Just days after Microsoft announced its online advertising entry, Google has announced their entry into the radio industry. Google has signed a deal to purchase dMarc Broadcasting for US$102 million. The deal will allow Google to enhance its presence in the advertising industry over to the radio industry. Google says it plans to integrate its highly successful AdSense programme with those from dMarc
Optus has begun shifting its 200,000+ DSL customers across to its new copper wire based broadband network in a move that could help wipe more than $1 billion a year from Telstra’s revenues
Sony BMG has finally jumped on the iTunes bandwagon, with the music giant today confirming it had added its roster of artists to Apple’s Australian on-line music store
Symantec has fessed up to using a rootkit-type feature in Norton SystemWorks that could provide the perfect hiding place for attackers to place malicious files on computers. The anti-virus vendor acknowledged that it was deliberately hiding a directory from Windows APIs as a feature to stop customers from accidentally deleting files but, prompted by warnings from security experts, the company shipped a SystemWorks update to eliminate the risk — via digg
This hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There’s just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics — via Warren Ellis
Bad punning aside, Apple have announced the first intel core duo macs: the MacBook Pro and iMac.
I’m currently in the market for a beefy-ish laptop of the Apple variety, and was only deciding whether to buy it out right with student discount, a 17 inch powerBook, or lease it for 2 years and upgrade to a new intel mac after a revision or 2.
When I started going through the Apple site, (and yes, the home page, iMac and MacBook Pro pages are significantly wider than the rest of the site. Bye-bye to the must fit in 800 x 600 mentality), I thought “yeah, screen’s not quite as big as I want it, but hey I still want one.”, especially after noticing that it’s pricing is almost identical to the powerBook, “well hey, it’s newer and 4X as fast or so they are touting, and the same price. Fuck it, go pro!”
Then I started reading about Rosetta and Universal stuff, and my head started hurting as I’m a designer/illustrator not a computer geek, and thought shit I’d better find out if my Adobe products, ie the main apps I’ll be using will be fine. At the time of writing this, I haven’t been able to find anything about it on the Adobe site, they seem too preoccupied with the whole Macromedia merger, which is fair enough. I’ve read snippets on various Apple rumour sites and what have you that if you’re an occasional Photoshop user, you won’t really notice any sluggish performance, but those who use it frequently will. I’m not finding this very encouraging.
Theres’s a comparison of guts so to speak between the powerBook and MacBook Pro here: Comparing the MacBook Pro to the PowerBook G4
Hmmm.
Me thinks powerBook will win for me, but hey Apple have to start some where with the new beasts. I hope those who buy the new breed are happy customers.
Mozilla has released the first major update to Thunderbird. Version 1.5 includes an automated update system, in-line spell checking, an a bunch of other additions and improvements
A press release from Nikon UK has announced plans by Nikon in Japan to reduce its production of film cameras and related products to just a handful of items — via digg
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is getting out of the domestic mobile phone market after selling its stake in Virgin Mobile Australia to joint venture partner Optus for AU$30 million. But the Virgin brand will go on after the company granted Optus, Australia’s second biggest telco behind Telstra, a 15-year licence to use the name
Steve Jobs has introduced a new notebook and an iMac computer that use Intel’s latest Core Duo processor. The iMac announcement is six months ahead of the schedule outlined by Apple last year
Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. The 38 million subscribers to MySpace discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens. The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites News Corp relented and restored the links
Google announced the release of Google Pack, a free collection of essential software
. Along with Google’s own programmes, such as Google Toolbar and Google Earth, Google Pack contains Firefox, Adobe Reader, Ad-Aware and a six month subscription to Norton Antivirus. I would expect most geeks already have most of this installed already. I’m baffled by the inclusion of a resource hog like Norton, but at least you can choose to exclude it from the pack
Microsoft has admitted to removing the blog of a Chinese journalist from MSN Spaces. The censored site has been re-hosted elsewhere after a short down-time, but is no longer accessible to the folks in China
US mobile records are for sale online to the general public. The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their mobile phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of mobile phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. No court order needed, no credentials required. If they want your records and have the money, they get them
An ISP who successfully sued spammers in the past has now been awarded an $11.2 billion judgment against James McCalla of Florida for sending millions of unsolicited e-mails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services — via digg
A boy in Canton, Ohio puts up a web page telling his friends to go to their school web site and hit refresh. Now the local prosecutor wants to charge him with a felony and threatens him with jail time, although prosecutors say community service is more likely and disciplinary action from the school — via Boing Boing
The Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, is working on a concept they call Push Music, which is software that enables peer-to-peer connections between music players, enabling people to browse
the music collections of others and take a copy of whatever they like — via The Raw Feed
Every year The Edge asks over 100 top scientists and thinkers a question, and the responses are fascinating and widely quoted. This year, psychologist Steven Pinker suggested they ask What is your most dangerous idea? The 117 respondents include Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond — and that’s just the D’s! As you might expect, the submissions are brilliant and very controversial
The inventors of MP3 are taking portable music listening one step further with the introduction of two surround sound enhancements. Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and France’s Thomson SA have added two new elements to MP3 Surround demonstration software: MP3 SX (MP3 Stereo eXtended), which enhances MP3 stereo files for multichannel playback; and Ensonido, which provides portable MP3 Surround sound using stereo headphones
eMagin has developed a wearable headset system, dubbed the EyeBud 800, that plugs into the iPod and displays video from it in front of one eye, using optical technology designed to give the picture a higher resolution and make it appear larger than on the iPod’s screen. Scheduled to debut in the first half of this year, the EyeBud is expected to retail for as much as US$599 — US$200 more than the cost of a 60-gigabyte iPod
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