Art Vanderlay writes “Apple’s new MacBook lineup has launched with a refresh to the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models. As expected, the MacBook and MacBook Air both feature Core 2 Duo processors, as does the 13. The 15 and 17 models come with a choice of i5 or i7. Memory is 4GB across the board, with an optional upgrade. Additionally, the new line may include three different types of screens options: Glossy, High Resolution Glossy, and High Resolution Glossy with Anti-Glare. A second person familiar with the matter adds that at least some models will support 512GB of Solid State Drive (Flash) storage.”

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andylim writes “Opera today announced its popular mobile browser, Opera Mini, has been approved for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store. Opera Mini will be available in less than 24 hours, market by market, as a free download. Here’s the download URL for when it goes live.”

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An anonymous reader writes “Apple’s iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple’s face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks.”

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An anonymous reader writes “Apple’s recent decision to restrict the languages that may be used for iPhone and iPad development has provoked some invective from Adobe’s platform evangelist Lee Brimelow. He writes on TheFlashBlog, ‘This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D.’ He ends his post with, ‘Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple. Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots.’”

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Zecheus writes “The Wall Street Journal (no paywall on this story) reports that the Justice Department is ’stepping up’ an investigation of hiring practices of US technology firms, such as Google, Intel, IBM, and Apple. From the article: ‘The inquiry is focused on whether companies, particularly in the technology sector, have agreed not to recruit each other’s employees in ways that violate antitrust law. Specifically, the probe is looking into whether the companies’ hiring practices are costing skilled computer engineers and other workers opportunities to change jobs for higher pay or better benefits.’”

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Dotnaught writes “Greg Slepak, founder of software company Tao Effect, wrote Apple CEO Steve Jobs to complain about Apple’s mandate that iPhone applications be originally written in C/C++/Objective-C. Job’s response was to endorse a post by John Gruber on the Daring Fireball blog. Jobs called it ‘very insightful,’ suggesting Gruber’s prediction that third-party iPhone development tools are out might be right. Jobs sent a second reply that also doesn’t bode well for third-party iPhone development tools: ‘We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.’”

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Hugh Pickens writes “The Register reports that News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and called on old media to rethink how their stories are distributed on the web. ‘It’s produced a river of gold, but those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers,’ said Rupert. ‘I think they ought to stop it, that the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.’ Murdoch added that the iPad was a ‘wonderful tool’ for listening to music, watching videos and reading newspapers. ‘It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry,’ by making it cheaper to distribute content to a broader audience, Murdoch said. ‘I’m old, I like the tactile experience of the newspaper,’ Murdoch said. ‘(But) if you have less newspapers and more of these, that’s OK. It doesn’t destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form.’”

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Low Ranked Craig writes “Apple had an event today to show off the next major update to the iPhone OS. iPhone OS 4.0 should arrive this summer (presumably with a new iPhone) for iPhone and iPod Touch, and in the fall for the iPad. According to Apple the update has more than 1,500 new APIs and 100 new features including the sorely missed multitasking. Other highlights include unified inbox, improved security, support for multiple Exchange accounts, application folders, iBooks, and iAd, an advertising framework for developers to put ads in their applications. The official word from Steve on Flash and Java remains a simple ‘No.’” Updated 20100408 22:09 GMT by timothy: Read on for more information, including some bad news if you want to program for the iPhone in C# or Flash CS5.

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99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes “Anders Carlsson and Sam Weinig over at Apple just announced WebKit2, a rework of the WebKit engine that powers Chrome and Safari. This new version of WebKit incorporates the same style of split-process model that provides stability in Chrome, but built directly into the framework so all browsers based upon WebKit will be able to gain the same level of sandboxing and stability. AppleInsider has a writeup, and the team has provided ‘high level documentation’ as well. Both Palm and the Epiphany team are going to be happy about this.”

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andylim writes “Several universities and commercial entities are developing multimodal, multitouch games, such as a card game using iPhones for individual hands and an iPad for public information, and an iPad Scrabble game that lets you use your iPhone to see your letter tiles. Of course, it’s an extremely expensive setup right now, but over time it will become cheaper. It’s also pretty cool, so why wouldn’t you want to play board/card/strategy games like this?”

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