Tech Industry

You have to spare a thought for the plight of those poor flash memory vendors, not only are they in a market where the spot price goes up and down, but Apple’s greedy shoppers just can’t get enough of Cupertino’s shiny new flash-based toys…iPhone, iPods nano and touch, SSD drives for Macs, future tablets, yadda-yadda-ya…

News today claims there’s a shortage of flash memory components caused by (you guessed it) Apple gobbling up huge quantities of production from the top tier makers.

This is causing Taiwan’s memory module makers to diversify their NAND flash supplies to minimise procurement risk, tells Digitimes. That’s because the major makers – Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Micron and Hynix Semiconductor “favour demand for Apple devices,” the report explains.

Demand is expected to climb 81 per cent this year, though manufacturers are conservative about investing in further production facilities just yet. Oh, and as Apple’s impact is felt across the market, prices are climbing up up up (well, by up to 14 percent on some modules).

Wonder what Apple’s beginning to stockpile all that memory for, eh, eh?

CNET reports that the Intel Lightpeek demonstration that was shown on a hefty Hackintosh last month isn’t as far off as originally anticipated.  Speaking to Taiwanese optical networking company, Foci Fiber Optic Communication, they found that Light Peak  cables and other fiber-optic components are right around the corner.

"We plan to have our pilot run ready by the end of November 2009, and ready to be in mass production in the beginning of year 2010," said Janpu Hou, the company’s vice president of business development.

That meshes with Engadget’s sources who said it would be on the Mac Platform in mid-to-late 2010.  They also mentioned that "Intel was pretty high on Light Peak for devices that needed maximum connectivity in the smallest amount of space, like an iPhone — or, say, a tablet."

We’ve popped some video demos below.

Walt, who is usually a huge Mac fan, says Windows 7 is a worthy competitor to Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard:

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf

Another day, another Apple tablet rumour, and this one suggests manufacturing deals have already been done, and the product will be focused as an eBook reader.

Digitimes this morning is reporting that Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai Precision) has won the manufacturing contract, rather than Apple’s long-term Mac maker, Quanta.

This figures as Foxconn is also Apple’s iPod/iPhone product manufacturer, and suggests at least that this tablet will be a larger sibling in that side of the Apple family.

(Recall, there have been some claims of two tablets on Apple’s road map, one running OS X, the other running a variant of the OS X Mobile found on iPhones and the iPhone touch).

More info: The Foxconn-fabricated tablet will reach market in the first quarter next year, with initial shipments pegged at 300,000-400,000 per month.

The device will be equipped with a 10.6-inch panel which may come from Innolux Display, not WinTek as has been previously claimed.

Digitimes sources believe marketing of the product will focus on e-book functionality rather than music. The device will offer, “long battery life, quick Internet connectivity and an easy-to-use user interface”, according to the report.

Earlier this week we heard once again that the tablet is likely to be powered by a PA Semi-tweaked ARM processor. As part of Apple’s planning for the product, we also know Apple has been in talks with newspapers, magazines and book publishers, including the New York Times, McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press.
 

Amazon announced today that they were going to have an International version of the Kindle for sale for the holiday season.  Until now the Kindle has used Sprint’s EVDO network to get purchases and updates from the Internet.  Unfortunately for current Kindle owners, Sprint’s radio technology doesn’t work overseas.

Enter AT&T and its global standard HSDPA network.  Amazon has worked out a similar deal with AT&T as it did with Sprint, except on the AT&T version, you can roam in 100 countries with your Kindle.  You can even buy the new Kindle internationally for use with US books.

Amazon is dropping the price of its Sprint Kindle significantly to $259 (or $219 refurb) and is available immediately.  The AT&T International version will be $279 for pre-order and will ship later this month (October 19th-ish)

We’re still pondering the ramifications of Adobe’s sundry smartphone announcements yesterday, and think we may see more to come in the Apple/Adobe/Flash story in future.

