MacRumors

Appleinsider claims that upcoming 4th generation iPods may have some interesting new video capabilities.

While not quite the "video iPod" that many have speculated, the rumored iPod will reportedly be able to show video clips on televisions via an advanced Dock which would provide for video-out.

Meanwhile MacPlus's iTunes Europe article from yesterday also referenced upcoming video capabilities in the iPod, but had not been otherwise confirmed.

MacBidouille claims to have seen a demo of Virtual PC 7.0 for the Mac.

The software was apparently demoed for French resellers by Apple and Microsoft representatives.

New features include: Better support of Peripherals (especially USB), notably faster than previous version, should support dual processor as well as G5 based systems. The most notable new feature however is native support for graphic cards. This will reportedly allow video operations to be handled natively rather than through emulation.

According to MacPlus sources, Apple's iTunes Music Store for Europe should be launched in France and other countries starting in mid-June. More countries will be added over time.

MacPlus also claims that the songs will be priced at 1.29 Euros as compared to $.99 in the United States.

The cost is due to the licensing fees, taxes (19.6%, reportedly), bank charges etc...

ZDnet reports that Microsoft has delayed Virtual PC 7 for the Mac.

Initially, our development and testing time line was estimated based on our experience with development of Office," Microsoft product manager Jessica Sommer said in a statement. "The developing, testing and bug fix cycle with Virtual PC is longer than that of Office and the testing more vigorous than previous version(s) of Virtual PC. Because of this, we have adjusted our release timing to match a more realistic schedule."

The new version of Virtual PC is now expected in the second half of the year, rather than the first. Version 7 will bring PowerPC G5 support. Previous versions are incompatible with the PowerMac G5s.

Making the rounds today is news of a fake/trojan Word 2004 "Demo" Application on Peer to Peer networks.

The application, which appears to be a demo for Word 2004 erases the users Home directory under Mac OS X.

A Macworld reader alerted the magazine to the malware after he downloaded the file from Limewire. The reader told Macworld: "I downloaded the file in the hope that perhaps Microsoft had released some sort of public beta. The file unzipped, and to my delight the Microsoft icon looked genuine and trustworthy."

However, he added: "I clicked on the installer file, and to my horror in 10 seconds the attachment had wiped my entire Home folder!"

Clearly, caution should be used with any applications downloaded from Peer to Peer networks.

The 1394 Trade Association has approved a specification which would allow the development of wireless Firewire devices.

The new Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) for IEEE 1394 over IEEE 802.15.3 was approved Monday. In a statement, the trade association said: The PAL is designed as a standard convergence layer between the 802.15.3 MAC and applications developed for wired 1394. It builds upon the 1394 infrastructure--for example, data formats, connection-management schemes, and time synchronization procedures--and takes advantage of the excellent quality of service available in 802.15.3.

Examples of new products with the new specification include wireless connections to DVD players and hard drives from set top boxes. Prototype products are expected before the end of the year.

Apple has been an early adopter of Firewire, so adoption of this technology could be expected.

This Wired article profiles Apple's efforts to bring out of print music onto the iTunes Music Store.

The search for new songs/albums appears to be a collaborative one, with suggestions fielded from every source.

Of note, according to the article, record labels are estimated to have less than one third of their music currently available for sale due to distribution costs involved in physical CDs. Once offered in digital format, however, they could represent an additional revenue source for labels. Apple has already found some early success in recruiting such out-of-print music.

Thinksecret reports that Apple will soon bring distributed, cluster-based rendering to its line of pro video applications.

This distributed rendering would allow users to take advantage of a cluster of networked computers.

Such capabilities appears as if it would advantageous to both larger cluster owners as well as home users. One example offered is the use of two Powerbooks in the field.

Appleinsider reports that Apple has received new 90nm PowerPC shipments and seeded several test PowerMac units to partners.

The test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.

Meanwhile, Appleinsider notes that Apple Display upgrades could be delayed by oversupply of current units.

Rumors of PowerMac revisions have come and gone over the past few months. Earlier reports have indicated that Apple has already outsourced work for promotional materials for the new machines... but due to the unsteady supply of 90nm chips has been unable to commit to a ship date.

PlayFair is back online with a new name (Hymn) as well as legal support.

As previously reported, Playfair allows users to strip the Digital Rights Protection from protected iTunes songs without re-encoding, thus preserving the original quality. The new version reportedly supports iTunes 4.5.

Apple has taken a strong legal stance against such applications, and has shut down previous hosts.

Several readers have noted a new opensource project that is generating some interest.

PearPC 0.1 is an early version of a "an architecture independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems". The emulator offers emulation for various PowerPC operating systems including Mac OS X 10.3 (screenshot).

According to reader reports, the application does appear to work, but is slow and clearly at an early stage of development so of limited use at this time.

Several readers have reported that the first copies of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac have started shipping.

Mac Office 2004 was previewed by Microsoft at MacWorld Expo San Francisco in January with expected shipment in May.

The newest version of Office for the Mac offers several new features and improvements, including a new Project Center, PowerPoint Presenter Tools, and notetaking capabilities in Word.

Apple has released a small update to their Backup software to version 2.0.2.

It is available on the Mac.com homepage as well as Software Update.

The new version adds performance and stability improvements to scheduled backups and is recommended for all Backup 2.0 users.

Despite the seeming lull in product releases in the past few months, according to sources, Apple has been hard at work on upcoming releases...

Most specifically, sources report that a PowerPC G5 based iMac is in the works and should represent the next iMac revision.

As with many of Apple's revisions, sources are unable to provide a specific timeframe for release, but iMacs are due for a revision. The iMac was last updated in November 2003.

The New York Post claims that the five major record labels have been in negotiations with Apple over pricing as well as other issues surrounding Apple's onling music store (iTunes).

Under the new contracts, the most popular singles could rise to $1.25 according to the Post's sources.

During the iTunes conference call, Steve Jobs addressed the question of album pricing:

But in any event, most of the albums on iTunes are priced at $9.99 and below and, no, they're not creeping up. There's always a few that are a little higher than you can go in and pull out, but they're very, very competitive and we see in the future the prices of the albums coming down, not going up, because that's what it's going to take to sell more albums and it's in everybody's best interest to do so.

Update: Apple has denied that prices will increase.

Premiere magazine named Steve Jobs and John Lasseter the most influential people in Hollywood.

Jobs/Lasseter displace Steven Spielberg at the top of the list this year. Spielberg has moved down to #2.

The two get this credit for their roles at Pixar. Steve Jobs is CEO of both Pixar and Apple.

Microsoft's provided a preview of Longhorn at WinHEC 2004. The upcoming operating system revision from Microsoft will feature a new user interface called Avalon which will a more colorful 3d interface, which apparently bears a resemblance to Mac OS X according to the author.

A full beta is not expected until 2005, and the average system requirements are expected to be a 4-6GHz PC with 2GB of RAM and one terabyte of storage.

This early preview is to be distributed to developers at the end of the WinHEC conference so more information will likely become available of this conference.