Year: 2010

Texas students can now download podcasts, videos and other multimedia lessons directly from iTunes through a new online program aimed at providing free, supplementary coursework that can be accessed anywhere, state officials announced Tuesday.

The Texas Education iTunes U channel allows teachers to upload material from their classes to help students understand new concepts or do more research in a specific subject area. Students and parents can access the material through home or school computers, and those with iPods can download the information to the handheld devices.

Apple has removed support for Boot Camp from all new Macs shipping with the server edition of Mac OS X, notes “Hexus” (http://macosg.me/2/rr). 

Boot Camp is designed to simplify Windows installation on a Mactel by providing a simple graphical step-by-step assistant application to dynamically create a second partition on the hard drive for Windows, to burn a CD with all the necessary Windows drivers, and to install Windows from a Windows installation CD. After installation is complete, users can choose to run either Mac OS X or Windows when they restart their computer.

Even with a flood of rival products in the works, Apple’s iPad is unlikely to face a viable competitor until 2011, allowing the company to maintain a dominant share in the tablet market at least through 2012, according to market research firm iSuppli Corp. (http://www.isuppli.com).

Apple has said no to its iPhones being included in the UK’s first-ever green ranking scheme for mobile phones, reports “The Guardian” (http://macosg.me/2/rq). The scheme gives phones a rating of zero to five based on their environmental footprint.

Major manufacturers including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung have signed up. The network O2, which is launching the rating system Wednesday, said 93% of the devices its customers use will be covered.

Apple is expected to host a special event to introduce new products for music and television, including a 99-cent TV show rental service, as well as new iPods, reports “MacRumors” (http://www.macrumors.com).

Rumors have it that the revamped Apple TV may be redubbed the iTV, cost US$99 and would allow users to stream video, such as rentals, to their TV sets. Customers currently can pay to download electronic copies of many cable and broadcast shows, often for $1.99 each for the standard version, to view on iPhones, the iPad, Apple TV or other devices.