Xeric Design is celebrating the ninth birthday of its flagship product, EarthDesk, with a special offer for a single-user license at a 60% discount (normally $39.95). EarthDesk replaces your static desktop with an image of the Earth showing current sun, moon and city illumination, as well as real-time global cloud coverage, allowing you to track hurricanes and other weather systems. This offer is available on the Xeric Design website (http://www.xericdesign.com/earthdesk.php), as well as from the Mac App Store. This discoount is valid through March.

Here are the latest iPhone/iPod touch/iPod/iPad apps. You can find 'em at the Apple App Store (http://www.itunes.com/appstore/). Orb Factory and EverAge Apps have announced Sticky Mosaics Butterflies 1.0 for the iPad. The US$2.99 app contains a set of four templates that your child can decorate with a collection of sparkling jewels. The more jewels you add, the more your butterfly will sparkle. When you complete each butterfly, the butterfly will "come to life and fly." Internet Design Zone has released Cute Alphabets 1.0, an educational app for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The $0.99 app is designed to help parents begin the early education process of their child with the very basics of ABC alphabets. Sigma Game has launched Dungeons & Coin 1.2.5 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This free arcade game charges players with gathering up as many coins as they can by stopping a casino themed slot machine at the right moments to activate the virtual coin pusher's arms, receive...

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo hinted at a new Verizon iPhone and usage-based pricing during a webcast of an investor conference -- as reported by "Reuters" (http://macte.ch/eCTJV). He didn't talk about a release date for a new iPhone. However, Apple has normally updated its smartphone in the summer. That's when the iPhone 5 is expected -- and that would match Verizon Wireless' timeline on its new data plans. Verizon Wireless allows unlimited Web surfing for US$30 a month for users of its version of the iPhone. But this is expected to change in the coming months, according to "Reuters."

A recent survey of 1,500 consumers indicates sales of tablets such as the iPad could more than double in 2011. Of those who completed the survey, 10% currently own a tablet and 17% plan to buy a tablet this year. The survey, conducted by Zoomerang, using its online survey tool, provides insight into the factors impacting consumer purchasing decisions for tablets. The top three factors valued most by consumers include price, connectivity capabilities (i.e. 3G, 4G, WiFi) and the tablet's operating system with 56%, 46% and 44%, respectively. Demonstrating its popularity among consumers and market presence, 80% of those who purchased a tablet in 2010 chose the iPad by Apple. "If consumers buy additional tablet computers as predicted by this Zoomerang study, tablet market penetration will surpass 25% in the next year," says Alex Terry, general manager of Zoomerang. "But while Apple was the clear tablet winner of 2010, this next, larger wave of purchasers is still considering brands and...

Mac, Safari and iOS market share for Internet usage rose from December to January,, according to the latest market share survey from NetMarketShare (http://www.netmarketshare.com). According to the report, among operating systems, Mac OS X had 5.19% of the global market share in February compared to 5.25% in January (that's global market share; in the US it's almost 10%). Windows remains dominant with 89.69% as of February. That's down from 89.70% in January. Apple's highest percentage previously was 5.27% in October 2009. When it comes to browsers, Safari had 6.36% in February compared to 6.60% in January, while Internet Explorer had 56.77% Firefox had 21.74% and Chrome had 10.93%. That compares to, respectively, January percentages of 56T, 22.75% and 10.70% for the browsers. The iOS's market share also rose, according to NetMarketShare. It had 1.81% of the global market share in February compared to 2.05% in January. The iOS' highest percentage of market share was in January with 2...

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown blocked knighthood for Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2009 because he turned down an invitation to speak at the Labour Party conference, reports "The Telegraph" (http://macte.ch/RDWKu), quoting a former senior Labour MP [Member of Parliament]. Jobs was put forward for the honor by the Prime Minster for services to technology, the article says. “Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced," Brown, who left Parliament at the last election," the MP said. "No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.” The former MP was told by Downing Street that the decision was related to a failed attempt to attract Jobs to Labour’s annual conference. Such an appearance would have been viewed as a coup for Brown, according to "The Telegraph." However, a spokeswoman for the former Prime Minister told the publication that, "Mr Brown did not...

