RAMMS+EIN writes with a good followup to the recent WWDC preview of Tiger, the next version of OS X. "eWeek has a slideshow illustrating some of Tiger's new features with screenshots. For a textual description, you can visit Apple's Tiger page."

MacNN writes "John Gruber says the origins of Apple's Dashboard technology, announced as part of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger earlier this week, are not with Arlo Rose's Konfabulator, but with Apple's original Desk Accessories and that Apple's Webcore-based implementation will allow many more developers/designers to create 'gadgets' much more easily and that Dashboard's 'gadgets' will offer much better performance: 'Dashboard is not a rip-off of Konfabulator. Yes, they are doing very much the same thing. But what it is that they're doing was not an original idea to Konfabulator. The scope of a 'widget' is very much the modern-day equivalent of a desk accessory.'"

jeblucas writes "Not to be outdone by the recent iPod your BMW news, Alpine updated the details on their iPod interface for those of us who want to spend cash on the sound system, rather than the logo. Apparently announced in January (?), this should be available this fall. Sweet! You can ask for more info by emailing Alpine directly."

StJefferson writes "Ever want to silence the urban assault vehicle beside you at the stop light, pounding out gangster angst at orthodontia-rattling volumes? Now you can, and here's how, courtesy Engadget."

konfoo writes "Elgato just announced the availability of their FireWire DTV ATSC receiver (ATSC is the USA standard for digital and high definition television), EyeTV 500, at a price of around $350. It can be used in tandem with TitanTV to get EPG data and pick shows to record. Now Mac owners too can view and record those hidef broadcasts. On a sidenote, lets hope that the broadcast flag and other efforts don't squelch cool new products such as this." We reviewed the original EyeTV USB a year and a half ago. Since then, their product line has expanded, with all other models sporting FireWire, and covering a variety of analog and digital TV sources.

An anonymous reader writes "The new RealPlayer 10 beta was released for Mac OS X. It's got a built-in web browser built off Apple's WebKit. This, along with all the Mac-specific UI tweaks, makes for a pretty solid release overall, imho." lucadex writes "Open Office 1.1.2 has been officially released on Mac OS X. This is the first official O.O. upgrade since version 1.0.3." Tom Davies writes "Oracle has released an early adopter's release of 10g for Mac OS X." adamhauner writes "Mozilla.org released final version of Camino 0.8, a Gecko-based browser optimized for Mac OS X with a Cocoa user interface. This version, besides having other new features, also upgrades the Gecko HTML rendering engine from Mozilla 1.0 to Mozilla 1.7."

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running a story that Apple has delayed the release of the new iMac until September and has stopped taking orders for the current models."

beef curtains writes "From Apple's iTunes Music Store Countdown page: 'When the number of songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store crosses 95 million, Apple will begin the countdown to 100 million songs by giving away 50 special 20GB iPods -- one to the purchaser of each 100,000th song downloaded between 95 million and 100 million songs. In addition, the person who downloads the 100 millionth song will receive a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs to create the ultimate music library for the iPod, and the opportunity to create a Celebrity Playlist to be published on the iTunes Music Store.' Check out the countdown on Apple's front page, and get ready to drop stupid amounts of cash on iTMS over the weekend. I'll see you in the ramen noodle aisle after the count passes 100 million!"

Glen Low writes "Apple has just posted the list of Apple Design Award winners for 2004. Big Bang Chess walked away with two awards: Best Product and Best Technology Adoption, and my very own Graphviz port was runner-up in Best New Product and won the Best Open Source Product. And yes, the GUI is all BSD-licensed Cocoa goodness."

Mz6 writes "Dell unveiled an offer that grants music player customers a $100 rebate on a 15GB Digital Jukebox when they send in an Apple iPod music player to be recycled. 'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' said Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn. Thus the iPod offer 'is a way to call out what separates us from the understood leader in this particular market.' Dell is also offering free shipping, free software, and 25 free songs through MusicMatch and brings the overall cost for the DJ down to $99." Helpful tip: If you have a dead iPod, do the rebate offer, and sell the Jukebox on eBay.

