Sonnet today announced that it added another model to its Echo family of Thunderbolt expansion chassis for PCIe cards, the US$339.95 Echo Express SE. The new, lower cost device enables the use of a variety of PCIe adapter cards, originally designed for use in desktop computers, with any computer equipped with a Thunderbolt port. According to Sonnet CEO Robert Farnsworth, the Echo Express SE was designed for users needing a simple way to connect an adapter card to their computer, and supports the majority of Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe cards. It weighs in at 2.4 pounds and measures 5.7 inches wide by 8.8 inches long by 2.9 inches tall. The new chassis supports a single half-length (up to 6.5 inches long), full-height, single-width, x8 PCIe 2.0 card and ships with an external 60W power supply. Like the other Echo Express expansion chassis, the SE has dual Thunderbolt ports to support daisy chaining of devices, and features a temperature-controlled fan to help keep hot-running cards cool...

Clarion Corp. of America (CCA) has announced the Next GATE, which offers a way to stay connected in your vehicle with a smartphone controller for the iPhone 4/4S. It's available through Amazon, Crutchfield and at select Best Buy stores and online.   Next GATE is connected and controls applications residing on the smartphone, allowing for advanced functionality in any virtually any vehicle, according to Frank Pierce, vice president, Clarion Corp. Key vehicle-friendly app partners include: TuneIn, Pandora, Vlingo from Nuance, INRIX Traffic, and Odyssey with more to come.  Likewise Clarion is currently working with multiple app partners to greatly expand the functionality of Next GATE, says Pierce.   Clarion's new Smart Access Cloud Service for a vehicle will enable users to download additional approved apps under development now and in the future. Bluetooth functionality allows for hands-free calling and enables iPhone features such as voice dialing and voice activation. The Next GATE...

Monotype Imaging has launched two new, free typeface families -- JMC Engraver & Feldman Engraver -- as companions to Nancy Sharon Collins’ new book, “The Complete Engraver.”   The fonts by Monotype designer, Terrance Weinzierl, were selected from "masterplates," or lettering templates used for manual engraving machines and reflect the visual ethos of the engraver and the proportion, rhythm and grace of antique engraved letterforms. To download JMC Engraver or Feldman Engraver go to http://www.fonts.com/browse/promotions/the-complete-engraver .

Crucial (http://www.crucial.com), a brand of memory and storage upgrades, has introduced the Crucial v4 Solid State Drive (SSD), designed to deliver "substantial but affordable" performance gains for mainstream SATA 2 (3Gb/s) systems, the primary performance capability of computers purchased before 2011. Available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities with manufacturer suggested retail prices of US$49.99, $69.99, $99.99, and $189.99, respectively, the Crucial v4 SSD can be purchased now through select global channel partners, or directly via http://www.crucial.com . The Crucial v4 SSD purportedly offers read speeds up to 230MB/second and write speeds up to 190MB/second, enabling faster startup times, faster application downloads, faster transfer data speeds, and increased reliability compared to traditional hard drives. "The Crucial v4 SSD boils down to two things: performance and value," says Robert Wheadon, senior worldwide product manager, Crucial. "Most consumers realize...

Here are the latest updates for Mac OS X apps: Pubblog has announced FileMyFiles 3.3 (http://www.filemyfiles.com), an update to the multi-tool file system organizer for Mac OS X. The new version is compatible with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. C&J Endeavors has released Ontour 1.2.0 (http://ontour-app.com), an update of its entertainment app for Mac OS X. Ontour lets you know when your favorite artists will be in your area. Once the app determines the user's location, it displays concerts based on the artists in the user's iTunes library. Version 1.2.0 is compatible with Mountain Lion. Arten Science (http://www.artenscience.com) has made available ContaxCRM Version 3.8 Olympic Special Edition, an update to their contact management, document management and CRM solution for Mac OS X and Windows. The upgrade has been tested with Mountain Lion. NES Software says Mountain Lion is now supported in WinOnX (http://www.winonx.com), an application that makes it possible for Macs to run...

