Brand: MacNews

The deluge of spam being sent from Asian mail servers is creating such a problem that some system administrators are configuring their servers to refuse mail from Asian ISPs or Asian countries entirely, according to Wired. “Spammers and geeks are managing to do to China’s people what the government has attempted but been unable to do. We are slowly being cut off from participating in the most democratic system ever developed — e-mail,” the article quotes an English teacher from Beijing as having said.

AOL UK, which scrapped plans in November for a Mac OS X version of its software, has no immediate plans to recommence development of the product, according to Macworld UK. While AOL UK stands by its support for the Mac, it presently cannot justify the costs associated with developing the Mac OS X software.

Adobe today announced an InDesign 2.0 competitive upgrade that offers a US$300 rebate for QuarkXPress 3.3-4.1 users. The offer is available for a limited time and represents a 40 percent savings on the product.

Nine technology giants have announced plans to adopt a common recording standard for DVD that they hope will expand the market for DVD recorders, according to CBS MarketWatch. The “Blue-ray Disc” standard can record and rewrite up to 27GB of data on a single-sided disc — far more than the 4.7GB that most DVD recorders currently support. Licensing of the format could begin as early as Spring, although it’s unclear when such recorders could appear on the market.

Basketball star Shaquille O’Neil loves his iPod, as seen in a Fox News segment that aired late last month that an iTools member has made available for download (5.9MB), as noted by MacNN. The segment follows members of the L.A. Lakers on their trip to Apple store at the Mall of America to purchase iPods, after one player says O’Neil joked that he wouldn’t let anyone on the bus who didn’t own one.