Briefly: Las Vegas store; FC Studio seminar

In brief: A new Apple retail store is scheduled to open in Las Vegas tomorrow, Scotsys is offering a free seminar demonstrating Final Cut Studio 2 in Scotland, and REAL Software has shipped REALbasic 2007 Release 5. Mac GUI City has launched a virtual world for Mac users, mystery snippets of text discovered within iTunes 7.5 suggest Apple may be working toward new features for its Apple TV multimedia set top box. Apple is preparing to open a new retail store at 9:00 a.m. PST in the Town Square in Las Vegas. The new store, which resides at 6725 Via Austi Parkway in Suite 380, will host a press event to commemorate the occasion in Apple's traditional style.

The Las Vegas store joins the ranks of Apple's existing retail outlets which numbered 197 when the company announced its September quarterly earnings in October.

Apple announced plans to open approximately 40 new stores during this fiscal year, with high-profile stores slated for construction in New York as well as Boston.

Free Final Cut Studio 2 seminar

Scotsys and Apple are offering a free seminar to demonstrate Final Cut Studio 2, which Apple touts as a significant upgrade to the video production suite. Registration begins at 11:00 a.m. local time with coffee, after which the seminar runs from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. before breaking for lunch.

The seminar will be held in the Digital Media Centre at 100 Brand Street in Glasgow, Scotland.

REALbasic 2007 Release 5 ships

REAL Software today began shipping REALbasic 2007 Release 5, the latest revision of its cross-platform integrated development environment that offers more than 100 improvements to enhance productivity and increase application reliability.

"Over the past few releases we have really been focusing on making REALbasic a more robust suite," said Geoff Perlman, president and CEO of REAL Software. "We have added more than 500 improvements in REALbasic this year alone."

The latest release works with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard operating system, which began shipping last month.

Virtual world for Mac users

Mac GUI has launched a new website focused on all aspects of Mac computing that creates the theme of a city with various buildings placed upon a town square to represent each area of the site. The new virtual city, titled Mac GUI City, offers members of its community a macgui.com email address with 1GB of storage space via POP3 as well as Web mail access, 200MB of Web hosting space with no ads as well as FTP access, and 400MB of space for photos.

Additionally, "Suburbs" allow community members to create as well as manage their own area of the Mac GUI City by creating discussion forums and photo galleries with controlled access.

Mystery text hints at new iTunes features

One Mac user recently discovered some strings of text in the iTunes string resource file suggesting that the Apple TV could sync contacts from Address Book, as well as calendar events from iCal. Apple TV does not currently offer these features, and further strings point to voice memo capability and possibly USB sync functionality, according to AppleTVSource.com.

Filed under: Apple