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Apple unveiled the iPhone 3.0 software just now in Cupertino. Here's MacWorld's live-action blow-by-blow coverage. The announcement included new features for developers and users. For developers, the big items were in-app purchasing (for example for game upgrades, map content, and subscriptions) for paid apps only; peer-to-peer connectivity via Bluetooth; giving apps access to hardware via the dock connector or Bluetooth; maps embeddable in apps; and push notifications. For users, there's finally cut-copy-paste available in all apps; search across everything in the iPhone; landscape keyboard; MMS messaging; and voice memos. Developer beta starts today and 3.0 will be available in the summer — free for all 3G phones, $10 for iPod Touch.

With the announcement coming tomorrow, Macworld has posted their top list of 15 features they would like to see in an iPhone 3.0 update. The list includes some things that people have been asking for since launch (like cut and paste) and things that were once there but have since been silently removed (like push notifications/background apps). With almost 2 years of time to grow and learn, what other things are woefully inadequate on Apple's popular handheld?

ClaraBow writes with this excerpt from MacWorld: "A small Indiana company has sued tech heavyweights Microsoft, Apple, and Google, claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened. ... Cygnus's owner and president Gregory Swartz developed the technology laid out in the patent while working on IT consulting projects, McAndrews said. The company is looking for 'a reasonable royalty' as well as a court injunction preventing further infringement, he said. ... Cygnus applied for its patent (#7346850) in 2001. It covers a 'System and method for iconic software environment management' and was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office in March of this year."

MacWorld is running a piece from MacJournals.com's for-pay publication detailing how the Safari browser's anti-phishing works. The article takes Apple to task for not thinking enough of its users to bother telling them when Safari sends data off to a third party on their behalf. For it seems that Safari uses the same Google-based anti-phishing technology that Firefox has incorporated since version 2.0, but, unlike Mozilla, tells its users nothing about it. "Even when phrased as friendly to Apple as we can manage, the fact remains that after installing Safari 3.2, your computer is by default downloading lots of information from Google and sending information related to sites you visit back to Google — without telling you, without Apple disclosing the methods, and without any privacy statement from Apple."

PC World takes a look at the performance of the new MacBook Pros compared to models from the middle of 2007. In addition to benchmarking software, they run comparisons on the Crysis demo and the World in Conflict demo. The results show improvement by a significant margin. Additional benchmarks are available at MacWorld. "Crysis shows a similar performance bump, though viewed practically, those numbers might look a little depressing. Crysis arrived in November 2007, but I'm fairly certain I won't be comfortably running it on a MacBook Pro until somewhere north of 2010. Drop the settings to 'medium,' however, and I can vouch that the average frame rate on the November MacBook Pro rested comfortably in the very playable middle 20s."

Paige Philuer writes "Macworld has a hands-on article examining the new MacBook and MacBook Pro — not a quickie look from Tuesday's event, but a lengthy, in-depth look with laptops they actually have in their offices. Some interesting observations: No FireWire on the MacBook; the TrackPad doesn't feel like you're running your finger across a pane of glass, though that's what it is; and switching between graphics cards in the MacBook Pro requires you to log out." Reader Bourbon contributes three links at CNET related to the new models, too: a positive written review (giving a score of 8/10 to the new MacBook), a video review, and a behind-the-scenes look at how the new models are machined.

Steve Jobs just got through announcing new MacBook lines in Cupertino. The MacBook, the Pro, and the Air all got revved. The old line of plastic-body MacBooks drops in price by $100, to $999. The new MacBooks have a metal body and multi-touch trackpad, just like the new Pros. The Pro features two NVidia graphics chips. Quoting Jobs: "With the 9400M, you get 5 hours of battery life, with the 9600M GT you get four hours of battery life. You choose." In summary: "We're building both [MacBook and Pro] in a whole new way. From a slab of aluminum to a notebook. New graphics. New trackpad, the best we've ever built. And LED-backlit displays that are far brighter, instant on, far more environmentally responsible." They are shipping today and should be in stores tomorrow. Oh, and one more thing: Steve's blood pressure is 110/70.