MountMe (http://www.mount-me.com) has unveiled the US$49.99 Freedom, an all-in-one carrying and mounting device for the iPad. It's a protective case that can transform into an adaptable mounting device. With Freedom an iPad can be mounted and viewed virtually anywhere. including on car seats, head rests, airplane seats, walls, mirrors, windows and more. Whether you are at home, in a hotel, outside or on the go, Freedom provides a secure yet flexible and instantly accessible mounting and protective system that allows users to position their iPad where they need it, when they need it, says MountMe founder Brien Spina, It’s also great for use in a workplace such as a doctor’s office, lawyer’s office, business office and a classroom, he adds. Freedom's mobile mounting strap allows you to securely mount your tablet to a headrest, car visor, your leg, and any other object you can wrap a strap around. Suction cups attach to the small bracket portion of the Freedom mount, and allow a secure...

CodingMammoth (http://www.codingmammoth.com) has announced Semonto, their web-based server monitoring service that immediately notifies the user should any of their servers go off-line or display anomalous behavior. Notifications may be received via email, SMS, Twitter, Apple push notifications, etc. In addition, by registering for a Semonto account users may access free iOS and Mac OS X apps to check their server's current status, review their server's statistics, view test results, and perform advanced diagnostics. Semonto also provides free reports including tables and graphs to display server performance over time. Configured as Software as a Service (SAAS), the Semonto monitoring system requires neither any software be installed on the user's server, nor any programs be running in the background that could affect server operation. Semonto has multiple test servers at various locations around the globe. Users can choose which test server is assigned to check their host. Pricing...

Boinx Software (http://www.boinx.com) has released PhotoPresenter 4.1, an update to the quick presentation tool for digital photographers. It requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher and costs US$9.99. PhotoPresenter is a theme-based photo viewer for creating animated slideshows with photos, movies and music. Version 4.1 integrates with Facebook for complete access to photo albums, as well as Facebook friends' shared albums. Facebook albums instantly appear in the PhotoPresenter interface for easy access and quick compilation of photo slideshows. PhotoPresenter 4 is built around 37 themes. Among them are Origami, as seen on the iPad. It letsyou create animated slideshows with effects instantly. Every theme offers a variety of settings to configure it to your needs. PhotoPresenter 4 remembers the theme you selected for each album, so you can keep various different presentations on hand. PhotoPresenter 4 integrates with all of the iApps on the Mac -- including iTunes, iDVD, iWeb or iPhoto...

About Objects has announced additional dates for public classes on iPhone and iPad development in May and June. The courses cover ANSI C, Objective-C, and iOS SDK programming, and will be held at the company's Reston, Virginia,  headquarters, as well as near the Apple campus in Cupertino, California. The company helps instructors and students stay in touch through an invitation-only social networking site, providing updated lab exercises and examples after the training has ended. Pricing begins from US$1,395 for the 2-day Objective-C for Beginners class, to $2,895 for the 5-day Introduction to iPhone and iPad Development. Students who wish to attend both "Objective-C for Beginners" and "Introduction to iPhone and iPad Development," or who wish to attend all three classes can sign up for a bundled offering at a substantial discount. Early registration discounts are also available. For more info, including dates and times, go to the About Objects web site (http://www.aboutobjects.com).

Wondershare Software's Wondershare Video Converter for Mac (http://www.wondershare.com/pro/mac-video-converter.html) is now available at the Mac App Store. Normally priced at US$38.99, it's available for $8.99 through March 6. Wondershare Video Converter provides Mac users with a solution to convert videos into various video/audio formats for importing to sorts of mobile players, applications and websites, such as the latest iPhone 4, iPad, iPod, iTunes, iMovie, YouTube, etc. Users can convert not only SD videos, but also HD videos with editing and real-time preview functions. Wondershare Video Converter also extracts and converts audio track from your video files to WAV, MKA, OGG, 3GP, Mp3, M4A, and more. It supports scamera/camcorder high definition and standard definition video format and supports simple video editing (trim, crop, merge video, add watermark.

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook hints that we'll see a cheaper iPhone in the near future in an interview with Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, as reported by "Business Insider" (http://macte.ch/dQi3C). Cook says Apple is doing "clever things" to attack the prepaid market, because he wants Apple to be "for everyone," not "just for the rich." The COO tools Sacconaghi that he also recognizes "price is big factor in the prepaid market," but Apple is not "ceding any market." Cook added that says Apple has been driving into China, which is "a classic prepaid market."

