New & Noteworthy: Toon Boom Studio 2; ADC KVM; more

Toon Boom Studio 2 launched From a press release: "In TBS 2 even more than in version 1, you use a very cinematic approach to setting the scene and choreographing your production. Like a true director, you view your creation constantly through the camera lens." Note: As of this morning, the Toon Boom web site had not yet been updated with information of version 2.

ADC KVM CompuCable will be shipping a new 2-Port ADC KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) Controller designed solely for the Apple ADC Display. By using the USB feature built into the ADC protocol, the switch can share one set of ADC (monitor) and USB (keyboard, mouse, etc.) devices between two computer systems. The ADC KVM controller is completely ADC bus-powered, so there is no need for additional bulky power supply.

Margin Note: Copy protection could hurt CD sales more than help them We continue to mull over the copy-protected CD controversy. Our latest thought is this: As long as users can find a way to circumvent the protection, the protection may ultimately hurt legitimate sales rather than help them. This is especially so, if the copy protection is difficult but not impossible to break. For example, suppose we wanted the latest music from some rock group, but their CD was copy-protected so we could not play it on a Mac (or an iPod!). If the copy-protection were easy to break, we might buy the CD and "break" it ourselves. If not, we would more likely check a site such as AudioGalaxy and see whether someone else had managed to break the protection and had made the songs available on the site. If so, we would likely download the files from AudioGalaxy in preference to buying the CD - the CD we would have purchased if it were not copy-protected! Bottom line: the copy-protection resulted in a lost sale. Maybe the CD companies expect enough additional sales to compensate for these lost ones. But it seems at least as likely that they won't get them.

P.S. As we have reported before, most of the current-crop of copy-protected CDs can be "broken" by using a felt-tip marker to draw a ring around the outer rim of the CD. This rim contains the data that, when the computer attempts to read it, prevents the CD from playing. With the marking on the CD, the computer bypasses the data and plays the music.