Apple's brand hurts IT, edu markets

Apple's powerful brand--which has helped the company boost its profits and marketshare--is hurting the company when it comes to enterprise and education markets. A new column says that while Apple currently putting significant effort into gaining major penetration of the education market in the UK, it is facing major hurdles: "Unfortunately, Apple is still perceived from its brand as 'specialist IT' and 'consumerist.' with its computers being favored by the media industry, and its impressive recent fortunes being delivered on the back of iPods and iTunes. This does not just apply in the education market but also in mainstream business, where I have often been told by Butler Group subscribers that they would not consider the 1u rack-mounted Xserve as a replacement for their Dell or IBM server, because Apple 'are best at iPods and design' and 'are not a real computing company.'"

Windows Vista reaches Release Candidate

Microsoft's next-generation operating system Windows Vista has reached Release Candidate stage. Although the company has often been maligned for its frequent delays to Windows Vista, fears of further delays have been partially addressed by the completion of Vista Release Candidate 1, which as announced today by Microsoft executive Jim Allchin in the official development team blog. Vista RC1 will initially seed to developers and hardware manufacturers: though a public release is also scheduled, it has not been formally announced. Electronista.com reports that "response to the quality of recent builds has been much more positive than for Beta 2, which invited criticism even from long-term Microsoft supporters for its poor performance and unnecessarily strict User Account Control feature." Yesterday, Microsoft accidently leaked pricing on its website, which revealed that it plans to charge $199 for a Windows Vista Home Basic license, with additional licenses fetching $179.

Sakura ships Scary forest arcade game

Sakura Games today released a new arcade game called Scary Forest, a breakout-style game with a fun horror movie theme, according to the developer: "You'll be able to play through 50 levels of various difficulty, or challenge your friend in a head to head 2 players mode.The fullversion also features a level editor so users can even create new levels themselves. The available level types are 3: normal game, monsters level and timed level. In all playing modes, you win if you manage to clear the board from all the bricks. The first mode plays like a normal breakout game with bonuses, etc. In the second mode, you also have to face some scary ghosts (maybe not so scary) that will try to stop you from clearing the level, but you'll be able to hit them and push them away from the board." A demo of the $10 game is available online.

Firefox 2.0 beta adds new feaures

Mozilla has released Beta 2 of its upcoming Firefox 2 browser for developer review, which it said is being made available for testing purposes only. According to the developers, the release contains a number of new features, as well as some enhancements to look and feel, according to eWEEK: "Firefox 2 Beta 2 is intended for Web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Firefox 1.x should not use Firefox 2 Beta 2 and expect all of their extensions and plugins to work properly." The report notes that the final Firefox 2.0 is expected to be completed in early 2007; but it does expect to release future beta versions are expected to be released this fall and winter. Beta two includes an updated GUI to improve usability, buit-in phishing protection, and enhanced search capabilities.

Koingo releases Data Guardian 1.0

Koingo Software today released its new cross-platform shareware product: Data Guardian 1.0. Data Guardian is a secure, Universal Binary, database application for storing passwords, credit card numbers, adressses, notes, customer databases, and more. It features up to 448-bits of encryption, and integration with Keychain for auto-form-filling. Data Guardian is the merger and sucessor of two of Koingo Software's previous products: Contact Keeper and Password Retriever. "With the power of both of these products combined, you now have the flexibility of importing a wide range of data, dialing phone numbers, composing e-mails, launching web URLs, auto-fillig forms in Safari, inserting pictures into records, and printing records in an easy to read graphical format," the developer said in its press release. It is available now for $20.

Google CEO declines Apple options grant

Apple said in a filing on Friday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has declined stock options offered to new directors and will instead buy shares on the open market. The company said that Schmidt turned down the automatic stock option grant to purchase 30,000 shares, to which new directors are entitled to under a company stock option plan. Instead, Schmidt intends to purchase 10,000 shares of Apple stock on the open market.

Forums: Safari 3, 23-inch iMac

Forums roundup: Members are discussing a video which surfaced on YouTube showing revised tabbed browsing in Safari 3.0 beta, the final version of which will ship with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.... Other users discuss the possibility of Apple releasing a 23-inch iMac following rumors that it may surface on the 12th of September.... A user looks to the forum members to see if there are still problems with MacBooks after production week 30 -- after which no major problems have been reported yet.... Others are discussing hard drive update possibilities for laptops, comparing high-speed to standard-speed drives--investigating the pitfalls of both.... Meanwhile, other users look at the reduced price of the ATI Radeon X1900XT and the tempting value of the card.

TeachMac tutorial software now Universal

Created Equal today released a major update to its TeachMac tutorial software. With a growing library of free and low cost multimedia modules (tutorial files), TeachMac provides computer training solution for home, school, and business. TeachMac v3 is now a Universal application running natively on PowerPC- and Intel-Macs. It also features improved video quality, a search feature, a kiosk mode, and faster downloads. Also included in the is a new tutorial creation application beta called Module maker. “Anyone who can do a screen capture and use iMovie can make a module,” says Created Equal CEO Byron Turner. Vesion 3.0 of TeachMac also adds compatibility with the newly released Windows counterpart, TeachIT. Both TeachMac and TeachIT are free, but offer $50/year subscription packages which run modules for all users on host machine, run modules on any machine the user owns, and enable download and use with no purchase dialogue interruption. TeachMac requires any Mac with a PowerPC G3 or better running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher with QuickTime 7 or later. [Download - 3.8MB]

Apple settles iTunes lawsuit...

