There had been a number of rumors and speculation going around about it but MMS is finally coming to the AT&T iPhone 3G and 3GS. They will arrive September 25, which is a bit later than AT&T had promised but I don’t think anyone is complaining.

“We’ve been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches – and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers.”

Good news for the customers who have waited awhile for the service. Initially they had been up in arms about not receiving MMS when iPhone 3.0 OS was launched. A total of 29 carriers received MMS instantly but for some reason AT&T did not. The backlash was so severe that it eventually led to a lawsuit.

Wired

In an odd turn of events, it was just announced that a Vonage App will soon be made available in the Apple App Store. The reason the announcement is odd is because Google Voice offers the same VOIP service that Vonage does but has been denied access to the App Store for some time now.

How exactly the App will work is unclear at this point. The Vonage press release did not reveal any details, except that the App had received approval from Apple. Vonage stated that the App is currently beta testing and that details on the general release will be out soon.

The question as to why Apple would deny Google Voice App Store access and approve Vonage still persists. Apple stated that Google Voice would be contradictory to the services they already offer, so why then does Vonage have access to the App store when it offers a similar service? From here we will have to see how Vonage will fit into Apple’s plans.

Vonage Press Release

In a decision that comes as little surprise, Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple’s board. Schmidt sat as a board member for Apple as well as Google, and due to the growing conflict between the two companies Apple felt best he resign. This decision comes shortly after the FCC made inquiries into why Apple denied the Google Voice application for its iPhone App Store.

Schmidt held his position at Apple since 2006, and many people believed that his resignation was inevitable. Apple and Google continue to compete within the Internet and mobile markets. From the search engine battle between Safari and Chrome, to the competition on the mobile front between the Apple iPhoneGoogle Android, the two companies have become major rivals. operating system and

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it would be tossing yet another product into its growing bin of underperforming software. Like Encarta, Flight Simulator, and Windows Live OneCare before it, Microsoft Money has been scrapped. And just as Wikipedia defeated Microsoft’s Encarta reference software, Money could not survive against Intuit’s financial software package, Quicken. On the Money website, the company states, “With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed.”

In August 2008, Microsoft ended updates to Money and pulled the software from retail shelves. By October of that year, the company began scaling back on the development on at least 13 products, which can be found here.

Microsoft Money will be available for purchase until June 30, 2009. Online services will be available until January 31, 2011. Microsoft assures the product will continue to work after that point, but users will no longer have access to automated data feeds from banks, credit card companies, and other financial service providers.

For those who currently own, or plan to purchase the software before the end of June, be sure to activate the program before January 31, 2011. And, for users who are concerned about exporting information from Money to another financial management application (Quicken, anyone?), Microsoft provides a support document on its corporate website, available here: Exporting Account Information.

Source

Today the Twitterverse was buzzing over an announcement made by CEO and CO-Founder of Twitter Evan Williams. The announcement was that Twitter was to implement Premium Accounts (two words that will live in infamy) as their long awaited business module. The story was broke by the not so respected  BBspot.com, and suddenly it was everywhere; to bad it was satire.

Apparently the post was written to mock Twitter for having no business model for the 3 years of its existence. although there are a few things in the post that are a dead give away that it is a satire piece, that didn’t stop it from spreading like wild fire. The story got Re-tweeted faster than dirty celebrity photos.

Shorty afterward it was revealed that the story was a hoax, and the joke is on the Twitter community; as it is still somehow being Tweeted.

Source

Tomorrow will mark the 25th anniversary of the birth of Apple’s first Macintosh computer, The Macintosh 128K.  Created by the legendary Jef Raskin The Macintosh was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature the mouse and graphical user interface.

The first in a long line of Macintosh computers from Apple; Raskin’s machine had a black and white 9 inch screen, 128k ram, floppy drive, keyboard, and a single-button mouse. The name was derived from Raskin’s favorite type of apple the McIntosh, but the spelling had to be  modified due to legal issues.

Most of you remember the famous Superbowl ad for the Macintosh and all it’s sledge hammer hurling glory. Directed by Ridley Scott, and costing Apple 1.5 million, it helped get the point across that the Macintosh would set a new standard for personal computers, and that it did!

Happy Birthday Macintosh! We have embedded this video in your honor!

Link to Mac ad on YouTube

Source

What to expect from McAfee 2009
At face value, McAfee 2009 seems much the same as the 2008 version but take the time to give it second glance. This year, McAfee has taken huge strides in terms of speed, ease of use, and the number of features - delivering an over all good security software suite for 2009.

Installation
Although this version is slow to install, it is a simple process, and it is has much fewer issues during setup.  What we have heard is that the overall setup process for users is simple. You shouldn’t have any issues during installation unless you are using a beta Internet Explorer.

Interface
McAfee integrates all of its tools into one interface, which is a continuation of previous years. To the faithful McAfee users, this type of interface will cater to you and will no doubt be more than adequate for your day to day use.

