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Opera "Kestrel" 9.5 Alpha Build Released With Substantial Speed Increases
Microsoft boosts Office for Mac's business features
Region Free DVD Viewing on Macs and Windows PCs
Does Apple Still Covet The Enterprise?
Apple seeks TV price cut
Lawmakers Take Aim At Patent Speculators - What Makes A 'Patent Troll'?
HTC Proud To Share Touch Vision With Apple
Retail Obsolescence
BBC E-mail: US Backing For Two-tier Internet
PC Mag: Apple, iBiquity Unveil iTunes Tagging
PC Mag: Hollywood Not Happy With Apple Pricing Plan
PC Mag: 10 Unusual USB Hubs
PC Mag: Movies on Demand
The Tech Night Owl Newsletter: Apple Converts Rocks Into Gold Once Again
• The Tech Night Owl: Isn't it Great When Things Just Work? This Week's Tech Night Owl Radio Update
Opera "Kestrel" 9.5 Alpha Build Released With Substantial Speed Increases
DailyTech's Jason Mick reports:
This week Opera pushed out the latest build of their browser, the 9.5 Alpha Edition. Initial tests show it to be faster than current offerings from Firefox and IE.....
Despite Opera's history of innovation, the question with this new release was if the challenge of competing with much larger production teams and budgets at Mozilla and Microsoft, would/ /be too much for Opera's development team.
Initial reports indicate that the browser is shaping up quite nicely, despite the adversity of playing the underdog to IE7 and Firefox 2.x....
Run on the same platform, the 9.5 release at 281 ms load time was nearly twice as fast as the previous version 9.23 (546 ms). The new version also held significant speed advantages over Firefox 2.x and IE7. On Windows Vista, Opera 9.5 was reported to be around 50% faster than Firefox 2.x and 100% faster than IE7, according to these speed tests.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8777
To read my review of Opera 9.50 Kestrel, click here
Microsoft boosts Office for Mac's business features
CNET News.com's Peter Judge reports:
Microsoft's next release of Office for Mac, due in January, will include business features that PC users have taken for granted for years.
That will include the ability to set up out-of-office messages, according to a preview in Microsoft's Office for Mac team blog.
"With Entourage 2008, you now have the ability to configure your out-of-office settings," said Andy Ruff, program manager for Entourage, the counterpart of Outlook in the Macintosh version of Microsoft Office.
For the full report click here.
Region Free DVD Viewing on Macs and Windows PCs
Low End Mac's Andrew J Fishkin says:
Here we go with another look at defeating region coding on Macs and PCs.
As the continued flood of email I receive from my previous looks at this subject (linked at the end of this article) suggests, this remains a common problem that has gotten worse as time goes on, not better. Simply put, region coding is a scheme that prevents a DVD player, be it a console player or an optical drive and decoder program in your computer, from playing DVD movies coded for a different geographic region.
No, that doesn't mean that a DVD from New York won't play in Los Angeles. What it does mean is that the movie industry has created an artificial map that divides the world into six regions, assigning countries to region codes.
The United States, for instance, is region 1 (go figure), while the United Kingdom is region 2, and South Korea is region 3. For Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, who obtains all of their movies in one country, this poses little problem, but for people who travel, it is a major inconvenience and, if the movie industry gets their way, expense.
In this article I will look at the three ways a user can get around region coding and discuss each in turn as it relates to given hardware and software situations. Which options you have depends on your operating system, the type of drive installed in your computer, and whether that hardware has compatible replacement parts available that can be modified for region free use.
You can check it out at:
http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/af07/0907.html
Does Apple Still Covet The Enterprise?
InformationWeek's John C. Welch says:
With the release of iWork '08, the new iMacs, new hardware RAID options for the Xserve and Mac Pros, updated Airport Extreme base stations, and bumps to the Mac Mini, the billion-dollar question, "Is Apple ready for the enterprise?" is again in play.
Here's my opinionated, and multilayered, take on the issue, from my perspective as an IT person, working within the SMB market.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201804498
Apple seeks TV price cut
variety.com's Josef Adalian reports:
Apple is mulling a plan to cut the price of TV show downloads in half - an idea that's not going over too well in Hollywood.
According to three people familiar with the proposal, Apple has told networks and studios that it would like to slash the cost of most TV episodes sold via iTunes from the current $1.99 to just 99˘ -- the same as what Apple charges for most music singles.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971505.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
Lawmakers Take Aim At Patent Speculators - What Makes A 'Patent Troll'?