Tzarius writes "GameSpy has a short article that says Aspyr Media has shipped Battlefield 1942 and the Road to Rome expansion for the Mac [There's more information on system requirements and screenshots on the official Aspyr page for the game.] Surely a little prodding would get them to do that little bit more for Linux?"

mblase writes "Apple released yesterday a developers preview of their Rendezvous technology for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Java. Rendezvous is an open protocol which uses industry standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically find each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers." Reader xxdarkxxmatterxx adds a link to a story at Macworld about the release."

mksolutions writes "As reported on heise online and mozilla.org 'Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems join in push to modernize plugins and create a richer web experience.' They are to develop a common, cross-platform plug-in interface which will be used in Mozilla products as well as Opera and Safari and will be released under an open source license."

emmastory writes "When I mentioned this book to some of my friends, the response was usually either 'Doesn't the iPod come with a manual?' or 'Does the iPod even need a manual?' There is, in fact, a little CD-sized booklet that comes with the iPod, and it's true that you probably don't need much more than that if all you need to know is how to turn the thing on and play a song. But one of the great things about the Missing Manuals series is that while they tell you everything a manual ought to, they also tell you an awful lot that a manual never would." Read on for the rest of emmastory's review of iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition.

Remaining unmentioned in Steve Jobs' keynote speech at WWDC today are the many updates to the Server cousin of Mac OS X. As with the Panther Server release, Tiger Server will focus on open source, Windows, and ease of use. A preview DVD was, as with Tiger client, given out to WWDC attendees.

DonaldGelman writes "Apple has just announced a 30-inch Studio Display capable of displaying a resolution of 2560x1600. The display requires a new Nvidia card with 2 parallel DVI connections. The display is going to retail for $3299 in August, and the Nvidia card for around $599." Jobs also announced new 20- and 23-inch displays, for $1299 and $1999 in July. All three feature a new aluminum enclosure, and DVI. Also from WWDC...

burgburgburg writes "The IDEA 2004 awards (Industrial Design Excellence Awards) have been announced. Apple won 2 Gold (for the iPod Mini and the G5), a Silver (for the iSight) and a Bronze (for the Apple Wireless Keyboard). Some comments: 'Like a modern touchstone the iPod Mini is a product people will love to hold. The designers skillfully integrated the satin aluminum case with flush controls and a simple touchpad interface to create a jewel-like piece of technology.' - Monty Montague, IDSA, Design Principal, BOLT. 'The G5 is impressive with visually lithe qualities and a host of thoughtful and innovative user features wrapped in aluminum. Its well-engineered technical features, such as its cooling system and internal component mounts, are honestly and elegantly executed. The G5's aesthetic is a pure and graceful expression of Apple's philosophical precept of leaving no detail un-designed. This is what results when engineering and design play nice with each other.' - Christopher Alviar, IDSA, Principal, CG/A"

Thanks to 1UP/Ogamo for its feature discussing the early importance of the Apple Macintosh as a videogaming platform. The author argues: "The Mac definitely left its mark on gaming. Though it never became a gaming powerhouse, it played host to a few legitimate classics, and their ideas went on to influence developers to this day", before referencing titles such as ICOM's Deja Vu ("...has some of the wry sense of humor that [also] brightened up the best of Infocom's games") and Silicon Beach's Dark Castle ("One of the first successful action games to use a mouse for shooting things.")

mac-diddy writes "Someone on Apple's mailing list for Xgrid, Apple's clustering software, just announced an 'Xgrid agent for Linux and other Unix platforms' available for download. There are still some issues being worked on like large file support, but it does allow you to simply add a Unix node to your existing Xgrid cluster. Just goes to show that when companies embrace open standards and code, the world doesn't fall apart."

no_demons writes "In a press release, Apple has announced that the "European" iTunes Music Store has sold 0.8 million tracks in a week, with around 450,000 being sold in the UK alone. According to Steve Jobs other services were shifting only 50,000 tracks a week in Europe before the launch."