Apple

What does Steve Wozniak know about solid-state drives that we don't? David Flynn, the chief technology officer of SSD start-up Fusion-io, provides some insight into why the Apple co-founder is joining the company as chief scientist.

I talked with Flynn on the phone about what the Salt Lake City start-up, founded in 2006, does and what attracted Wozniak.

Enterprise solid-state drives typically offer much better performance than even the fastest hard-disk drives. Fusion-io claims that its IoDrive improves storage performance by as much as 1,000 times over traditional disk arrays while operating at a fraction of the power … Read more

Andy Sambidge reports for ArabianBusiness that: "Saudi mobile operator Mobily notched up 25,000 subscribers within hours of its launch of Apple's iPhone 3G in the kingdom."

The iPhone 3G will be available in 500 Mobily and affiliate retail locations throughout Saudi Arabia and through Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Unlike in the US the iPhone in these countries will be sold with pre-paid and subscription based services.

The report mentionns that the current iPhone 3G does not handle the Arabic language very well, so texting in Arabic is not possible, and web pages are … Read more

With Safari 3, I admired Apple's chutzpah for bringing its browser to Windows. With the new Safari 4 beta, I'm actually starting to admire the browser, too.

A big user interface overhaul makes Safari look polished rather than clunky on Windows, builds in better search abilities, and makes good use of the fact that people often visit the same sites over and over.

However, the lack of something like the extensions architecture that Firefox pioneered still means Safari 4 (download for Windows and Mac OS X) is better only than Safari 3, not the competition. … Read more

EMI unveiled a new feature on iTunes Tuesday called iTunes Pass, which allows Depeche Mode fans access to the band's upcoming album and other selected goodies.

Apple chose to let EMI make the announcement for iTunes Pass, a new service that will gradually release tracks until the middle of June from the album Sounds of the Universe along with exclusive remixes and videos for $18.99. This is a separate offering from the album itself, which is scheduled to be released on April 21 and can be preordered for $9.99.

At the moment, it appears EMI and Depeche … Read more

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows not to blink.

On the desktop front, Microsoft is not discounting the approximately 1 percent market share gain Apple has garnered in the past year, bolstering its position as the No. 4 player in operating systems behind Linux, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, during a midyear update with analysts Tuesday.

"We're very focused on both Apple as a competitor and Linux as a competitor," Ballmer said.

And concerns regarding Google's open-source mobile operating system Android are not far behind.

"I think the dynamics with Linux is changing somewhat," Ballmer … Read more

Somewhere behind me, a baby girl was crying a Ganges river.

Her parents, strongly resembling Lucy Liu and Ted Kaczynski, appeared unable to administer the appropriate gag. This was the 9 a.m. American Airlines flight out of JFK, heading for San Francisco. My eyes were as bleary as a bailout document, and my head throbbed from a mixture of lack of sleep and some bad, loud company the night before. Yes, Knicks fans.

Rummaging in my seat pocket, I suddenly discovered that this flight was equipped with Gogo, American Airlines' new Wi-Fi service. Intent on at least googling some … Read more

Do you miss your original jewel-toned iBook G3? You can now relive those days without having to own a bulky, slow laptop with Speck's expanded line of SeeThru hardshell cases for MacBook.

Designed for the latest unibody MacBooks, the SeeThru line once only featured pink, red, and clear versions is joined by orange, purple, aqua, and green. It's all very exciting.

The new colors are available today for the 13-inch and 15-inch aluminum unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro (sorry, 17-inchers!) sell for $49.95. Seems a bit pricey for a piece of molded snap-on plastic, but it does … Read more

Apple on Tuesday announced the release of a public beta Safari 4 for Windows and Mac, promising a much faster browser with improved navigation and searching.

The company said the newest edition of Apple's browser for both Mac OS X and Windows will run JavaScript commands 4.2 times faster than Safari 3, and also claims to deliver better JavaScript and HTML page loading than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla's FireFox 3. Apple also added the Cover Flow interface now found in almost every piece of its software to let users scroll backwards through browsing history … Read more

Most video-on-demand set-top boxes let users rent or buy downloadable movies. But high-definition movies have been rental-only, thanks to limitations from the movie studios that own the content. But owners of Vudu's on-demand box will now be able to buy a limited selection of HD movies from independent studios Firstlook, Magnolia, and Kino.

The initial roster of 50 high-def movies includes such titles as "Transsiberian" and the Oscar-winning "Man on Wire," and they'll be offered simultaneously with the DVD releases. (Viewers can opt to buy either the "instant HD" or the much … Read more