MacRumors

CNET reports that Apple is in "advanced" negotiations to acquire music streaming firm Lala. The news comes from two sources who reportedly have knowledge of the discussions between the two companies.

Talks are very advanced, said the sources. One of the sources said that the sides have already agreed on terms and have only to sign a final agreement.

Steve Dowling, Apple's spokesman, said the company doesn't comment on rumors and speculation. A representative from Lala was not immediately available.

The report notes that it is unclear what Apple's plans would be for Lala, as it already holds a dominant position in the online music industry. Lala's streaming service, however, allows users to store music on the company's servers and stream it to any Web-enabled device. Such services have become more popular with consumers, and Apple may be looking to make a foray in that direction.

Lala recently partnered with Google to offer music samples in Google's search results.

CNET reports on new data from market research NPD showing that Apple models grabbed the top spots in both the desktop and notebook computer U.S. retail sales lists for the month of October. Among desktops, the company's new 21.5" iMac grabbed the #1 spot, with the 27" iMac taking the third spot. In the notebook category, Apple's entry-level 13" MacBook Pro took top honors, with three other Apple notebooks finishing in the top ten.

NPD previously reported that Apple had recorded nearly half of U.S. desktop retail revenue during October, pointing to the launch of new iMacs and a slowdown in Windows-based computer sales ahead of the release of Windows 7 as factors contributing to the company's strong performance during the month. NPD's Stephen Baker again cited those factors in the release of its latest data.

"Apple gets a bounce whenever they come out with new computers," Baker said. "For the most part, October was a down month on the Windows side because [PC manufacturers] were working through inventory before the Windows 7 launch."

NPD's data covers only online and retail store sales and does not include direct sales, resulting in an incomplete picture of the true market. It does, however, provide an interesting glimpse into the performance of Apple and other manufacturers.

In mid-October, it was reported that Apple's Safari for Windows browser was slated to receive prominent placement on a "browser ballot" designed to allow Windows users in Europe to select which Internet browser they wished to use. The ballot process was included by Microsoft to address anti-competitive concerns there, where the company has been found at fault for its integration of Internet Explorer with Windows.

Apple benefited from the proposed ballot plan due to Microsoft's proposal that the top five browsers be listed in alphabetical order by company, placing Apple's Safari browser for Windows in the primary position ahead of Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, and Opera. The arrangement, however, drew criticism from a variety of sources, unsurprisingly including Mozilla and Opera.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft has revised its plans for the browser ballot, and among the revisions was a change that will randomize the list of top five browser each time the list displayed.

Under the modified settlement, computer users with Windows will see a "ballot screen" that randomly lists the top five Web browsers that compete with Internet Explorer, the people said. Users would then click on a browser's icon and the program would be downloaded from the Internet.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, agreed to changes in the ballot screen following complaints from Opera, Google Inc., and Mozilla Corp., maker of the Firefox browser, according to the people.

Despite the change, Apple still stands to gain from the inclusion of Safari on the primary ballot screen. Safari 4 for Windows held only a 0.29% share of the total worldwide market, suggesting that Apple may have much to benefit from in its inclusion with other major Windows browsers on the ballot.

The Cupertino Courier reports that the Cupertino planning commission voted earlier this week to rezone a 7.78-acre portion of a 50-acre property assemblage owned by Apple to allow the company to build its planned second corporate campus just a few miles from its headquarters. Apple announced in April 2006 that it had purchased the properties and planned to consolidate at the new campus its scattered leased facilities acquired as the company underwent rapid expansion.

The site, which is south of the Hewlett-Packard campus, houses two office buildings currently occupied by Apple employees.

The buildings were already on the property from the site's industrial days. Before Apple purchased the property in 2006, the city rezoned the industrial site to residential in anticipation of a 130-unit townhouse and condominium project that previous property owners Morley Brothers had proposed.

Apple reportedly does not yet have specific plans for the new campus, but required the rezoning, which had been considered but not approved by the planning commission earlier this year, in order to begin its planning and design process.

Aside from its main headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop, Apple has employees spread out in buildings along De Anza Boulevard and throughout the city. Jobs described the far-flung nature as frustrating. He said he hoped they would be able to consolidate all Cupertino employees at the current Infinite Loop campus and at a future campus.

A one-acre section of the property, which lies directly adjacent to Interstate 280, will remain zoned for a public park.

Apple has quietly upgraded its Mac Pro offerings, adding the option of a 3.33 GHz quad-core processor and adding the ability to configure both the quad-core and 8-core models with 2 TB hard drives, doubling the machine's total build-to-order hard drive capacity to 8 TB.

The upgraded processor carries a hefty price tag as a $1,200 option over the base quad-core 2.66 GHz model, or $800 over the upgraded 2.93 GHz processor. Pricing, however, remains well below the company's top-of-the-line 8-core models running at 2 x 2.66 GHz or 2 x 2.93 GHz.