goombah99 writes "After snapping up virtualization company InnoTek at the beginning of the year, Sun has recently released VirtualBox as a fully functional and highly polished free GPL open source x86 Virtual Machine. It can host 32- or 64-bit Linux, Windows XP Vista and 98, OpenSolaris and DOS. It runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix platforms. The download is just 27MB. A review of it on MacWorld, showing HD movies playing inside windows XP on a mac, demonstrates performance visually indistinguishable from VMware. Like its competition, it can run other OSes in rootless, rooted, or seamless modes display modes (where all the applications have their windows mixed at the same time). Each VM instance can only run single core (though I/O is multi-core), and it does not yet support advanced windows graphics libraries however, so some gamers may be disappointed. Slashdot discussed the InnoTek acquisition earlier.

Despite reports that PayPal may drop support for Apple's Safari browser because it lacks anti-phishing features, PayPal now says it ain't so. Though PayPal telegraphed displeasure with Safari last January, they're now unambiguous about their position: "We have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, including Apple's Safari, from our website."

Macworld is reporting that the conclusion of the wireless auction has ended with many participants having mixed feelings. While bigger companies hailed it as a success, including Google who didn't actually bid to win but was able to get open access rules introduced, many smaller companies were left feeling that they were doomed from the start. "A former mail carrier, McBride has been trying his luck at FCC auctions since 1996. He said new rules for the auction favored large companies with deep pockets. For example, the FCC shortened the amount of time that the winners would have to build their networks. "All that did was prevent small businesses from coming in. They were scared of the build-out requirements," he said."

Steve Jobs demonstrated a new "App Store" that will be pushed out to all iPhones in June. It's available now in beta. This will be the exclusive avenue developers will use to get their iPhone apps, written to the newly released SDK, to customers. Developers will get 70% of the proceeds from sales of their goods on the App store, with no further charges for hosting, credit-card processing, etc. Jobs called this "the best deal going to distribute applications in the mobile space."

jetpack writes to make sure we're aware that Apple's OS X 10.5.2 update is available and that it contains plenty of improvements and fixes that users have been asking for. Macworld enumerates some of the big ones, saying that the update "shows Apple listens to users" (sometimes). A couple of the new features simply restore Tiger (10.4) capabilities that Leopard (10.5) had inexplicably withdrawn. You can now shut off the much-maligned transparency of the menu bar, and organize your Dock stacks hierarchically and display them as folders. And Apple has provided welcome access to common Time Machine functions in the menu bar.

Apple made four announcements at MacWorld Expo: the new MacBook Air, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and movie rentals via iTunes from a TV without a computer involved. The new portable gets most of the attention. It is 0.76" thick at the thickest part, tapering to 0.16". It weighs 3 pounds and has a 13.3" screen and full-size, backlit keyboard. Its Intel chip is the diameter of a dime and the thickness of a nickel. The MacBook Air will cost $1799 and up. Its storage is either 80 GB disk or 64 GB solid-state drive. 2 GB of memory. It has no optical drive (an external one is available for $99) and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.

Bogie Lowenstein is one of many readers letting us know that the FTC has approved Google's acquisition of DoubleClick in a 4-to-1 vote. The FTC essentially blew off the privacy concerns about the merger, saying it lacked the legal authority to block the deal on any grounds except antitrust. The EU's review of the deal is still going forward, with a decision due by April 2, 2008; the privacy sensibility there is more sharply focused.

Yeti7226 sends word of a discussion coming up Wednesday in the parliament of The Netherlands that could result in mandated use of Open Document Format at government agencies there. If the plan is enacted, public-sector organizations, as well as the government, would have to transition to using ODF by 2010. Microsoft Netherlands has lobbied hard against the provision. Backers say it doesn't exclude Microsoft, because ODF can be produced out of MS Office via the use of plugins. A funder of the OpenDoc Society invited Microsoft to join that organization, saying: "This plan is not about Microsoft, it's about ensuring the perpetual availability of data without any obstacles."