Abilene Christian University (ACU) will live stream the Connected Summit opening keynote presentation by the director of the United States Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, Karen Cator. ACU will also live stream the evening keynote presentation by Silicon-Valley pioneer Steve "Woz" Wozniak, who is the co-founder of Apple. He will discuss education, emerging technologies, and his vision for the future of technology and society. The real time broadcast will be available at http://www.acu.edu/live/. Cator will speak from 8:30 to 9:15 am (Central Time), and Woz will speak from 8-9 pm (Central).

During a series of store-wide meetings on Sunday, Apple prepped its retail employees for a March 2 launch of Joint Venture, a new technical support plan targeted at small businesses, according to "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com). The plan will cost about US$500 a year and will be made available to businesses when purchasing a new Mac. Up to five systems will be covered by the plan, though additional systems may be added for $99 a year, says "AppleInsider." The article says customers enrolled in the plan will receive priority service at the Genius Bar and gain access to an exclusive Apple Genius-manned technical support number at the corporate office. During repairs that take longer than 24 hours to complete, customers may be eligible to borrow 15-inch MacBook Pros with iWork and Microsoft Office preinstalled, says "AppleInsider."

The Final Cut Pro User Group Network has announced the Tenth Annual Las Vegas SuperMeet, scheduled to take place on Tuesday, April 12, in the Event Center at the Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas FCPUG SuperMeet will celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of SuperMeets and promises to be the single largest gathering of Final Cut Studio, Adobe and Avid editors, gurus and digital filmmakers during the 2011 NAB Show. Doors will open at 4:30 pm with the SuperMeet Digital Showcase, featuring over 35 software and hardware developers. Presentations will begin at 7 pm and continue until 11 pm. Tickets are on sale online for the early bird price of $10 each plus ticket fee (early bird pricing ends March 15) and $10 for students with valid student ID. To purchase tickets and for complete details on the SuperMeet including driving and shuttle transportation, as well as a current list of raffle prizes, visit the SuperMeet web site (http://supermeet.com).

Gameloft (http://www.gameloft.com), a developer and publisher of digital and online games, has announced a long-term, multi-platform licensing agreement with Epic Games, that enables Gameloft to incorporate Unreal Engine 3 in four new games, two to be released in 2011 and two in 2012. “Gameloft is very pleased to partner with Epic, especially with their ability to stay ahead of the curve and continually place the best game engine technology in developers’ hands at any given point in time,” says Julien Fournials, vice president of production, Gameloft. “Using Unreal Engine 3 allows us to push game visuals with remarkable lighting and high-fidelity environments. We are confident that players will enjoy the games powered by Unreal Engine 3.” Under the agreement, Gameloft plans to release games on multiple mobile and downloadable platforms, including iOS, Android, PlayStation Network and set-top boxes.

GeBE Elektronik und Feinwerktechnik GmbH have released the GeBE-Flash for iOS (http://www.oem-printer.com/gpt-4378-flash_ios). It's a mobile thermal printer designed for use with iPhones, iPods, or iPads. The GeBE printer ships with an on-board Bluetooth interface that lets users print using an Apple device. Important data can purportedly be put on paper within seconds, even in situations where a standard WLAN infrastructure is missing, or where a line of sight for infrared transmission is blocked. "The new printer can be used in a number of situations, a high-end boutique that wants to enhance their customer service by equipping sales associates with the ability to print receipts and eliminate lines, to the municipal parking clerk that wants to increase their accuracy rate by taking a high resolution picture with their Apple device and printing the violation with detail on the spot," says comments, Martin Ochsenfeld of GeBE Elektronik. The printer features a black housing and an app...

OSXpert Limited has announced WebConnector 1.0 (http://www.daylite.biz/plugins/webconnector/) for Daylite. It embeds a context-sensitive web browser into the Daylite contact manager, CRM and business productivity tool. It's now possible to perform context-sensitive web researches within Daylite, monitor individual websites, blogs and social media profiles of contacts, like on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and check current communication details of contacts on the web to keep the Daylite database current. There are two editions of WebConnector. WebConnector Basic is free to use and offers web-based search functions for finding information about Daylite contacts and organizations, e.g. in social networks. It includes Google Maps address localization and routing too. More Web services will be added in the future. WebConnector Extended requires an US$24.90 (per computer and year) license and activates additional functions: adding URLs from the web view to Daylite's electronic addresses of...

