Brand: MacNews

On Wednesday, Roxio debuted Toast 5 Titanium for OS X, releasing a public beta that expires October 1. The wording of the release stated that, once finalized, the upgrade would be available for a “special price,” in contrast to Roxio’s previous pledge of a free upgrade. MacMinute reader Taylor Barcroft reports that the upgrade will indeed be free, according to Toast product manager Victor Nemechek, despite the awkward wording of the release.

JR Hill & Co. are kicking off their Back To School Sale with the introduction of a PowerBook G4 sleeve. The form-fitting case is available in full grain leather for US$89.99 or nylon for $64.99; both prices are $10 off regular pricing. JR Hill is also offering its leather PowerBook/iBook screen protector for $11.25, a 10 percent savings.

Palm will be releasing Palm OS 4.0 this November, according to a report on PalmInfoCenter (noted by The Register). The operating system upgrade began shipping pre-installed on the Palm m500 earlier this year. Other manufacturers, such as Sony, are also working on tailoring the OS upgrade to their devices needs. Sony plans on bundling the new OS with some of its devices as early as this month.

eWEEK has published an article discussing Microsoft’s .Net plans for the Mac. .Net is Microsoft’s concept of remote services, including storage and applications, offered over the Internet.

Chaotic Software has released MP3 Rage 3.6, the newest version of its MP3 multi-tool. MP3 Rage can search for MP3s using the Napster or Gnutella systems, edit ID3 tags, analyze MP3s, export MP3s to AIFF, and more. Version 3.6 adds support for ID3v2.4 tags, live window resizing under OS X, and more. MP3 Rage is US$24.95 shareware.