Apple, carriers agree to UK royalties...

Apple's iTunes and mobile operators including Vodafone on Thursday agreed on royalty rates to pay song writers and music publishers for digital downloads in Britain to partly resolve a dispute, according to Reuters. Under terms of the deal, Apple and four mobile operators will pay 8 percent of gross revenue, excluding VAT, for all music sold digitally excluding ringtones--extending a reduced price agreement that has been in place for four years. Under a previous deal, the law stated that the song writers and publishers must receive 12 percent; however, the royalty had been temporarily reduced to 8 percent based on a mutual agreement. The new agreement also implements a 6.5 percent royalty rate for non-on-demand services such as streaming, according to the report. The deal was announced in a joint statement by the trade group representing record labels, BPI, and MCPS-PRS Alliance, which fixes and collects royalties on behalf of the composers, song writers and music publishers.

SNS releases Postmap public beta

Studio Network Solutions (SNS) today released the public beta of Postmap, its new search and management software for post-production workgroups. The application is designed to quickly locate folders as well as fires stored locally and remotely, online or offline. Postmap features include scan/search functionality allowing users to schedule and selectively scan the contents of SANs, file servers, FireWire/USB disks, CDs, and DVDs. The scanning process creates a searchable online database of file metadata available for query by all Postmap clients regardless of the data's current state. Postmap is available to the industry as a public beta and is scheduled for launch during the fourth quarter of 2006.

Perfect Pitch Keynote theme debuts

Divine Fiat today released its Perfect Pitch theme set for Apple's Keynote software. Perfect Pitch is designed as a combination of the company's Title Card themes and its Take Two theme. "While ideal for a wide variety of presentations, the Perfect Pitch themes were designed with film, TV and video professionals in mind," said Divine Fiat. "The 4-to-3 and 16-to-9 photo cutouts are perfect for introducing employers, clients or potential investors to your next project. Perfect Pitch is also ideal for students or professors at film school." Each theme in the set includes 55 text and photo layout masters, as well as an extras file providing a variety of text box layouts for each photo cutout master. The Perfect Pitch theme set is available for $45, and requires Keynote 3.0.

Drive Genius supports Intel-based Macs

Prosoft today announced that the latest version of Drive Genius now supports Intel-based Macs. Drive Genius, a Mac OS X utility designed to provide hard drive management, offers an easy-to-use interface for a variety of disk utilities, including a drive optimizer, volume/drive/media analysis, volume repair/rebuild, and performance benchmarking and data integrity checking. It can be used to initialize drives, create and delete partitions, and securely erase the data. In addition, Drive Genius features advanced tools for resizing and moving of volumes without reformatting, and sports a sector-editing tool to modify the data on any sector of the drive. "We're excited to provide this new version of Drive Genius that is now Universal Binary that will maintain, manage, and optimize your PowerPC-based Macs and the most recently released Intel-based Macs,” says Greg Brewer, president and CEO of Prosoft Engineering. Drive Genius is available as a Universal Binary for $100 and runs on Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

Apple offers iLife, other iApp updates

Apple today released updates for its iLife suite and other "iApp" applications to add support for Aperture 1.5: iMovie HD 6.0.3 addresses compatibility for accessing Aperture 1.5 content in iMovie HD and also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. iPhoto 6.0.5, an update to the company bundled all-one photo organizing/editing application, adds new calendar, greeting card, and postcard themes for use with Apple print services, including a variety of holiday card designs. As with the other updates, it also addresses compatibility for accessing Aperture 1.5 content in iPhoto. In addition, the company released Keynote 3.0.2, Pages 2.0.2, iWeb 1.1.2, iDVD 6.0.3, and GarageBand 3.04--all of which addresses compatibility for accessing Aperture 1.5 content in their respective applications.

SoftCare to debut K4 5.7 at IfraExpo...

SoftCare today announced plans to introduce SoftCare K4 5.7 at this year's IfraExpo in Amsterdam, an update to its editorial system based on Adobe InDesign due to ship in the fourth quarter of 2006. The latest revision of K4 connects to the DC5 asset management system by Digital Collections and MegaGrove by Poundhill Software, while K4 Web Editor 2.0 -- in connection with SoftCare K4 -- enable users to write directly into a Web browser with a preview by Adobe InDesign Server. Softcare is also introducing its new K2 publishing solution to the public, which is an editorial system designed for small workgroups based on the same basic technical principals as SoftCare K4 (pricing and system requirements were unavailable).

