Final Cut Studio, Adobe, Avid editors and digital filmmakers from around the world will gather together for the Tenth Annual San Francisco SuperMeet, to be held on Friday, Jan. 28, at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, California. Free educational workshops will be offered during the day by Canon, Adobe, Avid and Blackmagic Design. Bay Area filmmakers will also have a chance to screen content in the SuperMeet Digital Showcase featuring 30 software and hardware developers. Tickets to the SuperMeet are now available for purchase online for US$15 each (plus ticket fee) and $10 (plus ticket fee) for students. Registration for the free educational workshops are also currently online. Free educational workshops will be offered during the day prior to the SuperMeet, featuring fresh content from Canon, Adobe, Avid and Blackmagic Design. Workshop attendees have 12 sessions to choose from. The workshops will end at 4 pm at which time the doors open to the "SuperMeet...

Tension Software has updated Cronette (http://pomola.com/products_cronette/cronette.html), a Cocoa task launcher for Macs and Mac servers, to version 1.4.2. The upgrade offers better handling of the "First process repetition" table. Cronette lets you specify tasks to be launched automatically by the Mac. It can be used on unattended Mac Servers or also on regular Mac workstations for tasks to execute during the night or for recurring tasks to be performed on a regular basis. It provides different type of launch tasks: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Any task can be specified to launch different type of execution: open applications or documents from disk; open different type of URL; execute different type of actions: restart, shutdown, sleep; sending a message to the log; execute a complex UNIX command. Cronette costs US$30 for a single user license, though version 1.4.2 is a free update for registered users. A demo is available for download. Cronette requires Mac OS X 10.5 or higher...

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said that Mac sales for the December quarter set another quarterly record with sales of almost eight times IDC's most recent estimate for the PC industry overall. There was growth in each geographic segment grew; Japan and Asia-Pacific grew over 50%. Oppenheimer says growth was fueled by strong demand for the revamped MacBook Air as well as continued strong sales of MacBook Pro. "Macworld" (http://www.macworld.com) says 70% of all the Macs sold were laptops. However, it seems the iMac is still going strong, and is definitely Apple's best-selling desktop. The average selling price of Macs went up. Desktop Macs now have an ASP of US$1,410 and laptops have an ASP of $1,272. Asia/Pacific led the Mac growth with 67% increase year over year. That's 10x what the market there grew overall. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said that Apple has seen 19 straight quarters of Mac sales growth. Still, the Mac has a relatively small percentage of the...

In an interview with the press and analysts concerning Apple's latest financial results, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the iPod touch grew 57% in sales year-over-year and now accounts for 50% of all iPods sold. The iPod remains the top-selling MP3 player globally with 70% of market share. -- Dennis Sellers dsellers@applecentral.com

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said revenue for Apple's retail stores doubled in the December quarter to US$3.85 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the September quarter. That's an increase of 95%. The stores sold 851,000 Macs, compared to 689,000 the previous quarter, an increase of 24%. And (you knew this was coming) Oppenheimer says that about half of the Macs were sold to customers who had never owned an Apple computer before. Apple now has 323 stores worldwide;. 87 are outside US. In fact, average international store volume exceeded the average U.S. store volume, Oppenheimer says, noting that the new stores in China stores are the highest when it comes to traffic and revenue. With an average of 321 stores open during the quarter, average revenue per store was US$12 million, an increase of 69%. The Apple stores had 75.7 million visitors in the December quarter, an increase of 49% from the September quarter. Oppenheimer says Apple had a cash stash of $$59.7...

"Fortune" is reporting (http://macte.ch/pcxuk) that Apple CEO Steve Jobs -- who announced a medical leave of absence this week -- spent part of 2009 at a hospital in Basel, Switzerland seeking treatment for neuroendocrine cancer, which he had surgically treated in 2004. Jobs had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, taking a leave of absence to recover. He returned, then took a second medical absence for roughly six months in 2009. At that time he underwent a secret liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. However, also during that absence, "Fortune" says Jobs also took an unpublicized flight to Switzerland to undergo an unusual, hormone-delivered radiological treatment at the University of Basel for neuroendocrine cancer. The treatment isn't available in the U.S.

