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Under the radar – news nuggets for October 8

There’s a few choice tidbits shooting around the Web today, figuring we’d be acting somewhat churlishly if we didn’t let you in on these morsels, we’ve put them all together inside this easy-to-digest short section….

Read on for why Steve Jobs is the most influential person in the technology industry, AT&T promises iPhone tethering (eventually); a handy tip to control QuickTime X playback speeds; why Apple looks set to profit in this year’s back-to-school sales and a new research app for the iPhone from no less than the American Institute of Physics.

Steve Jobs is tech
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been named the most influential individual in the global technology industry, topping the silicon.com 2009 Agenda Setter’s list. It’s the second time Apple’s boss has made it to the top of the tree in ten years of the list, he’s the only person ever to have achieved this.

Selection is chosen by an expert panel. "There are few companies which continue to astound with product innovation. Steve Jobs’ Apple is still shiny and sweet," said one of those judges.

Read it here.

AT&T can’t yet connect
Good news first, bad news second: We all now know AT&T will now allow VoIP apps like Skype to pass calls through its network – that’s the good news: The bad news is that the giant US carrier and current exclusive iPhone partner won’t yet enable tethering (so you can use your iPhone to get your Mac online using 3G) over its network.

Why? ”Tethering remains unavailable. For tethering, we need to do some additional fine tuning to our systems and networks so that we do deliver a great experience,” a spokesman said.

Read it here.

Sexing up QuickTime X
Rob Griffiths has the trick – and while it’s not as flexible as the previous version, it seems that Option key’s worth exploring just about every time you try to do anything.

“Hold down the Option key before clicking either the Fast Forward or Rewind button. With the Option key held down, the first speed you’ll see will be 1.1x, and each subsequent click will increase the rate by .1x, up to a maximum of 8x.”

Read it here.

Apple at school
We’ve heard reports suggesting iPhone may account for most of Apple’s growth in the just-gone quarter, but as PC sales generally decline there’s good news in a recent NPD report exploring the education market.

See, while desktop sales are slow, laptops are the only sector experiencing growth. And, from memory, Apple pretty much dominates the laptop sector in US education.

And while Apple faces new competition from netbooks (hence its development of the Apple tablet, which won’t be a netbook, but something that’s nice to use and, erm, better), the company seems set to at least secure Mac sales this quarter.

“Notebooks seem to be recession proof and this back-to-school season was no exception," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

Read it here.

iPhone gets physics(al)
We’re strangely excited at this move to bolster Apple’s mobile products and their facility to education and research markets. After all, education is in Apple’s DNA.

So, The American Institute of Physics has used MarkLogic Server to launch its new mobile e-Reader application, iResearch. iResearch was developed to provide the AIP community of researchers, comprising physicists, engineers, scientists, and students, with mobile access to valuable physics journal content. It offers articles on various topics, ranging from biological physics to atomic quantum fluids.

Users may navigate through journals online and then select articles they wish to read. Once the PDF file has been delivered to the device, users can save it to read at their convenience when they are offline.

Read it here

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