Bergkamp10 writes "Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a new study. A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Net by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to US $137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study by Nemertes Research Group. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said. Quoting from the study: 'Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.' Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year."

dnormant writes "Suits have been filed against 25 companies by the SanDisk corporation this week, as the company looks to stop businesses from shipping products it alleges are infringing on its work. SanDisk has filed suits against everyone from MP3 player manufacturers to USB hard drive creators. The list of defendants is staggering, and MacWorld notes if Sandisk succeeds it could have repercussions outside of the courtroom. 'The company filed two lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, one alleging the infringement of five patents in the ITC complaint, and another one including two additional patents not involved in the ITC action. The court and ITC complaints could affect the prices and availability of products made by companies targeted in the suit if SanDisk wins and the companies are barred from importing products into the U.S.'"

Damon Tog writes "Macworld reports that Universal Music Group has enlisted the help of Sony to join forces in a new music service. The price of the subscription is expected to be built-in to the cost of digital music players, leaving the music 'free' to the consumer. 'The plan is still in flux and faces several hurdles, BusinessWeek notes. Among them is finding a business model that allows the hardware makers to subsidize the cost of the music. In addition, the labels have tried to develop their own online music services before without success.'"

Ant writes "Macworld reports that people in the U.S. have steadily increased the amount of time they spend watching videos online, as Google's YouTube remains by far their preferred video site, according to a study. In July, almost 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched videos online, up from 71.4 percent in March, according to comScore Networks. The monthly time spent watching videos went up to an average of 181 minutes per viewer in July from 145 minutes per viewer in March, according to comScore. In July, the average user watched 68 clips, up from 55 clips in March. Overall, almost 134 million U.S. Internet users watched a little over 9 billion video clips in July, up from 126.6 million people and a little over 7 billion clips in March."

reddburn writes "Macworld has posted a story by IDN News Service about a hacker who posted instructions for saving streaming movies from Netflix, defeating Microsoft's DRM code designed to prevent users from saving the content. From the article: 'A hacker who calls himself Dizzie wrote late last month on the Rorta hacking forum that "Netflix doesn't easily allow you to save the flicks and watch them at your leisure because the films are entrapped in some ... Windows Media DRM wrapper," referring to Microsoft's DRM system. Word of his hack spread more widely this week in various blogs and Web sites...He writes that the process for removing the DRM could take a few attempts, and the process does not remove the time limit imposed by Netflix on viewing the content. The Netflix site was down for maintenance early Thursday, although it was unclear if it was related to the hack. The site was back up later Thursday morning.'"

Thomas Hawk writes "Unfortunately it appears that some activations of Apple's new iPhone have gone badly. After waiting in line 36 hours I'm still unable to activate my phone. I'm documenting the AT&T circus call by call on my blog. I've had my hold calls dropped, been patched into other users unable to activate their phone instead of AT&T customer service reps, been told that my wife must get a new phone and that the family plan can't work for me. I've been told that the problem is that I'm not putting a new chip into my iPhone in the slot on the left side of my phone when no slot there exists. PR Blogger Steve Rubel has also been documenting his problems on his Twitterstream. According to an unscientific poll being conducted by Engadget about half of the people who bought iPhones have had activation trouble with about 38% of problems still unresolved." Even the folks at MacWorld weren't immune to these issues.

ClaraBow writes "Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows. If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users, then we just might have a third major browser on the Windows platform. If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers."

Llywelyn writes "Apple has released an update to the Windows Safari 3 Beta. According to Macworld the updates '...include correction for a command injection vulnerability, corrected with additional processing and validation of URLs that could otherwise lead to an unexpected termination of the browser; an out-of-bounds memory read issue; and a race condition that can allow cross-site scripting using a JavaSscript [sic] exploit.' It is available through either the Apple Safari download site or through Apple's Software Update."

Anarchysoft writes "In an exciting shift from previous statements, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed at the D Conference that 3rd-party development will be supported on the iPhone. Questions remain as to whether the opening of the platform, slated for later this year, will be through Dashboard-like widgets or a separate SDK."

