Laptop sales pave way for rumored Apple tablet

SUNNYVALE, USA: Laptop demand is enjoying strong growth this back to school season according to the Retrevo Pulse, a publicly-available index that maps daily price and demand trends in the consumer electronics industry across 40 categories and more than 4,000 products.

Despite a 20 percent decline in the average selling price of laptops, August demand in terms of dollars was up 40 percent from July. During last year’s back-to-school season demand was up only 20 percent.

“With the economy under stress and the growing popularity of netbooks, one could expect laptop sales to suffer but that does not appear to be the case,” says Vipin Jain, Retrevo CEO.

“The Pulse Report suggests that shoppers have an appetite for affordable laptops and that netbooks are fueling that appetite. Innovation from Apple could easily accelerate the adoption of portable computers if they decide to introduce a low-priced tablet-like computer.”

Retrevo’s Gadgetology study, released earlier this month, indicated 58 percent of students would spend less than $750 on their next laptop. Jain says, “An innovative product like the rumored Apple Tablet has the chance to hit a home run if Apple can find the right price point. Let’s just hope their market success goes the way of the iPhone, and not the Newton.”

“With the upcoming release of Windows 7 from Microsoft, many believe that netbook and lower-priced laptop sales will continue to increase,” says Jain. “Good technology at affordable prices is good news for consumers. Retrevo will be closely watching the Pulse demand index to report any market shifts resulting from these innovations.”

Pre-order Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard at Amazon.com!

USA: Attention Apple aficionados – it’s the software news you’ve been waiting for! With all the buzz surrounding the anticipated September release date, Amazon is pleased to announce that the latest Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard is now available at Amazon for pre-order, and as expected, the software has already made it to the number 1 and 2 spots on the Software Bestsellers List!

Mac OS X is the world’s most advanced computer operating system, and this latest Apple offering makes your Mac faster, more reliable, and easier to use. Built on a rock-solid UNIX foundation and designed to be simple and intuitive, it’s what makes the Mac innovative, highly secure and compatible.

This new OS is much lighter to run on your computer (6GB lighter than the previous version) and for additional detailed technical specs, check out what Apple has to say about refinements, technology, accessibility and more!

Get the very best for your Mac by heading to Amazon.com and pre-ordering this newer, faster Apple OS, by skipping the long lines at the Apple Store and ordering worry-free with a click.

Competitors scramble for hot features as PMP/MP3 player market loses steam

SCOTTSDALE, USA: As the worldwide PMP/MP3 market matures, with shipment growth of only 5 percent in 2009, competitors are scrambling to add features such as touchscreens and Wi-Fi connectivity to re-ignite demand reports In-Stat.

Just a few years ago, the PMP/MP3 player market was among the strongest growth segments in the portable consumer electronic (CE) industry. Today, the market is stalled due to a perfect storm of weak consumer demand, a poor economic environment, a stalled replacement market, and competition from the iPhone and other audio/video-capable smartphones.

“Among the lone bright spots in the PMP market is Wi-Fi enabled PMPs,” says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst. “Unit shipments of Wi-Fi-enabled PMPs will grow more than four-fold by 2013 from the 14 million units shipped in 2008.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

* Total worldwide shipments of PMP players will reach 225 million in 2009, with Asia Pacific representing the largest geographic market.
* The market is decidedly shifting to video-enabled devices. By 2013, only 15 percent of PMP players will be audio-only devices.
* Among the key PMP competitors are: Apple, Archos, Creative Technology, iRiver, ZVUE Corporation, Microsoft, SanDisk, Samsung, and Toshiba.
* The total semiconductor opportunity for PMP/MP3 player suppliers has peaked and will decline below $5 billion by 2013. NAND Flash and Video processors make up the majority of semiconductor revenue.
* Among the key PMP Semiconductor competitors are: Actions Semiconductor, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, Toshiba Semiconductor, Freescale Semiconductor (SigmaTel).

Apple releases Safari 4

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Apple has released Safari 4, the world's fastest and most innovative web browser. Available for Mac and Windows PCs and introduced as a beta in February of this year, Safari 4 features the Nitro engine which runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3.

Safari 4 makes browsing more intuitive and enjoyable with innovative features, such as Top Sites, Full History Search and Cover Flow, and support for modern web standards like HTML 5 and advanced CSS Effects.

"The successful beta release helped us fine tune Safari 4 into an even better, faster version that customers are going to love," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Safari is enjoyed by 70 million users worldwide and with its blazing fast speed, innovative features and support for modern web standards, it's the best browser on any platform."

Safari 4 is built on the world's most advanced browser technologies including the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3. Safari quickly loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3.

Starting with the development of the open source WebKit browser engine, Apple has been leading the industry in defining and implementing innovative web standards. Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies and support for advanced CSS Effects, enabling an entirely new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts.

Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Safari 4 includes Top Sites, for an incredible visual preview of frequently visited and favorite pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; and Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks. Other innovative features include Smart Address Fields for automatically completing web addresses from an easy to read list of suggestions; Search Fields, to fine tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches; and Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site's layout and text.

In Mac OS X Snow Leopard, available later this year, Safari runs as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent. Snow Leopard makes Safari more resistant to crashes by running plug-ins in a separate process, so even if a plug-in crashes, Safari continues to run and the user simply has to reload the affected page.

Safari 4 can be downloaded free for Mac OS X and Windows at www.apple.com/safari.

Apple intros Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Appleunveiled a Developer Preview of Mac OS(R) X Server Snow Leopard(TM), the next major release of the world's easiest to use server operating system.

Snow Leopard Server is a full 64-bit UNIX server operating system based on open standards that is up to twice as fast as its predecessor.* Snow Leopard Server includes innovative new features such as Podcast Producer 2, for automating the creation and publishing of podcasts, and Mobile Access Server with secure access to firewall-protected network services for iPhone and Mac. Snow Leopard Server is priced more affordably than ever at $499 with unlimited client licenses and will ship in September 2009.

"Snow Leopard Server is our best and fastest server operating system ever, and unlimited client licenses make it an incredible value for any size business," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "With easy to use new features like Podcast Producer 2 and Mobile Access Server, anyone can set up and manage its powerful services with just a few clicks."

Snow Leopard Server is a full 64-bit operating system designed to take advantage of multi-core processors and address massive amounts of memory, while remaining fully compatible with 32-bit applications. Up to twice as fast as its predecessor, Snow Leopard Server easily handles the most demanding server operations including web and application hosting, file sharing and mail.

Podcast Producer 2 includes the new Podcast Composer application, which automates the entire production process, making it easy to create podcasts with a customized, consistent look and feel. With just a few clicks, Podcast Composer creates a workflow to add titles, transitions and effects, save to a desired format and share to wikis, blogs, iTunes, iTunes U, Final Cut Server or the new Podcast Library.

The new Mobile Access Server is a convenient, easy way for iPhone and Mac users to access secured network services, including corporate websites, online business applications, email, calendars and contacts. Without requiring additional software, Mobile Access Server provides strong encryption and authentication between the user's iPhone or Mac and a private network.