An Apple attorney told jurors on Tuesday that Samsung's own internal documents show that the South Korean company made a specific decision to copy the iPhone because it could not compete in the smartphone market on its own, reports "Reuters." Opening statements began today in the patent infringement trial between Apple and Samsung. Apple attorney Harold McElhinny started off by showing slides that featured old Samsung phones from 2006 and compared it to the Korean company's newer smartphones from 2010, notes "Reuters." The key question, McElhinny said, would be how Samsung moved from the old phones to "these phones."Read more at http://macte.ch/4jZIM . This is all part of the ongoing, global legal battle. Apple and Samsung have filed more than 30 lawsuits against each other across four continents. For example, Apple alleges that Samsung copied the slide-to-unlock technology of its iPhone and iPad devices.

In a note to clients -- as reported by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com) -- Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says a recent spike in spending by Apple suggests the company is set to deliver a record quarter of at least US$56.4 billion in revenue this holiday season. Excluding retail stores, Apple expects to spend US$7.2 billion on capital expenditures in its 2012 fiscal year, which implies over $3 billion in capital outlay for the remainder of the company's fiscal year, she says. Huberty thinks Apple is buying tools and machinery for new production processes, as well as added capacity at its suppliers, for products such as the next gen iPhone and rumored iPad mini.

Apple is reminding everyone that the iWork.com public beta will be discontinued today. After this you can no longer publish new documents to iWork.com from any iWork application on your Mac or iOS device. Documents already shared on iWork.com will not be available to you or to those you shared documents with. Moving forward, Apple says you should use iCloud to share documents between your Mac and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Biographer Walter Isaacson is fighting a subpoena to unlock his unpublished interviews with the late Steve Jobs in the Apple ebook price-fixing case, reports "The Register." The brouhaha centers on Apple's move to change the way that publishers charged for e-books as it prepared to introduce its first iPad in 2010. Traditionally, publishers sold books to retailers for roughly half of the recommended cover price. Under that "wholesale model," booksellers were then free to offer those books to customers for less than the cover price if they wished. Apple suggested moving to an "agency model," under which the publishers would set the price of the book and Apple would take a 30% cut. However, Apple also insisted that publishers couldn't let rival retailers sell the same book at a lower price. Apple has publicly rejected charges that it conspired to fix prices of electronic books, calling the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit a "fundamentally flawed" endeavor that could discourage...

According to data from Adeven (http://www.apptrace.com), a mobile analytics and ad verification almost two-thirds of the Apple App Store software is "zombie" software. Adeven says around 400,000 App Store apps get no downloads, are invisible to users and have no ranking. "The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads," Adeven CEO Christian Henschel told "GigaOm. "This is based on Apple’s closed system -- it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing. "If you’re not on those lists, it’s not sure that you’re being discovered by anyone else. The top 25 tend to be the same companies who spend millions of dollars to get to the top of those lists. If you’re an independent, small app publisher, then it’s really tough to be discovered." You can read more at http://macte.ch/316hp

RESCUECOM, which provides computer repair and computer support, has released its "2012 Q2 Computer Reliability Report." And the company says Apple has taken some hits. "Samsung has been making significant strides. Lenovo/IBM has continued to prove very reliable," says RESCUE.COM CEO David Milman. "While Apple has increased its market share of PCs sold over the last two years, their reliability, while still strong, has taken some hits." RESCUECOM's report includes all manufacturers with a market share of at least 1%. The Computer Reliability Report scores for 2012 Q2 are: Samsung (422); Lenovo/IBM (255); Asus (159); Apple (130); Toshiba (117); HP/Compaq (109); Dell (79); Sony (49); and Acer (28). RESCUECOM defines reliability as the physical reliability of the computers plus the after the sale computer support of the manufacturers. The Computer Reliability Score is based on U.S. computer market share compared to RESCUE.COM's computer repair share. By the company's estimates, Apple has...

Tension Software has announced Mac Shutdown 2.0, the latest version of the tool to shut down a Mac when it's unattended. The new version is compatible with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. It also sports a new interface and a rewritten engine. The latest version also sports bug fixes and some performance tweaks. Mac Shutdown is customizable using a setting setup panel. No coding or editing of script is required. Mac Shutdown is available only from the Tension Software web site (http://pomola.com) for US$5. It's code signed for Gatekeeper under Mountain Lion.

