It's been a big week so far for Apple and its iTunes Music Store.  Yesterday, it was announced that you can now purchase feature-length, near-dvd quality movies from the service, which recently began offering select television shows from networks such as ABC, Comedy Central, SciFi and others.  Movies on the service are currently only from Disney-owned studios (Disney, Mirimax, Touchstone etc.) but plans are to expand out to other studios in the future.  This places Apple in direct...

Yesterday, online retailer Amazon.com opened up it's new online video store; Unbox Video Store, a rival to Apple's iTunes service. The new store from Amazon will allow users to either buy or rent TV shows, movies and other misc video content. At launch, the service is offering thousands of movies from more than 30 movie and TV studios. DRM restrictions limit a user to loading a purchased/rented movie on two PCs and two portable players. The service is currently limited to Windows users only....

CRN is reporting on the possibility that Microsoft will delay the release of Windows Vista in Europe, depending on the antitrust requirements of the European Commission. Microsoft and the European Commission are tossing blame back and forth, each accusing the other as being the one responsible for any potential delays to the early 2007 release for the operating system.  Microsoft claims it needs EC response and review of Vista to ensure compliance with the commission's antitrust ruling...

Facebook, a social networking site primarily focused at college students, was this week the center of a storm of privacy-related protests when it updated the main page of the site a user sees when they login.  Previously, the default page just gave you notices on people that wanted to add you as a friend, sent you a note or who "poked" you, just a little way to get another user's attention.  On Monday, the page was changed to show a news feed of sorts that would detail any changes your...

September 12th is set as another major launch date for new and exciting Apple products with the start of the Apple Expo in Paris.  Much like the recent WWDC focused on software and cool hardware for developers, the Apple Expo looks to be the platform to launch some new consumer-focused products.  The big announcement expected next Tuesday however won't take place in the city of love, but in San Francisco.  Speculation currently holds that Apple will be announcing a new movie downl...

The Windows development team lead, Brian Valentine, has announced that he'll be leaving Microsoft to take up a position with e-commerce giant, Amazon.com.  Valentine had been with the company since 1987 and was responsible for cleaning up the mess that was the Windows 2000 development process and getting the product to market in a timely fashion, and has led Windows development overall since 1998.  It was announced last month that the lead engineer position would be taken from him and ...

The holiday weekend shifted things a bit and I'm just now getting around to the weekly poll.  Last week, I asked who here was planning on participating in the GUI Championships, coming up later this month (expect some pretty exciting announcements in the next few weeks!). Sadly, fewer of you than I had hoped indicated you would be making some sort of submission.  Here are the numbers: Will you be competing in the 2006 GUI Championships? Yes 45 ...

Welcome back intrepid readers, to this weeks' installment of Pick of the Week.  It's a short list this time around, but wow are the picks good! And now, I give you this week's top picks, as chosen by some of our volunteer staff. Hankers (Wizop) An IconPackage, Buuf by rgerrans . "The screenshot doesn't do justice to the contents of the package.  A great Icon Package in my opinion" A rather enthusiastic nod of agreement from Koasati  Corky_O (W...

Last week, pricing was leaked on the Microsoft Canada site for the various editions of Windows Vista.  Today, Microsoft HQ has made the pricing official after posting Release Candidate 1 on Friday and beginning the push towards release early next year. Here's a quick overview of the pricing:   Full Retail Version Upgrade from Windows XP Windows Vista Ultimate $399 $259 Windows Vista Business $299 $199 Window...

Give your desktop a sharp new look and feel with the Argos Suite from Stardock! This clean and elegant suite gives you everything you need to give your PC a new and refreshed look. Argos comes with a visual style that is easy on the eyes, a wallpaper, new logon and boot screens, as well as matching icons and mouse cursors! Argos is the newest suite by skinning veterans, treetog and danilloOc .  If you've liked any of their previous work, definitely check this suite out! Inclu...

Those of you just dying to be on the bleeding-edge can now go out and get the second beta build for Firefox 2.0 from the Mozilla FTP site.  We've previously reported on the new user interface being designed by Radiant Core, but it looks like this build doesn't have that in yet. Go forth, download, install and be merry! And let us know what you think.

Why is it that outside of Microsoft with Vista, no one aside from Google seems to be doing much that's news-worthy?  Oh well, anyway on to the latest Google tidbit... Starting today, Google intends to let users download and print public domain books it has collected as part of its book-scanning project that has aroused so much anger from the publishing and academic world.  The Google Book Search will allow users to search for specific lines in titles such as Dante's Inferno, grab th...

Yesterday, Apple announced that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is joining their board of directors.  This brings together two of the most immediately recognizable computer brands.  Google, which is more or less synonymous with Internet search technology, and Apple, the computer company for the "hip" and "artistic" types.  Schmidt, however, isn't the only corporate big-wig on the Apple board of directors.  Other directors include the heads of tax software company, Intuit, clothin...

Ok, like the weekly pick, I'm a day late with the poll too, and I can't think of any witty song lyrics that involve "Tuesday" to open with.  Last week, I asked which NON Object Desktop application people most wanted to see an update to.  323 votes were cast, and there was a pretty close race between two of the applications.  Here are the results:   Which Non-Object Desktop App would you most like to see updated?   Aquarium Desktop 13   4.02% ...

Sorry for the delay, this was supposed to go up yesterday but it slipped my mind amidst a bunch of other tasks I'm working on at the moment.  Another slim week for picks, but what we dug up is definitely top-notch and worth checking out! Thanks to Island Dog this week for taking care of the administrative end of this while I was out on Friday! So, without further adieu, I give you this week's top picks, as chosen by some of our volunteer staff. FuzzyLogic (Super Wizop) A c...