Briefly: Subsidized Zunes; Lego Star Wars...

In brief: Microsoft may offer free Zunes with a subscription, Lego Star Wars goes Universal, and Epson develops a new head for inkjet printers. The lead of the Zune marketing division at Microsoft, Jason Reindorp, hints that some future versions of the player may be sold at a discount, or possibly even for free. The key to this is the Zune Pass option at the Zune Marketplace, which unlike the iTunes Store, offers an unlimited music subscription. Much as cellular networks discount the price of a phone with a long-term contract, Zune buyers may be able to sign up for a particular subscription plan and receive a player at a lower cost. At the earliest, such a strategy is most likely to be announced towards the end of 2007.

Best Buy expansion backs solid Mac demand...

News that Best Buy would expand its pilot program to carry Macs in 200 of its retail stores across the U.S. backs recent checks on Mac demand by research firm UBS. "Our checks suggest that Mac sales held up well in fiscal 2Q and could be poised for acceleration into the launch of Leopard this Spring (also Adobe's launch of its Creative Suite 3 should help)," wrote UBS analyst Ben Reitzes. "We note that Apple also launched a new Mac Pro today that features eight processor cores via two Intel Xeon quad-core 'Clovertown' microprocessors." Reitzes estimates year-over-year Mac unit growth of 34 percent, down 7 percent quarter-over-quarter to 1.5 million units in the second quarter of 2007. UBS maintained its 'buy 2' rating on Apple shares with a price target of $124.

New Paravue masking tool for Photoshop CS3

Paravue has announced the development of Turbo Mask, a plug-in for the newly-released Photoshop CS3. The application is designed to simplify the process of creating masks in Photoshop, isolating the most obvious elements of an image that a user might want to remove. In some cases removal may be possible in a single click. Some other features of the plug-in will include "jigsaw" cutting, real-time mask previews, and enhanced detection of both edges and overall subjects. Turbo Mask is being demonstrated today and tomorrow at Photoshop World in Boston; the final product goes on sale in late May for $250.

Evo hybrid video storage at NAB 2007...

Studio Network Solutions (SNS) is set to demo its new hybrid video storage system named Evo (site not updated) at NAB 2007. Evo enables creative teams to share projects, media, and other large files using connectivity ranging from 3Gbps Fibre Channel to 10Gbps iSCSI and NAS. The base Evo package ships with 4TB of high-throughput storage accommodating up to six direct-connect Mac and PC clients via 4Gbps Fibre Channel and iSCSI over Gigabit Ethernet. Upgrade options will be available to add more storage into the system or increase the number of direct-connect Fibre Channel and iSCSI clients. A 10Gbps Ethernet option will also be available, according to Studio Network Solutions, giving a 10x increase in network bandwidth for NAS and iSCSI (pricing was unavailable).

Independent video site formats for Apple TV

The video site HungryFlix, already selling videos formatted for the iPod and Sony PSP, today announced new video content specially formatted for Apple TV. The site specializes in independent media of various forms, ranging from TV shows and music videos to shorts and feature films. The first video to be converted into an Apple TV-compatible format is a B-movie martial arts film called "Wages of Sin," directed by Nathyn Masters, which can be downloaded now for the cost of $4. Other prospective releases have not been mentioned; current prices for content range anywhere from 50 cents to $12.

SintraWorks launches PDFClerk 2.5

SintraWorks has officially released version 2.5 of its PDFClerk application. The program handles a variety of tasks with PDF documents, such as joining them together, rearranging pages, and simplifying the creation of books, magazines and other publications. The new edition introduces several features, among them being drawing tools, and the ability to create and edit links. Users should also be able to interleave documents, and exercise more control over impositions and layout. Some bug fixes have been implemented as well. PDFClerk runs on Mac OS X 10.4, and a single license is priced at $41.

iPhone may not come to Canada...

Suggestions that the iPhone will release on Rogers Wireless in Canada are only speculative, the cell provider said today. Contradicting an earlier e-mail the company reportedly sent early this year, Rogers corporate communications head Odette Coleman told journalists that no announcements had been made, and that most of what had been heard was conjecture.

"Everything in the media has been speculations to this point," Colemain said. "The only fact is that we are the only GSM carrier in Canada. That's the only fact."

Apple Newton nominated for top tech flop

Computerworld has listed Apple's dated Newton as a top contender for the biggest technology flop, and will gauge each nominee's hype-to-success ratio. Apple introduced its Newton PDA in 1993 and hyped the device with clever advertising as well as word-of-mouth campaigns. Despite its large size by today's standards, the Newton offered numerous features and is considered by some to be have been ahead of its time. The publication points to ridicule by talk show comedians as well as comic strips such as "Doonesbury" that focused on the alleged inaccuracy of handwriting recognition as one reason for the Newton never catching on. Additionally, the device was expensive -- costing around $700 for the first model and as much as $1,000 for more advanced units. [corrected]

BeLight releases Live Interior 3D...

