Food, food, glorious food. From the finest dining experience to the most satisfying of burgers, we all crave one type or another. And when that craving hits - where to go? What type -- Chinese, Italian, Mediterranean? I don't want to spend time debating the issue -- I WANT TO EAT!! How about just the local pub? I don't care - I JUST WANT TO EAT!

Enter Zagat ToGo (mobile.zagat.com/iphone.htm), which costs US$9.99.

"The most trusted guide to restaurants comes to the iPhone and WiFi iPod touch with over 45 Guides of Restaurant Reviews and Ratings for less than the price of 1 guide! Whether a cheap bite or a posh dinner, Zagat has shown the way for 30 years! Our Nightlife, Hotel and Shopping coverage also included where available."

A getaway weekend all planned in seconds with only your fingertips? Let's see.

The Juice

Zagat is a restaurant, travel and night life review guide started in 1979  by Tim and Nina Zagat as a way to collect and correlate the...

The iPad and the expected entry of others such as Google into the e-book space will cut Amazon’s share of e-book sales from 90% to 35% over the next five years, Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang told clients in a note on Wednesday.

"Near term, we suspect that the iPad and the new eBook agency pricing model, which requires that Amazon increase retail prices to be more consistent with Apple’s pricing, will provide Kindle with the most market share headwind," he writes. "Going forward, we can envision a scenario where Apple, Amazon, and Google eventually split the market. Therefore, we expect Amazon’s share of eBooks business to fall from 90% currently to about 35% over the next five years."

The "Wall Street Journal" (http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/02/16/analyst...

If you like to listen to audiobooks on your Mac, Splasm Software's Audiobook Builder (http://www.splasm.com/audiobookbuilder/index.htm), a US$9.95 Mac only tool (take that, Windows!) can make your life easier. It's a breeze to use. It's a timesaver, too, since it deals with the complexities of audiobooks behind the scenes.

Audiobook Builder lets you import your Audiobook CDs (or tracks that are already on your Mac), organize them and output one or two files that your iPod recognizes as actual audiobooks.

The results are automatically sent to a special playlist in iTunes. When you sync with your iPod or iPhone they appear in the Audiobooks section. The software offers audio file joining, adjustable quality settings and enhanced chapter stops.

By default, every CD you import becomes its own "chapter" in your Audiobook project. This means you...

Although there's some debate as to whether there's a real market for the iPad or not, Appel certainly made the right decision not to enter then netbook arena. And a new survey by PriceGrabber.com backs this up.

The survey looks at netbook and laptops and shows that most consumers (55%) don't see the former as a suitable replacement for the latter. This report includes survey responses from 1,680 online consumers from Jan. 7-25, 2010, and compares results from a similar survey of 1,545 online consumers conducted from Jan. 6-14, 2009. Survey data reveals that while netbooks are not a replacement for laptops, their popularity has influenced the pricing in the portable computing industry.

PriceGrabber.com's 2010 and 2009 netbook surveys define a netbook as having a screen smaller than 11 inches, costing less than US$500 and employing a low-power processing chip. This year, the percentage of online consumers who personally own a netbook has increased to 15%, compared with...

Shipments of consumer devices that can be powered or charged wirelessly are forecast to grow from just 1.5 million in 2009 to almost one billion in 2019, according to the latest analysis from IMS Research (http://ww.imsresearch.com).

According to IMS Research’s recent report, “The Growth Potential for Wireless Power and Charging”, activity in the wireless power industry has increased significantly over the last two years and the market is now poised for explosive growth. There are numerous start-ups offering solutions using conductive, inductive, magnetic resonance, RF and infrared wireless power technologies and although their shipments were very low last year; this is forecast to grow rapidly driven by the adoption in high volume applications such as cell phones.

"Initial adoption of wireless power will be for aftermarket add-on solutions, though we predict mass adoption will occur as major...

New Apple patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office involve multipoint screen that's obviously that of the upcoming iPad, the Apple TV interface, iChat and more.

Patent number 7,663,607 is for the multipoint touchscreen. A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed. The inventors are Steve Hotelling, Joshua A. Strickton and Brian Q. Huppi.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "The invention relates, in one embodiment, to a touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals...

Shipments of consumer devices that can be powered or charged wirelessly are forecast to grow from just 1.5 million in 2009 to almost one billion in 2019, according to the latest analysis from IMS Research (http://ww.imsresearch.com).

According to IMS Research’s recent report, “The Growth Potential for Wireless Power and Charging”, activity in the wireless power industry has increased significantly over the last two years and the market is now poised for explosive growth. There are numerous start-ups offering solutions using conductive, inductive, magnetic resonance, RF and infrared wireless power technologies and although their shipments were very low last year; this is forecast to grow rapidly driven by the adoption in high volume applications such as cell phones.

"Initial adoption of wireless power will be for aftermarket add-on solutions, though we predict mass adoption will occur as major...

As Macworld 2010 approached, many folks were wondering if the show could survive without Apple present. Right now the signs look good as the exhibit hall in Moscone North was packed for the second day in a row.

Traffic seemed steady throughout the day (Friday). Most of the vendors and Expo goers with whom I spoke were pleasantly surprised by the hustle and bustle and generally upbeat atmosphere of the show.

Of course, there's no denying that there simply isn't the intensity of past events with Apple absent. Heck I wish they had a booth here, so I could get my hands on an iPad, at last for a few moments. That said, this Macworld is a different beast than what we're used to. On that level, it certainly seems to be a success.

