Apple Inc & The Beatles - Peace Man !

CUPERTINO, California and LONDON—Apple® Inc. and The Beatles’ company Apple Corps Ltd. are pleased to announce the parties have entered into a new agreement concerning the use of the name “Apple” and apple logos which replaces their 1991 Agreement. Under this new agreement, Apple Inc. will own all of the trademarks related to “Apple” and will license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use. In addition, the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies will end, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. will continue using its name and logos on iTunes®. The terms of settlement are confidential.

Commenting on the settlement, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said, “We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”

Commenting on the settlement on behalf of the shareholders of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, manager of Apple Corps said, “It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on. The years ahead are going to be very exciting times for us. We wish Apple Inc. every success and look forward to many years of peaceful co-operation with them.”

Nikon - digital cameras make more money

Nikon, the Tokyo based camera manufacturer have reported a 60% increase in profits, compared to the same time last year. According to the BBC website, this has been boosted by sales of its Digital SLR cameras. This follows the announcement last year that Nikon would stop making most of its traditional film based cameras.

Scrivener - A New Type of Word Processor

Scrivener from Literature & Latte is a new type of word processor, and when I saw it for the first time, to say I was intrigued is an understatement. It offers outlining, editing, storyboarding and a whole lot more besides. It's corkboard feature allows you to pin your documents to a virtual board, displaying them as index cards that you can move around to re-order things.
I am going to explore this application a little further, as I was looking for some sort of scripting tool for myself and this may well fit the bill. A 30-day demo of Scrivener is available to download here, with a full license costing $34.99.

NicePlayer 0.95 released - QuickTime playback

NicePlayer version 0.95 has just been released and offers a nice alternative for QuickTime movie playback. Basically if QuickTime can play it, then so can NicePlayer. The user interface in this new version has a fresh look, it is very clean and allows widescreen borderless playback. It is also easy to adjust the size of your playback with your mouse scroll wheel, so you are not tied into certain fixed sizes. There are a lot of new additions, tweaks and fixes to this version, so it is well worth checking out. NicePlayer is donationware and available to download here.

Mac Mini - Intel Core 2 Duo on Tuesday

We have heard that this Tuesday will see a quiet upgrade of the Apple Mac Mini. The update is purely to introduce the Intel Core 2 Duo chip to Apples smallest desktop computer. No other details were available, though from a personal expectation, I would also like to see the standard memory configuration go up to 1GB. We are not a rumour site, so cannot guarantee this will happen, but it surely is about time.

Swatch Wristwatch with MP3, Photo & Video

A Swatch wristwatch, currently only a concept may find its way into our stores. This superb design so much better than most concept designs, mainly because it is actually plausible. The wraparound screen is gorgeous and it features an MP3 player, photo/video viewer and possibly even record functions. If this came onto the market I would put my cash down on one. More images here.

LiquidCD 1.30 Released

Maconnect released version 1.30 of their LiquidCD application today. LiquidCD is a plausible alternative to Toast and other Mac burning solutions. Version 1.3 adds 'experimental' support for Nero .nrg files, has new icons in the toolbar, and added support for more .cdi files. This is amongst other changes and bug fixes. LiquidCD is donationware and available for download here.

New Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n photos

News is sometimes pretty thin on the ground over the weekend, but AppleInsider has posted some nice unboxing photos of Apples new Airport Extreme base station. Many of us here in the UK are still waiting for for this new device to ship, but some lucky people are starting to receive their orders. Check out the photos here.

V-Moda Vibe Headphones Go Red !

Remember the V-Moda Vibe headphones that I took a look at over on Crave late last year. Well, they have gone all red on us now, and launched a new 'Red Roxx' colour to match the Product Red iPod Nano. Same great sound, but with a new great colour, just in time for Valentines Day. Check them out here.

Nike iPod Headphone Beanie Hat

Nike have today launched their Performance Hatphones, a nice design fleece beanie hat that accommodates a mesh pocket for your Nano and has built-in headphones. Retailing in the USA for $60, with a UK price to be announced. The Hatphones are available in black, grey, dark blue and red... I want to keep my ears warm with this !

Apple & Cisco Talking on iPhone again

Talks between Apple and Cisco have been put on hold today. Reports coming in suggest that the two companies are talking again about a possible solution. This may well mean that an offer for the trademark is on the table from Apple, with Cisco possibly knowing that they do not have the rights to use it anyway.

iTunes Repair Tool for Vista released

If you have upgraded to Microsoft Vista or perhaps bought a new PC with it installed, no doubt you will have had trouble with iTunes refusing to play your store purchases. Well Apple have been fast to react and the iTunes Repair Tool is available for download today.