BeLight Software today released Live Interior 3D, an application enabling users to design building interiors such as houses and offices. Live Interior 3D includes a library of more than 1,000 objects that includes brand name content, as well as Google 3D Warehouse integration and the ability to import Google SketchUp objects. The software offers a Virtual Reality Walkthrough mode, and comes with over 50 templates. Users can view projects in 2D or 3D with realistic light/shadow rendering, and the application can import 3DStudio or Ogre XML objects. Live Interior 3D can export 2D plans in PDF, JPEG, TIFF, or PNG formats, or export 3D views in JPEG, TIFF, or PNG formats. The new software is priced from $80, and requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

Milk Desk targets space-conscious Mac users

The newly unveiled Milk Desk -- an actual desk with an electronic base that raises and lowers to accommodate either sitting or standing -- is intended to address the concerns of a number of computer users, but is specifically aimed at the minimalist aesthetic of the Mac world. Gearlog notes that while the desk's surface is just 55 by 25 inches, it features exits and a drawer to minimalize cable clutter, as well as a file slot on the front to store items such as papers and small electronics. The left-hand side holds four compartments that open up to store anything from pens or pencils to devices such as iPods while still retaining in-desk wire routing. The Milk Desk -- which was designed by Soren Kjaer and Holmris Hansen A/S -- is already avialable in Europe, but should soon come to North America.

Collanos collaboration suite comes to U.S....

Collanos Software today introduced Free Team Collaboration Suite in the U.S. Free Team Collaboration Suite is a peer-to-peer team collaboration suite that provides an easy-to-use set of tools that allow internet users to form teams to work together on shared goals or projects. Users can invite colleagues, friends, or partners to a team workspace where members share as well as organize files, notes, and links. The software supports leading discussions as well as assigning tasks, and keeps members' workspaces in sync by storing a copy of the shared workspace locally on member's computers. Collanos is available for free, and doesn't require a server to run. The software is also platform independent, working on Mac, Linux, and Windows systems.

Briefly: MacNN review; live CS3 events...

In brief: MacNN has reviewed the Griffin Elevator laptop stand, Adobe is offering a series of live events as well as online activities to educate users about its Creative Suite 3 software, and CRJTools ebooks has released a new course book on Mac OS X Tiger with 24 lessons on six topics. The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) has announced the Guru Award winners for the east coast Photoshop World Conference & Expo, ByDesign Games has launched a blog with a new teaser for its upcoming game "The Late Call," and The VESA group has ratified a new standard that may end up replacing many video ports. Griffin's Elevator ($40, shown at right) is designed to raise a portable notebook up higher to reduce the need to tilt the head to work, suspending the notebook via a brushed aluminum frame with two U-shaped arms featuring rubber strips.

Mozilla preps social networking add-on...

Mozilla is developing a new social networking component for its Firefox browser titled The Coop that could streamline the way people share info, the organization announced today. The add-on will borrow the concept of a chicken coop for organizing a user's friends: each friend portrait will serve as the gateway to an RSS news feed of everything a person chooses to publish, flashing when a friend updates a blog, Flickr photo gallery, or favorite YouTube videos. The aim would be to unify as many social networking tools as possible under one umbrella, Mozilla says.

Best Buy to sell Macs in 200 U.S. stores

Brick-and-mortar retail giant Best Buy is for the second time expanding a pilot program that began in late May of last year, bringing Apple computers to 200 of its stores by this fall. "We'll be expanding our relationship with Apple in 2007," said Best Buy president Brian Dunn during the company's latest earnings conference call. "We'll be offering Apple computers in 200 stores by this fall." The nation's largest consumer electronics retailer began with a select number of stores to test drive selling Mac systems, which grew to 50 stores across the U.S. in mid-October. The most recent pilot expansion reveals the success of its predecessors, increasing the exposure of Mac computers at Best Buy locations by three-fold. Circuit City also said it would begin selling Macs in a small number of its stores in the Eastern U.S. in early September to test the waters of Mac sales in its retail outlets.

RouteBuddy 1.2 incorporates Geocoding...

