Apple is slated to hold their annual media event this afternoon at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The event, which begins at 10 AM (1 PM Eastern), has been the source of heated speculation over the past week. Apple is widely expected to make updates to their iPod line as well as other products such as iTunes and potentially the Apple TV. Historically, Apple keynotes have been fairly exclusive events with attendance limited to invitees only. The general public have relied on the blogosphere to disseminate keynote information as it is happening. At Apple’s iPhone 4 keynote, spikes in traffic within the auditorium caused Steve’s Safari and FaceTime demos to fail.
In an effort to evade similar problems this morning, Apple has announced that they will stream the keynote proceedings live. Utilizing a newly developed streaming technology called HTTP Live Streaming, the keynote will be available to Mac OS X 10.6 and iOS 3+ users. The reason for the exclusivity lies in that the streaming protocol was introduced simultaneously with Quicktime X ( a 10.6 exclusive.) Viewers with a compatible OS can link to the keynote from Apple’s homepage. The link in the bottom left corner will become live closer to the event.
If you do not have a compliant Mac or iOS device, or are otherwise unavailable to view the keynote live, stay tuned to @hellosmalldog and Barkings! for updates throughout the course of the event. Apple will likely post a recorded version of the event later this evening.