Briefly: Unbox dubbed a "horror show"

In brief: Fortune Magazine has reviewed Amazon's Unbox movie service, dubbing it a "horror show" and giving the online movie store two thumbs down.... One blogger has posted photos of the new Slingbox packaging in Best Buy with two Mac logos on the side, and was apparently told by a company spokesperson that it is planning to target Mac software within 30 days.... A new report suggests that Apple is preparing to launch refreshed iSight cameras and AirPort Extreme base stations to comply with an environmental directive that has barred sales of those devices overseas for over the last three months.... DeCarta today announced an extended invitation to register for its second annual developer's conference on October 4-5th at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF in San Francisco.... Take Control Books has unveiled its latest ebook entitled "Take Control of Getting Started with Dreamweaver" ($10) which is written to help readers create a modern professional website.

Lenovo recalls 526,000 laptop batteries...

Lenovo today recalled 526,000 notebook batteries following an incident at Los Angeles International Airport several days ago, where a Lenovo ThinkPad burst into flames. The recalled batteries were manufactured by Sony between February 2005 and September 2006, covering most R-, T-, and X-series ThinkPads. The more mainstream 3000 series, however, is unaffected by the recall, according to Electronista. Apple recalled 1.8 million similarly defective notebook batteries made by Sony in late August, just after Dell recalled 4.1 million bad batteries -- also made by Sony -- used in its Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, and XPS portable systems. Sony today said it will issue an even larger global battery recall of its own, working with system builders to exchange batteries for any company that might have used the fire-prone units in its portable systems. While the company didn't announce any specific plans, it did say it will work with laptop producers on a case-by-case basis to ensure they receive enough new batteries in time.

Contactizer 3 Pro released

Objective Decision today released Contactizer 3 Pro, an update to the company's collaborative personal information management software and official successor of OD4Contact. Contactizer Pro is designed as an all-in-one solution for managing, sharing, and organizing personal as well as business information. The application enables users to access contact information, organize as well as prioritize activities, and track all contact-related communications. Creations and modifications are instantly seen by all users on the network due to real-time sharing support. Contactizer Pro is available for $120 (system requirements were unavailable).

IDF Report: Moore's Law & Mobility...

(continued from IDF Part 1) Another segment of the keynote was devoted to Intel's adherence and advancement of Moore's law which was supported by a video tribute. Next, Otellini announced that 65 nm shipments had crossed over the 40 million mark which now out- ships 90nm. No one else in the industry has yet to ship a 65nm system, touted Otellini.

IDF Report: Apple, Otellini's keynote...

Every Intel Developer Forum delivers some rather interesting developments and this was no exception. Intel's CEO Paul Otellini kicked off this year's Forum with some rather great insights and roadmap slides to help us all plan our own individual technology roadmaps for the near future. This report covers most of the highlights of the Otellini keynote that would appeal to most Mac users including topics such as Intel's shift to quad-processors, new Microarchitectures, NAND flash memory and other advances on the mobility front. Most of this report covers Otellini's actual quotes and keynote slides.

Intel unveils Multiply Core 2 Duo ad

Intel has unveiled a new TV ad called "Multiply," and has posted a video showing behind-the-scenes footage of the ad's creation process showcasing Macs. The ad itself focuses primarily on multitasking using through a metaphor, with individuals dancing to hip technical beats as they express their own personal style. The ad's creators used Apple hardware and software to bring the project to life, combining drawings with live video and still photos. Intel recently added Apple to two of its "Featured Sessions" at the company's Developer Forum, which some industry watchers believe is Intel's way of thanking Apple for remaining the only exclusive Intel CPU customer.

New Battery extends MacBook, MBP life

Battery Geek today began shipping its 140 watt/hour Portable Power Station, an external battery featuring an optional connector that supports both MacBooks and MacBook Pros to extend their portable running time significantly. The company claims that Apple's power-hungry MacBook Pro can last up to six additional hours on the lithium-ion based adapter. The device can also charge iBooks and PowerBooks, most Windows laptops, and USB-powered devices including the iPod, according to Electronista. Battery Geek's Portable Power Station is available for $400. [corrected]

Aspyr announces The Sims 2 Pets

Aspyr Media today announced that it will publish The Sims 2 Pets, the fourth expansion pack in The Sims 2 series which is expected to reach stores in November of this year. Licensed by Electronic Arts and developed by Aspyr, The Sims 2 Pets users can create the "perfect pet" for their Sims to train, play with, and love as their own. "The addition of a new friend is guaranteed to enrich the daily lives of your Sims!" Players can choose from a variety of existing breeds as well as designer mixes, and can personally design their new friend with the Create-a-Pet feature. Players choose the Sims' pet's body shape, unique markings, and even the pet's personality. Aspyr said it will begin accepting pre-orders in the near future (pricing, availability, and system requirements were unavailable).