We know Adobe has introduced a feature for Flash developers which lets them purpose versions of their applications for the iPhone. The upcoming version of Flash CS5 will allow you the option to "Export Project to native iPhone application." While Apple hasn’t yet uttered comment on this, we’re hopeful the company will not oppose the first third-party development IDE for its device.

We’re most intrigued, however, by ARM’s announcement that they have optimised Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on ARM-powered devices as part of the Open Screen Project.

Specifically, ARM has introduced Flash Player support on its ARM Cortex-A-powered devices. We’ve predicted before that the ARM Cortex-A processor seems likely (albeit in a PA Semi-customised version) to be deployed in a future Apple tablet, and potentially in future iPhones.

Apple has said in the past that it isn’t happy with the speed and performance of Flash on mobile devices. Introducing on-chip support should help remove that road block, typically characterised as symptomatic of some grudge match between Apple and Adobe.

Also, because the support is on the processor, this could potentially side-step Apple’s decision not to enable iPhone apps to call on other iPhone apps in order to achieve things. If your Safari browser tries to view Flash-based content on the Web, then Safari won’t need to command help from a Flash application, but from the processor itself. That’s our understanding, and of course Apple will need to approve and support this operation.

"By bringing the full Flash Player to the broad range of ARM Cortex-A powered devices, consumers will experience uncompromised Web browsing of rich applications, content, and high definition video across a broad range of devices, from PCs and smartphones to digital televisions and netbooks," says ARM.

"Delivering a highly responsive, uncompromised Web and rich media experience to consumer devices and the digital home is a key focus for ARM", says Ian Drew, EVP of Marketing, ARM.

We do note Apple’s conspicuous absence from the roll call of companies who have signed-up to use Flash on their mobile devices yesterday. But with ARM implementing this support in Cortex, it’s open to question whether Apple will continue resistance or move to expand the facility of its product simply by enabling a feature that’s built-into the chip it may well be using in a future product anyway.

There is another consideration: Apple is extremely active in development of the HTTP 5 media streaming protocols. These side-step applications such as Flash or Silverlight to enable multimedia efforts unaided through the Web browser itself.

However, given that the multimedia landscape is fractured, with assets consumers want access to available in a myriad of formats, will Apple move to a more open approach, offering recognition to Adobe for the work it has done to make Flash more effective on mobile devices, or will Flash on smartphones become a new battleground in the increasingly competitive industry?

http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2F9to5ma-20%2F8009%2Ff9ed9b8e-03cd-4663-9a23-1212cb7e086e&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate

Amazon.com Widgets

Yet more movement in the smartphone wars this morning, with Palm opening up its development environment in order to stimulate activity on its platform, while Research In Motion/BlackBerry now boast a music download service of its own, powered by UK digital music company 7Digital. The latter firm also began its assault on Apple’s iTunes’ home turf, launching in the US today.

The first major digital music store to go DRM-free (though arguably, eMusic could lay some claim to this) 7 Digital is well-known in Europe, where it commenced activity in the UK. In the US, tracks sold by 7Digital will cost 77-cents, or $7.77 for an album (standard prices, variable prices also exist).

Tracks are sold in high-quality 320kbps MP3 format, completely free of DRM. “The company also offers a “digital locker” in which all your downloads are backed-up on 7 Digital’s servers in the event you need to redownload them in case of computer failure,” reports Distorted Loop.

The company is offering a free application through the BlackBerry App World store, which gives BlackBerry users access to the company’s full catalogue of 6 million songs. As 7Digital also drives Spotify’s music download service, it’s not unlikely we’ll see Spotify launch properly in the US soon, and potentially offering a music streaming service for mobile phones.

Meanwhile, over at Palm, new hires Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer, both ex-of Mozilla, delivered a speech to developers in which they stressed that open development would be the way to go, laying a couple of initiatives down that clearly aim to combat Apple’s App Store and iPhone.

