Apple Stock Option Investigation Finished - Fred Anderson Resigns

The independent investigation's key findings are:
• The investigation found no misconduct by any member of Apple's current management team.
• The most recent evidence of irregularities relates to a January 2002 grant.
• Stock option grants made on 15 dates between 1997 and 2002 appear to have grant dates that precede the approval of those grants.
• In a few instances, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was aware that favorable grant dates had been selected, but he did not receive or otherwise benefit from these grants and was unaware of the accounting implications.
• The investigation raised serious concerns regarding the actions of two former officers in connection with the accounting, recording and reporting of stock option grants. The company will provide all details regarding their actions to the SEC.

Steve Jobs Apologizes:

"I apologize to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, which happened on my watch. They are completely out of character for Apple," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again."

The company also announced that Fred Anderson, Apple’s former CFO, has resigned from its board of directors. Mr. Anderson, who served as CFO from 1996 until 2004, informed the company that he believes it is in Apple’s best interests that he resign from the board at this time.

Apple will likely need to restate its historical financial statements to record non-cash charges for compensation expense relating to past stock option grants. The company and its independent auditors are reviewing recent accounting guidance published by the SEC, and have not yet determined the amount of such charges, the resulting tax and accounting impact, or which periods may require restatement.

Dozens of corporations, including Microsoft, Intuit, and Computer Associates, have announced that they are reviewing their option practices, which have come under increased scrutiny since enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability law in 2002.

Steve Jobs Will Keynote MacWorld

IDG World Expo announced that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would deliver the opening keynote address at Macworld Expo San Francisco. The expo will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center from January 8-12, 2007, with the keynote on Tuesday January 9th at 9 am Pacific at Moscone West.

New OS X Exploit Released - 10.4.8 Fix

A computer code that exploits a flaw in Apple Computer's Mac OS X was released publicly over the weekend. The code takes advantage of a weakness in core parts of Mac OS X and could let a person with limited privileges gain full access to a system. Apple provided a fix for the security hole last week the relase of 10.4.8 but the exploit appears to have been authored before then.

news.com.com—2100-1002_3-6122015.html

Dino Dai Zovi, a researcher at Matasano Security, who was credited by Apple with discovering the flaw. "It appears to be a zero-day exploit." He added that it may even "have been distributed before the patch was released."

The vulnerability could be exploited by a local attacker or someone with privileges to remotely log on to a machine. Macs that are used by multiple people, as well as servers with remote access capabilities, are most at risk. A person with limited privileges could exploit the flaw to possibly gain full system access. The risk presented by this exploit is limited by the fact that it can only be exploited by a logged-in user, although the user may also be logged in remotely," Dai Zovi said. "The issue is also mitigated by the fact that a patch has already been released."

The exploit as it was publicly released does not do anything destructive; instead it runs the "/usr/bin/id" utility to show that a person enjoys full administrator privileges.

Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion

apnews.myway.com—D8KLB0A00.html

Google bought YouTube $1.65 billion Monday in. The price makes YouTube, a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history.
Although some cynics have questioned YouTube's staying power, Google is betting that the popular Web site will provide it an increasingly lucrative marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet. YouTube will continue to retain its brand, as well as all 67 employees, including co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

.Mac Previews New Familiar Face for Webmail

www.mac.com—webmail.html

The new interface will give webmail the same look and feel as Apple's own Mail.app and will offer new and improved features including:

A new look - Everything is within easy reach. Your mail folders are next to the Inbox, and you can read full messages and access your contact info without leaving the page.

Drag-and-drop - Manage your Inbox easily, by dragging and dropping messages, just like you do on your desktop – even multiple messages at the same time.

Message pane - Read entire messages in a pane located right below your message list, just like you do in your desktop Mail application.

Smart Refreshes - .Mac webmail keeps page reloads to a minimum, by refreshing only the portion of the page that needs updating, instead of reloading the entire page.

Quick Reply - A .Mac webmail exclusive. Dash off a response without leaving your Inbox, by clicking the Quick Reply button next to the message to which you're responding.

No date is given for the release.

3 New "Get A Mac" Ads Released

Counselor

movies.apple.com—counselor_480x376.mov

Better Results

movies.apple.com—betterresults_480x376.mov

Self Pity

movies.apple.com—selfpity_480x376.mov

More Sony Battery Problems

www.macworld.com—index.php

The problems affect battery packs containing Sony-made Lithium Ion cells. Sony has discovered that metallic particles in the cells created during the manufacturing process could cause a short-circuit. That short-circuit could in turn result in a fire, depending on the way the laptop is designed

Dell has increased by 100,000 the number of laptop batteries it is recalling due to a potential fire hazard

Toshiba said it would take part in Sony’s voluntary battery replacement program

Fujitsu indicated that it was also considering a voluntary recall.

Acer, the world’s fourth-largest PC vendor, is in talks with Sony over joining its voluntary laptop PC battery recall, but said Acer users haven’t reported any problems so far.

Microsoft Zune matches New iPod Pricing

today.reuters.com—articleinvesting.aspx

Microsoft is pricing the 30GB Zune at $249.99 which is essentially the same price as the 30GB iPod. Meanwhile, songs will also be sold through the "Zune Marketplace" at $.99/song similar to the iTunes Store. Pricing the Zune at this price, however, means that Microsoft will be losing money on sales of the player at the start

Now Target Too Warns About digital Movie Pricing

Target has sent a sharply worded letter to movie studios expressing concern that new movie download services like Apple Computer's iTunes are getting better deals from studios on digital copies of movies than retailer gets on DVDs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

He went on to say that if Target didn't receive what it considers to be equitable pricing from the studios it would reconsider its investment in the DVD business, suggesting the retailer might cut back on shelf space, promotional programs, signage and other aspects of marketing discs.