Unity 1.5.1 expands compatibility

OverTheEdge today released Unity 1.5.1, offering support for a wide range of old hardware and software configurations. "Some of these drivers are awfully broken, and functionality that is documented to work, doesn't", said CTO Joachim Ante. "We spent three months working through all these issues. Working around all driver bugs we found and making them behave right without any end-user intervention." Unity 1.5.1 also supports new shaders for terrain and foliage rendering, as well as Unicode fonts and Unicode scripting. Unity 1.5.1 is available for $250 for the "Indie" edition or $1,500 for the Pro version, each requiring Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

Briefly: MacNN reviews; Apple patents

In brief: MacNN has reviewed the Griffin iTrip Auto ($70), Whickey and Cox Backpack ($200, shown at right) from Crumpler Bags, and the Pro Click V1.6 High Precision Mouse ($60) from Razer Pro Solutions.... The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has published two new Apple patent applications entitled "Methods and systems for managing data" and "Copy and paste with citation attributes".... Apple is set to open its newest UK retail store this Saturday at U23 New Cannon Street Mall in Manchester Arndale, and is giving away free T-shirts alongside a 20-inch iMac with a 30GB iPod.... The second round of My Dream App voting begins today with free licenses for the popular notebook application Mori offered to participants; six finalists will depart with a silver second-generation iPod nano as elimination continues.

Recosoft ships PDF2Office Personal v3.0

Recosoft is shipping PDF2Office Personal v3.0 for Mac OS X, a major upgrade to its PDF-to-Word conversion plug-in for the Mac. PDF2Office Personal v3.0 utilizes a client-server computing model delivering optimal PDF-to-Word conversion performance for the Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. It is a Universal Binary that includes over 250+ new features and enhancements including the abilityt to convert static PDF forms into editable Word documents and convert PDF files into high-resolution images embeddable in Word files. PDF2Office automatically recreates the original construction and layout of the document, including forming paragraphs; applying styles; regrouping independent graphic elements; extracting images; creating tables; and processing headers/footers, endnotes/footnotes and columns/sections. Version 3 also includes PostScript font matching, substitution and scaling mechanisms as well as a dramatically improved PDF layout reconstruction v3.1 engine. It is available for $60 (upgrades are $30 or free to all purchases after August 1st).

Microsoft matches iPod, iTunes pricing

Microsoft on Thursday said its forthcoming Zune music player will sell for $249.99 and that songs from its own music service will sell for $0.99, matching the price of Apple's 30GB iPod and iTunes' songs. Because of the aggressive pricing by Apple, the company says it will lose money on its Zune player this holiday season. Microsoft said it needed to put a comparable price on Zune--which launches November 14--even if it meant that the company will suffer a loss from the device's sales this holiday season, according to Reuters: "We had to look at what was in the market and offer a competitive price," said Scott Erickson, Microsoft's senior director of product marketing for Zune. "We're not going to be profitable this holiday but the Zune project is a multiyear strategy." Microsoft has said it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and market the Zune--which bundles a few more features than Apple's iPod, including FM radio and wireless connectivity between players to beam photos and music. In addition, the company acknowledged the investment "may take years to bear fruit."

Apple offers Logic Express/Pro updates

Apple has released software updates for both its Logic Pro and Logic Express music creation and audio production applications. Logic Express Update 7.2.3, available as a 14MB download, addresses performance issues when Logic Express 7 is used on Mac Pro and G5 Quad computers and is recommended for all Mac Pro and G5 Quad users. An existing Logic Express 7.2.1 or Logic Express 7.2.2 installation is required before applying the update. Logic Pro 7.2.3, 25MB update, addresses performance issues when Logic Pro 7 is used on Mac Pro and G5 Quad computers. It is recommended for all Mac Pro and G5 Quad users. Apple says that an existing Logic Pro 7.2.1 or Logic Pro 7.2.2 installation is required for this update. In addition, Logic Pro 7.2.3 is optimized for PowerPC G4/G5- and Intel-based Macs with up to two dual-core processors.