The additional option of configuring the Mac Pro with 2 TB hard drives, an increase from 1 TB drives available previously, expands the official total hard drive capacity of the Mac Pro, which carries four hard drive bays, to 8 TB. The 2 TB hard drives are priced at $550 each.

The current generation of Mac Pros were introduced in March 2009, receiving early access to Intel's latest Nehalem processors before they had even been officially announced.

Update: Apple has also upgraded its configurable options for its Xserve rackmountable servers, now offering 2 TB hard drives for a total hard drive capacity of 6 TB. The company has also begun offering 4 GB RAM modules, doubling the official total memory capacity of the quad-core Xserve to 24 GB and the 8-core Xserve to 48 GB.

Motorola announced this week that they have invested in a multi-touch company named Sensitive Object. This startup company is working on a new form of multi-touch using "acoustic tactilization" that is said to offer "lower cost and higher performance" than competing technologies. Motorola plans on using the technology in their phones in the future.

Sensitive Object first revealed their technology back in April. The new system uses sound waves to provide touch-sensitivity to the entire surface of products, including screens but also any other parts of the product. Materials such as glass, aluminum and plastics can be turned into touch sensitive objects.

This new platform provides flexibility to designers, manufacturers and software editors as Sensitive Object technology offers the capability to add multi-touch parts anywhere, and associated functionality specific to running applications (e.g.: a game application running on a mobile phone uses both the top, bottom, or rear of the handset as touch sensitive parts; while an email application only needs one edge to scroll the text).

The flexibility is intriguing with the possibility of having a device like the iPhone with touch-sensitive inputs on the back-side of the device. Apple explored this exact possibility in a patent application from 2007, though it was unclear what technology they planned on using. This acoustic touch technology could presumably also be extended to the surfaces of notebook computers. The amount of Motorola's investment is unknown.

Apple, of course, has invested heavily in multi-touch technologies over the past few years featuring it prominently in the iPhone and iPod Touch. They have since extended its use to laptop trackpads and most recently into the Magic Mouse, a multi-touch mouse. Apple is expected to feature multi-touch prominently in their rumored tablet and there has been speculation that they may revive some sort of multi-touch keyboard/pad.

Despite there being a vocal outcry for Apple's iPhone to transition to the Verizon network, a couple of analyst reports this week cast doubts that we would see a Verizon iPhone in the near future. Both reports, however, seem to be based on speculation rather than any particular inside source.

Thomas Weisel analyst Doug Reid kicked off the week saying that there appears to be a growing divide with Verizon/Google/Droid on one side and AT&T/Apple/iPhone on the other. He offers T-Mobile as a possible alternative for Apple to break the iPhone's single carrier exclusivity in 2010. T-Mobile, however, has a much smaller customer base than Verizon with only half as many users. Reid expects that Verizon may opt to offer the rumored Apple Tablet or wait for an iPhone that supports 4G networks which are expected in 2011-2012.

Meanwhile, Kaufman Bros Shaw Wu echoed similar thoughts on Wednesday, noting that both Verizon and Apple have become increasingly competitive and offers T-Mobile or Sprint as possible alternatives.

Again, both reports are speculative, but are perhaps a good reminder that very few credible sources have actually confirmed that the iPhone will be offered by Verizon. The expiration of AT&T's exclusivity (believed to be) in mid-2010 makes the move possible, but the best evidence so far has been the rumor that Apple may be manufacturing a Verizon-capable phone in late 2010.

Joystiq reported earlier this week on the release of Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes - Encore, a new iPhone game available in paid [App Store, $9.99] and lite [App Store, Free] versions from developer Square Enix. Included in the report is mention that the new iPhone games contain touch-enabled versions of both the original Song Summoner that was a popular click wheel iPod game and Song Summoner 2, which was interestingly never released, reportedly because Apple has abandoned the click wheel game format.

Rather than being a simple touchscreen-enabled port of the original click wheel game, the iPhone Song Summoner contains both Song Summoner and Song Summoner 2, which was never released due to Apple ending support for click wheel games.

Apple continues to offer a number of iPod Click Wheel Games via the iTunes Store, but no new games have been released since Cake Mania 3 in February of this year. Apple introduced iPod Click Wheel Games alongside iTunes 7 in September 2006 and released a total of nearly 50 games over the following two and half years.

While it is certainly no surprise that Apple has focused its energies on App Store applications for the iPhone and iPod touch that offer a significantly more advanced user experience than click wheel-based games, to our knowledge Apple has never officially acknowledged that it has ceased to support new games for its traditional iPods.

As anticipated, Google has finally released an official beta version of its Chrome browser for Mac. The initial beta version, termed Build 4.0.249.30, requires Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard, and is only compatible with Intel-based Macs. In addition to the Mac release, Chrome for Linux has also been promoted to a beta version.