MarketWatch's John Letzing reports:
When Apple Inc. released its vaunted iPhone in June, critics were intrigued by its cutting-edge form touch-screen technology. Barely a month later, a doctor from Iowa publicly claimed he'd actually come up with the idea first, and he filed a patent-infringement lawsuit.
Apple and other big technology companies have long complained that such suits are frivolous - and are becoming far too commonplace. They've taken their case to Congress, which may soon pass legislation intended to rein in patent litigation and its related costs. The House passed a version of the Patent Reform Act on Friday, while the Senate is expected to take up the issue soon.
For the full report click here.
HTC Proud To Share Touch Vision With Apple
DIGITIMES' Daniel Shen and Joseph Tsaireports:
With Apple introducing its new iPod touch in the US, Peter Chou, CEO and president of High Tech Computer (HTC) pointed out that HTC has registered HTC Touch as a trademark worldwide, adding that the company feels proud to share the same vision as Apple over touch screen functions. The company would not comment whether or not it will take legal action against Apple for trademark infringement.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.digitimes.com/telecom/a20070906PD215.html
Retail Obsolescence
Scripps Howard News Service's Dale McFeatters says:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems to have stumbled upon an important new economic metric for our technology crazed age.
There are always buyers who want to be the first with the latest and they are an important market because they will pay a premium to do so. And now, thanks to Jobs, we now know there is a measurable correlation between that premium and the time the product remains exclusive.
The absolute outside limit of desirability for a new technology product has long been believed to be 18 months based on Moore's Law, propounded by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, that computer processing power doubles every 18 months - and Moore had to scale that back from his original time frame of two years.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/070908-shns-columnsiphone.html
BBC E-mail: US Backing For Two-tier Internet
BBC News reports:
Looks as though the Justice Department is siding with special interests on Net Neutrality
The US Justice Department has said that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority traffic.
For more information, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6983375.stm
PC Mag: Apple, iBiquity Unveil iTunes Tagging
"Apple Inc., iBiquity Digital Corp, a developer of high-definition radio technology, and major radio companies said on Friday they are offering a new, free service called "iTunes Tagging."
The service lets listeners with HD Radio receivers containing a special tag button, to "tag" songs they hear on the FM dial for subsequent purchase via Apple's iTunes."
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2180605,00.asp
PC Mag: Hollywood Not Happy With Apple Pricing Plan
"Variety may have uncovered the real reason NBC decided to abandon the iTunes ship for Amazon's Unbox service. According to three people familiar with the proposal, Apple wants to cut the price of most TV shows sold via iTunes from the current price of $1.99 down to just 99 cents, the same price it charges for a song."
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2180568,00.asp
PC Mag: 10 Unusual USB Hubs
Run out of free USB ports? Plug your overabundance of peripherals into an engine-shaped USB hub or, perhaps, one made of "gold".
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2180093,00.asp
PC Mag: Movies on Demand
Download and burn. Real video on demand is coming...and it'll be legal.
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2180054,00.asp
The Tech Night Owl Newsletter: Apple Converts Rocks Into Gold Once Again
When Apple decided to drop the price tag of the iPhone by $200, a lot of people wondered what Steve Jobs was "smoking." After all, if a product is truly successful, you'd expect them to milk the profits from their new gadget for as long as possible before chasing after maximum volume.
Here's the link for today's commentary:
http://www.macnightowl.com/2007/09/09/newsletter-406-preview-apple-converts-rocks-into-gold-once-again/
Notes: You can also access our new RSS newsletter feed, available at: http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/rss
Or our new Atom newsletter feed at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/ newsletter/atom
The Tech Night Owl: Isn't it Great When Things Just Work?
Years ago, there was actually a weekly newspaper that was devoted to reporting strictly good news. But that old journalistic adage, "If it bleeds it leads," still dominates, and so most of the news you read in print or online involves controversy and tragedy. Wouldn't it be nice to learn that, more often than not, some things work just fine without forcing you to navigate endless and frustrating phone menus or reach Tier 2 support?
Here's the URL for today's commentary:
http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/2007/09/09/newsletter-issue-406/#work
Notes: You can also access our new RSS newsletter feed, available at: http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/rss
Or our new Atom newsletter feed at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/ newsletter/atom
This Week's Tech Night Owl Radio Update
We knew Apple would release new iPods, but that notorious $200 price cut on the iPhone came out of left field. But that's Apple's way.
Here's the URL for this week's update on the show:
http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/2007/09/09/newsletter-issue-406/#update
Notes: You can also access our new RSS newsletter feed, available at: http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/rss
Or our Atom newsletter feed at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletter/ atom
Charles W. Moore
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