MacRumors

Here's a short clip of the beginning of Pogue's presentation which mocks Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Best of Show

Also new in this year's Macworld was a Best of Show DEMO session held immediately prior to the opening of the show floor featuring six of the best products at Macworld Expo.

The video embedded below shows off Ten One Design's Mac software which allows you to use the MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air's multi-touch trackpad as a pressure sensitive trackpad when using a Pogo Stylus:

- Ten One Design's Inklet- use your multi-touch trackpad as a drawing tablet
- Microvision SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector - Laser-power pico projector
- Canson's Papershow - Take hand written notes that appear on the screen in real time
- Carina's Skyfi and Sky Voyager - Spot stars in the sky with your iPhone and control your telescope with a Wi-Fi to serial adapter.
- Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite - Access, view, edit and share Microsoft Office documents on your iPhone
- Yapper - Easily build an iPhone App based on an RSS feed.

Impressions

The Macworld show floor was contained in a smaller space this year, but the early foot traffic seemed particularly busy on opening day. It was genuinely difficult to make your way through portions of the hall due to the number of attendees.

Virtualization developer VMWare was present showing off version 3 of Fusion which was released in October. Version 3 had brought Windows 7 support, Snow Leopard optimizations, and more to Fusion. VMWare Director of Personal Desktop Products Pat Lee seemed optimistic about the strong early showing at the event.

Macworld continues on Friday and Saturday, and dates for next year's Macworld Expo have been set for January 25th-29th, 2011.

According to the official contest rules, participants may make up to 25 entries per day either by purchasing/downloading songs from the iTunes Store or by filling out an entry form on Apple's web site. The contest begins today and ends once the 10-billion-song milestone is reached.

The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through a song download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 9,999,999,999th song. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrants chances of winning are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.

Apple has periodically offered similar contests in the past, such as its One Billion Song contest in 2006 and a One Billion App contest last year.

Apple today released Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0, addressing heat and performance issues experienced by users of Apple's Nehalem-based Mac Pros when processing audio.

This update is for Mac Pro (Early 2009) computers running Mac OS X v10.6.2. This update reduces processor utilization during audio activities, such as playing or recording music.

Full details on the update, which weighs in at 1.64 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.2, are included in the associated support document.

The issues, first reported in our forums last October, have manifested themselves in the form of excessive power usage and processor core heat load when performing audio-related tasks as simple as playing music through iTunes. While today's update addresses only Mac OS X Snow Leopard-based machines, users have also reported difficulties while running under Mac OS X Leopard. No issues have been observed by users running Windows under Boot Camp or on older, pre-Nehalem Mac Pros.

Silicon Alley Insider reports on information from a source claiming that rumors of Apple looking to develop its own search engine are untrue and that Apple's current deal with Google to provide default search functionality for the iPhone is currently worth over $100 million per year to Apple in revenue sharing.

Our source tells us "there's too many options" for search on the market, so there's no reason for Apple to build its own search engine.

Another reason Apple might not want to build its own search engine: It's getting over $100 million a year from Google in its revenue share deal, according to our source.

For Apple, that's not a lot of money. But, it's enough that it doesn't make sense for Apple to put considerable resources towards building its own Internet search engine. And, if Apple wanted more money or options, there's Microsoft -- with Bing and a big checkbook.

A report from BusinessWeek last month had in fact claimed that Apple and Microsoft have been in talks to make Bing the default search provider for the iPhone as the relationship between Google and Apple has reportedly soured as competition between the two companies has become increasingly intense.

T3 reports that Microsoft Senior Product Manager Mike Tedesco revealed during the Office for Mac 2011 preview event at Macworld that the company is "looking at" the possibility of bringing its Office productivity suite to Apple's iPad tablet device.

"Yeah, it's something that we're looking at," said Microsoft's Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU. "Obviously the announcement (of the iPad) is really fresh and there's nothing to announce or nothing that I can talk to you about today.

As the report notes, the release of an Office suite for the iPad would bring a significant credibility boost to the device, particularly in the eyes of business users with a critical need for such productivity software. For its part, Apple featured iPad versions of its iWork applications at the iPad media event last month, and will be offering Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for the iPad through the App Store at $9.99 per application.

Tedesco's comments come soon after Microsoft founder Bill Gates downplayed the significance of the iPad, noting that "there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"

Over the weekend, Groklaw discovered a couple of interesting e-mails sent by Microsoft executives Bill Gates and Jim Allchin to other members of the Microsoft executive team revealing that the company had been taken by surprise by Apple's launch of the iTunes Music Store in April 2003. The e-mails were made public as part of an antitrust suit brought against Microsoft in late 2006 for which Groklaw has been documenting the exhibits provided as evidence.

Gates' comments offered a candid assessment of the situation, expressing surprise at Apple CEO Steve Jobs' ability to strike distribution deals with music companies.

Steve Jobs ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

This time somehow he has applied his talents in getting a better Licensing deal than anyone else has gotten for music.

This is very strange to me. The music companies own operations offer a service that is truly unfriendly to the user and has been reviewed that way consistently.

Somehow they decide to give Apple the ability to do something pretty good.