Here are the latest updates for Mac OS X apps: CSOdessa (http://www.conceptdraw.com) has revved its ConceptDraw Office product for compatibility with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. The suite includes ConceptDraw MindMap, ConceptDraw Project and ConceptDraw Pro. Dekorra has announced EazyDraw 5.1.0 ( http://www.eazydraw.com ), a update to its vector drawing application. This release provides support for Mountain Lion. XChange UK and ThePowerXChange (http://www.ThePowerXChange.com) have released and/or updated a variety of plug-ins for Creative Suite 6. Eltima Software (http://www.eltima.com) says most of their apps are now Mountain Lion compatible. They include Flash Decompiler, Flash Optimizer, SyncMate, Elmedia Player, Flash'In'App, Recover PDF Password, Folx, Clox, Elsewhere, and Langwitch. Algoriddim (http://www.algoriddim.com) has rolled out djay 4.0.6, an update to its DJ app for the Mac. The upgrade supports the new Retina display for MacBook Pro and is optimized for Mountain...

The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave Apple an unfair edge last year as Apple "ruthlessly bid for its prime retail perch overlooking Grand Central Terminal," according to "The New York Post." An audit by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the MTA allowed Apple last May "to set a daunting hurdle for rival bidders to clear in a tight, 30-day window -- namely, that they be willing to front $5 million in cash," the article adds. DiNapoli’s report notes that Apple had been in private talks with the MTA for more than two years leading up to the bidding process. In July 2011 Apple inked a 10-year deal with the New York Metro Transit Authority to open a retail store in Grand Central Terminal. The 23,000-square-foot store will take up Grand Central's north and northeast balconies, displacing Charlie Palmer's Metrazur restaurant, according to MTA documents. Apple will initially pay rent of $800,000 a year, nearly half a million more than Metrazur paid; after 10...

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics (http://www.strategyanalytics.com), smartphone shipments fell 5% nnually to reach 24 million units in the United States during the second quarter of 2012. The Android operating system lost ground to Apple iOS and Android’s market share fell four points on an annual basis to 56 percent. Blackberry’s smartphone market share in the United States has dropped from 11% to 7% over the past year, reaching its lowest level in recent history. Consumers, businesses and operators continue to be frustrated by Blackberry’s limited toushcreen smartphone portfolio and repeated delays to its new BB10 operating system, according to the research group. "Smartphone shipments fell 5% annually to reach 23.8 million units in the United States in Q2 2012," Alex Spektor, associate director at Strategy Analytics, says. "This was one of the slowest growth rates ever experienced by the important US smartphone market. A volatile economy, maturing...

Santa Fe Public Schools are buying US$2.4 million worth of Apple computers to help improve student math scores through Web-based instructional programs, reports "The New Mexican" (http://macte.ch/5GIDn). The Apple order includes about 1,270 iMacs, 155 MacBook Pro laptops, 870 iPads, 21 Apple TVs, and support services including implementation, training and maintenance. The school board voted 5-0 to approve this program at its meeting July 17.

A parliamentary committee in Australia wants to force Apple and Microsoft to appear before it after members became frustrated with the company's refusal to co-operate, reports "The Age" (http://macte.ch/esDAv). Hearings into the pricing of software and other IT-related material such as games and music downloads will begin in Sydney today, but neither Apple nor Microsoft will appear, the article adds. The Productivity Commission is examining price differences between software and other IT-related products, which often sell in Australia for significantly more than the same products in the US, note "The Age." The Commission report into retailing, released last year, said company excuses for the higher pricing, such as Australia being a small market compared with other countries, ''in most cases are not persuasive, especially in the case of downloaded music, software and videos, for example, where the costs of delivery to the customer are practically zero and uniform around the world...

Global handset shipments have decreased year-over-year (YoY) for the second consecutive quarter, according to new data from the ABI Research Group (http://www.abiresearch.com(. Until now handset shipments haven't seen a sequential YoY decline since the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. Although seasonality regularly brings a negative impact in Q2, the economic crisis in Western Europe has compounded the issue, leading to an uncommon annual contraction of handset shipments for two consecutive quarters, according to ABI Research senior analyst Michael Morgan. Despite the seasonal and economic headwinds faced by the handset industry, both handset and smartphone shipments were able to eke out small QoQ [quarter-over-quarter] gains. Below the surface of the macro economic factors, many of the leading handset OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] continued to struggle with demand difficulties of their own making. According to ABI Research, Apple experienced a 26% QoQ decline in...

