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Apple announced their latest lineup of notebooks that have a number of new improvements, the most exciting being the glass Multi-Touch trackpad.

The old trackpad has been replaced with a single pad. That’s right, no more clicker, which gives you more room to scroll on the new silky glass surface. Because of this new design, Apple has changed the way you move around on your computer.

To move about your MacBook, you, “Use two fingers to scroll up and down a page. Pinch to zoom in and out. Rotate an image with your fingertips. Swipe with three fingers to flip through your photo libraries. Swipe with four fingers to show your desktop, view all open windows, or switch applications. If you’re coming from a right-click world, you can right-click with two fingers or configure a right-click area on the trackpad,” as told by Apple.

Apple also added a new keyboard. The MacBook Pro sports an aluminum keyboard curved to fit your fingers that’s illuminated as well.

Some other features are the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M intergrated graphics processor, battery life up to 5 hours and a glossy LED-backlit display with a glass enclosure.

As for pricing, Apple has their first notebook for under $1000 – actually it’s $999. The new pricings for this lineup are as follows:

MacBook:
$1299. 13.3″ Glossy Display, 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 160GB HD.
$1599. 13.3″ Glossy Display, 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 250GB HD.

MacBook Pro:
$1999. 15.4″ Glossy Display, 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 9400M + 9600M, 250GB HD.
$2499. 15.4″ Glossy Display, 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA 9400M + 9600M, 320GB HD.

Apple also introduced their first LED-based Cinema display. The screen size is 24″ and it comes with 3 USB 2.0 ports, built-in iSight, microphone and speaker system. This is going to set you back $900.

An upcoming Apple event has been announced for Tuesday, October 14th, in which the maker of the most popular mp3 player and now cell phone is believed to be reveling its new line of laptops.

The really big part of this rumor is that Apple may be shipping a laptop that cost $800.  This is almost $300 cheaper than their current model and the first time Apple would release a notebook cheaper than $1000.

Their current lineup includes models ranging in screen size from 13 inch to 17 inch, with the lowest price at $1099 and the most expensive at $2799.

If this is the case, Apple laptops will become available to a more wider audience, just in time for the looming recession.  A less expensive laptop is sure to increase their market share.  As of now their laptops have a %10.6 share of the market according to DisplaySearch.  This is an increase of 4 points from the previous year.

As for the new design, photos have been circulating around the net. Whatever the final product may look like, I’m sure it will live up to Apple’s hype.

For you Crackberry users out there, Research in Motion is coming out with a new touch screen version of its Blackberry smartphones to compete with Apples iPhone, according to Reuters.

The phone is due out later this fall and will be available exclusively to Verizon Wireless subscribers in the U.S. and Vodafone subscribers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

This new Blackberry will be called “The Storm”, which, when the touch screen is depressed, will have a soft click when the screen is released.

The Storm will also come preloaded with software for e-mail and managing documents, as well as a media player for music, movies and photos. It will also come equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera, according to Reuters.

As for pricing, Reuters reported that RIM did not offer any details, but they intend to price it attractively to keep luring new subscribers.ribers.

Any scifi fan has undoubtedly seen their favorite hero or heroine gazing into a holographic projection of a message from the distressed resistance leader or of the impenetrable fortress he or she must circumnavigate to destroy Lord Doom doomsday device. What fans have seen is of course Hollywoods cinematic magic, but according to a CNN article, holography may be coming to your living room in the not to distant future in the form of a holographic television.

Holographs for the uninitiated are 3D projections and were once a very far off dream. However, as reported by CNN, a breakthrough in rewritable and erasable holographic systems was made earlier this year by researchers at the University of Arizona.

Scientist Dr Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and lasers at the university’s Optical Sciences department, told CNN that scientists have broken a barrier by making the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory.

“This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology. The way it works presently is not suitable for 3-D images,” said Dr Peyghambarian.

He goes on to say, “It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly. What we are doing now is trying to make the model better. What we showed is just one color, what we are doing now is trying to use three colors. The original display was four inches by four inches and now we’re going for something at least as big as a computer screen.”

And what might these holographic televisions look like?

CNN reported that “According to Peyghambarian, they could be constructed as a screen on the wall (like flat panel displays) that shows 3-D images, with all the image writing lasers behind the wall; or it could be like a horizontal panel on a table with holographic writing apparatus underneath.”

“So, if this project is realized, you really could have a football match on your coffee table, or horror-movie villains jumping out of your wall.”

And when might we hope to see these in our living rooms?

As reported by CNN, Peyghambarian is also optimistic that the technology could reach the market within five to ten years. He said progress towards a final product should be made much more quickly now that a rewriting method has been found.

The only obstacle that they see is how to produce it cheaply. Their hope is as the breakthroughs continue, major sponsors of the technology will start stepping forward.

Let’s hope that will be the case.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TE…holographic.television/index.html?eref=rss_tech

Wired news reported that Apple has threatened to shut down iTunes music if a three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents per song.

If increased, the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters for digital downloads would increase from 9 cents to 15 cents per song. The decision by the Copyright Royalty Board is scheduled to be handed down today, Wired said.

Wired goes on to report that Apple said that if the rate hike goes through and the labels refuse to absorb the entire resulting increase, the iTunes music store will become unprofitable.

The article goes on to further state:

“If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the… royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss — which is no alternative at all,” wrote Apple iTunes vice president Eddy Cue in a statement filed with the board last year, according to Fortune. “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

65 cent to 70 cent out of 99 per song is paid to artist and labels by Apple and 9 cents of that is passed on to publishers. Apple contends that a 66 percent increase in publishing royalties to 15 cents per song requested by the National Association of Music Publishers is too much for the company to bear, according to Wired.

Apple could add the extra 6 cents to make up the difference, but that would go against it’s allure of 99 cents song, according to the article.

The labels would be fine with Apple doing this, but Steve Jobs is unlikely to raise the price. The labels have been pressuring Apple to budge on its 99 cents per track policy for years, but as for now, Apple hasn’t budged.

As for the record labels absorbing the entire cost increase seems unlikely. The 15 cent per song publishing royalty would gobble over 20 percent of their per-song revenue, according to Wired.

And since the present rate of 9 cents per track has been in effect since 1996, the publisher says it’s high time for an increase, wrote Wired.

Stay tuned for the Drama.

Update: A deal has been reached to keep the present royalty pay-out for the publishers and songwriters. Great news for consumers; not so great news for artist.

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