While developer builds of Chrome have been available for nearly six months, only now does Google consider it full-featured enough and stable enough to promote to its "Beta" release channel. Work will continue on Chrome with additional Developer Preview releases occurring on a regular basis. Refined versions will then periodically (approximately monthly) be released as new additions to Chrome's Beta channel. Releases will eventually make their way to Chrome's "Stable" channel, which will offer "rock solid" performance without the inclusion of features still under development and testing.

Chrome for Windows launched as a beta version in September 2008, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin admitting only days later that the lack of a Mac version at the time was "embarrassing". At the time, he hoped that a Mac version would be available in only a "matter of months", and the company announced in January that it was targeting a Mac release for the first half of 2009. While developer versions of Chrome did appear within that timeframe, it has taken an additional six months for developers to sufficiently refine it to be considered a beta release for more general consumption.

ifoAppleStore reports on news out of Germany [Google translation] that Apple has canceled the grand opening of its planned Frankfurt retail store just two days before the event. The reasons behind the delay are currently unknown beyond suppositions that some aspect of the store's construction was not able to be completed in time, and there has been no public announcement of a revised opening date, although reports suggest that it will not occur until January.

As first reported by the iFun.de Web site, the opening has been pushed back to some date in January 2010, most likely because the store wasn't finished to Apple's rigorous standards. The street-level store was installed in an existing building, but it was heavily remodeled to include Apple's standard architecture. Early this morning the store's Web page was changed to say the store would open "soon." It only explained, "We're putting the finishing touches on the final touches."

Apple currently offers retail stores in Munich and Hamburg, with the now-delayed Frankfurt store planned to bring an official Apple presence to Germany's fifth-largest city at the heart of what is considered to be the country's second-largest metropolitan area. Apple has been including plans for rapid expansion of its international stores as part of a revised retail strategy, and recently opened its first two stores in France as part of the push.

The New York Times covers a new, wide-ranging report from research firm IDC outlining its technology predictions for 2010. Among the firm's predictions for Apple are the release of an Apple tablet computing device and the achievement of a 300,000-application milestone for iPhone and iPod touch applications.

IDC predicts that by the end of 2010 there will be over one billion mobile devices accessing the Internet. While increasingly sophisticated smartphones will represent a substantial portion of the growth, Apple's "iPad" tablet device is also seen as a game-changer for the industry opening a new high-growth market for mobile devices.

The long-rumored Apple touchscreen tablet computer, or iPad, will arrive in 2010, IDC predicts. It will be more of an oversized iPod Touch, with an 8-inch or 10-inch screen, than a downsized Macintosh. With its larger screen, IDC says, the Apple tablet will be ideal for watching movies, surfing the Web, playing online games, and reading books, magazines and newspapers. It will be general-purpose, unlike Amazon.com's single-purpose Kindle reader. The Apple offering, Mr. Gens says, "could deliver a real kick in Kindle's butt."

The research firm also sees mobile devices continuing to "exert a powerful transformational force" on the computing industry as they evolve to become viable competitors to traditional computers as users' primary machines. That evolution will occur hand-in-hand with an explosion in the market for mobile applications, which IDC predicts will triple the number of available iPhone and iPod touch application to 300,000 from the 100,000+ applications currently available in the App Store. Similar growth is predicted to occur for Google's Android platform, as well as the popular netbook market.

Magazine publishers seem to already be getting on board with the concept of a media tablet even based on just the possibility that Apple will enter the market in the near future. The latest concept design comes from Time Inc who developed this design prototype to show off their plans:

The ultimate design is planned to run on "whatever tablet Apple or any[one] else has up their sleeves" according to All Things Digital.

We've heard reports that magazine publishers are not standing still on the possibility of a tablet. Earlier reports indicate there are industry-wide efforts to team up to prepare for the launch of the much rumored Apple tablet. Publishers are worried that if left to its own, Apple may quickly dominate the industry like they have with iTunes music distribution.

Dow Jones Newswires reports in a brief note that AT&T's lawsuit against Verizon regarding Verizon's recent ad campaigns targeting AT&T's 3G coverage has been dismissed.

AT&T Inc. (T) on Wednesday dismissed its lawsuit against Verizon Wireless and its recent "There's A Map For That" campaign.

AT&T had already suffered a legal setback when a judge rejected its request to pull the ads last month, which the Dallas carrier argued inaccurately suggested inferior network coverage. The court ruled that Verizon Wireless's ads, which showed maps comparing coverage, clearly talked about third-generation, or 3G, coverage.

The court's rejection of AT&T's request for a restraining order barring Verizon from airing ads using map-based comparisons of 3G coverage had slated a December 16th date for arguments in the suit, but AT&T has apparently decided not to pursue legal remedy regarding this issue.

Digital Daily also reports that Verizon has dropped a related lawsuit against AT&T, suggesting that the two companies may have come to a mutual agreement to drop their legal battle in what has been seen by many as a waste of time and money and a generator of bad publicity for the companies.