Principal in these initiatives:

– Developers can now fully distribute their apps on the Web. They submit apps to Palm and Palm then gives them a URL they can share, there’s no need for a store.
– Apps will not be reviewed by Palm.
– Palm will offer the App Catalog for developers who want to charge for their Apps, membership costs $50.
– Palm is making its WebOS App Development software available for free, waiving the prior $99 fee.
– Perhaps most crucially as the company continues its anti-Apple crusade, the company is to open up its analytical data to any developer who might want it.

Adobe made a video for embarrassing Apple into supporting Flash/explaining why they made their CS5 export to iPhone App feature.  We’re not sure that it is Apple that should be embarrassed.

The timing is suspicious but Microsoft this week got together all of their Multi-touch mouse work and put it on display over at Engadget.  Apple is widely expected to put forth new multi-touch capable mice, along with new, smaller keyboards, MacBooks, Minis and iMacs, on any given Tuesday.  (Note the music is loud and annoying)

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/bcb6cff5

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf

Hello and welcome to Microsoft Monday today, with the company’s bombastic CEO putting the smack down on Apple market share, preparations for the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS tomorrow plainly under way, and in a moment which should forever eradicate the notion that security and Microsoft are friends, the shock leak of thousands of Hotmail passwords giving the company a headache.

First the world inside the mind of Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, who today continued his verbal assault on all things Apple, saying, "[Apple has] done a very good job of marketing to their 3.5 per cent of the market. I’m glad we’re doing a great job with the other 96.5 per cent."

The bombastic MSFT boss was chatting with Cnet when he made his claims, though he refused to make any utterances on the shock revelations of the Microsoft Courier tablet, which eagle-eyed readers may recall they read about here first….

On Apple, Ballmer talked up his company’s mass market approach over Apple’s excellence in execution. "They advertise basically to that small niche of people who want their machines. And I don’t take it away from them; they make a very good business doing it," he said. "So, we need to have messages that are appropriate to the vast majority of people, and it’s fine. There may be 3 percent of people who sort of appreciate their approach."

Ballmer keeps it going when discussing Windows Mobile too, promising a scatter gun approach until Microsoft gets it right, “we’re going to keep (coming out) with new releases, new releases, new releases,” he said. You could look at everything else Microsoft’s boss has to say right here…

Windows Mobile 6.5

Microsoft is excited at the release tomorrow of the first mobile phones running Windows Mobile 6.5, which includes support for a touch-screen interface and connects to a new online store where mobile users will be able to download applications.

The patch is seen as hugely important to the company, as it has to respond to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android systems if it wants to retain any relevancy in the mobile phone sector, where it has lost almost 3 per cent of its share of the smartphone operating system so far. The company aims to release Windows Mobile 7 early next year, it has previously promised.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s attempt at an App Store is already online, and available to those few phones out there in the wild running Windows Mobile 6.5.

The Hotmail disaster

So with Microsoft marketing in full effect, it’s a shame news has emerged that thousands of Hotmail passwords have been leaked...

Password details for Windows Live Hotmail accounts, including @hotmail.com, @msn.com, and @live.com e-mail addresses, were revealed anonymously at pastebin.com, a site that lets users share text snippets.

As of October 1 there were over 10,000 of these account passwords posted as a result of either some type of "hack" or phishing scheme, according to Ars Technica, which cites Neowin as the first source for this information.

“The list reportedly details accounts with usernames beginning with "ar" all the way to "bl," which suggests there may be details for many more thousands of accounts,” the report warns.

This implies many thousand more Hotmail or Windows Live users may need to change their passwords immediately – and also hints that those of us who may have once signed-up for one of these accounts and used a favourite password may need to apply changes in the password if they also use it on other sites and services.

Psystar is perhaps going a little too far here?  Today, they’ve announced that they aren’t just selling Mac Clones.  They are certifying other maker’s PCs for their new virtualization technology for Snow Leopard – effectively making their systems Mac OSX compatible.

