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Mighty Mice get new colors
Apple laptops drive 'transformation' in PC sales
A New Challenger to iTunes Is Born
PC to Mac Migration, Part 2: iTunes Media Transfer
Hollywood Studios Split On Format To Replace Standard DVD
Will Apple dump Blu-ray?
Wal-Mart Sells Digital Music Free of Copy Curbs
Buying Wal-Mart DRM-Free MP3s on your Mac - A Review
MTV, RealNetworks join forces against Apple
If it can't handle an iPod ... Ford and other automakers adapting to increased need for technology
Girls prefer pink: it's official
Toshiba unveils 320GB laptop hard drive
iPod-size drives could hit 160GB
The Mac Night Owl: Is Apple Being Too Secretive?
Mighty Mice get new colors
MacNN reports:
Apple has slightly modified the coloring on its Mighty Mouse offerings.... As reported by setteB.it, Apple silently changed the coloring on its Mighty Mouse and Wireless Mighty Mouse. Apparently the only change is the color of the lower side of side buttons....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/08/21/os.x.built.java.framework/
Apple laptops drive 'transformation' in PC sales
Apple is becoming the de facto standard laptop supplier, a survey suggests according to Macworld UK's Jonny Evans.
New research indicates that Apple laptop sales have soared to new highs on the back of a new halo effect for the company's products generated by clamour surrounding iPhone.
A ChangeWave survey confirms first intimations of the move as indicated in a previous such survey in June. A survey run across the first week of August now describes a "transformational shift" that is propelling good fortune for Apple - but denting Dell.....
In an ongoing alteration of the consumer PC landscape, Apple laptop sales have surged to a new all-time high over the past 90 days - up from 12 per cent in June to 17 per cent currently. Apple desktop sales (7 per cent; down from 8 per cent) have been solid but unspectacular during that same time period....
But it's the future that truly represents the change. A total of 28 per cent of respondents who plan to purchase a laptop in the next 90 days say they'll get a Mac ....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=18880
A New Challenger to iTunes Is Born
NewsFactor's Barry Levine reports:
If online music stores occupied an actual city block, the vacant storefront across the street from iTunes would now have a sign that a major new competitor is coming soon. That's because MTV Networks, RealNetworks, and Verizon Wireless announced on Tuesday that they are teaming up to challenge Apple's online music powerhouse.
The three companies said that RealNetworks' Rhapsody will become the exclusive digital music service for MTV Networks, including MTV, VH1, and CMT, as well as for Verizon's V-Cast service. The new online music service, which will be available by PC, portable music device, or mobile phone, will take the place of MTV's Urge music service.
For the full report visit here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20070821/tc_nf/54778
PC to Mac Migration, Part 2: iTunes Media Transfer
The Small Wave's Tom says:
Tackling the transfer of iTunes media from the PC to the Mac is complicated by the fact that not all data in iTunes is stored within the file itself. Date last played, ratings, number of plays, and potentially even album art are stored via an XML file. Simply transferring the data files (i.e., the MP3s and AACs) will not retain this data.
From PC to PC (or I believe Mac to Mac), it's easy if you store the files in the same place on both machines. Bring up an "empty" iTunes on the new box to establish the data's location, then shut down iTunes and replace the empty iTunes directory and files it created with the ones from the old machine. In fact this is what I did in "reassigning" my PC to another member of my household.
But the above won't work from PC to Mac (or vice versa) because the libraries cannot be in the same place. If nothing else the PC's slashes in the directory path are foreign to the Mac, which uses colons.
Researching this a bit, I found two possibilities to bring everything over intact. One uses the iPod itself, the other requires editing the XML file .....
For the full report visit here:
http://thesmallwave.blogspot.com/2007/08/pc-to-mac-migration-part-2-itunes-media.html
Hollywood Studios Split On Format To Replace Standard DVD
The International Herald Tribune's Brooks Barnes reports:
The Hollywood battle over which of two technologies will replace standard DVDs has reignited, with two studios throwing their weight behind one format and several rivals showing support for the other.
Paramount, part of Viacom, and DreamWorks Animation said Monday that they would exclusively back the HD DVD format for the release of high-definition movies on disc, spurning the rival format created and backed by Sony. Among the movies that the studios plan to release in the format are "Transformers" and "Shrek the Third."
For the full report visit here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/21/business/dvd.php
Will Apple dump Blu-ray?
The Apple Core's Jason D. O'Grady says:
Paramount and Dreamworks have thrown their support behind HD-DVD in the high-def DVD format wars leaving Blu-Ray behind. So where does that leave Apple?
Apple put their support behind the Blu-ray format in March 2005 when they joined the Blu-ray Disc Association's (BDA) Board of Directors. In October Apple was rumored to adopt both formats with Blu-ray drives supposed to land in the Mac Pro as early as February 2007, but that never came to pass.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=798
Wal-Mart Sells Digital Music Free of Copy Curbs
Reuters reports:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday that it was now selling digital music downloads on its Web site without the customary copy-protection technology that limits where consumers can play the songs.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said its new MP3 music catalog included thousands of albums and songs from major record labels like Vivendi's Universal Music Group and EMI Group without copy-protection software, known as digital rights management.