RE:Vision Effects has released ReelSmart Motion Blur v4 plug-in for Avid Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter, including 64-bit support for Media Composer 6, Symphony 6 and NewsCutter 10. ReelSmart Motion Blur (RSMB) automatically adds more natural-looking motion blur to a sequence. Proprietary tracking technology is at the heart of RSMB, so there's no handwork involved, according to RE:Vision Effects. This tool is for giving video a more film-like feel. It can also be used to reintroduce motion blur for blue or green screen shoots where a fast shutter is necessary to pull a good key.  RSMB 4, AVX2 plug-in for Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter for US$149.95. Upgrades to RSMB 4 from a previous RSMB for Avid systems version are $44.99. For more info go to http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/pricing/#avid .

At long last, new Mac ads have arrived. During the opening Olympics ceremony, Apple unveiled three new commercials featuring an Apple Genius. The ads show him helping a Mac owner on a plane, helping a Mac owner while his wife is giving birth and having to tell an unfortunate consumer that the "Mac" he bought is really a cheap, peecee knockoff. You can see the ads at http://www.apple.com/mac/videos/#tv-ads-laborday .

Mountain Lion appears on pace to be one of the most quickly adopted operating systems in history, according to new data from the Chitika (http://chitika.com) Web tracking firm, as reported by "AllThingsD." After just its first 48 hours on the market, Mac OS X 10.8 already accounts for more than 3% of Mac Web traffic, the report says. "Moreover, based on Apple’s June 2012 announcement that there are currently 66 million Mac users in the wild, we can infer that 2.11 million Mac users downloaded OS X Mountain Lion in the past 48 hours," Chitika says. "Using this figure, if we assume that 90 percent of these users paid to upgrade, OS X Mountain Lion generated $38 million in revenue for Apple in the past 48 hours." With 3.2% of all Mac users upgrading to Mountain Lion in the first 48 hours, Apple’s latest operating system stands to do much better than its predecessor OS X Lion. It experienced only a 14% market share after three months on the market. "It is rather impressive for an...

Apple has agreed to buy AuthenTec (http://www.authentec.com), a maker of fingerprint sensor chips used in personal computers, for US$8 per share, in a deal valued at about $356 million, according to "Reuters" (http://macte.ch/td0Qo). Here's the company's official description of itself: "AuthenTec encryption technology, fingerprint sensors and identity management software are deployed by the leading mobile device, networking and computing companies, content and service providers, and governments worldwide. AuthenTec’s products and technologies provide security on hundreds of millions of devices, and the Company has shipped more than 100 million fingerprint sensors for integration in a wide range of portable electronics including over 15 million mobile phones. Top tier customers include Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Fujitsu, HBO, HP, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Samsung, Sky, and Texas Instruments." According to "The New York Times" (http://macte.ch/NcKm5), Apple's purchase of...

Data from mobile analyst firm Juniper Research (http://www.juniperrsearch.com) shows Samsung has taken a sizeable lead in the smartphone market in terms of unit shipments. In the second quarter of 2012, the company estimates Samsung shipped 52.1 million smartphones, just over double the number shipped by its leading rival, Apple with 26.0 million. The Korea-based company has also doubled its lead over Apple quarter-on-quarter, with its flagship Galaxy S3 playing a key role, having achieved sales of 10 million in June, according to Juniper Research. However, with consumers waiting for the next iPhone expected later in the year, Apple will undoubtedly narrow the gap. With Samsung’s Galaxy products hitting all price points, and another smash hit in the flagship Galaxy S range, Apple has extended its back catalogue, continuing to sell legacy iPhones at lower price points. While the iPhone 4S added a new killer feature, Siri, the next iPhone will need something of a similar magnitude,...

According to new data from iHS iSuppli (http://www.isuppli.com), Apple will expand its lead in global semiconductor purchases this year. Apple is not only the world’s leading original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in terms of semiconductor purchasing, the company also is increasing its buying at a faster rate than other top firms, solidifying its hegemony over the chip market, according to the research group. The company is expected to buy nearly US$28 billion worth of semiconductors, up 15 percent from $24 billion in 2011, according to IHS. This means that Apple will dramatically outperform the No. 2 purchaser, Samsung, allowing it to remain the world’s top OEM [original equipment manufacturer] semiconductor buyer -- a position it has held since 2010. Apple is maintaining its lead in semiconductor purchasing because of continuing strong demand for its products, combined with the company’s capability to maintain beneficial relationships with more than 150 suppliers that provide...