Week in review: Apple unleashes Snow Leopard

Apple released its Snow Leopard into the wild a little early, while Microsoft revealed its release plans for Windows 7 this week.

Apple began shipping its newest operating system to customers on Friday, a little earlier than expected. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is not as much about adding new features as it is about refining the code in the operating system. For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release.

The CNET Reviews team took the new OS for a spin and gave it a rating of excellent in its review:

Interface enhancements like Expose in the Dock and better file and folder viewing in Stacks make finding apps and files much easier. A completely overhauled QuickTime X now sports a cleaner interface and recording tools. The much-anticipated Exchange support across Mail, the Address Book, and iCal is huge for those who take their Macs to work.

However, the team notes that Snow Leopard will work only on Intel-powered Macs; PowerPC users are out of luck.

Snow Leopard could include some features that would make it secure, or at least push it closer to the level of security that Vista and Windows 7 have, experts said this week.

Contrary to popular belief, Macintosh is not more secure from a software standpoint than modern Windows; it's merely safer to use because malware writers prefer to target the platform with the biggest install base, according to Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, co-authors of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, which came out this spring.

"Apple hasn't implemented all the security features that Vista has," Miller said. "They made some improvements in Leopard, but they are still behind."
• Researchers who hack the Mac OS

Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09, will cost $169.
• Beware fake Snow Leopard sites
• Apple, Amazon offering Snow Leopard discounts
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard resource guide

source : cnet

Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo fight Google Books

Three Google rivals join in opposition to the search giant's settlement with authors and publishers that let it sell books online.

NEW YORK , Three of Google's biggest online rivals have joined the fight against a court settlement that would give Google the rights to sell millions of books on the Internet.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) confirmed Friday that it has agreed to join a coalition opposing the Google deal. Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) have also joined, according to published reports.

The coalition, called the Open Book Alliance, opposes a settlement reached last October between Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. The settlement would allow Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) to display portions of books online and sell digital copies of them.

A court will review the agreement for approval on Oct. 7. The coalition said it is considering whether it will file a challenge to the settlement with the court.

"We've been having a range of conversations with rather diverse organizations that have interest in speaking together to articulate concerns about the settlement," said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive and spokesman for the Open Book Alliance. "We'll raise the possibility of ways that the settlement may be changed or altered to create a more open market for books."

Google's online book initiative, called Google Books, has cataloged 1 million public domain books with expired copyrights. The tech giant's settlement was reached after the publishers and authors associations sued Google for copyright infringement in late 2005 over the company's plans to scan and copy millions of books from library collections -- many of which are still under copyright.

The settlement would give authors and publishers $45 million whose copyrighted books are scanned without permission.

The Justice Department's antitrust unit announced in April that it is looking into the settlement.

In addition to the three big companies that plan to join the coalition, the opposition group is made up of the nonprofit group Internet Archive and various library associations from across the country.

Requests for comment from Yahoo and a coalition representative were not immediately returned. Amazon, which makes the popular Kindle e-reader, and sells digital books on its online store, declined to comment.

A formal announcement from the group is expected next week.

Source : CNN