Wal-Mart said it would sell the "DRM-free" MP3 downloads of music by artists like the Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse and Maroon 5 for 94 cents per track or $9.22 per album.....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3504776
Buying Wal-Mart DRM-Free MP3s on your Mac - A Review
Apple Gazette's Michael reports:
So, today Wal-Mart announced a couple of shockers.
1) They are selling MP3s - completely DRM-Free - from both EMI and Universal Music.
2) They're encoded at 256Kbps.
3) They're only $0.94 cents a song, or $9.22 an album.
So, these higher quality, cheaper songs, will play on any player, including your iPod - so dear Mac User - what's to keep you from downloading them? Nothing, right?
Oh wait…their HAD to be a catch for us, didn't there? I mean, SOMETHING had to make this a Microsoft only deal right?
The store - of course - only works in Internet Explorer.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.applegazette.com/ipod/buying-wal-mart-drm-free-mp3s-on-your-mac-a-review/
MTV, RealNetworks join forces against Apple
News.com's Greg Sandoval reports:
Viacom's MTV has plans to align its digital music strategy with RealNetworks, a move that likely marks the end of a similar partnership between MTV and Microsoft, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.
A year ago, analysts loved the idea that Microsoft appeared to be challenging Apple's powerhouse music store, iTunes, by joining forces with a music-industry icon in MTV.
But MTV's Urge music service fell flat.
For the full report visit here:
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9763079-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
If it can't handle an iPod ... Ford and other automakers adapting to increased need for technology
The Vancouver Sun'sTony Whitney reports:
One of the more intriguing sides of watching other automotive journalists at work on manufacturers' test drive programs is hearing their bitter comments after getting into a new vehicle that doesn't have what seems to be universally called an "iPod hookup."
Even if the vehicle is some megabuck supercar with every imaginable option and a powerplant capable of uprooting tree stumps, it isn't properly equipped until a favourite MP3 player can be connected.
It's amazing how such a small point can mar the overall driving experience, but there's no arguing with the huge success of devices like the iPod.
For the full report click here.
Girls prefer pink: it's official
The Register's Lester Haines reports:
Two Newcastle Uni researchers appear to have confirmed what the manufacturers of "My Little Pony" have known all along: that girls have a natural preference for pink while boys demonstrate a penchant for blue.
Anya C Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of the seat of learning's Institute of Neuroscience and School of Biology and Psychology asked 208 young males and females to select as quickly as possible their colour of choice from coloured rectangles.
According to the Telegraph, "the universal favourite colour appeared to be blue", but when given a spectral choice ranging from "red through blue and green to yellow", women came down in favour of red.
Or rather, pink, as Hurlbert explained: "This shifts their colour preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks and lilacs the most preferred colours."
The bottom line of this ground-breaking probe is that girlie pink is a biological phenomenon, rather than cultural....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/21/girlie_pink/
Biological components of sex differences in colour preference is published in the latest issue of Current Biology:
http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS096098220701559X
The long history of color preference studies has been described as "bewildering, confused and contradictory". Although recent studies tend to agree on a universal preference for 'blue', the variety and lack of control in measurement methods have made it difficult to extract a systematic, quantitative description of preference. Furthermore, despite abundant evidence for sex differences in other visual domains, and specifically in other tasks of color perception, there is no conclusive evidence for the existence of sex differences in color preference. This fact is perhaps surprising, given the prevalence and longevity of the notion that little girls differ from boys in preferring 'pink' . Here we report a robust, cross-cultural sex difference in color preference, revealed by a rapid paired-comparison task. Individual color preference patterns are summarized by weights on the two fundamental neural dimensions that underlie color coding in the human visual system. We find a consistent sex difference in these weights, which, we suggest, may be linked to the evolution of sex-specific behavioral uses of trichromacy.
[Editor's note: Yes, but my wife says she prefers blue and always has. CM]
Toshiba unveils 320GB laptop hard drive
vnunet.com's Matt Chapman reports:
Toshiba has developed a 2.5in hard disk that packs in 320GB of storage, breaking Fujitsu's previous record of 300GB.
The MK3252GSX drive uses two 160GB platters and an 8MB buffer to create its 320GB of storage.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2197117/toshiba-creates-320gb-laptop
iPod-size drives could hit 160GB
Macworld UK's Jonny Evans reports:
Samsung has introduced a 160GB-capacity 1.8in hard drive that could be used in portable devices, including iPods.
Samsung's new Spinpoint N2 160GB drive runs at 4,200rpm. 160GB is sufficient for 40,000 MP3 files or 100 HD quality movies.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=18876
The Mac Night Owl: Is Apple Being Too Secretive?
Before every last one of you gentle readers delivers a collective, ear-shattering "yes" to that question, maybe we should look more carefully at all the possibilities. Could it be that Apple's business strategy works best the way it's being executed, even if we don't like it very much?
Here's the link to the story:
http://www.macnightowl.com/2007/08/21/is-apple-being-too-secretive/
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