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“You must be the change you want to see in the world“  – Mahatma Gandhi

This week was a busy one so we dived right in to the news. Plus Gareth got to play with his new toy, even if it was a bitch to set up.

Windows 7 out – After a plethora of alphas, betas and a release candidate, the saviour of Redmond is finally available. Will it be the success that Vista was, can it even improve on that, only time will tell. But if it’s as good a copy of Mac OS X as the Microsoft stores are of Apple’s, it should be a huge hit.

New Mac goodies released – After having to talk about Ballmer’s new baby, it was nice to talk about something more edifying. And edifying they are, new iMacs, new Macbook and new Mini’s as well. All released at the same time as something else that’s coming out this week. But funnily enough I can’t remember what it was.

Psystar give all PC users a Mac – Psst wanna get a knock off Mac. You can get one off Psystar for $50. Just a software download, and you’re good to go. I think they might be about to change their name to ‘Hackintosh R Us’.

BBC iPlayer to go international – Your favourite BBC shows, available to stream as soon as they’re shown in the UK. And all for a reasonable fee of just $10 bucks a show, if a BBC Worldwide Exec is to be believed. Although it would be high price to pay for you, it could export a whole new cultural phenomena. Rip off Britain coming soon to a computer near you.

Best Buy opening in the UK – The retailer is bringing the American shopping experience to the UK. The cavernous warehouse filled with all the electrical goodies you could want. Maybe even some American style customer service. And heaven forfend, even American pricing.

Fuel cell actually released – Something we’ve discussed on the show before. Touted as an answer to our power portable gadgets, ravenous hunger for energy, and the consequent disappointing battery life. Promised a decade ago, finally Toshiba is releasing one to consumers. Next thing you know they’ll be giving away a ‘Mr Fusion’ with your breakfast cereal.

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“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.” – Douglas Adams

This week we blathered on about a few different iPhone apps. I was quite enamoured with Layar, the augmented reality app we discussed on the show a while ago. Whereas Gareth was impressed with the new Photoshop Mobile app, I might be as well, if it’s ever available on the UK app store. Also Gareth has changed alliegience, VMWare over Parallels it’s a Snow Leopard thing.

Then on to the stories…

Sneaky Microsoft plug-in puts Firefox users at risk – Not content with with making their own software a hackers paradise. MS are offering free updates so those nasty people can pwn Firefox as well. By installing a windows update, users also installed a plug-in into Firefox, which opened up a great big hole there, as well as in Internet Explorer. They’ve fixed the exploit now. But for a while MS could have honestly claimed that Firefox was as vulnerable as IE, they’d have known, because they’d have made it that way.

An open letter to Steve Jobs. Fix Apple TV – A concerned user wants Uncle Steve to pour some love on Cupertino’s media player. It would be a nice for Apple to invest some time and effort in their ‘hobby’, it could be a killer product. Like as suggested, make the hard drive optional and beef up the streaming, with Netflix perhaps. And add a ‘bag of hurt’, otherwise known as a Blu-ray player. Oh, and Safari for surfing the web from your sofa, would be nice, too. All in all, it’d be easier to just stick an HDMI port on a Mac Mini.

Mac Pro to get the exclusive on Intel’s new six core Xeon – It is rumored that Apple will get another exclusive on a new ‘top of the line’ chip. The rumors of other goodies, 10Gb ethernet, support for upto 128GB of ram, make this sound like a beast of a machine. Cue another arbitrary Terminator reference….no, you get the idea.

Apple prepping a radio app for the iPhone – Bringing a whole new meaning to wireless, on the iPhone. Apple are rumoured to be enabling the FM radio built into the RF chip. I’m quite stoked by this news, Radio 4 without needing Flash for the BBC’s iplayer. Gareth on the other hand, is less then impressed with option to listen to, and I’m paraphrasing here, radio of generally inferior quality.

Newest iPhones jailbreak proof? – It is popular for some people to jailbreak their iPhones as soon as they get them. Whether to enable multi-tasking, or install unapproved apps. But Apple are throwing a spanner on the works, with a new boot-rom to stop the hackers. Of course it’ll get broken and probably very quickly, as well. And it does seem a lot of effort to go to, just to keep Google Voice ‘under review’.

New hardware for the Amiga OS - Like Haiku, keeping the Be OS flame alive, before it. Morph is doing likewise for the old Commodore Amiga OS. The strength of the user community is such that the makers of Morph are releasing new hardware for it. Well they aren’t, but Apple are. And new might be a bit of a stretch. Actually, it can run on a G4 Mac Mini. You’ve got to admire those retro computer guys, three year old hardware, an even older OS. Cutting edge stuff.

WiFi Direct, who needs Bluetooth – Ad-hoc peer to peer WiFi networks where ever you are. Hot spot not required, just two devices with WiFi chips. At up to 30 times the speed of Bluetooth, file transfers should be a breeze, but the headsets will make you look even more of a dork.

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“Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“  – Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955

Not a lot happening on the tech front for Gareth or myself, this week. Still we managed to blather on about this and that for a few minutes before we dived into the stories. We’re getting quite good at blathering, and I quite like the sound of the word…. blathering, blathering, blathering…

Anyway onto the stories…

AT&T to allow VOIP over 3G for the iPhone - In a move sure to cement it’s position as the network of the consumer. AT&T has pushed aside the barriers to allow iPhone users VOIP over its 3G network. Did it work? I was trying for sarcasm. Anyway they’re allowing iPhone users the same choice as Blackberry, and other phone users on their network. Whats next, Slingbox and Google Voice, who knows. They may allow anything but, as Mr de la Vega has intimated, throttle your connection. You greedy iPhone data users you.

Tiny ‘nuclear batteries’ unveiled – Researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a battery that could power your mobile device of choice for ‘up to hundreds of years, or more’. Sounds cool, but there is a small snag, these suckers are nuclear. “People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” Said lead researcher Dr Jae. Really you don’t say? Its claimed they will be perfectly harmless in normal operating conditions. Yeah, and so was the Chernobyl power plant.

Mossberg ‘Windows 7 nearly as good as Mac OS’ – The respected tech journalist has reviewed Windows 7 and proclaimed it ‘the best version of Windows Microsoft have produced’, and is rapidly catching up with Mac OS X. Which if you’ll contrast with his scathing review of Vista. ‘After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced.’ Doh! Move along people, nothing to see here.

Kindle to launch internationally – Good old Uncle Jeff is letting us unworthy non-Americans buy his famed ebook reader. Aren’t we ever so lucky. In Spain with shipping and import taxes it’ll cost $350. And in the UK we’ll be charged 40% more to buy the ebooks. All in all it sounds like a really great deal. (That was a shot at irony). And I usually go to Amazon to get a good price.

Apple, taking the tablets since 2003 – If Joshua A Strickon, a former Apple engineer is to be believed, the almost mythical tablet, has been in development since 2003. Which given Steve Jobs known obsession with detail doesn’t sound unreasonable. Apparently, one such prototype was based on a PPC chip and the components alone cost $500. Which, given Apple’s very healthy margins, would have put the retail cost somewhere close to crippling.

Flash coming to (almost) everything – Adobe is building one multi-media plug-in to rule them all. Flash is coming to every device you can name. Android, Pre, Blackberry and Windows Mobile or Windows Phone or whatever the hell Microsoft are calling it this week. But with one notable exception, the iPhone. Apple is banking on HTML5 with its built in video and audio support. But, if Apple did relent and allowed flash on the iPhone, the day after will see the release of an app that blocks it.