99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "For some time Mac users have been waiting to see who would bring 3D graphics to a Windows emulation/virtualization solution under OS X. It looks like Parallels is going to be the winner. They have announced an RC of Parallels 3.0, with the final to be available 'in a few weeks.' For anyone else tired of Bootcamp or rebooting to play a Windows game, it look like the solution is finally here; I'm not counting out VMWare entirely. Obviously it will depend on how soon they can catch up, but there is some serious first-mover advantage here for Parallels."

Consumers could soon be able to make several legal copies of movies bought on HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc under a new licensing agreement now being negotiated. Rights holders might charge more for discs that can be copied for backup or for use on a media server, however.

BostonBTS sends word that the French Constitutional Council has just made it illegal to film violence unless you are a professional journalist (or to distribute a video containing violence). The law was approved exactly 16 years after amateur videographer George Holliday filmed Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King. The Council was tidying up a body of law about offenses against the public order, and wanted to ban "happy slapping." A charitable reading would be that the lawmakers stumbled into unintended consequences. Not according to Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi: "The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said [Cohet]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet."

slashdotwriter writes "Macworld features an article stating that the next version of Office for the Mac will not include Visual Basic scripting. From the article: 'Microsoft Office isn't among the apps that will run natively on Intel-based Macs — and it won't be until the latter half of 2007, according to media reports. But when it does ship, Office will apparently be missing a feature so vital to cross-platform compatibility that I believe it will be the beginning of the end for the Mac version of the productivity suite...'"

ApolloX writes "New Macbook Pro Benchmarks are now available. From the article: 'Like the iMac before it, Apple's MacBook Pro underwent an upgrade highlighted by a chip swap — the Core Duo processor that used to power Apple's pro laptop is gone, replaced by the next-generation Core 2 Duo. And as with our iMac benchmarks, these updated Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro models show a modest performance gain when compared to older systems running on Core Duo chips with the same clock speeds.' As expected, the new 15-inch Intel Dual Core 2 (2.33Ghz/2GB RAM) is the new king of Apple portables, with results for the 17-inch model still pending."

dptalia writes "MacWorld reports that MySpace is going to start implementing audio fingerprinting to prevent copyrighted material from appearing on their site. The new technology will be used to review all uploads and prevent 'inappropriate' material from ever seeing the light of day."

Frank writes "Apple quietly released a pair of patches today to its wireless drivers. The patches (one for PowerPC, one for Intel) address distinct buffer overflow vulnerabilities found during an internal audit in response to the claim that fuzzing the drivers resulted in an exploitable failure."

ack154 writes, "With so much recent news surrounding Apple's upcoming iTV system, their timing may be nearly perfect. Ars Technica gives the rundown on a recent report, released from Accenture, stating that about half of users surveyed across the globe are now looking to get downloadable videos, movies and other content onto their TV. Based on the article, if Apple can get the right combination in features, price, and usability, many consumers may be ready to eat it up. Macworld has more speculation on Apple's potential living room dominance."

davidmcg writes "Macworld are reporting that Apple is hosting a special media event on Tuesday, September 12th 2006 in San Francisco, CA at 10AM Pacific. The event will also be simulcast to a location in London where journalists have also been invited. The invitation to the media was entitled It's Showtime — suggesting Movie-related announcements. Rumors sites had originally expected iMac updates during the event, but Apple surprised everyone with iMac and Mac mini updates last week. This leaves iPods, a Movie Store and the possibility of a new streaming Media device for the Tuesday event."

Glenn Fleishman writes "Apple tells Macworld.com that the Wi-Fi exploit demonstrated at Black Hat 2006 in a video doesn't show a flaw in their hardware or software. A third-party USB adapter with different chips and drivers was used, and Apple says the two researchers haven't provided Apple with code or a demonstration showing a working exploit on Apple equipment. The researchers added a note at their Web site confirming that only an unnamed third-party adapter was used. This doesn't mean the researchers have no flaw to show, but rather that their nose-thumbing at Apple users who were too secure in their security was misplaced, at least at present. The researcher's claim that they were providing information to Apple now seems off-base, too."