Chronos has released SOHO Notes 9 and SOHO Organizer 9, upgrades to these two productivity software products. According to Robert McCullough, vice president of Development at Chronos, "SOHO Organizer 9 takes advantage of the cloud by letting users easily share contacts and calendars using open standards like CardDAV and CalDAV. SOHO Notes' new Widescreen View and Tag Explorer make managing lots of notes easier than ever." SOHO Notes 9 offers the following new features: a widescreen view, bookmarklets, a tag explorer, geo-tagged note support, the ability to edit externally attached tasks, improved NoteLife syncing and more. SOHO Organizer 9 offers the following new features: CardDAV support for contact sharing, one-step MobileMe calendar setup, nested smart groups for contacts, calendar groups, week view scrolling options (by day/week), a duplicate checker, offline support for CardDAV & CalDAV, automatic postal code lookups, the ability to archive events & tasks and more. SOHO...

Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel S. Mead told "The Wall Street Journal" (http://macte.ch/9UJ7z) that the company sold more iPhone 4s during its initial launch than any other product in the carrier's history, countering reports of disappointing sales. Compared to the usually large crowds that have greeted previous launches of the iPhone, the Verizon iPhone launch saw modest crowds at some high-profile locations in major cities. However, Mead says that's because most of the sales were online (about 60%). At peak sales times the CEO said the iPhone brought 100 times more orders than usual to the Verizon Wireless website but didn't give specific numbers. Mead said it wouldn't release iPhone sales figures until the company's next earnings release.

The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, "Consumer Reports" says (http://macte.ch/HSWwl). "Consumer Reports" engineers say they've found in lab tests that the problem is similar to the one we confirmed in July with the AT&T version of Apple's newest smart phone. It can occur when you hold either version of the phone in a specific but quite natural way in which a gap in the phone's external casing is covered. However, the phone performs superbly in most other respects, and using the iPhone 4 with a case can alleviate the problem, says "Consumer Reports." Still, "CR" says: "We are not including the Verizon iPhone 4 in our list of recommended smart phones, despite its high ranking in our Ratings. Although Apple no longer offers a free case to buyers of the iPhone 4, as it did for a time after the problem was first discovered on the AT&T version, the company has said in the past that it...

"CNET" (http://macte.ch/d8CxN) is reporting that Apple is letting security experts review Mac OS X Lion. A developer preview of the next major version of the operating system was released yesterday. "I wanted to let you know that I've requested that you be invited to the prerelease seed of Mac OS X Lion, and you should receive an invitation soon," said a letter sent by Apple to an unknown number of security researchers, according to "CNET." "As you have reported Mac OS X security issues in the past, I thought that you might be interested in taking a look at this. It contains several improvements in the area of security countermeasures." Dino Dai Zovi and several other researchers tweeted about being invited to try out the prerelease version of the new Mac OS. "This looks to be a step in the direction of opening up a bit and inviting more dialogue with external researchers," Dai Zovi told "CNET." "I won't be able to comment on it until its release, but hooray for free access!"

SK Telecom, South Korea's top mobile carrier, will release the iPhone 4 in the local market in March, ending the exclusive distribution by its rival wireless operator, KT Corp., reports "Asia One Digital" (http://macte.ch/5gtm2), quoting an unnamed "industry source." "Negotiations between SK Telecom and Apple are in the final stage," says the source. "As the negotiations are going smoothly, it is virtually decided that SK Telecom will launch the iPhone." SK Telecom declined to comment. KT Corp., the country's No. 2 mobile carrier, introduced the iPhone in the domestic market in November 2009.

Other World Computing (http://www.macsales.com) is offeringOWC 4GB and 8GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Upgrades for the new MacBook Pro 13", 15", and 17" models announced by Apple on Thursday. The OWC 8GB Memory Upgrade Kit offers owners of the newest MacBook Pro models savings of up 55% versus the factory installed 8GB option, as well as an option for 6GB of total memory not available from the factory. Upgrade options are: ° OWC 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Module -- US$59.99 or as low as $46.99 after OWC offered factory memory trade-in rebate. This replaces an existing 2GB module for 6GB of total memory and isn't available as factory memory upgrade option. ° OWC 8GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit (2 x 4GB matched memory modules) -- $114.99 or as low as $89.99 after OWC offered factory memory trade-in rebate. This replaces both existing 2GB modules for 8GB of total memory.
 OWC Memory upgrades are available for immediate ordering at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/...