Last week, Apple held a big event in San Francisco where Steve Jobs simultaneously introduced a new version of the each of the existing iPod products (the Shuffle, the Nano, and the newly-dubbed Classic), unveiled a completely new iPod called the Touch (with the revolutionary touch-screen interface that made the iPhone a hit), and announced a dramatic price cut for the iPhone — all in advance of the holiday sales season.

The announcement getting the most attention was the price cut for the iPhone. Just two months after the device went on sale, its cost was reduced by $200 completely without warning from the company. The early adapters were pissed, media coverage was sympathetic to their plight, and the next day, Steve Jobs announced all those who paid the original price would be getting a $100 Apple Store credit.

The iPod Touch is also newsworthy. The new interface is the iPhone without the phone — complete with wireless Internet access, the complete Safari browser, and a miniature version of OSX. You can check email, browse YouTube, and of course, listen to music and watch movies. Jobs also introduced a wireless iTunes store, which will allow owners of the Touch and the iPhone to buy music on the go without ever connecting to a computer.

The final announcement at the event was for another new feature on the Touch and the iPhone — the Starbucks button. While users are waiting in line to buy their lattes, they can use their devices to get the name of the song the baristas are playing, see the coffee shop’s recent playlist, and of course, buy any of those songs. Compared to the price-cut drama or the new product excitement, it has received very little attention on the press. But long term, this might be as big a deal as the iPhone itself.

As a feature, the Starbucks button is admittedly kind of lame. But that’s not the right way to think about this — it’s not about technology or music. It’s about advertising, specifically, the rise of location-specific advertisement — and that is both fascinating and a little bit frightening.

Right now, real location-based advertising is straight out of science fiction. In Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, the Tom Cruise character walks into a Gap, the store recognizes him, and a virtual sales associate asks him how his last purchase worked out — that’s a vision of what’s to come.

But this thing with Starbucks and Apple isn’t too many evolutionary steps away. You, proud owner of an Apple device, walk into a Starbucks, the store recognizes you and a new button appears on your iPhone. Like most advertising, you can always ignore it, but you can’t make it go away. Every time you go to buy coffee, you’ll be prompted to buy music, too. How long before the Starbucks button starts flashing notices of the hot new drink? Is it a stretch to think of Disney offering a similar deal with Apple, where you walk into a Disney Store, and a new button appears allowing you to download the new Pixar movie? How about Barnes & Noble — a new button pops up and you’re downloading audio books from their bestseller list?

Google is developing a service which will tie advertising to the GPS in your cell phone — walk by the Gap and you get a text message with a coupon. Supposedly, Google will introduce a gPhone sometime before the year is out, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the company’s secret weapon — a slick, feature-packed, ultra-cheap phone in exchange for permission to deliver the advertisements. Other companies are working to put the same technology in your car — you drive by a McDonalds and you hear a Big Mac jingle.

On some level, this is a better way for customer to receive advertisements. Like the best of Google AdWords, they can be unobtrusive, relevant, and occasionally exactly what you’re looking for.

But again, this can be scary too. What happens when the advertisers always know where you are, always know what you’re buying, and never stops pushing the ads at you? At what point then, does your privacy completely evaporate?

-Matt

Both Microsoft and Google are looking at ways to improve medicine.

In the wake of the Fast Company article that we covered earlier, there’s been a lot written and discussed in the media about the state of bottled water.

In recent months, San Francisco took bottled water out of government offices. New York City launched a campaign to convince people to drink its municipal tap water (some of the best in the word, it’s pumped in from a spring in the Catskills). And trend-setting chefs like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California made a point to pull bottled water from their menus.

Now the New York Times looks at the next wave of movement against bottled water.

The Bivings Report ranks the top 10 newspaper websites — and its a list with which I don’t have much disagreement. Notice the absence of all North Carolina’s (notably bad online) papers.

– matt

I was struck by this column, from the New York Times this weekend, which looks at the way that Elvis Presley viewed race. In it, the author, Peter Guralnick (a Presley biographer), offers a convincing argument for an egalitarian Elvis.

I don’t have much perspective to offer other than this — when you listen to other music from that time period, by musicians white and black, and then you hear the King, it’s hard not to notice that a) he’s doing something that’s completely new; and b) that though different, his music draws heavily from both hillbilly music and blues.

– matt

Red Oak — maker of one of my favorite kinds of beer — has been trying to expand its distribution for years, but legislation dating back to Prohibition stands in its way. WUNC looks at the company’s plight and plans for the future.

– matt

Folks in the Triangle can meet tomorrow at Carolina Cafe & Bakery, 401 Daniels Street (Cameron Village) in Raleigh to discuss this column, from the Washington Post.

Microsoft’s email service, Hotmail, processes four billion e-mails every day. Six hundred million are delivered — the rest are spam. (via)

I really want to write a long post about Google’s big bid to get a chunk of the wireless spectrum which the FCC will auction off next year. But that takes more time than I have right now (busiest week of the year at work). Instead, two separate looks at how Google is trying to improve its core product — the search engine.

– mc

WUNC takes a look at how Rockingham Community College develop developed a national reputation for furniture design and what that means for the future of the NC economy.