Future Apps (http://www.future-apps.net), an iOS development company has released the iSpeak Translator for the Mac. It's available at an introductory price of US$4.99 at the Mac App Store and requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 and higher. iSpeak Translator for the Mac is not just a mere text translator, but uses the highest quality text to speech syntheses available to speak the translated phrase back to you in the target language, according to Future Apps founder and CEO John Stefanopoulos. Instead of offering separate apps for individual language pairs, all languages are being combined into one application. iSpeak Translator for the Mac includes five languages for the initial release: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The application will be updated with many more languages in the very near future at no additional cost, according to Stefanopoulos.

The iPhone and iPad accounted for 90% of the 14 million devices running "lite" operating systems sold last year. By 2015, however, when 150 million sales are expected, the proportion of smartphones and tablets based on Apple software will have dipped to 35%, the analysts at Ovum told clients -- as reported by "The Telegraph" (http://macte.ch/NsKAo). And I'd take this prediction with a big grain of salt. "This huge growth in shipments will be dominated by tablet-style technologies such as the iPad and will mainly be driven by consumers buying devices to complement their smartphones," says Tony Cripps, principal analyst, Ovum. He adds that the main beneficiary will be Google, and that by 2015 its share of smartphone and tablet sales will have risen to 36 %, edging ahead of Apple. The remaining 29% of the "lite" operating system market will be divided between Microsoft, RIM and HP's WebOS, the analysts said. -- Dennis Sellers

Two U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against two people accused of stealing the email addresses and other personal data of about 120,000 users of the iPad, reports "Reuters" (http://macte.ch/CXmXp). Daniel Spitler and Andrew Auernheimer were each charged with one count of fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization, prosecutors said. The charges arise from an alleged hacking last year of AT&T's servers, which affected iPad users who accessed the Internet through AT&T's 3G network. The charges come seven months after a group calling itself Goatse Security said it hacked into AT&T's iPad subscriber data. The group obtained a list of email addresses that also included celebrities, chief executives, politicians and several senior government officials, adds "Reuters."

Any drop in Apple's share price tomorrow "presents a buying opportunity ahead of earnings," according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty in a note to clients, as reported by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com). He discussed the impact of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave of absence, as well as an improved outlook for iOS and more favorable component costs than previously expected. "We expect the company to report strong December quarter results Tuesday night and continue to believe our bull case of CY11 $25 EPS (vs. consensus of $20.68) is increasingly likely on the back of stronger than expected iPhone/iPad shipments and gross margins." the analyst says. ""In addition to upward revisions from the recent Verizon launch, our meetings highlighted long iPhone lead times in China given strong demand. iPad touch panels, the major bottleneck over the past several quarters and 10-15% of the iPad's bill of materials, are now produced at 90% manufacturing yields with potential...

Western Digital (http://www.westerndigital.com) has announced the availability of its second-generation WD S25 SAS drives and its latest WD RE SAS 3.5-inch drives for the traditional enterprise market. Shipping now, the 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM, WD S25 with SAS 6 Gb/second interface hard drives offer IT professionals storage with new 450GB and 600 GB capacities. The WD S25 line, including the previously released 147GB and 300GB capacities, is designed for mission-critical server and storage systems. Also shipping now to original equipment manufacturers, the new 3.5-inch, 7,200 RPM, WD RE SAS with 6 Gb/second interface hard drives offer 1TB and 2TB capacity points. The WD RE SAS drives mark a commitment to the expansion of WD's SAS portfolio for high-capacity data center storage, storage area networks (SAN), network attached storage (NAS), direct attach storage (DAS), networked surveillance systems and cloud storage.

Redcort Software has announced Virtual TimeClock '11 (http://www.redcort.com/timeclock/), the latest version of the time and attendance software for Mac and Windows computers. Employers can now prevent or restrict clock in and out times based on employee shifts, instantly track late arrivals, and view shift reports and summaries to reduce overtime costs and more easily manage employee time and attendance. Virtual TimeClock '11's new overtime control features allow employees to record an early clock in as their shift start time or prevent early clock-ins altogether. Allowing users to clock in early but not starting until their actual shift start time is called a "Courtesy Clock In." Early clock-ins can be overridden by a manager with a new security access setting. Clock-out restrictions work in a similar fashion to control late clock outs, including a new automatic clock out feature. Assigning shifts to employee schedules, calculating shift differentials, shift and late arrival reports...

