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HD movie purchases are priced at ¥2000 and ¥2500 for new releases, and SD movies cost ¥1500 or ¥2000 for new releases. Rentals are priced starting at ¥300.Shoppers can pick up a new Apple TV 2 in Japan for ¥8800.

There have been a relatively few reports of such problems for some time, and Gdgt reported in October that Apple was investigating the issue, and the reality today is that while other third-party iPhone 4 cases (snap-in and bumpers, for instance) are available at Apple Stores, slide-in cases are not. Slide-in cases for earlier iPhone…

Wi-Gear’s Web site isn’t offering up any details, although it does now state “Wi-Gear has ceased operations and is no longer in business. We will be unable to respond to any inquiries.”Wi-Gear: We’re closedApparently Apple plans to build its own stereo Bluetooth wireless headsets for Macs and iOS devices and decided to pick up a…

Apple has been boasting that large percentages of the Fortune 100 and Fortune 200 have either deployed or are working on deploying the iPhone and iPad, but the banking industry has been one of Research In Motion’s strongholds, and helped pushed BlackBerry into early smartphone prominence. Together, Citi and BOA have more than a half…

iAd: Now in your country, too.The change means iPhone and iPod touch users running iOS 4 are finally seeing iAd-based advertisements in the apps they use in countries around the world.The expansion comes as users and developers prepare for the release of iOS 4.2, which will bring iAd support to the iPad. The update will…

Apple leaves the enterprise againApple noted “Since its introduction in the fall of 2009, Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server hasbecome Apple’s most popular server system.”The company will continue to sell its rack-mount server product through January 31, 2011, and will continue to honor warranties and support contracts.Apple published a Transition Guide in PDF format…

The spot was produced in the same vein as Apple’s “I’m a Mac” TV commercials, and presents the MyTouch 4G as a beautiful young woman. The iPhone 4G is presented as a youngish hipster-with-an-actual-but-not-too-formal-job, with AT&T as the proverbial monkey on his back in the form of a stodgy, balding, and overweight business suit. The…

Apple told music distributors “We are pleased to let you know that we are preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States. We believe that giving potential customers more time to listen to your music will lead to more purchases.”The iTunes…

There has never been a Macintosh program that has been so loved, so reviled, so controversial, so often purchased, so written about, and so often taken as a signpost for the health and well being of the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit as MS Word. A program of this scope, almost like a public figure, has…

The 3.1 update also improved handling of locked files when archiving and purging, added an option for speeding up analyzation speed by comparing just modification dates, fixed several bugs, and more.SmartBackup 3.1 is priced at US$27 and is available for download at the SmartBackup Web site.

Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sanho, the maker of HyperMac portable battery chargers, in late September. According to the filing, the HyperMac product line infringes on six different patents related to Apple’s MagSafe charger connector, the iPod and iPhone dock connector, and cables.HyperJuice: the new HyperMacThe HyperMac product line included several sizes of…

According to Mr. Um, Apple missed analyst expectations thanks in part to product warranties. “Based on our analysis, an ‘over accrual’ of product warranties of  about $170 million (warranty accruals increased by $300 million quarter over quarter while warranty claims only increased $131 million) drove 90bps of the margin miss and impacted EPS by $0.18,”…

Designed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, Tianhe-1 is comprised of 7,168 Tesla graphics chips from Nvidia and 14,336 central processing units designed by Intel, according to CRN. In 2009, Tianhe-1 reached 500 trillion calculations per second (half a petaflop). Tianhe-1 is currently listed as #1 in a listing maintained by the University of…

Want FaceTime in blocked regions? Try FaceTime HacktivatorApple blocked FaceTime support in several Middle East regions with the release of iOS 4.1 presumably as a preemptive measure to avoid running into problems with local laws.Since FaceTime Hacktivator requires jailbreaking, or hacking your iPhone to allow the installation of third-party apps that aren’t available through the…

“The company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in future periods compared to levels achieved during 2010 and anticipates gross margin levels of about 36 percent in the first quarter of 2011,” the report said. “This expected decline is largely due to a higher mix of new and innovative products that have higher cost…

A trojan horse is a term used to describe software (as in maliciously crafted software, or malware) that is disguised as something benign. It requires user interaction to install itself, which almost always means that a Mac user has to give the malware permission to install itself, including entering their password. Boonana, however, is a…

Why all the fuss? Two reasons.First, there are those who prefer keeping a Lock switch on the iPad and are upset about the change. Balancing this out, there are at least an equal number of users (me included, having never used the Position Lock) who welcome a Mute switch’s arrival on the iPad. The result? A controversy.…

“As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called,” Mr. Fries told the magazine. “He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we’d just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer.” Mr. Fries was then the vice president of game…

The employees that are suffering from n-hexane exposure have been receiving treatment in Suzhou’s Number Five People’s Hospital for the past six months.Sick workers in China think Apple is to blame.The workers claim they were building products for Apple and even had some of the Apple logos they had been gluing to product cases. Apple,…

The version 1.1 update added the ability to check in for reservations, add reservations to iCal, request help in Apple retail stores, and more.Apple Store 1.1 is free and is available at Apple’s iTunes-based App Store.

According to Mr. Zapfel, Unisys will be providing support and “other services” to both corporate and government agencies that buy Apple gear. He also said the contract was signed just this month, and it would mark a rare move by Apple to turn to an outside source for providing such services. Historically, Apple has not…

“When logging into a website you usually start by submitting your username and password. The server then checks to see if an account matching this information exists and if so, replies back to you with a ‘cookie’ which is used by your browser for all subsequent requests,” Firesheep developer Eric Butler said on his Web…

Apple’s App Store currently has some 284,000 apps available, according to third party site AppShopper.com. That breaks down to 266,374 iPhone apps and 37,290 iPad apps, with some overlap between the two categories. Indeed, Apple has either pulled or seen pulled by developers more than half as many apps as the Android Market boasts in…

The remixremote high-definition noise-isolating metal earphones with microphone by V-moda are available in four metallic colors.   The Remixremote earphones are available in 4 colorsThe MSRP is $99.99 and they are available in the Apple Stores and other box stores as well as on-line. I found five sets of the Nero color on Amazon.com for $67.23.The…