They are touting a technology called the Darwin Universal Boot Loader (DUBL) and will have three versions: Desktop, Server or Mobile. Once a product is certified, consumers can purchase it off the shelf or through standard channels and when labeled Psystar Certified would allow the installation of Snow Leopard simply by inserting the retail OS X DVD.  They also tout a separate "Safe Update" program which will allow special versions of the software updates to be pushed.

Wow, this is certainly big news and a new direction for Psystar.  With that being said, we wouldn’t want to be within 1000 meters of Steve Jobs when he hears this news.  Something tells us that there is going to be a few more $$ thrown in the Apple lawyers coffers pretty quickly.

via setteB.IT

Full Press release:

PSYSTAR Announces OEM Licensing Program:   Psystar Corporationannounced today their OEM Licensing Program. Psystar will begin certifying manufacturer’s hardware to allow the licensing of Psystar’s new virtualization technology, effectively making their systems Mac OS X compatible. Psystar’s virtualization technology, specifically engineered for Snow Leopard, allows for seamless operation of the Mac OS on generic Intel Hardware and would be offered on all Psystar Certified machines.

Miami, FL (PRWEB) October 5, 2009 — Psystar Corporation announced today their OEM Licensing Program. Psystar will begin certifying manufacturer’s hardware to allow the licensing of Psystar’s new virtualization technology, effectively making their systems Mac OS X compatible. Psystar’s virtualization technology, specifically engineered for Snow Leopard, allows for seamless operation of the Mac OS on generic Intel Hardware and would be offered on all Psystar Certified machines. 

In an effort to spread the Snow Leopard experience to an ever-expanding number of people, the licensing initiative will allow manufacturers to have their hardware Psystar Certified and have their computers pre loaded with our unique technology including the Darwin Universal Boot Loader (DUBL). Qualifying products must fall in Desktop, Server or Mobile categories. Once a product is certified, consumers can purchase it off the shelf or through standard channels and when labeled Psystar Certified would allow the installation of Snow Leopard simply by inserting the retail OS X DVD.

Psystar’s vision of open computing is to provide users with the freedom to choose which OS’s they install on their hardware. The Licensing Program will allow computer manufacturers the opportunity to ship the certified systems pre-configured with DUBL and OS of choice including Windows 7, Windows Vista and several flavors of Linux. These systems would also be compatible with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and receive normal software updates through the use of "Safe Update" technology. The customer can install the Mac OS themselves simply by inserting the retail DVD or choose to install several other OS’s with no manual boot configuration. DUBL supports up to six different operating systems on a single machine and configures itself *automagicly*.

Manufacturers can benefit from this unique licensing opportunity with minimal expense and in several hardware markets. In most cases Psystar will tailor the technology to a specific hardware profile(s) at no additional engineering cost, allowing manufacturers to save time and money by utilizing our familiarity running the Mac OS X on generic hardware.

If you are interested in participating in the Licensing Program, head over to Psystar.com (http://www.psystar.com) or send an email to Licensing@psystar.com.

OS X, OS X Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard and Macintosh are products and trademarks of Apple, Inc. Psystar purchases copies of these operating systems to resell as part of its Open Computer systems. Psystar has no other affiliations with Apple, Inc.

The NPD Group’s 2009 Household Penetration Study, reveals that approximately 12 per cent of all US computer owning households own a Mac, up from 9 per cent in 2008. 

The researchers note to that while Apple ownership is growing, the mix favors mixed system environments. Of those 12 per cent, nearly 85 percent also own a Windows-based PC.

From the Press Release:

“Multiple computer ownership is a common thread in Apple computer households, with 66 per cent of households owning three or more computers, compared to just 29 per cent of Windows PC households. Apple owning households are decidedly more mobile as well, with 72 percent of them owning a notebook, whereas only 50 percent of households that have a Windows PC own a notebook.