In fact, I think there will actually be more exhibitors at Macworld 2011 once the word gets out about this year's event. And come back Saturday for our last day of MWSF coverage.

When Apple pulled out of Macworld Expo a year ago, the doomsayers started marching out in droves. I was scratching my head at this -- and on the first day of last year's show, committed to our booth at the show, and as a sponsor. Sure, I knew the show would be smaller (after all Apple had previously taken something like 30% of the square footage of the show). And sure, I figured people would scale back on their booth sizes due to concern and the economy overall.

But what was also clear to me was that the community needed a place to network, to mingle, to see products. And with Macworld Expo SF being the last Apple community show, there was no doubt in my mind that it would continue. And, I fully expect that 2011 will be significantly bigger than 2010's event.

The first day of the show was packed. It was literally hard to walk in the aisles at times. Some of this is having a lot of people in a smaller space, but the traffic was solid for most of the day. Booths...

Needham analyst Charlie Wolf has increased his price target on Buy-rated Apple from US$235 to $280, saying that that Mac and iPhone sales are significantly higher than when he made his last attempt to value the company back in September. He's also expecting good things about the upcoming iPad.

As reported by Barron's (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/02/12/apple-needham-ups-ta...), Wolf thinks Mac shipments will grow from 9.5 million units this year to 24.9 million in 2019. He predicts iPhone shipments will grow from 37.2 million this year to 142.5 million in 2019.

When it comes to the iPad, Wolf sees sales of two...

NYU Stern Professor Vasant Dhar, an expert in the strategic implications of information technology, warns that the publishing industry will be the next “carcass” if it doesn’t embrace a new business model, and he proposes what this new model should look like. And it involves devices such as the upcoming iPad and the Kindle.

“Publishing executives have an unprecedented opportunity to grow the industry. Yet, what they are doing is defending their old business model – which, frankly, is now antiquated,”says Dhar. “The two are mutually exclusive.”

Dhar, who conducted the first study to quantify the economic impact of user-generated content for the music business, cites the music trade as a perfect example of an industry that failed because it was unprepared and resistant to adopting new technologies. Instead of focusing on providing their customers value and reasonable rights of usage, they became obsessed with preventing piracy, and it cost them dearly. He argues that...

If Apple is expecting its Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc., to be the future of TV viewing, Jobs & Company have their work cut for them. Despite the growing amount of video available online, less than 8% of U.S. broadband households are considering canceling their pay-TV services in favor of online video, according to Parks Associates (http://www.parksassociates.com).

A 2008 study reported 11% of U.S. broadband households were considering canceling pay-TV services, and in an earlier 2009 survey, the number was 10%. A new study found approximately 5.5 million homes would be open to canceling pay TV due in part to the availability of online video. At the same time, one-half of these households are also considering a switch to a new pay-TV provider, indicating the primary threats to companies such as Verizon, Comcast, DirecTV, and Cablevision are still their traditional competitors.

The...

The popularity of "Avatar" and other 3D movies will put 3D TV on the map for consumers, according to the In-Stat research group, which says that 2010 will be a big year for 3D entertainment.

“Exposure to 3D films is important to the debut of 3D TV, because consumers who have seen 3D films are more interested than the general population in being able to view 3D content at home,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. “In-Stat’s 3D consumer survey shows that 64% of consumers are at least somewhat interested in 3D in the home. For those who have seen a 3D movie in the last 12 months, the percentage increases to 76%.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

° In-Stat projects worldwide 3D TV shipments will reach 41 million in 2014.

° 3D Blu-ray player shipments will track closely with 3D TVs.

° Pricing is a major barrier, as survey respondents are not willing to pay much of a premium for 3D TV sets and Blu-ray players.

° Many Pay-TV...

So which virtualization product do you go with? Which solution is faster? Should you run Windows XP or 7? 32-bit or 64-bit? One virtual processor or more? In short, there are different answers for different people: it all depends on your needs.

Volume Number: 26
Issue Number: 01
Column Tag: Virtualization

 Head-to-Head:

How do VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac compare?

By Neil Ticktin, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher

Start | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |...

I’ve long argued that Apple should at least offer a Blu-ray option for the Mac. Or at least build Blu-ray playback support into Mac OS X so that third parties could. And recent stats back me up.

According to the In-Stat, igh-volume shipments of Blu-ray players, most of which feature network connectivity, are finally making inroads into the broader disc player and recorder market. By 2013, Blu-ray player shipments will still lag slightly behind the 90 million DVD player unit shipments. However, higher average selling prices will put Blu-ray player revenue at more than four times as large as DVD player revenue.

“In North America, significant price drops of Blu-ray players drove unit shipments to triple in 2009,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. “The cost differential between standard definition DVD and Blu-ray is becoming much smaller and new features such as IP/network connectivity are becoming increasingly important. Blu-ray is finally starting to make...

I’ve long hoped for an Apple home server product (the iServe? the iMedia?). Now that the iPad is here, I think the time is more opportune than ever for such a device.

The iPad is a great device, but even the upper end only has 64GB of internal storage. A home server would provide a way for keeping family media assets managed and available.

There are home server choices for the Mac, but all of them could be bettered by an Apple product. The Apple server could also be the next step to venture into another market, home control. For example, if Apple would offer a home climate control to your home server, you or the server could change the temperature in your home from a distance or in accordance with your iCal schedule.

An Apple home server could be a great companion for Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads and other Apple devices. In fact, put it under the Apple TV division and let’s move beyond the “hobby” category.

Heck, I really wish that the Apple TV would...