RouteBuddy has released RouteBuddy 1.2, an update to the GPS navigation software for Mac OS X that features Geocoding or "Address Lookup" as well as a proprietary compression engine. The latest release enables RouteBuddy users to type an address, town, or city in the Find sheet to discover a location. The new feature will become more refined in future versions of the software, according to the developers, with user-suggested features as well as pre-planned options. RouteBuddy 1.2 is priced at $100, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Memeo ships LifeAgent backup app for Mac

Memeo today released LifeAgent, its high performance automatic backup software for Mac. Memeo LifeAgent is designed to help Mac users manage, track and safeguard digital files in a simple and natural way. A 3-step setup process identifies which files are important, working quietly in the background to automatically share, sync, and secure digital content while saving changes made to any document. The software works on all storage mediums, and enables users to share photos online through Shutterfly. LifeAgent also features a Smart Picks set-up wizard, allowing users to easily locate important files and Mac-specific applications such as iTunes or iPhoto. The user interface shows the status of all continuous backups, and built-in search functionality locates anything from one file to an entire data backup when failure occurs. Memeo LifeAgent is priced at $30, and requires Mac OS X (specific system requirements were unavailable).

Making Windows XP resemble Mac OS X...

One Windows user who was fed up with the visual appearance of Microsoft's Windows XP coupled together several pieces of software to change the look and feel of the Windows desktop to resemble Apple's Mac OS X operating system. An instructional video by dim-blog.com posted on metacafe depicts the new Mac OS X look on top of Windows XP, and contains the steps necessary to achieve the effect on a local system. The software required to achieve the effect includes Yahoo! Widgets -- Mac-like widgets for Windows systems, RocketDock -- producing a Mac-like dock, FlyakiteOSX -- changing the look of Windows, and 3RVX -- software to produce a Mac-like volume bar.

Winter Wolves offers Spin Around for free...

Winter Wolves Games has released its first puzzle game titled Spin Around as freeware. Spin Around features simple but addictive gameplay, according to Winter Wolves, and online scores accompany three play modes. Those play modes include "Time Attack," "Top Score," and "Puzzle Game." The first mode challenges players to clean the grid in the shortest time possible, while the second charges players with achieving the highest score. The third and final play mode presents puzzles with increasing difficulty. The title is available as a free download on the official website, requiring Mac OS X (specific system requirements were unavailable).

Apple lowers Cinema Display prices

Following the introduction of its eight-core Mac Pro, Apple has also lowered the price of its Cinema Display LCD line. The greatest price decrease affects the 30-inch Cinema HD display, which drops from $1,999 to a more affordable $1,799. The computer company has also lowered the price of entry for the 20-inch Cinema from $699 to $599 and has applied a similar change to the mid-range 23-inch Cinema HD, dropping its price from $999 to $899.

All three displays maintain their current designs, including dual FireWire 400 and dual USB ports, and ship today from the online Apple Store.

Apple adds 8-core option to Mac Pro

Apple on Wednesday added a new eight-core option to the Mac Pro. Buyers of the new professional workstation can now choose two of Intel's 3GHz quad-core Xeons, nicknamed "Clovertown," alongside the 2GHz, 2.66GHz, and 3GHz dual-core "Woodcrest" processors currently offered by Apple in its systems. Other features of the desktop are unchanged and include a base 1GB of memory expandable to 16GB, 250GB of storage (up to 3TB), and a choice of video cards ranging from a 256MB GeForce 7300 GT to the 512MB Quadro FX 4500 for professional 3D modeling and stereo imaging.

Customizing the Mac Pro with the 3GHz eight-core option adds $1,498 to the base $2,499 price and ships within three to five days from the online Apple Store.

Google Desktop for Mac beta available [screenshots]...

Google on Wednesday will introduce Google Desktop for the Mac (direct download), a new "Universal" application that indexes the contents of a Mac's hard drive, including applications, files, PDFs, and Web histories from Safari, Firefox, and Camino. The application, which will be released as a beta, will support Spotlight plug-ins and leverage Spotlight privacy features to prevent some documents from being searched. Google Desktop for Mac launches using the Command key (double-tap) and features "live search" that displays the last 10 results instantly, including the file name, a brief description, and highlighted search term. In addition, users can view other extended results in a Google-like webpage in the default browser.

GizMac ships new XRackPro2 design...

GizMac Accessories today announced its new XRackPro2 design is now shipping. The new version of the 12U size XRackPro2 server rack provides better cooling and more noise reduction than the previous model, according to the company; it incorporates the same design that the recently released 4U, 25U and the upcoming 6U XRackPro2 server racks are built around. The new 12U XRackPro2 server rack also improves noise reduction. Re-locating the air intake to substantially increase cooling allowed the new design to use one less fan for moving air through the XRackPro2. With this change and a few other modifications, the company says, the newly re-designed 12U XRackPro2 reduces noise up to 80 percent. The new 12U XRackPro2 is available in black or platinum for $1,800.