' famous unblinking stare. Apple reportedly wrote 'In Icons', telling the Chinese manufacturer that any toy that resembles Apple's logo or products, or Job's name or appearance, is a 'criminal offense.' Attorneys believe a Steve Jobs action figure released after his death violates the 'right of publicity,' which is a state law that protects one's image, voice, photograph, identity or signature from being used commercially without consent. Furthermore, California's Celebrity Rights Act in 1985 protects a celebrity's personality rights up to 70 years after their death."

First time accepted submitter gentryx writes "Researchers at the Japan Institute of Science and Technology have build a miniature Wipeout track (YouTube video) using high temperature superconductors and quantum levitation. Right now this is fundamental research, but in the future large scale transportation systems could be built with technology akin to this. I have a different vision: let Nintendo sell this as an accessory for the Wii U. I'd buy several of these tracks, let the gliders race through the whole house and track them on our TV!" Update: 01/05 22:08 GMT by S : As many readers have pointed out, this is CGI.

A Wired article (as carried by CNN) attempts to answer the question of why 3D television hasn't caught on. The reasons listed there (high price, paltry content, the need for 3D glasses for typical sets, headaches and strain) all seem to be on the money, in themselves, but I think don't go far enough. 3D on a set small enough for home use outside a high-end home-theater rig seems to me like a clever novelty that I can't even enjoy unless I've given it my full attention. It's nothing like the jump from black-and-white to color, or even the jump from my old (circa 1993) 19" Trinitron to a flat-panel display. On the big screen, it's another story — there, 3D can be arresting and involving, even when it's exaggerated (and it is). On home sets, even quite large ones, to my eye 3D usually looks phony and out of place. Never mind that the content is limited and often expensive, or that there are competing standards for expensive glasses to wear — I just don't like that the commitment is greater than that required for casual, conventional TV; I can't readily scan email, skim through a magazine, or keep watching out the corner of my eye from another room. (I'm hoping to find some actually watchable no-glasses 3D sets at CES next week, but I'm skeptical.)

DeviceGuru writes "Roku is building its streaming media player technology into a thumbdrive-style device that will plug directly into a TV's HDMI port. The Roku Streaming Stick, to be priced in the $50-$100 range, will convert ordinary TVs into smart TVs, according to CEO Anthony Wood. One catch is that it will depend on the TV having at least one Mobile High-Definition Link (MHDL) compliant HDMI port. The new standard is not widely supported yet, with only Nokia, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony, and Toshiba listed as members on the MHDL Consortium's web page."

An anonymous reader writes "Chinese broadcasters have axed two-thirds of popular TV shows in line with a government directive to curb 'excessive entertainment.' From the article: 'The rule, first announced in October, is targeted at what Chinese regulators have called "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste," to address the rise of talent shows, dating shows and other such programming aired by China's tightly regulated, but increasingly competitive, regional satellite broadcasters. Authorities also encouraged broadcasters to air more news and educational programming.' according to local media reports."

bs0d3 writes "A new U.S. survey sponsored by the American Assembly has revealed that piracy is both common and accepted. The surveys findings show that 46% of adults and 75% of young people have bought, copied, or downloaded some copyright infringing material. 70% of those surveyed said it's reasonable to share music files (PDF) with friends and family. Support for internet blocking schemes was at 16%."

gambit3 sends this quote from The Atlantic: "Like tens of millions of Americans, I have paid money to see Mission: Impossible, which made $130 million in the last two weeks, and I have not paid any money to see Young Adult, which has made less than $10 million over the same span. Nobody is surprised or impressed by the discrepancy. The real question is: If demand is supposed to move prices, why isn't seeing Young Adult much cheaper than seeing Mission: Impossible?"

rtoz writes with the news that Chinese viewers will soon be able to watch a 3D TV channel service, to be opened in late January. Excerpting: "The first stations for the 3D trial are China Central Television, Beijing Television, Tianjing Broadcasting TV, Jiangsu TV and Shenzhen TV. 3D programs will be offered daily from 10:30 am to midnight. The programs include animation, sports, documentaries, TV dramas, entertainment and live broadcasting of big events, such as CCTV New Year's Gala and the London 2012 Olympic Games. The stations will charge no viewing fees during the early phase of operation."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Australia's ABC News: "Bob Anderson, an Olympic swordsman who staged fights for films including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogy, has died at the age of 89. ... Anderson donned Darth Vader's black helmet and fought light-saber battles in two of the three original Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but his role was not initially publicized." The accompanying video clips are great; I never thought about anyone being in the Vader suit besides David Prowse.

Hugh Pickens writes "Amy Chozick reports that cable guys, long depicted as slovenly cranks who dodged growling dogs and tracked mud on the living room carpet, often have backgrounds in engineering and computer science and certifications in network engineering. 'Back in my day, you called the phone company, we hooked it up, gave you a phone book and left,' says Paul Holloway, a 30-year employee of Verizon, which offers phone, Internet, television and home monitoring services through its FiOS fiber optic network. 'These days people are connecting iPhones, Xboxes and 17 other devices in the home.' The surge in high-tech offerings comes at a critical time for cable companies in an increasingly saturated Internet-based market where growth must come from all the extras like high-speed Internet service, home security, digital recording devices and other high-tech upgrades. 'They should really change the name to Time Warner Internet,' says Quirino Madia, a supervisor for Time Warner Cable. 'Nine out of 10 times, that's all people care about.' Despite their enhanced stature and additional responsibilities, technicians haven't benefited much financially. The median hourly income in 2010 for telecommunications equipment installers and repairers was $55,600 annually, up only 0.4 percent from 2008."

SgtChaireBourne writes "Many works published in 1955 would have entered the public domain this year. Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has an overview of the movies, books, songs and historical works that are kept out of the public domain by changes to copyright law since 1978. Instead of seeing these enter the public domain in 2012, we will have to wait until 2051 before being able to use these works without restriction."

jones_supa writes "Ville 'viznut' Heikkilä presents us with an interesting project. 'As demonstrated by the video, IBNIZ (Ideally Bare Numeric Impression giZmo) is a virtual machine and a programming language that generates video and audio from very short strings of code. Technically, it is a two-stack machine somewhat similar to Forth, but with the major exception that the stack is cyclical and also used at an output buffer.' The main goal of IBNIZ is to provide a new platform for the demoscene. Something that would have the potential to displace MS-DOS as the primary platform for sub-256-byte productions."

New submitter brunozamborlin writes "I just published a short video that shows how a very cheap contact microphone can be used to recognize different types of fingers touch and transform any surface into an interactive board. In the video we put the microphone over different surfaces such as kitchen tables and balloons and through realtime gesture recognition we show how we can play different virtual music instruments using a technique called physical modeling . A mobile version would be definitely possible." The project's Web page shows several more examples. Update: 12/31 15:17 GMT by T : Bruno Zamborlin points out that the surfaces don't need to be flat; instead, they simply need to be rigid.