DssW has released Power Manager 4.0.3 for Mac OS X. This release includes new developer tools and bug fixes. Power Manager is an automation and energy saving solution for Mac OS X. It boasts a range of energy saving events, including the ability to run applications and scripts to a schedule. New to Power Manager 4.0.3 is the Power application programming interface. Developers can now programmatically access the battery and power information. This information includes the battery health, charge, and time remaining. A range of power sources are supported, including Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). The Power API is available through C, Objective-C, shell, and AppleScript interfaces. Power Manager 4.0.3 also fixes a bug in the inactivity trigger. This bug affected how multiple inactivity triggers interacted, and could cause triggers not to fire. For more information, and to download a 30-day demo version of Power Manager, go to http://www.dssw.co.uk/powermanager/ . Registration is...

U.S. markets were closed on Monday in recognition of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, but the announcement that CEO Steve Jobs was taking another medical leave of absence (with Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook again overseeing day-to-day operations at Apple), the company's stock was down nearly 10 % in Frankfurt, Germany, for European trading. It closed the day down 6.2 percent, to finish at €244.05. U.S. markets, including the NASDAQ, where AAPL is traded, will open at their regular time of 9:30 a.m. eastern on Tuesday. In a note to clients -- as reported by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com), analyst Mike Abramsky said he expects Apple stock to be volatile in the near future, but also buoyed by the strong expected quarter for the start of fiscal 2011. He noted that Apple and Jobs' decision not to reveal the CEO's condition could "sustain uncertainty." However, the analyst noted that investors may also focus on the fact that Jobs has twice already successfully...

Sales of Beatles tracks on iTunes have topped five million since becoming available last November, according to Apple -- as reported by "New Media Age" (http://macte.ch/pLYZg). What's more, sales of Beatles albums have topped one million, with the 1969 album , "Abbey Road," the band’s bestselling album on iTunes. The Beatles' catalog arrived at the iTunes Store on Nov. 16. This followed years of negotiations between Apple and The Beatles’ record label EMI Group.

The launch of News Corp's iPad newspaper, "The Daily," has been pushed back, and now it seems the publication won't be running Apple's iAds. Instead, News Corp. will sell all its own ads, powered by Medialets' multimedia and analytics technology, reports "Advertising Age" (http://macte.ch/SMQto). Among the initial advertisers are Macy's, Verizon Wireless, Land Rover, Pepsi Max and Virgin America, the article adds. Ads combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of Internet advertising, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs (now on a medical leave of absence). He adds that iAd, which is built into iOS 4, allows users to stay within their app while engaging with the ad, even while watching a video, playing a game or using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes content. Developers who join the iAd Network can incorporate a variety of advertising formats into their apps. Apple will sell and serve the ads, and developers will receive 60% of the iAd Network revenue,...

The last week before the Macworld Conference & Expo 2011 is a busy one on "The MUG Event Calendar." Philip Goward of Smile will visit a California group to demonstrate TextExpander, Joe Kissell will make a virtual visit to an Ohio Group to discuss Apple’s MobileMe, and John Yi of Facebook will make a personal appearance at another California group. Other topics in this week’s listings include Snow Leopard, the Mac App Store, passwords, social networking, genealogy, iMovie ‘11 and more. "The MUG Event Calendar" can be found at The MUG Center (http://www.mugcenter.com), an online resource for Mac User Groups. MUGs are good places for making new friends in the Mac community, improving your computing skills, finding solutions to technical Problems, and perhaps locating a good deal on used hardware. For more info on MUGs, and to find the location of the one nearest you, go to Apple's MUG page (http://www.apple.com/usergroups/).

Analysts expect global cellphone sales volumes to have grown 10.8% in October-December, a "Reuters" poll (http://macte.ch/AouDB) of 32 banks, brokerages and research firms showed. The iPhone 4 and Samsung's Galaxy S were the hottest items. "Indications point to further substantial strengthening of demand in the fourth quarter," Geoff Blaber, an analyst at research firm CCS Insight, told "Reuters." ""In 2010 we saw a gulf emerge between winners and losers which will only widen in 2011." Among the largest phone makers reporting their December quarter earnings in the next two weeks only Apple and Samsung Electronics are expected to win further market share, with all others seeing their share shrinking, says "Reuters." Despite slowing demand in the computer industry, all comments from vendors point to strong cellphone demand at the end of the year.

