Brand: MacNews

An Associate Press article on USA Today reports that government officials and competitors are growing concerned with Microsoft‘s newest operating system, Windows XP, due out October 25. Included with the new OS will be Internet chat software, a DVD player, and CD burning abilities for personal music CDs. “This is a movie that many people have seen before.

Roxio has updated their popular CD burning software Toast to version 4.1.3. This update fixes a problem with the automatic Internet track-naming service, according to the Roxio Web site. Updaters are available for both the standard and deluxe versions in English, French, German, and Japanese.

Macuarium has posted an interesting article discussing the divergences of Apple product prices around the world. What may seem like an excellent price in the United States ends up being more expensive in other countries. The focus in this article is Apple’s new iBook.

Addressing the people that made fun of the original iBook, Bob LeVitus writing for The Houston Chronicle said, “the new iBook will shut them up. It looks more like a Titanium PowerBook G4 than any iBook you’ve ever seen. I think it addresses just about every complaint ever made about the iBook.”

Apple posted an update to Open Transport, the company’s networking software. The file updates version 2.6 and is for use only on computers using Mac OS 9.0, and Power Macintosh G4, iBook, and iMac (Slot-loading) computers running Mac OS 8.6, notes VersionTracker. The update resolves a minor issue that prevented some applications from behaving as expected.