May 28 - 2:35pm EDT   Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today surprised those at the D7 technology show with a brief demo of the just-confirmed Zune HD. The prototype shown to Engadget has the interface shown in early imagery and was found to have "gorgeous" video -- ironically demonstrated with pro-Apple firm Pixar's For the Birds -- on its OLED screen. Few unknown features were shown, though the video interface and the ability to use custom wallpapers remain intact. [full story]

April 27 - 2:05pm EDT   Apple has quietly signaled a new emphasis on graphics by hiring an influential graphics chipset designer from AMD. The former CTO for the company's ATI graphics product group, Bob Drebin, has indicated on his LinkedIn profile that he is now a Senior Director for an unnamed group within Apple. What products he covers are unknown, though in addition to leading GPU engineering at ATI since 2000, he also spent significant time developing products at Silicon Graphics and, during a 2-year span at ArtX, helped create the "Flipper" GPU that formed the heart of the Nintendo GameCube. [full story]

February 23 - 9:15am EST   Pixar's WALL-E won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, defeating competition from Bolt and Kung Fu Panda. The movie -- about a robot left on Earth after an environmental apocalypse -- was also nominated for Original Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Song awards, but lost to movies such as Milk and The Dark Knight. The dominant title at the Oscars was Slumdog Millionaire, which took home Best Picture and Best Director trophies among others. [full story]

January 19 - 12:25pm EST   Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been renominated to serve on Disney's board of directors, in spite of medical problems, according to the company's 2009 proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jobs is the largest individual shareholder in Disney, with 7.4 percent of stock, which came as a result of his former role in charge of Pixar. The Toy Story studio has since been absorbed by Disney. [full story]

December 26 - 1:25pm EST   Two Apple-related products performed extremely well at Amazon during the holiday season, the latter company has announced. Tracking orders from November 15th through to December 19th, the online retailer notes that one of the bestselling electronics items was the second-generation iPod touch, specifically in its 8GB capacity rather than 16 or 32GB. Apple's chief competition was split between a 52-inch red Samsung TV, and Acer's Aspire One netbook. [full story]

May 12 - 4:50pm EDT   As IBM mainframes were the inspiration for one of the most famous digital villains – HAL 9000, of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame – so is Apple an influence upon the upcoming Disney Pixar release, Wall-E. CNN Money writes that when designing the movie's heroine, Eve, director Andrew Stanton described her as "high-end technology – no expense spared" and wanted it "to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous." [full story]

March 22 - 3:25pm EDT   Author Leander Kahney recently wrote a book entitled "Inside Steve's Brain", an in-depth look into the mind of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his contradictive cult of personality. Kahney, who has covered Steve Jobs since the early 1990s, writes about how Jobs' notorious personality hasn't impeded forging partnerships with industry greats, such as Steve Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter. "Inside Steve's Brain is available for $25. [full story]