Appletell

If you DJ a lot of small events and can carry most of the music on your iPod, the Alesis iMultiMix 9R may be for you. The 9R is essentially a rack-mountable iPod dock with a professional mixer thrown in there. The 9R is designed for studios and live venues.

Alesis Product Manager Jim Norman said, “Our research showed that most of our customers own iPods, and wanted a way to utilize them for various installation situations such as churches, clubs and conference rooms. The iMultiMix 9R is the perfect way to integrate iPod playback and pro-quality mixing in a studio environment.”

The 9R includes two stereo line inputs, five high-gain mic preamps, auxiliary sends and returns, 48V phantom power, 3-band per channel EQ, as well as a composite video output. The iMultiMix 9R will be available for sale later this year for $399.

Product Page [Alesis] Via [iLounge]

In the space of only 90 minutes, Apple’s stock dropped roughly 6 points today at the start of trading. By the time trading had closed, AAPL was down 9.67 (6.84%) shaving $8.4 billion off it’s market cap. What happened that caused this huge drop in Apple’s stock? A rumor stating that Apple was slashing production of the iPhone from 9 million units down to 4.5 million units, and production cuts of the iPod line.

Of course, this is quite unlikely to happen in my opinion as the iPod and iPhone are in high demand. It makes almost no sense for Apple to be cutting down on production, which has led people to believe that this rumor has been a staged raid on Apple’s stock. With Apple’s stock down, now would be the perfect time to buy if you have been thinking about getting into the business of stocks.

Apple hasn’t made an official comment on the situation yet, but in the mean time, you can read what Steve Jobs (Fake Steve, that is) has to say on the subject.

via [Apple 2.0]

Apple’s software is clearly not as safe as we think. When Safari was first introduced for Windows, bugs and exploits were discovered within the first few hours. It comes as no surprise that Symantec is now warning of an un-patched bag in Mac OS X’s implementation of Samba. Samba is the open-source application that permits file- and printer-sharing between Windows and other operating systems.

Despite being fixed by the Samba community, Apple has not packaged the patch to end users. Alfred Huger, vice president of engineering at Symantec said:"This is significant exposure for Mac OS X users. Samba is used in virtually every mixed environment where there are Macs and PCs, and the threat profile is much higher now that an exploit has been added to Metasploit.”

Symantec recommends users either shutdown Windows Sharing or try compiling the latest version of Samba manually until Apple fixes the problem formally.

Via [MacWorld UK]

It has become the norm to see that each week yet another lawsuit is filed against Apple. Last week we saw Apple sued over the iPhone battery, and this week has started of with Apple being sued over the iTunes Store. Rapper Eminem and his music publishers are taking Apple to court saying that Apple doesn’t have permission to be selling his music on the iTunes Store. Even though Apple pays a portion of the money collected for the tracks to Universal, Eminem’s music publishers claim that they never authorized Universal put the music up on iTunes.

At issue is is whether record labels have the right to turn an artist’s CD recordings into digital music downloads on the Internet, or whether further permission is needed from the music publishers who hold the copyrights to the lyrics and sheet music.

This quote from AppleInsider shows what it seems Eminem and his publishers are fighting for. I am not really sure what Eminem is up in arms about. Now that the iTunes Store is the third largest music store in the US, I would expect that Eminem is selling a fair amount of music on iTunes. If Apple loses the lawsuit and is forced to remove Eminem’s music from the store, who is it really hurting in the end?

Via [AppleInsider]

While the rumor mills start to go crazy with talk of the new brushed metal iMacs and more recently, the new iPod Nano from 9to5Mac, several online retailers have reduced the price on Apple’s 5.5G iPod. A quick check on Apple’s online store reveals the price is still the same as before. If you’re an Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City and J&R customer, you can pick one up for $20 less.

Apple strictly controls the pricing over all their products, so this little price drop could simply indicate that the mentioned retailers are simply competing against each other, or with Apple’s back-to-school promotions. It could also mean that Apple is clearing away excess stock in preparation for the new iPods that are rumored to debut on August 7th.

Via [Engadget]

If you’re a geek like myself then you probably carry a thumb drive around with you. I tend to use mine for backup or transferring files between computers I use daily. iPhone Drive is a piece of software from the Ecamm Network that allows you to use the extra space on your iPhone to store files.

You can use this extra space to backup special files or even hide files in a way, it also proves as a simple way to transfer data between your Macs. I am always up for simplicity, and having to remember 1 less thing each day is enough to convince me. Why take a thumb drive when your iPhone can be used as one?

The iPhone Drive software is $9.95, but you can download the demo and give it a spin before you buy it.

Product Page [iPhone Drive]

For those of you who are fans of the ‘Will It Blend?’ series, you probably remember the iPhone episode quite vividly, I know I do. The only thing worse than watching an iPhone get smashed, is watching it get blended to powder. After the episode was released, the iPhone was put on eBay where it sold for a staggering $901.

The winning bidder received the blended iPhone, the blender which blended the phone initially, a t-shirt, and a dvd set of the series to date. The saddest part is, the auction stated it was blended and people still bid on it, not like the other “Iphone" auction. I guess some people will pay a lot of money just to have that small piece of internet history.

Auction [eBay]

No gadget is worthwhile until it is, wait for it… made into a cake. First there was the iPod cake, then the iPod mini cake, then a whole page dedicated to the iPod family of cakes, and now the iPhone has one to claim its own.

That’s right, the iPhone is now edible for all you who can’t get AT&T where you live, or don’t want to hack your iPhone. The person who created this cake also has a whole gallery of cakes just waiting to be dined upon by your feasting eyes. He also has some other impressive creations such as a firetruck, the Thunderbird logo, a Maverick’s logo, and many more. Be sure to hit the link to check more of his creations out.

Via [TUAW]

We all knew it was coming, we just had no idea when. Someone has developed a patch for the AppleTV that will allow you to connect an external hard drive to it via the extra USB port, thus expanding your storage. The hack gives you the ability to sync your whole iTunes library to an external drive, so you don’t have to worry about streaming content anymore.

To do this hack you will need: an ssh-enable AppleTV, Intel Mac or Intel-based Linux/Unix system, installed version of Mac OS X 10.4 Intel, an original, unmodified copy of the ‘mach_kernel.prelink’ file from your AppleTV, and a USB external hard drive (formatted in HFS+). Not to mention a whole lot of Cojones.

Read [Apple TV Hacks] via [TUAW]

According to DigiTimes, market sources are reporting that demand for 20-inch widscreen displays is rising. This is attributed to vendors like Apple and Dell adding the product to their respective lineups. The sales of 22-inch LCD displays are currently better, but sources noted that this is due to the fact that most PC manufacturers are bundling them with new desktops.

The three manufacturers of LCD displays that stand to benefit are AU Optronics (AUO), LG.Philips LCD and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT). Among the entire industry, they are the major suppliers of 20-inch widescreen displays. LC.Philips LCD is also rumored to start building 22-inch widescreen displays at its 7.5G (7.5 generation) plant, to meet demand from the desktop market.

Read [DigiTimes]