“Not only do Apple computer owners own more computers (and more mobile computers) than the norm they also tend to own more types of electronics, and more of them, than typical computer owning households. For example, while 36 per cent of total computer owning households have an iPod, 63 per cent of Apple households have one. And while almost 50 per cent of Apple owners own some type of navigation system, only about 30 per cent of all computer households own one.”

"While Apple owners tend to own more computers and more electronics devices, there is also a high correlation among Apple owners and more affluent consumer households," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis. "Thirty-six percent of Apple computer owners reported household incomes greater than $100,000, compared to 21 per cent of all consumers. "With a higher household income, though, it’s not a surprise that those consumers are making more electronics purchases," Baker said. "The average Apple household owns 48 CE devices whereas the average computer household owns about 24. Apple household owners’ actions and purchases can be used by the industry as leading indicators for hot new products and adoption."

A total of more than 2,300 of NPD’s online panelists completed this survey.
 

Adobe has revealed a series of alliances and new Flash software which threatens to bring support for its proprietary multimedia software to almost every mobile device – except Apple’s iPhone.

At the MAX conference in Los Angeles Adobe is is demonstrating Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones, a version of mobile Flash that delivers faster rendering, lower memory consumption and all for less battery drain. A beta is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year.

Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010. In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry smartphones, and Google joined up for the Open Screen Project initiative.

Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across devices.

New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation. Take a look at a demo on a Palm Pre here.

“We’ve been working with some great partners including Nvidia and ARM to optimize the player for those devices and create a quality mobile experience,” said Adobe Flash developer, Ryan Stewart.

David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide. It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year.”

Missing from the line-up – at least so far – is Apple. Take a look at what Harry McCracken has to say about that – is Flash support on phones a promise for a multimedia future, or just going to end up meaning those annoying Flash-based ads will also play on your phone, sucking your battery power? McCracken argues that iPhone users are steadily becoming less interested in Flash on the iPhone, as they have thousands of Apps to keep them entertained.

Apple’s tablet may be powered by a PA Semi chip, claims Jason O’Grady, noting Intel’s May 2008 blunder when it claimed a larger version iPhone would eventually ship using an Intel Atom chip.

Intel later retracted the statement, issuing an apology in which it implied Atom wasn’t suitable for Apple because it was unable to match ARM’s low power demands.

O’Grady also believes Intel’s statements then hinted the firm would not be providing the chip for Apple’s tablet, which he sees as likely to ship with an ARM processor, “and eventually a new custom ARM chip from PA Semi”.

Development of that custom chip may be further along than he thinks. The Taiwan Economic News last month said the Apple tablet would use a PA Semi chip. And the company is aiming to sell 300,000 of the devices each month on launch in February.

ARM in September announced its new 2GHz, dual-core chip, a version of its Cortex-A9 architecture. This followed a December 2008 Computerworld article by our own Seth Weintraub, which predicts Apple’s tablet will be based on ARM’s Cortex architecture.

Earlier this year we also learned that PA Semi’s team was split into two parts following the Apple take-over of the company, one team designing portable ARM-based processors for iPhones and iPods, and another designing a processor for the tablet device.

Speculation as to all this is likely to continue in the months to come, with the New York Times this morning telling us Apple has had teams working on the device since 2003.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is understood to have pulled several prototypes off the agenda, partially because he couldn’t see what the tablet’s raison d’etre would be.

Today we can speculate the tablet will be a device which summons all Apple’s multimedia principalities into one place, capable of driving multimedia experiences on a par with iTunes Extras, shipping with a plethora of eBooks, and more. As well as interesting two-handed gesture/touch-based controls.

This one was from last week…

Embedded video from CNN Video

Apple could double iPhone sales in 2010 as it drops exclusivity deals in key territories and works to extend its digital media principalities across its product range, analysts said this morning. Meanwhile the extreme secrecy of the company’s dealings with Orange and Vodafone to diversify iPhone distribution in the UK has come to light.

Analysts at UBS and Morgan Stanley this morning raised price targets on the company’s stock.