Dotnaught writes "TransGaming Inc. is making its 'Cider' portability engine for Apple's Intel-based Macs available to Windows game developers. The software promises to let Windows games run on Intel Macs without Windows or Apple's Boot Camp. 'Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs,' the company claims. Cider is a software for game developers, not end-users. Cider-enhanced games are scheduled to appear as soon as October. If Cider works well, will there be any more Mac-specific game development? And if not, will it matter?"

GnoWay writes "Macworld is reporting that the IRS has charged Symantec Corporation with about a 900 million dollar tax bill due to the charge that Symantec and Veritas (purchased by Symantec last year) under-reported the value of intellectual property which they had transferred to their two Irish subsidiaries. Another $100 million is connected to Symantec's 2003 and 2004 reports."

An anonymous reader writes to mention a MacWorld article covering research by the Forrester group. Their report shows that mass dissatisfaction with Microsoft and its products could lead to defections from the company. From the article: "Over all, only Apple and Tivo saw their brand trust rise in the last two years, according to the report. The final tally saw Bose, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic and Sony earn the highest marks, while Microsoft, Gateway and LG ranked lowest. The low scores for Microsoft could mean good news for Apple as consumers showed their distrust of the Redmond-based software-giant."

sbowles writes "U.S. District Court has set Feb 24th as the next date for a hearing to consider a possible injunction against Research in Motion. Despite this, RIM shares are rising on news that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), under pressure from crackberry-addicted Congressmen, may be moving to invalidate NTP's patents. As a contingency, RIM has announced that they have a software workaround that will allow service to continue uninterrupted."

madgunde writes "Looks like MacWorld magazine was a little premature in reporting that the new Apple iMac Core Duo doesn't live up to Apple's speed claims. The folks over at MacSpeedZone have done some performance testing of their own that debunks MacWorld's results and shows that the new iMac Core Duo DOES live up to the hype. Not only did the new iMac wipe the floor with the old model in their tests, but using MacWorld's own test methodology would allow MacSpeedZone to conclude that the new Intel iMac is almost as fast as a PowerMac Quad G5. " I see only one way to solve this: Give me one. I'll run WoW on it, and decide.

Barry Norton writes "Steve Jobs, at the MacWorld tradeshow, boasted: 'the new iMac [with] Intel processor is two to three times faster than the iMac G5.' MacWorld (the publication) has been putting the iMacs through their paces. The results are a good deal less impressive than Steve's boast, showing an average performance increase of 10 to 25 per cent while performing a series of everyday tasks with software specially designed for the new systems." Ars Technica had another perspective on the new systems earlier this week.

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Stallman's comments on GPLv3, Firefly fans clinging to hope, sentence handed down in student felony webpage refresh case, GP2X GPL issues resolved, Korean cloning scientist may get to keep his patents, Apple changes their tune for iTunes ministore, and much more -- Read on for details.

Richard Stallman speaks on GPLv3 and patents. Elton J. Won writes "A public forum on the updated GPL was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although Stallman solicited comments from forum attendees. he made clear that the GPL version 3 will not alter the license's basic stance on software patents. From the article: 'the GPL version 3 is explicitly meant to discourage litigation based on software patents. "This is not a placeholder. This is the text we currently plan to go with unless we're surprised by seeing a better idea," Stallman said.'" Relatedly RMS also recently expounded on some of these thoughts in an interview with PCPro.

Firefly fans refuse to go quietly into the night. CMGaretJax writes "The Browncoats, a fan group based around the hit cult TV show Firefly, and the more recent movie, Serenity, have set up a website for donations from people who want to see another season of Firefly. So far they have raised $840 dollars against an estimated cost of 1 million per episode. An admirable attempt, and one that will hopefully pick up steam, the show really is too pretty to die."

