Hulu today released Hulu Desktop, a new application that lets you view and control Hulu media on your desktop Mac or PC.

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Hulu Labs release today is Hulu Desktop, a new downloadable application that allows you to find and enjoy your favorite Hulu videos in a rich, full-screen computer window that you can control with your mouse and keyboard or any six-button PC or Mac remote control.

Hulu Desktop was built by a small group on our engineering team (two devs, one designer, one product manager) who asked themselves one day: how can we make it easier for users to immerse themselves in the great shows and movies Hulu is fortunate to have access to? Our answer was to build a new PC and Mac application that gives users the option to step outside of their browser, keyboard and mouse and into something different.

We’ve always aspired to provide the best video viewing experience possible on your “lappity-toppity boxes” and make online video more fun to watch. And working together with our media partners, we hope Hulu Desktop is another positive step towards building a legal, long-lasting service that earns us the right to continue serving you.
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As Apple promised in early October, the company has posted an updated Software Developer Kit (SDK) Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which allows iPhone application developers to more openly discuss their development plans. In order to facilitate such discussion, Apple has also opened a forum especially for iPhone developers.

When Apple first opened the iPhone to third-party development, it put in place a very restrictive NDA that earned the ire of developers, because it prevented them from communicating with one another. Apple was also criticized for not providing mailing lists or a Web site forum for developers.

Earlier this month, Apple stated plans to drop the NDA. Apple said that it had put the NDA in place to protect its inventions from being stolen by others, but acknowledged that the result had placed too much of a burden on developers and ?others interested in helping further the iPhone?s success.?

The revised NDA agreement binds developers to continue to to honor as confidential information regarding any Apple pre-release software along with ?Apple Events or Paid Content.?

New developer forums, open to registered iPhone developers specifically, have also been set up on Apple?s developer Web site. The company lists the forums as beta presently, and calls it ?a collaborative environment? where iPhone developers can post questions for each other and discuss iPhone development topics.

via. MacWorld

Apple didn?t just introduce new laptops Tuesday; it also introduced a new term to the vocabulary of Mac users?DisplayPort. The Mini DisplayPort found on new MacBooks, the refreshed Macbook Air and 15-inch MacBook Pros replaces the DVI and mini-DVI interfaces found on older models. But is this another proprietary debacle like Apple?s failed Apple Display Connector (ADC) interface? No.

DisplayPort is, in fact, an open industry standard promoted by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), the same group that determines standard sizes for flat panel display mounts, for example. And Apple isn?t the only company supporting DisplayPort. HP, Philips, Samsung, Lenovo, AMD, Nvidia, Intel and many other companies have thrown their weight behind the standard, so we?ll be seeing a lot more DisplayPort-compatible devices in the coming years.

Digital Visual Interface (DVI) has become the de facto standard for flat panel displays over the past few years, and it?s not hard to understand why. It?s a direct digital interface between a computer and a display, which makes it nice and fast, keeps images sharp and colors crisp. But DVI interfaces are big and clunky?probably its most obvious difference with DisplayPort.

Compared to a full-sized DVI interface, DisplayPort?and especially Mini DisplayPort?is much smaller. Apple says the Mini DisplayPort?a smaller version of the official spec?on its redesigned portables is 10 percent the size of a full DVI connector. Thus, DisplayPort frees up a lot more space on the side of a laptop as well inside the machine.

There are practical issues as well. With DVI, you have to use thumbscrews to insert and secure a connection; you just push a DisplayPort connector into place as you would with a USB device. And you can?t easily bend a DisplayPort connector?s pins, like you can with a DVI connector.

But just like DVI and, to a certain extent, High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) video port found on newer home entertainment products and flat-screen TVs, DisplayPort can work equally well connecting a Mac or PC to a flat screen or to a home entertainment system.

A lot of what makes DisplayPort better than DVI, though, is found in the technological nitty-gritty. DisplayPort has greater bandwidth than DVI does, for example (no need for a Dual-Link DVI connector, as a single DisplayPort can accommodate a 30-inch screen), and it embeds the clock signal in the data signal, while DVI and HDMI do that separately. It also supports High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which should help put content providers at ease.

The downside of Apple?s push to use DisplayPort: It?s still very early in this standard?s adoption cycle, and there?s no guarantee that DisplayPort will be used as pervasively as DVI is right now. Even if it is, it?s going to be an uphill climb for consumers, at least until more display vendors have more products on the market that use DisplayPort.

Unless you?re content with the infinitesimal selection of displays that work with DisplayPort right now, you?ll have to buy more gadgets to get your new Mac to work with a DVI or VGA display. You?re going to pay $29 for the privilege of getting such an adapter through the Apple Store. Unless you need a Dual-Link DVI adapter to hook up a Cinema HD Display or another 30-inch LCD panel, that is?that?ll set you back a full c-note, and you?ll be waiting four to five weeks for it, according to the online Apple Store.