UBS upped its target to $265 from $170, saying iPhone prospects look bright. The analyst firm also said, “Apple may be working on building out a foundation for a service ot provide seamless access and mobility of digital content across its products,” according to Marketwatch.

Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty surprised us all this morning with a bullish AAPL report, saying the expiration of exclusive deals and a move to broaden iPhone distribution will drive major growth for Apple.

“This total opportunity is substantial,” she wrote, as reported by CNN Money, “it adds up to an incremental 20.3M iPhone units and $3.76 in adjusted EPS, 100% and 41% of iPhone units and adjusted EPS respectively."

She notes the French connection, where iPhone sales rocketed 136 per cent when local regulators demanded an end to Apple’s originally exclusive deal with Orange. She expects similar experiences in other territories as the company broadens distribution, though she warns the US may lag on this, with Verizon not expected to carry the device before 2011, (in her opinion). She expects Apple to sell 41.7 million iPhones in calendar year 2010.

With the device so much in vogue, it is no surprise that in the UK O2 and Vodafone were prepared to engage in extreme secrecy in their negotiations with the company. And the extent of their effort to maintain that secrecy is extremely interesting.

Orange chief exec, Tom Alexander, said that the deal to carry the iPhone on the Orange network was signed over a year ago, but the company was not allowed to tell anyone under terms of the deal.

We’ve really been dying to tell people, but we just couldn’t do it. It’s been really frustrating.” Mr Alexander told the Daily Telegraph. “There’s been a lot of secrecy surrounding it.”

Vodafone was also in the frame – and that carrier was so keen to ink an iPhone distro deal that it hired a team of temporary staff to conduct the negotiations, staff who were not connected to its own people, and who were under the kind of secrecy clauses you’d expect from a top-ranking military spy – they couldn’t even tell their spouses what they were doing in their day.

Gartner analyst, Carolina Milanesi, told the Telegraph: “Apple calls all the shots. Apple is an iconic brand and the iPhone is an iconic device which has transformed the mobile phone market. Apple can do what it likes and the mobile phone operators just have to lump it.”

He’s Steve Jobs’ buddy, and he’s got some turn of phrase – here’s Oracle CEO Larry Ellison telling the Churchill Club why all the fuss and bother over ‘cloud computing’ is just so much hocus pocus – and he gets pretty funny, we thought…

Apple’s latest patent application has already set tongues wagging and tweets ablaze, as it describes a way to control the tablet with two hands by touch, think Minority Report.

Apple’s new patent describes a sophisticated multitouch input method, in which you use all ten fingers, complex movements and other gestures. You can even type. The patent describes sensors which will work to identify exactly what your gestures mean, will be able to move the cursor and enable various activities, all through touch.

Or, as the patent puts it: “Apparatus and methods are disclosed for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch, and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface. Identification and classification of intuitive hand configurations and motions enables unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device.”

The patent application basically describes the creation of an all-new user interface, designed to replace the current mouse and keyboard UI. It also notes the new interface has advantages against voice control because it allows people to more easily manipulate graphic objects and so forth.

“A generic manual input device which combines the typing, pointing, scrolling, and handwriting capabilities of the standard input device collection must have ergonomic, economic, and productivity advantages which outweigh the unavoidable sacrifices of abandoning device specialization,” the patent also notes.

Good news too for RSI sufferers: “Epidemiological studies suggest that repetition and force multiply in causing repetitive strain injuries. Awkward postures, device activation force, wasted motion, and repetition should be minimized to improve ergonomics. Furthermore, the workload should be spread evenly over all available muscle groups to avoid repetitive strain.”

There’s lots more in the patent filing, which is available here. We think reading the original patent is probably going to be better than any over-simplification we may provide.

With tablet rumours growing apace, it is interesting to reflect on this statement made by Gizmodo, citing a source the publication believes to have seen a prototype of the Apple device: “There was talk of making the device act as a secondary screen/touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks.”

