Apple rolls out super-slim laptop

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs took the wraps off a super-slim new laptop at the Macworld trade show on Tuesday, unveiling a personal computer less than an inch thick that turns on the moment it’s opened.

obs also confirmed the consumer electronics company’s foray into online movie rentals, revealing an alliance with all six major movie studios to offer films over high-speed Internet connections within 30 days after they’re released on DVD.

Always a showman, Jobs unwound the string on a standard-sized manila office envelope and slid out the ultra-thin MacBook Air notebook computer to coos and peals of laughter from fans at the conference.

At its beefiest, the new computer is 0.76 inches thick; at its thinnest, it’s 0.16 inches, he said. It comes standard with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, with the option of a 64GB flash-based solid state drive as an upgrade.

The machine doesn’t come with a built-in optical drive for reading CDs and DVDs, a feature Jobs says consumers won’t miss because they can download movies and music over the Internet and access the optical drives on other PCs and Macs to install new software. They can buy an external drive, however, that will retail for $99.

The new laptop, which has a 13.3-inch screen and full-sized laptop keyboard, will cost $1,799 when it goes on sale in two weeks, though Apple is taking orders now. The company’s Web site is already touting the machine. The price is competitive with other laptops in its market segment.

The machine helps fortify Apple’s already-sizzling Macintosh product lineup and burnish its polished image as a purveyor of cool.

Apple’s Macintosh business hit record sales of 7 million units in the company’s fiscal 2007, up more than 30 percent from the previous year.

After hovering for years with a 2 percent to 3 percent share of the personal computer market in the United States, Apple’s slice has grown to almost 8 percent, making it the nation’s third-largest PC vendor, according to the latest figures from market researcher Gartner Inc.

Other revelations during Jobs’ speech reflected the Cupertino-based company’s intensifying efforts to push deeper into consumers’ living rooms with technologies that blend Internet technology into home entertainment devices.

The movie-rental announcement capped months of speculation that an Apple movie rental service was in the offing. The service launched Tuesday in the United States and will roll out internationally later this year.

Apple will have more than 1,000 movies for online rental through iTunes by the end of February, with prices of $2.99 for older movies and $3.99 for new releases. Users can watch instantly over a broadband Internet connection, or download and keep the movie for 30 days while having 24 hours to finish the movie once it’s started.

Apple is partnering with 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony on the service, which will work on Macs, Windows-based machines, iPhones, iPods or Apple TV set-top boxes.

Jobs cut the price of Apple TV from $299 to $229 and announced new software that allows users to order movies through the device and play them directly on their TV sets, eliminating the need to route the content through a personal computer first. The software is free to existing Apple TV customers and will be included in new Apple TV devices shipping in two weeks.

Jobs also unveiled a string of new features for the iPhone, showing how users of the combination iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing device can now pinpoint their location on Web maps, text-message multiple people at once and customize their home screens.

Jobs also said Apple has sold 4 million iPhones during their first 200 days on sale.

The crowd applauded when Jobs demonstrated mapping upgrades to the iPhone. Other features rolling out Tuesday included the ability to switch around icons on the iPhone’s home screen. Users also can create up to nine home screens.

Jobs also unveiled new software for the iPod Touch music player. New models will have be able to process e-mail and perform new mapping functions.

-cnn.com

Anti-whaling ban granted against Japan

An Australian judge Tuesday banned the company that conducts Japan’s whale hunt from killing the animals in a large part of its regular hunting grounds off Antarctica.

The ruling applied to an Australian-claimed wildlife sanctuary that Japan does not recognize, and it was unlikely to bring an immediate end to Japan’s whale kill. But it could strain ties between Tokyo and Canberra if Japanese whalers ignore the ban and Australia is compelled to try to enforce it.

Japan has said previously it would ignore an injunction in the case if it were granted.

The Humane Society International sought an injunction in Australia’s Federal Court against Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd. to stop it whaling inside Australia’s exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from Australian-declared territory in Antarctica and in the southern Pacific Ocean.

Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha operates the ships used by Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research to conduct its annual hunts, under a program the organization insists is for scientific purposes but that critics say is an excuse to kill whales.

“The court orders that the respondent be restrained from killing, injuring, taking or interfering with any Antarctic minke whale, fin whale or humpback whale in the Australian whale sanctuary, or treating or possessing any such whale killed or taken in the Australian whale sanctuary,” Federal Court judge James Allsop said in his ruling.

-Yahoo.com

No more dodgeball? PE now about individuals

With music pumping in the background, the kids in Terry Wade’s physical education class are in constant motion, going from sit-ups to jumping jacks to curls with light weights.

After their 45-minute session, the sixth-graders who are sweating the most, or as Wade calls it, “burning butter,” get stickers.

“My main goal and emphasis is getting these kids up and moving,” said Wade, who teaches at Northrich Elementary in the Richardson school district in suburban Dallas. “It’s ’Can this kid do this for a lifetime?’ I don’t care how good they are. I care if they’re having fun.”

Instead of team sports, Wade and other physical education teachers across the country are focusing more on individual activities that students can incorporate into their lives long after their school days are over.

Experts say the shift also helps gym teachers include children who are struggling with their weight. With individual activities, overweight students can work at their own pace, and not be left on the sidelines. And they can take part in lower impact activities like weightlifting, yoga or martial arts.

“Now we organize our classes in such a way where no kids are sitting,” said Susan Henderson, coordinator for physical education and health for the Dallas-area Mesquite school district.

She said that even if the lesson is about a team sport like football, they focus on skills like passing the ball.

“Nobody is waiting their turn,” Henderson said.

Steve Jefferies, head of the department of health, human performance and nutrition at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash., is a fan of treasure hunts and other activities that students can do without realizing they are getting exercise. That shifts the focus to finding things, not the half-mile walk to get there, he said.

Jefferies suggests teachers wear a weight belt to get an idea of what an overweight student experiences.

“You’ve got to find something that each individual person enjoys,” said Jefferies, who also runs a Web site to help physical education teachers keep up with the latest developments.

-from msnbc.com