What?s more, regardless of whether you buy Apple?s DisplayPort adapter or a third party?s (if you?re lucky enough to find one, that is), you?re going to mess up your desk with more boxes and wires getting that DVI or VGA display to work.

For what it?s worth, Apple is one of the first major computer makers to actually release a system with DisplayPort on it, but it?s not the first company out of the gate with a product equipped with a DisplayPort connector. Dell released displays earlier this year with DisplayPort built in, and HP has since followed suit. PC users can also buy Windows-compatible graphics cards (from vendors that use both Nvidia and ATI chipsets) that have DisplayPort adapters built in.

However, unlike HP and Dell with their displays, Apple is going out on a limb with its new 24-inch LED Cinema Display. That new monitor requires a DisplayPort connector, so for now, it?s only compatible with the new Apple laptops?at least until Apple upgrades the rest of its product line with DisplayPort connectors.

via. MacWorld

While Microsoft executives like to talk about Apple as an insignificant company with less than 5% of the worldwide market share of all PCs and servers sold, the Mac maker now has more cash than Microsoft and earns more than half of its profits and over three fourths its revenues.

For the quarter ending in September, Microsoft released revenues of $15.06 billion, net profits of $4.37 billion, and a reserve of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments that added up to $20.7 billion.

Apple reported $7.9 billion in revenues and $1.14 billion in net profit, but those numbers don’t include most of its iPhone business, which is hidden away in subscription accounting under GAAP rules. For that reason, Apple also released its real earnings: $11.68 billion in revenue and $2.44 billion in net profits. The company also reported a cash position of $24.5 billion.

Microsoft’s quarterly revenues grew by 9%, compared to Apple’s non-GAAP revenue increase of 75.1% year over year.

via. AppleInsider

Damage control kicked into overdrive at the world’s largest chipmaker this week in the wake of comments from two Intel executives who had a field day badmouthing the iPhone and its embedded ARM processor during a public developer forum, apparently without the company’s blessing.

The gaffe prompted Intel’s senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher to publish a correction Thursday on his Chip Shots blog over the “inappropriate” comments made by its lower-level executives, who took turns whaling on the iPhone as a device incapable of providing true Internet access due to alleged limitations of its ARM-based microprocessor.

“It’s hard to see this as anything other than an formal apology to Apple and ARM for comments made by Intel’s Shane Wall and Pankaj Kedia at the company’s Intel Developer Forum in Taipei,” wrote CNet News.com’s Tom Krazit.

“Among other things, the executives resurrected Intel’s lame ‘ARM chips can’t handle the Internet’ argument and singled out the iPhone as an example of a smartphone that could be really awesome if it only used one of Intel’s low-power x86 architecture processors, known as Atom.”

In his correction, Chandrasekher attempted to distance the firm from the executives’ remarks and conceded that Atom has a long ways to go before it can attempt to rival the power efficiency and battery life characteristics that ARM chips provide for handheld devices, a key element of the processor architecture’s dominate use in over 90 percent of mobile phones worldwide.

He added that his subordinates had no business posturing Intel technology by criticizing the designs of partners, and even went one to praise the iPhone as an “innovative product” that has spawned broad market potential:

Anand Chandrasekher issued a correction on comments made by members of his team yesterday at Intel’s Developer Forum in Taiwan. As general manager of the Group responsible for Intel’s ultra-mobility products, he acknowledged that Intel’s low-power Atom processor does not yet match the battery life characteristics of the ARM processor in a phone form factor; and, that while Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain – we are not there as yet. Secondly, Apple’s iPhone offering is an extremely innovative product that enables new and exciting market opportunities. The statements made in Taiwan were inappropriate, and Intel representatives should not have been commenting on specific customer designs.

Unlike rival electronics and PC makers who largely follow Intel’s architectural lead, Apple has proven to be remarkably successful at beating to the sound of its own drum. It’s resisted Intel’s claims that x86 processors represent the clear architectural path to powering the future of mobile computing, and has instead acquired chip designer P.A. Semi to begin work on future generation of ARM-based SOCs for iPhones and iPods that will offer unique advantages, and further distance the company from its peers.

But as CNet’s Krazit points out, Intel’s apology raises the question of whether, after three years of unfettered cooperation, there’s a bit of bad blood brewing between the chipmaker and Apple over differences in their mobile hardware strategies.

In the end, “they’ll be fine, although Intel is sleeping on the couch tonight,” he wrote. “This week’s exercise, however, is an interesting example of how much power Apple wields over one of the most important and historic companies in technology.”

Intel is likely to be particularly conscious of its standing with Apple given that the Mac maker has recently replaced the Intel controller chipsets it has used ever since its transition to Intel CPUs in 2006 with a new more powerful controller from NVIDIA in its latest line of top selling MacBooks.

via. AppleInsider

Testing suggests that the New MacBook Pro hardware can handle 8GB of RAM; however, there are OS-level limitations that cause instability.

