A slew of rumors centering around an upcoming handset from Google may be coming to fruition as Isabel Aguilera, the company’s chief executive in Spain and Portugal has admitted a mobile product is in the works according to Engadget.
The product is described as a device that could provide features such as search, e-mail, Voice over Internet Protocol and mapping while speculation has emerged that Google may be working on its own hardware – as opposed to using Samsung, as past rumors had claimed.
A source close to the project cited on the High Contrast blog has stated that users can expect a “Blackberry-like, slick device” running Java on a C++ core with a Linux operating system. Google has been mentioned as leveraging its 2005 purchase of a relatively unknown company called Skia, which it felt was capable of creating a 2D engine on low-power devices.
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Toast, the long-standing CD and DVD burning application by Roxio, has been updated from version 8.0 to 8.0.1 as of Wednesday.
The update, which requires the user to log into the Roxio web site to download, offers the following bug fixes and improvements for the recently-released version 8.0 of the product:
-DivX encoder has been updated to version 6.4.
-Resolves a number of issues related to audio playback within Toast.
-Resolves an issue where save options are available while the encoding sheet is visible.
-Resolves a potential crash situation with multiple disc images mounted.
-Correct disc number is now always shown when reburning a failed disc in a spanned set.
-Some error messages have been updated to provide additional details.
-Resolves an issue which limited audio crossfade to 20 seconds.
-ToastAnywhere now correctly works with Audio projects.
-Cosmetic issue relating to fades icon has been corrected.
-Make changes to Effects will now prompt users to save project before exiting Toast.
-Media Browser preview will now stop automatically when saving a disc image
Improved accuracy of displayed recording speed.
-Resolves an issue where a disc is ejected after extracting audio tracks.
-Photo Discs created on Japanese language OS will now function properly in Windows.
-Helvetica font being disabled will no longer cause Toast to crash.
-Saved audio projects from Toast 7 will now open correctly.
-Menu title now appears correctly in preview for video projects.
-Resolves an issue related to closed captions not being available for selection in Toast Video Player.
-Write session option is now preserved correctly.
-Resolves a potential crash situation when selecting TiVo in the Media Browser.
-Index points are now always correctly burned in CD audio projects.
-Resolved an issue where Peak Regions or Split-Regions in some audio files are not recognized.
-Toast will now correctly display the date a TiVo show was recorded if no metadata is present.
-Cosmetic changes to mouse-over tooltip which appears in Media Browser for TiVo shows.
-Resolves issue related to using assets in the Roxio Converted Items folder.
-Audio CD length is now correctly updated with applying crossfade or trim effects.
-Resolves an issue related to opening some saved audio projects with effects applied.
-Toast now correctly displays when lead-in is being written for audio CDs.
-Resolves an issue where some tracks from CD Spin Doctor may not transfer correctly.
-Removing crossfades will no longer reset pause to 2 seconds if no gap is set.
-Resolves an issue related to burning an ISO 9660 format disc image.
-Improvements to estimated size calculation for video projects.
Toast 8 retails for US$99.99 and requires a G4, G5 or Intel-based Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, QuickTime 7.1.3 or later and 300 megabytes of hard drive space to install. The program also urges the user to have at least 15 gigabytes of free drive space available when using Toast’s DVD backup compression features.
The program is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.
If you’ve had either positive or negative experiences with the new version, let us know.

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Ensuring that Mac OS X 10.3.9 users receive the same security updates as found in yesterday’s Mac OS X 10.4.9 release, Apple released Security Update 2007-003 for its Mac OS X 10.3.9 user base.
The update, a 36 to 45 megabyte download (the full Apple knowledge base article can be found here) offers security improvments to the following system components:
-ColorSync
-CoreGraphics
-Crash Reporter
-cups
-Directory Services
-DiskImages Framework
-Flash Player Plug-in
-Foundation
-gnutar
-OpenSSH
-Print Center
-QuickDraw
-servermgrd
-sudo
If you’ve downloaded and installed the update and had either a positive or negative experience with it, let us know.

