The California Assembly, apparently facing an $8 billion deficit, has introduced a bill that would apply sales taxes to "media downloads," namely the music sales going through iTunes (which, as we've reported, is challenging even retailer giant Walmart for music sales numbers). But it seems as though (since new taxes require a 2/3 majority in California) they're going about it in a pretty weird way.
Basically, to duck the majority rule, they're instead trying to have "digital property" count like normal, taxable property. That way, all they're doing is changing a definition, not actually adding a new tax. Even then, they've got another hurdle to jump -- the California Assembly, of course, can only tax things bought in California, unless they charge a "use" tax, which is for people things buy elsewhere but only use in California. Which no one ever pays anyway. Yeah, it's weird.
Eventually, they'll probably pull something off -- Apple already charges sales tax in quite a few states, so it's not surprising that California, Apple's home base, would try as well. It seems like politics is making the process a little bumpier than elsewhere, though.
[Via Macdailynews]

The iPhone Dev Team seems to have stumbled across a hidden feature in the next version of the iPhone firmware. The picture is reminiscent of the iPhone SDK "Organizer"
that shows the currently connected iPhone. However, something that's
different from the screenshots that we posted is the "Console," "Crash
Logs," and "Screenshot" tabs at the top of the window.

The
screenshot shows a "Parental Controls" setting inside the "General"
iPhone settings. It looks as though you can enable these parental
controls and turn on or off:

• Playing explicit songs in iPod
• Website control in Safari
• YouTube control
• iTunes Wi-Fi Store control
• AppStore control

According to a recent post on the Modmyifone Forum,
this is a version of the firmware that was distributed with the SDK
(version 1.2) which the forum post seems to believe will be re-issued
as firmware 2.0. The forum post also goes on to say that the firmware
is jailbroken; however, this has not been confirmed.

[via iPhone Dev Team]

As part of their feature on Apple we noted earlier in the week, Fortune magazine also has an interview with Steve Jobs that's definitely worth a look. Though frankly a bit annoying to page through, it's chock full of Uncle Steve goodness. There's quite a bit of interesting background on some of Apple's biggest business decisions over the last few years. It's definitely worth a read if you're interested in how the CEO of the most-admired company in the country thinks.
In addition, there's also a story by Fortune editor Peter Elkind on The trouble with Steve Jobs. It comes off a bit like sour grapes in places, but nonetheless is also worth the time.
[via Daring Fireball]