Retailers like Target and Wal-Mart typically pay $17 or $18 wholesale for new-release DVDs. But under Apple's recent deal with Disney, electronic copies of new Disney movies cost consumers as little as $12.99 if preordered or purchased in the first week of release, or $14.99 after the first week of release.

CBS Considers New TV Show Based on Apple Genius Bars

today.reuters.com—articlenews.aspx

CBS has committed to shoot a comedy pilot called "Genius Bar," written by two former producers of "That '70s Show."
Based on an idea by consumer marketing expert Krishnan Menon, the project explores the interactions between people who work at a place similar to the Genius Bar at the Apple stores and the cool, hip and beautiful employees at a nearby Abercrombie & Fitch-type store.

"DVD John" to duplicate Apple's Fairplay DRM?

The infamus "DVD John" claims he has reverse-engineered Apple’s Fairplay and is starting to license it to companies who want their media to play on Apple’s devices. Instead of breaking the DRM (something he’s already done), Jon has replicated it, and wants to license the technology to companies that want their content (music, movies, whatever) to play on Apple devices. This may not be good news for iTunes the store, but it could make the iPod even more popular.

featured.gigaom.com—dvd-jon-fairplays-apple

John has alelgedly met with Apple CEO Steve Jobs but weren’t very specific about their new company’s plans. Jobs apparently warned that while Apple was not a litigious company, other tech firms might not take kindly to whatever DVD Jon might be up to

John doesn’t think what he’s doing is illegal; he’s adding DRM rather than breaking it. He and Farantzos were giddy about the prospect of Apple’s iTV, hoping companies will pay up to get movies on the set-top box when it comes out, after seeing the ill effects of being shut off the iPod.

Mac OS X 10.4.8

docs.info.apple.com—article.html

Notes:

After installing the combo version of this update, the computer will restart two times. On an Intel-based Mac the first restart after installing this update may take several minutes; please allow it to complete.

If you use iSync, you should perform a full sync with your devices before installing this update.

iLife '06

Addresses compatibility for accessing Aperture 1.5 content in all Applications.

www.apple.com—iweb112.html

iTunes 7.0.1 provides several bug fixes.

Photo includes new calendar, greeting and postcard themes

iWork '06- Addresses compatibility for Accessing Aperture 1.5

Aperture 1.5

www.apple.com—aperture15update.html

Aperture 1.5 delivers more than 20 new and enhanced features that improve file management, metadata handling, and image adjustment. This update also addresses numerous issues related to overall reliability, performance, and compatibility.

Logic Pro 7.2.3

www.apple.com—logicproupdate723.html

Logic Pro 7.2.3 addresses performance issues when Logic Pro 7 is used on Mac Pro and G5 Quad computers. Logic Pro 7.2.3 is recommended for all Mac Pro and G5 Quad users. An existing Logic Pro 7.2.1 or Logic Pro 7.2.2 installation is required for this update.

Logic Express 7.2.3

www.apple.com—logicexpressupdate723.html

Logic Express 7.2.3 addresses performance issues when Logic Express 7 is used on Mac Pro and G5 Quad computers. Logic Express 7.2.3 is recommended for all Mac Pro and G5 Quad users. An existing Logic Express 7.2.1 or Logic Express 7.2.2 installation is required for this update.

Crossover Mac Beta 2

www.codeweavers.com—cxmac

The company said that CrossOver Mac 2 features “dramatic performance improvements” to startup time, bottle creation and a few install processes. Switching to full-screen mode no longer makes the screen go black. Bugs have been fixed on case-sensitive file systems and CPU detection. Freezes have been fixed in Internet Explorer, there’s better support for Outlook 2003 and other Office 2003 applications, and game support has been improved, with the ability to run Half-Life using Steam.

Parallels Desktop RC 2 Update

www.parallels.com—update

improves support for the recently released quad-processor Mac Pro towers and Core 2 Duo iMacs by enabling users working with these machines to use Parallels Desktop with any RAM configuration, including Mac Pro towers equipped with up to 16GB of RAM, without modifying their systems. Previous versions required a free (bundled) utility that helped users configure Mac Pro towers and Core 2 Duo Macs with more than for 2GB of RAM. Upgrading will not require a re-install of any guest operating systems or any applications; however, users should also re-install Parallels Tools after upgrading to the Update Release Candidate 2, the company said. The final release of the Update is expected in the next few weeks.

Contribute 4

www.adobe.com—contribute

Integrates blog publishing features into the Web site maintenance and management tool aimed at business users.
Other additions in this major upgrade include unified Web publishing and Flash Video support. However, Contribute 4 will not run natively on Intel-based Macs; it will run using Apple’s Rosetta emulation technology.

Quickbooks 2007 -Universal Binary

New to this release is Universal binary support to let the software run natively on Intel and PowerPC-based Macs alike. QuickBooks 2007 costs $199.95.
QuickBooks offers business owners the ability to manage standard accounting tasks for their companies, including printing checks, paying bills, tracking sales and expenses, generating estimates, invoices, purchase orders and reports.

Skype Security Update

www.skype.com—macosx

Skype released a security update to repair a flaw in its voice over internet software that could let an attacker take control of Mac computers.The vulnerability, which affects Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system software, requires a Skype user to click on an internet link designed to take advantage of the flaw.
"A user of Skype for Mac who follows a specially crafted URL may experience a crash of the Skype software and possibly may execute arbitrary code without consent.Skype assigned a rating of "high" to the security problem, which affects versions of Skype for Max OS X prior to 1.5.*.80.

QuarkXPress 7.0.2

www.quark.com

The release provides new, up-to-date functionality, including license-transfer features and typographic support for new languages as well as resolution of the most important issues reported by customers since the product shipped.