So the Apple tablet could also replace the interface you currently use on your current Macs. And is now widely expected to ship in early 2010…

Via: AppleInsider
 

Looks like interconnection development is the new black, with earlier reports on Intel’s LightSpeed technology designed to connect everything to everything else now followed by the creation of a cross-industry group to create a unified interconnect to output multimedia content from a phone to a TV.

Apple’s already ahead on this, at least in some respects, as devices and docks already exist to take video and other media from an iPhone or iPod to a TV set, but any movements that aim to make life a little simpler should be welcomed.

Nokia, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony and Toshiba have announced the formation of the Mobile High-Definition Interface Working Group. The group aims to create an industry standard a/v interface to connect mobile phones or portable consumer electronics devices directly to high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and displays.

This is likely to be based on Silicon Image’s Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) technology, and will be promoted and marketed as a standard.

The aim is to create an easy and cheap technology to achieve this, pleasing manufacturers by not costing too much, and pleasing users by being easy-to-use. And it’s expected to support high-def.

The Working Group is expected to organize a Consortium of founding members who will develop a mobile connectivity technology standard specification that governs transmission and reception of high-definition content between portable devices and display devices, to support connectivity in accordance with the new specification.

Mac sync will soon be possible with Android phones, on Mark/Space’s announcement of The Missing Sync for Android.

Currently in development, the software will deliver a desktop sync solution for phones powered by the Android OS, such as the T-Mobile myTouch and HTC Hero. It will synchronize contacts and transfer media files between an Android phone and a computer running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OS X.

Sync happens automatically and wirelessly whenever the phone is near the computer using Proximity Sync, which works even when the phone is in a backpack or pants pocket. Microsoft Outlook, Entourage and Mac OS X Address Book will all be synchronised.

Unlike Palm – which attempted to hack its way into iTunes support by posing its Pre as an Apple device, the Missing Sync software will also sync iTunes and Windows Media Player music playlists via USB cable. Photo and video sync will also be supported.

In other news, Palm has announced a new detente with Amazon. The company’s latest WebOS 1.2 software enables Pre users to download music from Amazon’s MP3 store over a cellphone network. This probably won’t please customers who purchased a Palm Pre on the promise of iTunes support, but there you go…

And in the other corner, DoubleTwist for Mac debuts October 6, and is likely to work with Apple’s mobile devices, potentially enabling support for a jailbroken app store, CNN speculates.

We all know Intuit’s Bill Campbell sits on Apple’s board, so it’s nice to hear his company today announced an all-new version of its popular QuickBooks package for the Mac.

Aimed at small businesses, QuickBooks 2010 ships in late October and offers a range of new tools for business users, all couched within what the company describes as “the simplicity they expect from a Mac product”.

The package offers a fast and easy user set-up, delivers customizable reports and graphs and has integrated features which can support available plug-ins for credit card processing and hours tracking.

Business owners can also pay their employees with Intuit QuickBooks Payroll for Mac, an integrated add-on payroll service. This online offering helps users easily manage everything from paychecks to W 2 forms, including federal and state tax payments and form filings.

“Now more than ever, business owners are concerned about profitability,” said Kiran Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Small Business Group. “So with this new version, we focused on the areas that help business owners be more productive, such as at-a-glance reports, integrated credit card processing and simplified routine tasks. This means they have more time to grow their business with the insights they need to improve their bottom line.”

The software will cost $199.95, but is available for pre-order now from Amazon for $189.99, with a price guarantee meaning if the price falls again pre-launch, Amazon will honour all orders made at the new, lower price, rather than the original deal.

QuickBooks 2010 for Mac includes over forty enhancements that help users save time, make money and get paid. Below is a list of key new features and improvements.

Reflecting the trend to abandon PowerPC support, Intuit QuickBooks 2010 for Mac is designed to work on Intel-based Macs (running Mac OS 10.5.7, 10.6, or later).