Student receives sentence for felony web-page charge. EMB Numbers writes to tell us that Michael Stone, the student who was recently charged with a felony for encouraging others to bog down a school server with web page refreshes, has cut a deal with the prosecutor for a lesser misdemeanor offense -- criminal mischief. Stone was given a suspended sentence of 60 days in jail along with 20 hours of community service. Although he declined to comment on camera Stone's mother stated that she appreciate all the support he received from the online community.

GP2X GPL issues resolved. gizmateer writes to tell us that after quite a bit of noise from the online community it appears that Gamepark has bowed to the pressure and will be releasing the source for the most recent version of the GP2X firmware. From the article: "Please stop posting to this board about GPL. Dignsys will post up the sources to the new firmware version 1.3.0 next week on http://source.gp2x.de. They intend to release it once the binaries to said firmware have been released."

Korean cloning scientist may get to keep his patents. Billosaur writes "According to an article on the New Scientist web site, disgraced Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo-Suk may get to keep his patents for the process of creating embryonic stem cells via cloning human embryos. Already the UK patent office is looking into the validity of the patents in Europe. From the article: 'As long as an invention is not clearly contrary to scientific laws - like time travel - research has no bearing on the grant of a patent.'"

Apple changes their tune for iTunes mini store. jjbelsky writes "Apple has modified the iTunes MiniStore in response to the anger caused by its release of personal information. All users of iTunes, whether or not the music store is enabled, are now presented with a page informing them that when a song is selected 'information about that item is sent to Apple.' Users who do not click on the 'Turn on MiniStore' button will not have their privacy invaded."

Targets of RIAA lawsuit turn on i2hub operator. Doros writes "After being forced to fork over thousands of dollars to the RIAA, students want i2hub operator Wayne Chang to cover their losses. From the article: 'At least 42 students have been named as defendants in John Doe lawsuits filed by the recording industry. The industry trade group has offered to settle each case for $3,750, lawyers for the students said Tuesday. "Had the students known that they were exposing themselves to copyright infringement liability by using the i2hub service, they likely would not have used the service," the legal group wrote.'"

Adults exempt from Chinese online limits. Dotnaught writes "The Chinese government has yielded to pressure from adult online gamers and exempted them from its online gaming addiction policy. The rules, which went into effect last October, require that after five hours of consecutive play, players cease earning any virtual rewards such as experience points or beneficial items. To avail themselves of the exemption, some 26 million gamers will have to register their real names and identity card numbers with the authorities. The system hasn't proven particularly effective -- minors reportedly skirt the limits by logging onto different accounts or switching to another game after reaching the time limit."

Bill Thompson follows up Mac security remarks. Bralkein writes to tell us that in response to the overwhelming amount of feedback Bill Thompson received on his recent Mac security article, he has penned a response to his critics. In his reply, he admits that there were a few flaws in his article, and he acknowledges the high level of security provided by OS X's UNIX foundations. However, he stands by his assertion that the Mac cannot boast complete immunity to all security problems. As a Mac user himself, he still believes that the Mac community needs to remember that security is still an issue for them, too.

daveschroeder writes "According to MacWorld and BoingBoing: 'An Apple spokesman (reliable word has it that it was Steve Jobs himself) told MacWorld that Apple discards the personal information that the iTunes Ministore transmits to Apple while you use iTunes. [...] Apple tells us that the information is not actually being collected. The data sent is used to update the MiniStore and then discarded.' Apple also has a knowledge base article, which apparently was available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was introduced, explaining the MiniStore behavior and how to disable it: 'iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.'" The discussion about this topic was fast and furious yesterday.