Features
McAfee has the most features of almost any security suite out now, including two-way firewall, anti-virus,  anti-spyware, anti-spam, and anti-phishing.  The firewall protection has great user options, the malware protection and anti-spamming is excellent and highly rated.  Lastly, the Shareware trial is excellent and almost a prerogative for any who are undecided on this software and would like a chance to try it out before purchase.

Bottom Line
If you’re a McAfee fan - you’ll want to pick up this version - and if you are still trying to decide what type of internet security to go with, this is a good choice.  The best aspect of this ‘total protection’ software from McAfee would be the features. As stated before, it has the most features of almost security suite on the market now. We give McAfee 2009 four out of five stars.

You can get a copy of McAfee 2009 here

The developers of Firefox, Mozilla labs is currently working on a user interface that is rumored to be the next big step in Web 3.0 standards. Enter Ubiquity which is currently available as an open alpha test. The goal of the new service is to make the internet quicker and simpler for everyday use; by allowing user to control browsing with language based instructions.

Ubiquity will allow users to insert maps anywhere, translate on-page, highlight any code, and many other features that are just to numerous to name.

Here is a video with more detail

Here is the link to a Video About Mozilla Ubiquity

For more info on Ubiquity or to download it here is a link to the BLOG

Alexandria, VA (PRWEB) September 22, 2008 — Luxand, Inc. today announces BabyMaker 1.0, a fun computer program specifically designed to let couples morph their photos and see a digitally created face of the future baby.

To morph a child picture, BabyMaker relies on the revolutionary facial recognition technology from Luxand. The technology allows morphing two digital photos together to generate a high-resolution picture. To accomplish this, the program carefully analyzes the faces of the two would-be parents, detects their most prominent facial characteristics and applies some advanced mathematical transformations to generate an exact physical manifestation of a child. The quality of a source image doesn’t really matter. One can load in scratched, faded, or black and white photos and still get a color rich, high quality rendering of a baby face.

The software works like magic. To get started, the user should first load the digital image of a “father” and manipulate it - pan, zoom and rotate the photo to get a full frontal view of the face. The next step is to load the image of a “mother”. Once the photos are all in, the program makes some sophisticated calculations, and voila! In a couple of seconds, it shows a photorealistic picture of the future diaper wearer.

After the picture has been created, it can be shared with other people. To do so, the picture should be saved to a file. For more fun, the baby can be placed within a greeting card or a portrait frame in the other editor. Then the user can print the portrait and hang it on the wall, or email the greeting card to the beloved and have fun together!

BabyMaker is a fun program that becomes addictive after a little while. Once all the combinations with the spouse, partner and friends have been tried, users may find themselves spreading the genes throughout Hollywood!

For more information about the product or to download its free trial, visit http://www.luxand.com/babymaker

iTunes 8 finally hit the internet yesterday with all of the hype you would expect from Apple!

So What’s New?

Genius Playlists
Genius is one of the best features on the new iTunes8.  Genius allows users to add a song to a playlist and genius will find songs (based on statistical data from other users) to add to the playlist, hopefully saving you time and giving you a great mix of songs with little effort.

Genius also integrates (optional) with a mass audience by sharing your playlists, and selections to compare and add to the cloud of other playlists.  Thus giving Genius the ability to choose better matches.

Genius Sidebar
The Genius sidebar will recommend new songs to download/buy that are not already in your library based on what you are playing.  I love this feature, for me, this is huge, I always want to find ways to keep up with my genre’s and sometimes I am way to busy to listen to the radio, go to concerts, read on new artists, etc.  But with the music world changing quicker then ever, this is an AWESOME feature to stay “in” with the  tough “who’s hot” crowd.

Grid View
The grid view concept is nothing new to music management software.  Packages such as Windows Media player, WinAmp, and even Banshee (Linux) have been using grid view as a  way to consolidate space and provide relevant information about genres, artists, songs, etc for a long time now.

photo credit: mac_filko

HD TV Shows
The new agreement for Apple to sell HD TV shows is going over very well already. With competition from sites like Hulu Apple is stepping up the game with HD.  Most shows starting at just $2.99 an episode it looks like Apple has a real winner with this feature!  More and more people report every year watching more TV online then the year before.  With the Apple TV sales still doing very well, this new feature is going to further help the movement of TV on your PC!

New Visualizer
The new Visualizer will get you lost in a 3D-scape of spheres, ribbons, and lights that pulsate to the beat and tempo of the song you’re playing.

photo credit: mononexo

Conclusion

Certainly with all of the new changes iTunes8 have some awesome features that will makes you life much easier! Certainly this has to be one of the best things for iTunes since the iPod! iTunes is no longer just a music management/download platform but a full blow media center for your PC.  iTunes8 is taking desktop media to the next level once again with it’s easy to use interface and features which make it a delight to use.

I would recommend upgrading, I am glad I did, and certainly if Apple continues on this road to integrating multimedia into the PC as a center piece of usage we should see a consistant migration pattern to television on the PC.