Apple as promised has launched its Black Friday sale, currently ongoing in the US, Canada and Europe. The Friday-only discounts are highlighted by a $101 price cut for all iMac and MacBook Pro models regardless of size. The iPod touch also sees heavy discounts, bringing the 64GB model down to $358, the 32GB version to $268 and the 8GB model down to $178.
Happy Thanksgiving from DealNN, and with that said we would like to present our holiday deals collection. OfficeMax.com got a jump start on their Black Friday sales, cutting prices on items like the Hitachi SimpleDrive III 1TB external hard drive from $139.99 to $84.99. The NEXTAR Q4 4.3-inch touchscreen GPS also saw an early price drop and is now just $89.99.
Visage Imaging has announced Visage 7, its first diagnostic imaging software based on thin client streaming technology. Designed for the medical industry, the software allows users to read, process and review every form of exam, ranging from plain film to cardiac, with specialized tools for radiologists, clinicians and referrers. The app includes a list of built-in tools for advanced programs such as CT/MR angiography, or Cardiac CT, and supports remote access to all functionality via a network connection.
Stardom has introduced the Safe Capsule, a RAID 1 storage system designed for use with Apple’s Time Capsule. The device enables users to add up to 2TB of network storage for keeping backups, photos, music or other data files. The drives are configured as a RAID 1 array which mirrors the disks to protect against data loss if one drive fails. Safe Capsule also provides an auto-rebuild function to automatically rebuild the data after a hard drive fails. The rebuild status can be quickly viewed using an LED indicator.
Sol Robots has released Save Benjis+, an app that builds upon the company's previous App Store utility that had allowed users to compare product prices. The app works with the iPhone’s camera to help simplify the process by automatically scanning barcodes. It provides data on over 5 million items from hundreds of different stores, while allowing users to search for items by criteria such as product name, item number, author, actor or publisher, among others.
Zevrix Solutions has announced a new media delivering software, File Courier 1.0. The app is designed to improve the efficiency of sending files and folders via FTP or between local destinations. Automatic e-mail notifications, containing delivery info, can be sent to recipients, while a variety of customizable templates can be used to present the items and locations. Users can also encrypt disk images with passwords, or create low resolution versions of PDF files that can be attached to an e-mail.
Today's selection of refurbished items at Apple's online store include a large selection of MacBook Pro models starting at $999 for the 2.26GHz, 13.3-inch MBP with 2GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive. Jump up to the 15-inch MBP for just a bit more, $1299 for the 2.4Ghz model with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Other 15-inch MBPs include the 2.53GHz model with 4GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive for $1449, the 2.66GHz model with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive for $1699, and the 2.53GHz model with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB Solid State Drive for $1749.
In a low-key move during Thanksgiving, NVIDIA has added the first graphics chipset to its GeForce 300 series. The GeForce 310 is a direct replacement for the earlier 210 and, like its predecessor, is meant as a basic GPU to upgrade the performance of systems that are limited to slower integrated graphics. It has just a 64-bit memory bus and just 16 processing cores but can still fully accelerate 1080p video in hardware and provide general-purpose computing tasks, whether it's NVIDIA's own CUDA and PhysX or more universal standards like DirectCompute and OpenCL.
Acer chief Gianfranco Lanci told the press on Thursday that Windows 7 has had a noticeable but small impact on sales. The executive estimates that holiday PC sales should jump about 25 percent versus last year, when the economic crash hurt sales, but that they should only be flat compared to this summer. Much of the forecast was calculated after gauging the feature set early on.
Buffalo on Thursday set a minor milestone by launching what should be the fastest Blu-ray burner to date. At 12X even with dual-layer discs, the BR-X1216U3 ties with Pioneer for a 50 percent speed boost over 8X drives but is unique for supporting USB 3.0. The 5Gbps interface theoretically lets it transfer data faster than USB 2.0; Buffalo says the drive is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 but is limited to writing at 7X using the older standard.
HandBrake has released an update to its self-titled DVD ripping utility. Version 0.9.4 adds support for 64-bit operations for the Mac, including both Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems. The 64-bit builds are said to perform approximately 10 percent better than the 32-bit equivalents. The software is also claimed to offer overall improvements in quality, which has been partially attributed progress made with the x264 project.
iPhone owners are much more likely to pay for digital content than the average Internet user, according to a recent survey conducted by the media firm Olswang. Although previous surveys have concluded that iPhone owners have an apatite for apps and media accessible directly from the handset interface, the latest research suggests the same group is also spending more money on content purchased on other Internet-connected devices such as a desktop and notebook computers.
The smell of turkey is in the air, and that must mean deal season is upon us. DealNN has been tracking the Black Friday bargains, and today's featured deals included a collection of iPods on sale now at MacMall.com. Fourth and fifth generation iPod nanos are available starting at $119.98 with $3.99 for shipping. Other iPod models are also mentioned including the 2GB Shuffle for $54, the 120GB Classic for $219, and the 2nd gen. iPod touch for $169.
Mac desktops represented nearly half of all desktops sold at US retail shops in October, the NPD Group said in a new study. About 47.7 percent of desktop revenue was from iMacs, Mac minis or Mac Pros, an increase from 45 percent in April and a sharp surge from just 33 percent in October 2008. Mac notebooks also saw a sequential gain from 30 percent in April to 34 percent last month, though this was a drop from 38 percent a year earlier.
Hulu has recorded one of the largest gains in viewers in its short history, according to new data from Comscore. In October, the multi-studio video site hosted almost 856 million viewers, its best ever result and a 47 percent jump from September. The results were well behind Google's 10.5 billion views and 37.7 percent share of web video in the US but were enough to give Hulu second place with 3.1 percent, about twice as much as its next-best challengers.