Steve Jobs began giving his keynote at 9am local time, PST. The action was posted live at MacRumorsLive, and Engadget. From the Engadget liveblog: "How many [iPods] did we sell last quarter? Some of the estimates were getting astronomical - 8 million, 9 million. I'm really pleased to announce that last quarter we sold 14 million iPods .. that is over a hundred every minute, 24/7 throughout the quarter. And it still wasnt enough. We've now sold over 42 million iPods -- as you can see the curve is going up again" MacWorld and Ars Technica has coverage as well. The shiniest news: MacBook Pro. iSight, Front Row; $1999 1.67 Core Duo; 667 DDR bus, Radeon x1600; $2499 1.83GHz. Intel chip.

tsa writes "Microsoft says that the consumers should have the choice between multiple open standards for documents." From the article: "Microsoft's Yates said that OpenDocument and Open XML come from very different design points. 'In the future at some point there will be convergence,' he said. In the near term, the transition period from proprietary document formats to Open XML-based ones will be 'messy and complex,' he added. 'Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.'"

An anonymous reader writes to tell us MacWorld is reporting that Verso, a US company based in Atlanta, GA, has just begun a paid trial for 'NetSpective'. Verso hopes to use NetSpective, and M-Class filter to block VoIP calls made using Skype in China. From the article: "While Verso said in its release that the use of Skype is illegal in China, the situation is more nuanced. Chinese government officials have been generally tolerant of VoIP software, such as Skype, that is used to make calls from one PC to another. But the ability of Skype users to make calls to a phone via the SkypeOut service is more sensitive, because this directly affects the revenue that operators such as China Telecom earn from international phone calls." This seems to be just another in the continuing campaign of China vs VoIP.

Sullivan writes "Maccentral is running a story on a startup called Splashpower that hopes to be able to wirelessly recharge all of our handheld devices. They have a working prototype that already recharges an iPod Mini and a cell phone. Now we can look forward to yet another way to get brain cancer."

Sanity writes "According to a Macworld story, Intel is standing up for the interests of consumers in the war between Blue-ray and HD-DVD, by making its support for either format contingent on support for 'mandatory managed copy', the ability to copy content to 'home servers' so that it can be accessed from around the home. While it is refreshing to see someone consider the (often ignored) interest of consumers in the world of DRM, it appears that 'mandatory managed copy' will still allow content producers to limit what consumers can do with the content and equipment they own well beyond the limitations imposed by copyright law. Thus the question over DRM remains: should we be policed by our own property?"

An Anonymous Reader writes "Macworld has a piece looking at why Apple chose Intel chips over AMD's offerings when it decided to move away from IBM." From the article: "The reason, industry analysts say, is that Jobs has a clear goal in mind: innovative designs. And such designs require the lowest-voltage chips, which IBM and Freescale were not going to make with the PowerPC chip core--and which AMD has not yet perfected 'This is a practical, pragmatic Steve Jobs decision,' says Shane Rau, Program Manager, PC Semiconductors for market research firm IDC. Intel serves up the most complete line of low-power chips for mobile and small form factor computers, and a good-looking future roadmap for it. Also, Intel's mammoth production capacity erases any supply worries. "

adpowers writes "Lots of updates today on the Apple front. First we have the iPod nano, which is an iPod photo-esque replacement for the iPod mini. It comes in 2 and 4 gig varieties and is half the thickness of the mini it replaces. A new iTunes is release as well, which looks similar to Mail.app. I'm not sure I like the cosmetic changes. It also touts an improved search bar, but I can't find an explanation of what that means. Finally, Apple, Motorola, and Cingular announced the ROKR E1, which has the iTunes on a cellular phone. (Theorized last week.) It syncs with iTunes just like an iPod." Coverage of the Apple news extravaganza available at The NYT, Forbes, Gizmodo, Mobiledia, and Macworld.

indie1982 writes "BBC News online is reporting that Creative has been awarded the patent for the interface that many MP3 players use. The patent covers the way files are organised and navigated on a player using a using a hierarchy of menus, a system that Creative's own Nomad jukebox and Apple's iPod range use." Commentary also available at CNet. Reports trend towards an attempt to capitalize on Apple's mistake. From the BBC article: "Creative said the patent applied to its players, as well as some competing products such as the Apple's iPod and iPod mini. The patent covers how files on a music player are organised. Creative was one of the first companies to produce MP3 players but has lost out to Apple which dominates the market. The Creative announcement is the latest salvo in its self-declared war against Apple. "