Brand: MacNews

Maxtor today began shipping a 40GB external USB 2.0 drive, the first external hard drive with USB 2.0 connectivity. The drive is priced at US$199.95, although Mac users will be better off investing in a FireWire solution.

An interesting article at TheStreet.com takes a look at what Microsoft sees as competition: Linux, Palm, and Wind River, and how the company intends to create superior solutions to those currently offered.

Epson has lowered the price of its Stylus Color 780 printer from US$149 to $99. The USB printer sports a 2880×720 dpi resolution and can print border-free photos.

VersionTracker notes the release of Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader 2.2 for Mac, an update to the software used for viewing eBook files. The new version adds page viewing options, new scrolling and panning features, and support for printing eBooks on non-PostScript printers.

Trolltech has released a public beta of Qt/Mac, its emerging standard cross-platform C++ GUI application development framework. “As a result, thousands of Qt-based applications, and tens of thousands of Qt developers, are now available for the Macintosh platform.” The final release of Qt/Mac will be part of the Qt 3.0 product line.