Luke from iFixIt.com tested the new MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and posted the following on MacRumors

We did some more testing and found some interesting things. We have not succeeded to go beyond the 4GB limit with any OS X GUI app. With a C app (eatmem) that does not use Apple’s APIs, we were able to allocate 8 GB and have it reported in Activity Monitor (and top).

The C app was able to allocate up to 8 GB without paging to disk. However, OS X is not happy running at or above the 4 GB limit. Performance is very erratic, and we crashed OS X and Parallels multiple times. 8 GB allocated, the system crashed shortly thereafter.

Interestingly, when we booted Ubuntu on the machine it only reported 3 GB memory total. We don’t have an explanation for that.

Overall, our testing showed that the system is unstable at 8 GB of RAM. Parallels takes forever to load, even when using
We then yanked a chip to do a comparison with 4 GB. With a single 4 GB chip, everything seems happy.

We then added a 1 GB chip for 5 GB total. We were able to get GUI apps to use all 5 GB and the system hasn’t crashed on us yet. It will take more testing to determine how stable this configuration is.

We suspect that this testing implies a two things:
1) The hardware can handle a 4 GB chip without any problem
2) There are OS-level limitations with 8 GB RAM on these systems.

Luke Soules
iFixit Labs

Edward Lee has released a version of Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 which includes support for Multi-Touch gestures.

Below you can read his introduction to the build…

Earlier I took the Firefox patch and tweaked it slightly to conform better to sdwilsh style standards and added various refactoring. And now I?ve tossed those pair of patches up on the try-server so people can touch Firefox with a new set of gestures.

A quick detour for those not familiar with the multi-touch gestures.. The most basic multi-touch gesture is the 2-finger scroll which has been around for over 3 years (my iBook had it), and it lets you scroll through pages up/down/left/right/diagonally. Recently added is the 3-finger ?swipe? where you place 3 fingers on the trackpad and move them in any direction like the 2-finger scroll. A couple other iPhone-inspired gestures are the ?pinch? (2 fingers moving towards/away from each other) and the ?twist? (2 fingers rotating).

Note! The following gestures are totally tentative and subject to change, and I?m not sure if they?ll even make it into Firefox 3.1. (From what I quickly gathered, the gestures interface was reverse engineered from some private Apple API, so things might change at any time!) You have been warned!

* Swipe Left: Go back in history [bonus! hold Cmd to open it in a tab]
* Swipe Right: Go forwards in history
* Swipe Up: Return to top of page
* Swipe Down: End of page
* Pinch Together: Zoom out
* Pinch Apart: Zoom in
* Twist Right: Next tab
* Twist Left: Previous tab

Personally, the biggest benefit is the ease of going to the very next tab with just the touchpad. No need to use keyboard shortcuts like cmd-alt-right or fn-ctrl-down or cmd-tab#. Rotating to the right doesn?t just go to the next tab because if you keep twisting right, you?ll go to the next one and the next one. You could think of it as turning a dial to pick the tab you want. And of course, turning the dial back in the same motion switches back to the previous tab.

So if all that sounds interesting and you want to try, make sure you have one of these machines before downloading:
- MacBook Pro from this year (either early-2008 model or the new late-2008 ones)
- MacBook Air (both models from 2008)
- MacBook from late 2008 (the new aluminum ones)

Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 ?pre? with Multi-Touch Gestures – OS X only [build.mozilla.org]

With mountains of cash on hand, Apple is broadening its horizons a little bit. The company is planning to start a creatively designated “Apple University,” following in the corporate educational footsteps of the likes of McDonald’s and Pixar. Though this will likely just be a training campus for Apple employees, they’ve already poached the dean of Yale’s management school to serve as VP of the operation. Why would someone like that leave such a prestigious position for a post as a corporate zombifier? Is it Steve Jobs’ revolutionary, all-in-one, totally-not-modular curriculum? Maybe. Ridiculous amounts of money? Definitely. [WSJ]

via. Gizmodo

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 33.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 41 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone(TM) and Apple TV(R) over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.68 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.44 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple shipped 2,611,000 Macintosh(R) computers during the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,052,000 iPods during the quarter, representing eight percent unit growth and three percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 6,892,000 compared to 1,119,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone — we sold more phones than RIM,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”

“We’re very pleased to have grown revenue 35 percent and to have generated $9.1 billion in cash in fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead, visibility is low and forecasting is challenging, and as a result we are going to be prudent in predicting the December quarter. We are providing a wide range for our guidance, targeting revenue of $9.0 to $10.0 billion and earnings per diluted share between $1.06 and $1.35.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2008 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime(R), Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq408/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

The Mac mini may be pronounced dead as soon as today’s Apple earnings conference call, according to Gizmodo.

Two major retailers in Europe have confirmed to Gizmodo that they can’t order any more of the little computers.

While this could signal an updated model coming in, they have been told by Apple to expect no more of it.

Their impression is that?once again?the Mac Mini may be dead dead DEAD for real, even while you can still order it at the Apple Store.