When Steve Jobs takes the stage Monday at Apple’s programmers conference, he’s likely to give the world a glimpse of an upgraded Mac operating system that could herald the biggest changes to the machine’s interface in 30 years.

At the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Jobs will probably show off Leopard, a Mac OS X update due in October that he has promised contains “top secret” features. But perhaps the most important feature is one that has been overlooked by many Apple fans: a new set of tools for building program interfaces called Core Animation.

I won’t continue the whole article here, but read the rest of this article on the interesting new features of Leopard at Wired.

Pajago

It’s about time that people realised they must adhere to an acceptable use policy (AUP) with broadband access. I’d say the vast majority of home internet users use some form of file-sharing program to obtain music and movies for free. I agree that if people want this facility they should understand they will need to pay some sort of premium on their internet subscription fee.

Not necessarily a penalty but a higher fee than someone that is using their bandwidth conservatively -lawfully. Myself, I can’t be bothered with P2P in all honesty. As much as it’s illegal and immoral I don’t want to be downloading all sorts of crap to my computer. Personally, I am a fan of BigPond Music -which I can’t use unfortunately as I am an Apple Mac user- and Apple iTunes -which I love dearly.

What annoys me as a Cable user is that my bandwidth is often hogged by those P2P users in my street. I, however, am trying to download legally and pay a nominal fee for each song and I get the short straw. Check out what Internode is going to do:

ADELAIDE-BASED ISP Internode is considering using filtering systems to contain rampant growth in peer-to-peer internet traffic across its network.

Internode product manager Jim Kellett said the company was examining the technology after it announced that it had jacked up the price its high-end broadband internet services by up to 30 per cent. “It’s certainly an area of technology that we’re keeping a close eye on,” Mr Kellett said.

Read on…

Apple has coped a bit of flack of late on its environmental policies. From environmentalists of course. Apple’s recycling program has come into question.

“Apple said it would stop using polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants in its plastic parts and eliminate arsenic from its monitors by the end of 2008. Apple also said it would step up recycling efforts for its computers and iPod music players.”

CEO, Steve Jobs has talked up Apple’s policies going forward. Check out Apple’s stance of the environment.

Here is a sign of Apple’s commitment to the environment and also a good bit of PR:

“Purchase any qualifying Apple computer or monitor and receive free recycling of your old computer and monitor — regardless of manufacturer. Learn more.”

“Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum and bass track or chill with the ambient classic” -the marketing brief for the new iGasm accessory that’s keeping the Apple legal team busy.

iGasm is a device that plugs into any music player and vibrates in sync with the beat. Certain to be controversial at the best of times. iGasm are using ads that look similar to those for the iPod. Copyright infringement looks on the cards.

Pajago

Source: SMH

Finally I did it, I got an Airport Express and I had two first impressions (if that’s possible): aesthetically -crisp; technologically -easy!

Easy is an understatement. I unpacked the unit, had a scan through the manual, realised how much I hate reading manuals, plugged in my cable modem, Airport straight-away picked it up, and ta-dah. I am unsure how to secure my connection at this point but all I was concerned about is getting it up and running.

Signal strength is great. I tried using my iBook around 20-metres from the Airport Express and I was getting all but one bar. Awesome.

Pajago

(will keep ya’ll posted!)

Well this is a real pity, and perhaps something that’s not really worth writing about, but oh well. Apple Leopard (their new operating system) has been delayed due to “redirection of resources” to the iPhone project. Put simply, they (Apple) have put a number of engineers on the iPhone job who’d be normally working the OS.

“iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and resources.“

This is admittedly old news but oh well; it matters to me. Can’t wait to get the iPhone in my hands but am unfazed by Leopard. I soon intend to get a MacBook Pro but love OSX 10.4!

Paul