Apple has settled a lawsuit that claims it used designs from another company for its iTunes application. David Contois, owner of Contois Music & Technology, was seeking an injunction against the iTunes Music Store along with unspecified damages and legal fees, saying that Apple took the design of iTunes from his own software. Contois claims he received his patent in 1999, two years before Apple's popular iTunes Music Store launched to the masses. Contois alleged that Apple's "current or future employees" viewed his patented software at the several trade shows, and later duplicated it. Contois formally notified Apple of the patent in September of 2004, but says that Apple knew about the patent as early as January 2003. He filed his lawsuit in June of 2005; in June, both sides were arguing over terminology.

MacMice launches black Danger Mouse...

MacMice today launched a new version of its 'flagship' laser mouse: the Danger Mouse USB is now available in a matte black to match the MacBook line. "Since Apple released its black iPod models, and then a black version of the MacBook, more of our customers have been asking for black versions of our MacMice products," CEO M.H. Peng said. The mouse features a matte black design with two buttons, and a clicking scroll wheel. Danger Mouse's laser tracking has a 1600 DPI resolution, which not only helps accuracy, but also allows the mouse to be used on a greater variety of surfaces. Like other MacMice, the Danger Mouse features the MicroScroll notchless mini scroll wheel along with a five foot USB cable; it works with the standard mouse drivers included in either Mac OS X or Windows. The Danger Mouse BLK will be shipping in September to US customers only, and can be pre-ordered now for $30. [image included]

SWF Movie Player 2 comes to Mac

Eltima Software has introduced a new standalone SWF Movie Player for Mac OS X. Unlike the regular Macromedia Flash Player, the player offers features which allow control of Flash movies. These controls allow users to pause, fast forward and rewind the movie using flexible controls and sliders, while also allow users to create and manipulate playlists, zoom in and out any area of the movie, set playback quality, preview FLV files, and watch the movie in a full screen mode. All of the advanced features presented in SWF Movie Player combine are available within a 'clean' user-friendly interface to match the Mac OS X experience, according to the developer. The Pro version allows users to save currently played Flash movie to the hard drive no matter whether it is loaded from the web site or locally, switch to full-screen viewing mode, fully preview and manage FLV files. The basic version is free of charge while a 'Pro' version is available for $20. Both applications are Universal Binaries (detailed system requirements not available).

Foxconn ordered to allow worker unions

The Chinese government has ordered a Chinese supplier of Apple's iPod to let its more than 200,000 workers set up a trade union, according to the Associated Press. "Hongfujin Precision Industry Co., which operates Foxconn, is on a list of companies in the southern city of Shenzhen that have been ordered to set up such a union. The new union would be affiliated to the government's All-China Federation of Trade Unions, according to the report. While China does not allow independent labor organizing, it has recently been pushing companies with foreign investors to allow the state-sanctioned labor groups. Many other foreign companies have already allowed such unions to be set up in their China operations, the report says. Earlier this summer, Foxconn was accused of unfair labor practices in its iPod factories; however, an Apple investigation only revealed a few violations of its Code of Conduct for suppliers. Following the investigation, Foxconn's owner filed a defamation lawsuit against two journalists for their followup report on the iPod labor abuses, but later reduced the damages it was seeking.

10-bit uncompressed HD eSATA for Mac...

CalDigit has released the S2VR high speed SATA 3Gb/s interface which makes it possible to support over 230MB/s 10 bit HD capture and playback. The new external RAID solution has five hard drive trays and is able to run in three different modes; performance, protected, or JBOD. In performance mode, the S2VR HD utilizes five SATA drives for maximum performance to serve 10-bit uncompressed HD formats as well as 8-bit uncompressed HD, 10-bit uncompressed SD, 8-bit uncompressed SD, DVCPRO HD, HDV, and DV realtime video playback. The CalDigit S2VR costs $2000 and requires no additional items. Included in this package is a PCIe or PCI-x HBA (FASTA-4e or FASTA-4x) card and eSATA cable; CalDigit offers single vendor support for all the products, eliminating incompatibility concerns. The S2VR HD is compatible with Windows and the latest Mac OS X G5 computers; it available for $2000. [images, charts included]

Nucleo Pro introduces render as you work

GridIron software announced the immediate availability of GridIron Nucleo Pro, a productivity enhancement tool which optimizes the workflow for visual effects artists working in Adobe After Effects on multi-processor and multi-core computers. Originally, Nucleo was released for After Effects users to allow the program to utilize all CPUs in a computer for faster rendering -- Nucleo Pro takes these tasks further by attempting to make the After Effects workflow more streamlined. Nucleo Pro features the ability to render while you work with Spec Preview and Spec Render, detecting changes and regenerating the frames or appropriates the files as the render continues. It also offers the ability to send renders to the background using the new Background Render Queue and continue working in After Effect alongside the ability to commit certain layers to disk to have Nucleo Pro render only the specified layers. Nucleo Pro costs $500 and is available for both Mac OS X and Windows. Nucleo Pro is a Universal Binary and requires Adobe Acrobat 7 or later running on a multi-processor or multi-core system with a minimum of 2GB of RAM.

Customer receives updated Mac mini

According to a forum post on MacBidouille, one Apple customer reports receiving an upgraded Mac mini when they purchased a 1.5GHz Core Solo Mac mini. The computer they received 1.66GHz Core Duo model which included a 100GB hard drive (higher than the 60GB drie expected) and a SuperDrive (opposed to Combo drive anticipated). AppleInsider reports that this would not be the first time that Apple has silently upgraded a computer, allegedly in an attempt to clear inventory of old products. In fact, the last PowerPC revision to the Mac mini line occurred this very way when Apple began shipping 1.33GHZ G4s in place of 1.25GHz G4s and 1.5GHz G4s in place of 1.42GHz models within the same retail boxes. Previous reports indicated that Apple may be allowing the Mac mini inventory to drain as it has been refusing bulk orders -- historically a sign of a product update soon.