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After months of builds and testing, Apple released the client and server versions of its Mac OS X 10.4.9 operating system for PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.
The update, a 127 to 310 megabyte download (depending on version selected) through Mac OS X 10.4.x’s Software Update feature as well as Apple’s downloads page, provides the following changes:
-Improvements to RAW camera file support.
-Fix to repair whether or not large or malformed images could lead to crashes.
-Image capture performance improvements.
-Mouse scrolling and keyboard shortcut fixes.
-Font handling improvements.
-Playback quality and bookmark improvements in the DVD Player application.
-Support for USB videoconferencing cameras in iChat.
-Improvements in Bluetooth device support.
-Improvements in browsing Apple File Protocol servers.
-Improvements in Apple USB modem support.
-Better Windows-created digital certificate support.
-Improvements in Open and Print dialogs for Rosetta-based applications running on Intel-based Macs.
-Additional support for the 2006 and 2007 Daylight Savings Time changes.
-Included security updates.
The update’s knowledge base article has additional details about the changes including improved .Mac and synching performance, changes to iCal, boosted WPA2 support and improvements to the OpenGL graphics system, especially with games like World of Warcraft.
If you’ve tried the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update and have had a positive or negative experience with it, let us know.

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On Tuesday, Apple released version 6.0.6 of its iPhoto image organization and editing tool.
The update, an 8 megabyte download, serves as a maintenance fix an repairs bugs found
in the program’s Exchangable Image File compatibility and photocasting features.
iPhoto 6 is part of the iLife 2006 package and is available for US$79.00.
iPhoto 6.0.6 requires a Mac running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later for the Mac OS X 10.3 operating system and Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later for the Mac OS X 10.4 operating system.
If you have any comments or feedback about the new version, let us know.

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According to sources close to the company, Apple may begin manufacturing its long-awaited Apple TV device as early as Monday.
A report on AppleInsider cites that the company, which faced setbacks that shifted an anticipated January launch to mid-March, may be ready to begin manufacturing the units.
The setbacks appear to have been software-related, albeit Apple has never offered an official explanation for the delays. Speculated reasons for these setbacks have included time necessary for full approval of the device from the Federal Communications Commission, although other sources have cited that the NVIDIA graphics card within the Apple TV could have presented technical concerns which needed to be resolved.
Sources close to the company state that Apple began supplying its Taiwanese manufacturing partner Foxconn with materials.
The Apple TV will feature an NVIDIA G72M chipset with 64 megabytes of DDR2 video RAM as well as a 1.0 GHz Pentium M-based Intel chip with two megabytes of L2 cache, 256 megabytes of non-upgradable 400 MHz DDR2 RAM, a 40 gigabyte 2.5″ PATA hard drive and an 802.11n wireless card.
If you have any comments or ideas about this, let us know.

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A leaked image on the UK Apple Store suggests that Apple may be releasing an 8-core Mac Pro according to MacRumors.
Rumors of an 8-core Mac Pro system have been floating around since last October, the systems using dual Intel quad-core Xeon processors.
For full details and feedback, check out Jason O’Grady’s Apple Core blog.

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Intel has announced that they will officially begin selling more energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors as of Monday, according to representatives.
The new processors, dubbed the Xeon L5320 and L5310, will consume 12.5 watts of electricity, about a 60% reduction over the company’s current 80-watt and 120-watt quad-core products.
Both chips will feature eight megabytes of on-die cache, the L5320 operating at 1.86 GHz while the L5310 will operate at 1.60 GHz according to Macworld News.
The chips will be priced at US$519 for the L5320 and US$455 for the L5310 when ordered in quantities of 1,000 units.
To date, there’s been no indication as to whether Apple will begin using the new processors in their Mac Pro towers, even though the current generation of Mac Pro units make use of Intel’s Xeon processors. The chips are expected to be available within server products from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others within the next few months.

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Significant updates always bring mixed results and in the case of the AirPort Extreme Update 2007-002, some readers over at MacFixIt have reported bette performance via the update while others have reported loss to their wireless routers after applying the update.
A full write up offers advice, fixes and suggestions as to how to remove the update (including reverting the system kernel) if need be.
If you’ve had either positive or negative experiences with the update or have found a workaround/fix that works best for you, let us know.

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As great as iPhoto may be in the eyes of its user base, there’s always a glut of space that gets consumed with its pictures and data. And as the treasured memories consume additional gigabytes of space (iPhoto saving backups whenever edits and saves are made), The Unofficial Apple Weblog has linked to a cool thread on MacRumors.com to help you slim down the amount of space consumed by iPhoto.
In addition to this, Adriaan Tijsseling, developer of the ecto, endo and 1001 programs, has posted an instructional guide on using the Terminal program’s commands to remove copies of images created by iPhoto. Albeit the trick means the user will lose the ability to use the Revert command, it could be useful for users trying to reclaim space that had been gobbled up by one of Apple’s most convenient applications.

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