CNN has posted a follow-up to the previous news that Jon Lech Johansen ("DVD Jon") had reverse engineered Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) format.
Johansen has formed a company called DoubleTwist to license the format to other companies interested in providing DRM protected files that are playable on Apple's iPod. Apple has not allowed other companies to license FairPlay, effectively blocking most companies from selling DRM protected songs that can play on the iPod.
The article states that "an unnamed client will soon use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods". Details are not available yet.
DVD Jon had previously circumvented FairPlay's DRM in 2003, and since then multiple other tools have appeared to provide similar functionality for updated versions of Quicktime/iTunes. Jon is also credited for developing an algorithm named deCSS to strip a DVD of its encryption (called Content Scramble System, or CSS), hence his nickname.
Wednesday September 2, 2026 12:35 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has added a new "iPhone Handoff" feature to iOS 27 that will allow you to switch between two iPhones while using the same phone number on each device.
This functionality was briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June, on a slide that listed hundreds of new features coming in iOS 27 and corresponding software updates, but Apple never shared any further details at the time.
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Thursday September 3, 2026 3:41 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Less than a week before Apple debuts new iPhone 18 Pro models, research firm TrendForce has estimated the prices of the devices based on the latest hardware cost environment.
TrendForce's price estimates compared to last year's models look like this:
Model
Starting Price
Model
Starting Price
Change
iPhone 17 Pro
$1,099
iPhone 18 Pro
$...
Thursday September 3, 2026 7:33 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Ahead of Apple's event on Wednesday, September 9, where it is expected to unveil its first-ever foldable iPhone, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce today outlined the device's estimated price range, features, and some other key details.
In the U.S., TrendForce estimated that the foldable iPhone will have a starting price of $2,099 to $2,299 and said the highest-end configurations could...
