Developer "gj" and others behind the iPhone Development Project (http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki) claim to have released a "proof of concept activation program for the iPhone" that makes it possible to activate the device without an AT&T account, or re-activate after an AT&T account has been terminated. — Read the rest

Hallelujah! Apple and EMI just announced that they will be selling DRM-free Apple songs through the iTunes Music Store. The songs will cost 130 percent of the price of the existing crippled songs, and you'll get to choose. Weirdly, Apple seems to have sold this move to EMI by saying that the DRM-free version will be a "premium" offering for audiophiles who want higher-quality music. — Read the rest

Earlier this week on BB, I pointed to Jon Lech Johansen's blog "So Sue Me." Several astute readers reminded us that the blog's title is thought to be a punny reference to "Sosumi," an Apple system sound file with a colorful history. — Read the rest

BB reader Alfie says "Jon Johansen has re-opened the Itunes hole recently blocked by apple, making 3rd party accessible again."

The entry on Jon's blog (the site's appropriately titled "So Sue Me") reads:

The iTunes Music Store recently stopped supporting iTunes versions below 4.7 in an attempt to shut out 3rd party clients.

ZDNet reports that Apple has closed the iTunes Music Store security hole exploited by Jon Lech Johansen's DRM-free interface PyMusique. Says Apple, "The security hole in the iTunes Music Store which was recently exploited has been closed, and as a consequence the iTunes Music Store will now sell music only to customers using iTunes version 4.7." — Read the rest

ArsTechnica reports that last month's iPod firmware update makes music encoded in RealNetwork's Harmony unplayable on certin iPod models.

The Harmony software mimics the FairPlay DRM used by Apple's iTunes Music Store for all of the tracks it sells. RealNetworks introduced the software with great fanfare last July, announcing that they had broken the stranglehold Apple held over the iPod and enabling customers of its RealRhapsody music service to purchase tracks that could be played on iPods.

Jon "DVD Jon" Johansen has released a new anti-DRM tool called DeDRMS, which enables unrestricted playback of iTunes Music Store tracks under Windows. Andrew is hosting a compiled binary and the source on the San Francisco State University server.

Link

(Thanks, Andrew! — Read the rest

My favorite media player is something called Video LAN Client, or VLC, which plays everything from Quicktime to Divx and RealVideo. It's free and open source, and improves steadily. Now, someone's hacked in support for M4Ps, the DRM format used by Apple for the iTunes Music Store singles. — Read the rest