In trying to understand how best to respond to Apple's move, Gates noted that Microsoft was caught "flat footed" by Apple's music download service and questioned appropriate strategies to respond.

I am not saying this strangeness means we messed up - at least if we did so did Real and Pressplay and Musicnet and basically everyone else.

Now that Jobs has done it we need to move fast to get something where the UI and Rights are as good.

I am not sure whether we should do this through one of these JVs [joint ventures] or not. I am not sure what the problems are.

However I think we need some plan to prove that even though Jobs has us a bit flat footed again we move quick and both match and do stuff better.

Microsoft vice president Jim Allchin offered a briefer assessment of the situation, offering only a pair of observations:

1. How did they get the music companies to go along?

2. We were smoked.

The same court case earlier revealed another e-mail from Allchin from 2004 in which he famously said that he "would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft." Steve Jobs used the quote to take a jab at Microsoft, displaying Allchin's statement at the beginning of Jobs' keynote at Macworld San Francisco 2007.

Microsoft today announced a sneak preview of Office for Mac 2011, set for release later this year. The preview, scheduled in conjunction with Macworld Expo in San Francisco, details several significant changes including the adoption of a "ribbon" interface similar to that introduced for Windows in Office 2007.

We took your feedback and haven't completely rearranged what you know and love: the new design is an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery and uses the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar giving you the best of both worlds. You can even collapse the ribbon and the Toolbar for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts. Together these tools make it easy to find and discover new and frequently used commands.

Also included are new co-authoring tools and integration with Office Web Apps to foster collaboration and easy file access from anywhere.

Another major change highlighted by Microsoft is the replacement of Entourage with Outlook for Mac. As previously detailed, Outlook for Mac will be Cocoa-based and will leverage the Exchange Web Services platform to enhance productivity, particularly in enterprise settings. Newly-announced today is the capability of Outlook for Mac to import .PST storage table files from Outlook for Windows.

Pricing for Office for Mac 2011, which has been expected to ship in the "holiday season 2010", has yet to be announced.

Google today announced the release of a new beta of Google Chrome for Mac, adding several new features such as extensions and bookmark syncing that were left out of the initial beta released in December while also focusing on a "snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience" for users.

With this new version, you'll be able to install any of over 2,200 extensions (and counting!) currently available in Chrome's extensions gallery. Extensions can add useful, informative, fun, or quirky functionality to the browser. You can manage your extensions by clicking on the Window menu and choosing "Extensions."

Bookmark syncing allows Chrome users to keep their bookmarks synchronized among Chrome browsers on Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. Also added in the new beta are bookmark, cookie, and task managers for increased functionality. A new video preview of Google Chrome for Mac has also been posted.

BNET's Brent Schlender recently spoke with Microsoft founder Bill Gates about Apple's new iPad tablet device in order to get a feel for the thoughts of the man behind Apple's longtime rival and whose company introduced the "Tablet PC" concept nearly a decade ago. According to Schlender, Gates remains relatively unimpressed with the iPad, especially compared to his feelings about the iPhone when it was first introduced in 2007.

"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that," he said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, 'Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'"

While the iPad has certainly seen criticism that some may see as warranted, it is unclear whether Gates truly sees the device as merely a "reader" while ignoring its Internet and media capabilities as well as the App Store offerings available to it. Alternatively, he may view the reader capability of the iPad as its most important and well-done offering, or even simply have been searching for a generic term for the device while not wishing to place it in the same category as traditional tablet computers.

Financial Times reports that Apple is set to begin a trial coinciding with the launch of the iPad that will reduce the price of certain TV downloads through its iTunes Store to $1 from the current $1.99. The trial will reportedly begin in April. Financial Times first reported late last month that Apple was seeking to persuade television networks to go along with the plan, and at least some of them seem to have accepted the trial in an attempt to spur demand.

Some television networks agreed to the lower prices after months of negotiations, and having initially resisted Apple's push. Media executives are under pressure from declining DVD sales and cut-rate rental services such as Redbox, that offer rental DVDs for $1.

It is not yet clear which or how many of the US free-to-air and pay-television networks have agreed to the lower pricing. Some media executives said they have not been approached with the new prices.

Apple has also been rumored to be pursuing a monthly subscription package of "best of TV" downloadable content, and today's report indicates that Apple has not yet given up on that front either.

TechCrunch reports that popular video site Hulu is working to bring its content to the iPad, despite the lack of support for Flash content on Apple's new tablet device.

One rumor I've heard from an industry insider is that Hulu is working on an iPad-friendly version of its site that should be ready by the time the iPad hits the market. Hulu itself is still vague about its plans. When asked directly by Om Malik whether Hulu has any plans for the iPad, CEO Jason Kilar recently hemmed and hawed about how he is a big believer in mobile, but wouldn't confirm or deny anything.

The report notes that porting its content to a non-Flash player would not be completely trivial given Hulu's investment in having created a unique Flash-based platform, but the company would be "more than capable" of making the transition. With Hulu's videos already encoded in the H.264 format used on the iPhone and iPad, whether or not to develop a Flash-less player for the content appears to be more of a business decision than a technical one.