The open source RPG LambdaRogue: The Book of Stars (http://macte.ch/SpgIY)is now available. Previously released for Windows and Linux, the Rogue-like game has been brought to the Mac OS X platform, reports "Inside Mac Games" (http://www.insidemacgames.com). The game features randomly generated dungeons and challenges players to find the Book of Stars and save mankind. LamdaRogue: The Book of Stars is Universal Binary so runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.

Eltima Software has released SyncMate 3 (http://www.sync-mac.com), an update of the software for syncing data between a Mac to Windows Mobile handheld devices. Just remember: beta software is unfinished software so use with care. The new version allows syncing contacts and calendar entries on Mac and Android, viewing text messages on a Mac for free, and offers extra options in Expert Edition. For example, SyncMate Expert will sync iTunes, iPhoto, folders with files and bookmarks between Mac and Android phone. What's more, with Expert Edition all users can manage Android texts on a Mac, and send them, delete them, or export into different formats. The upgrade brings improvements to "Mount device" option as well. Now it is possible to mount Windows Mobile and Android devices as additional Mac disks via Wi-Fi, USB or Bluetooth and viewing devices' content directly on Mac computer. With SyncMate 3, users can choose which account on Mac or Windows PC to sync with (in case they have...

Creaceed is offering a special version of Hydra, its HDR photography application, in the Mac App Store: Hydra Express. It costs US$49.95. The original version of Hydra is now dubbed Hydra Pro and costs $79.95. All registered users of the original Hydra 2.x are now registered users of Hydra Pro 2.x. Hydra Express lets you input up to three images. Hydra Pro lets you input up to 10 images, offers Input and Output filters, and Aperture and Lightroom plug-ins. The pro version is only available at the Creaceed web site (http://www.creaceed.com).

Carnation Software (http://www.carnationsoftware.com) says its MacWise terminal emulation for Mac is now available in the Mac App Store. MacWise allows a Macintosh to be used as a terminal, connected to a host computer directly, by modem, local area network or over the Internet with telnet or ssh secure shell. You can connect to the host via serial, modem, telnet, ssh, via the Internet or local connection. The App Store version requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later and costs US$94.99. MacWise emulates ADDS Viewpoint, Wyse 50, Wyse 60, Wyse 370, Televideo TV 925, DEC VT100, VT220 and Prism terminals. Supports ANSI and SCO ANSI color. Esprit III color is also supported in Wyse 370 mode. AppleScript is also supported.

Now users can get free PDFZilla giveaway licenses to convert PDF documents to editable formats, at least for a limited time. PDFZilla.com has started their free, time-limited, giveaway promotion for the PDFZilla PDF converter product at http://www.pdfzilla.com/giveaway.html . The free giveaway will end on Feb. 5. During this time PDFZilla is for free for all users and visitors. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file type designed by Adobe System for document exchange and mostly used to represent bi-dimensional docs independent of software, hardware or operating system PDF files can encompass text, fonts, images and even 2D vector graphics. With PDFZilla, users can convert a PDF document into Word. The program preserves the original quality of the PDF files and converts both text and images. Users can convert the entire PDF or selected pages only and even convert multiple files in the batch mode.

The "engadget" web site (http://macte.ch/PiTD1), quoting "multiple sources," offers some tidbits on the next iPad, the iPhone 5 and the Apple TV. "Engadget" says the iPad 2 won't arrive until April and will sport a dual GSM/CDMA chipset produced by Qualcomm and will signal Apple's move to that company and away from Infineon as the chipset maker for its iOS devices. The second gen iPad will purportedly be thinner, sleeker, sport a new screen technology akin to (though not the same as) the iPhone 4's Retina Display and will be "super high resolution." "Engadget" says the iPad 2 will stay at its current size, will feature both front and rear cameras and sport a dedicated SD slot built in -- but no traditional USB slot. The Sellers Research Firm (that's me) is still a bit dubious that the iPad 2 will have two cameras. One for FaceTiming makes sense. The tablet still seems a bit big for doing videos and still pics to me, but we'll see. "Engadget" says the iPhone 5 will be arrive in summer...