Brand: MacNews

The second straight MacExpo in London kicked off Thursday to strong crowds, packed aisles and iPod envy. Of the 100 exhibitors, Apple had the largest booth in the rear of the Business Design Centre in Islington. Apple employees walked the booth with an iPod in hand and professional headphones to show off the device, which local catalog dealers had in stock for immediate sale. Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, Freeway and Iomega were among the many exhibitors.

Matthew Fordahlap, technology writer for AP, gives kudos to Microsoft’s latest version of its productivity suite — Office X. “Microsoft developers captured the feel of Apple’s new operating system and its ‘Aqua’ interface, from ever-so-slightly transparent menus to 700 crisp, new icons. Dialogue box buttons look like jelly beans.”

Belkin today began shipping its USB 2.0 4-port hub, which it claims is the first such product on the market. Like all USB 2.0 devices, the US$69.99 hub is backwards compatible with USB 1.1.

While work is already underway by a third-party developer on software allowing Windows users to take advantage of Apple’s iPod, ZDNet AnchorDesk‘s David Coursey believes that other MP3 player manufacturers will take cues from Apple’s industrial design and FireWire support to build MP3 players that support Windows out of the box. “…getting a Windows-based iPod, or at least equivalent functionality, won’t take too long, one way or another.

Symantec has released a new Norton AntiVirus 8.0 Beta for Mac OS X, which includes the Norton Antivirus application for scanning and repairing viruses; AutoProtect, which scans for viruses as they are written to disk; and Scheduler, which allows users to schedule various virus scans. To encourage users to test the beta, Symantec will give away 25 free copies of Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh to the first 25 beta testers that report an undocumented bug, as well as free copies for 25 other random beta test participants.