Apple Debuts Logic Studio
Apple unveiled a major upgrade to its Logic Pro professional audio program called Logic Studio, which includes several applications for under $500 aimed at helping create musicians audio projects.
Central to the suite is Logic Pro 8, which includes several enhancements over previous versions to simplify the audio creation process. A single-window interface is now central to the application, which will allow fast access to commonly used features.
Microsoft, Sun to Announce Expanded Agreement
Korea FTC Files Objection Statement Against Intel
The South Korean business daily Maeil has confirmed that the country's Fair Trade Commission has not only concluded its antitrust investigation against Intel, but has filed a statement of objections against the CPU maker. This after some US press sources had taken the headline of Korea's story, "Korea Closes Intel Investigation," too literally.
The bad news portion of Korea's FTC disclosures came first from Bloomberg News late this morning, then the San Jose Mercury News soon thereafter. The investigation period has indeed closed, and the charges and possible penalty phase has immediately begun.
States Petition Federal Judge to Extend Microsoft Antitrust Oversight
When the US Dept. of Justice and the New York State Attorney General's office on August 31 issued their joint status report, along with Microsoft, on the progress of its antitrust oversight, they acknowledged that period is due to expire this November. But in a statement, the DOJ said it would petition to extend its oversight period for another two years until late 2009, at least with regard to its protocol licensing operation if not the entire company. Microsoft agreed to that extension, the statement added.
Now, in a petition before US District Judge Kathleen Kollar-Kotelly, the State of California, along with five other states and the District of Columbia, said they would ask US District Judge Kollar-Kotelly to extend all the provisions of government oversight to 2012, in a status meeting scheduled for today.
AMD Clinches Quad-Core Price/Performance Lead After First SPEC Results
The first official benchmark test results for Intel's Tigerton series and AMD's Barcelona series were released by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. From a pure prowess perspective, neither the new quad-core Xeon MPs nor the new quad-core Opterons walk away with an all-around victory, with Intel's X7350 stealing the show in integer throughput, and AMD's 8350 winning the race in floating-point throughput.
Intel tested a Lenovo R630 G7 system with four of each of its new quad-cores dropped in at some point, including its new top-of-the-line 2.93 GHz Xeon MP X7350. Though it has yet to publish results for all Tigertons across the board in the SPECfp_rate 2006 floating-point throughput test, a quartet of X7350s scored about 29% better in base rate and nearly 34% better in peak rate than four of AMD's top-of-the-line Opteron 8350s in the SPECint_rate 2006 integer throughput test.
Patch Tuesday: And Then There Were Four
Microsoft dropped one patch from its Patch Tuesday lineup, instead only releasing four patches, one of which was critical.
Based on the list provided by Microsoft last Thursday, it appears as if the company nixed the fix aimed at the company's SharePoint product. That patch would have repaired an issue concerning an elevation of privilege risk.
NAB: Say No to "White Space" Internet
Claiming to be acting on behalf of television viewers, the National Association of Broadcasters launched an effort to block measures to use so called "white space" for rural high-speed internet.
In early August, the FCC struck down a proposed device that would have utilized unused portions of TV spectrum to bring high-speed internet access to rural areas. The regulatory agency claimed that the device could not reliably find unused spectrum, and cause interference.
News Corp: We're Staying on iTunes
Ending speculation that it would follow NBC Universal's lead in pulling its programs from Apple's iTunes, News Corp president Peter Cherin said the company had no plans to do so. He did, however seem to agree with NBC on one thing: that networks should have more control over what is charged for their programming. Cherin's comments were made to Reuters during a stop in Poland, where the media conglomerate is relaunching a television channel.
"Right now, we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he told the news wire. Cherin's comments are no doubt good news for Apple, and may help stem the tide of content provider discontent Apple has been riding over the past several months. It began last year with Apple's insistence to keep 99 cent music pricing, which may have led to Universal's canceling of its long-term contract. This was soon followed by NBC Universal's announcement that it would pull its television programming from the service.
Vodafone Looks to Take On iPhone in UK
Preparing itself for the eventual release of Apple's iPhone in the UK, Vodafone on Tuesday unveiled a new music store that allows the unlimited download of tracks to compatible phones. While the British cell phone carrier was thought to be an early favorite, it now appears that O2 has won the contract for the country. Vodafone's service includes about one million tracks and is available for $4 per week.
According to the carrier, most users will not need to upgrade their phones in order to take advantage of the service. However, it features new phones in its store including Nokia's N81 and N95 devices. Other devices will also be offered from Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and most will support the music store and other interactive features such as eBay, MySpace, and YouTube access.
Three-Layer 51 GB HD DVD Apparently Approved by DVD Forum
News is only now leaking out that the three-layer, single sided format for HD DVD engineered by Toshiba was given the green light by the DVD Forum, official backer of HD DVD, on August 31. Though no statements were released by either party (the DVD Forum rarely makes public pronouncements), journalists including DVDTown's Henning Molbaek - who originally broke the news of 51 GB last January - had at least enough information yesterday to declare the format ready for production.
BetaNews has asked Toshiba for comment and verification on this matter, though we have not yet heard back.
Take-Two Begins Road to Financial Recovery
Take-Two investors that may have been looking for some good news got it late Monday as the company reported a narrower-than-expected loss.
Most recently, the company announced that it would be delaying the next release of one of its highest grossing titles Grand Theft Auto IV. The resulting fallout caused the company to trim its expectations and project a loss for the year.
Web OS Aims to Mimic Windows
A web applications company is hoping to legitimize the web operating system concept with the release of ajaxWindows, an application that behaves much like its Microsoft counterpart.
The OS acts as a centralized location for the various web services created by Ajax13. When running in full screen mode, any evidence of the underlying operating system is erased, and the Web OS itself becomes the desktop.
IBM to Develop OpenOffice.org with Sun
After a few years of flirting with the idea of developing its own suite of applications, perhaps under the Lotus banner, that support the OASIS OpenDocument format, IBM has decided to join Sun Microsystems in the development of OpenOffice.org, the principal open source ODF applications suite.
In announcing its move today, IBM acknowledged that it had been developing some ODF components for use with Lotus Notes, but will now roll them into its contributions to the open source community. Sun currently produces the commercial ODF-supporting suite StarOffice; and since late 2005, when Sun and IBM openly courted development groups to meet at IBM's Armonk headquarters to plan the future of ODF together, observers speculated IBM could be working on an "Office killer" to go up against Microsoft.
SanDisk Introduces Low-Cost Video MP3 Player
SanDisk solidified its music player lineup on Monday, introducing the Sansa View, which is the cheapest video-enabled player in its category.
Two models will be made available, an 8GB version for $149 and an 16GB model for $199 USD. Memory could be further expanded up to 24GB by using an optional 8GB microSD card. The players are expected reach stores in October, according to SanDisk.
Microsoft Launches Own 'Babel Fish'
While Altavista has largely disappeared from the minds of most Internet users since the emergence of Google, the Web property does still have a very popular service: its Babel Fish translator. Now, Microsoft is testing its own translation offering under the Windows Live umbrella.
Like Babel Fish, Windows Live Translator is based on technology from Systran. Users can input a block of text to translate, or select a Web site to translate. There is an option for "computer related content" which keeps the service from translating technology-related words. Little else is known about Live Translator, but Microsoft frequently tests new offerings under Windows Live, some of which survive while others don't.
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