Jason O’Grady from PowerPage.org found an interesting research report that says the 5th Ave Apple Store is offensive to some Muslims. Why? Apparently the glass cube shape of the Apple Store entrance resembles the Ka’ba in Mecca (see image). The report, which was translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), also finds problems in people referring to the glass cube as the “Apple Mecca,” the store being open 24 hours a day like the Ka’ba, and because “alcoholic beverages” are served inside at a bar.

Obviously the offended Muslims in question have never actually been to the 5th Ave Apple Store. The only bar in the Apple Store is the Genius Bar and although the advice of a Genius Bar employee may be intoxicating, it isn’t alcoholic. For those of you unfamiliar with the Apple Genius Bar, it’s a booth inside the Apple Store where you can bring your broken iPod or computer and have them take a look at it. There are no alcoholic drinks served at the Genius Bar, just knowledge. The purpose of the Genius Bar must have gotten lost in translation. For the record, Apple Stores do not serve alcohol. People getting drunk and playing with expensive computers and iPods probably isn’t a good idea.

As far as building a cube shaped store entrance that’s open 24 hours a day…. Apple’s 100% guilty of doing that. But can a simple glass cube really be blasphemous? Please write a comment below and share your thoughts.

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It’s official. Say hello to Chad and Steve, the worlds newest millionaires. Web-search giant Google has acquired YouTube for roughly $1.6 billion. The acquisition of YouTube makes Google the 500 gorilla of online video. And that’s a perfect place to be at a time when consumers are rapidly increasing the amount of time they spend viewing video clips online, and Internet video advertising is booming.

Thank goodness Rupert Murdoch didn’t buy YouTube.

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The latest buzz on the market is High Definition Television (HDTV), no doubt. But what if I tell you that in a couple of years you will be able to have a 3D television? And that is without the crap glasses that you were forced to wear when you went to the movies some time ago.

Philips claims that its 3D television sets will be on the market already in 2008 while Toshiba and Sharp confirmed that they are developing similar products. The basic idea is to force each eye to focus on a different part of the screen, combining a special set of pictures so that the brain will perceive a 3D effect.

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What if we could make printers work similarly to a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)? That is, instead of having an ink head moving back and forth across the page you would have one large head (the size of a sheet of paper or larger) composed of many ink spots, called nozzles. The printer would then emit pixels of ink just like the LCD emits pixels of light. The “whole page” printing technique would incredibly increase the printing speed.

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18 months ago, Symantec, makers of the popular program suite Norton Utilities, had a scary prediction for Mac users. Symantec claimed that the Mac OS was “increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity that is more commonly associated with Microsoft.” That’s quite an ominous prediction from a company that claims to be the “global leader in information security” on their website.

A lot of people look to companies like Symantec for information and guidance and I’m sure many Mac users purchased Symantec anti spyware and virus protection software based on this prediction.

So during the last 18 months how much “malicious activity” was targeted towards the Mac OS? Ummm…… basically none. This week Symantec admitted that their prediction last year about increasing Mac-targeted spyware was just plain wrong. Oops.

In addition to admitting their mistake about the Mac OS this week, Symantec also published a new Internet Threat Report. So what does Symantec have to say about the Mac OS this time? Nothing… The Mac OS isn’t even mentioned in this years report. Why has Symantec gone silent when it comes to Apple? Munir Kotadia, a reporter for ZDNet Australia was wondering the same thing so he asked Symantec about the omission. It seems that Symantec hasn’t seen any new Mac-related threats this year and doesn’t want to cry wolf again. Good idea.

But just because there haven’t been any Mac-related threats in years doesn’t mean the Mac is totally safe from spyware and viruses. If you pay attention to the OS X Software Updates, you’ll notice that Apple releases new security updates every few months. So there are holes in the system but according to Kotadia, the Mac OS was “designed with security in mind, so vulnerabilities are very difficult to exploit and most require socially engineered user interaction.”

Besides a couple Trojan Horses, I can’t remember the last time I saw a Mac virus. When was the last Mac OS virus anyway? 1987?

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Digital Life is described as the ultimate consumer technology, gaming & entertainment event of the year. It’s being held in New York at the Javits Center from October 12 until October 15.

It looks like it will be a very cool event (which unfortunately I can’t attend as I’m still mid house move). Tickets normally cost $12 but I’m pleased to say CG readers can get in for free, simply go to the order tickets page and enter the Source Code “INSIDER”, hey presto free tickets :).

We’ve also been given some VIP tickets to give-away, so if you can definitely attend and would like a chance of winning a VIP ticket simply reply to this thread in the CG forum, stating your interest and I’ll add your name to the hat and I’ll draw the winners out this Sunday.

Apple has been selling movies in iTunes 7 for a full week now. How are sales? According to The Wall Street Journal, Walt Disney says they’ve sold 125,000 movie downloads totaling $1 million in revenue. Not bad for just 1 week.

“This is just the beginning,” Disney CEO Robert Iger told Wall Street analysts at a conference Tuesday. “[iTunes] has proved [to be] a great business because there’s no marketing or other expenses involved in selling digital downloads except the cost of encoding.” Iger went on to predict that iTunes would help generate $50 million in additional revenue for Disney this year.

Walt Disney Pictures, which includes Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, is currently the only major movie studio participating on iTunes.

75 Disney movies, including such hits as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Good Will Hunting and National Treasure, can currently be purchased on iTunes. The other major movie studios are exploring partnerships with iTunes competitors or have disagreements with Apple over licensing fees. Disney’s success this week will probably help convince the other studios that participation on iTunes is probably a good idea.

Disney was also the first to offer TV shows on iTunes a year ago from their American broadcast network ABC.

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Apple is riding high lately. Their transition to the Intel chip has been smooth and the popularity of both iTunes and the iPod has been translating into computer sales.

But according to the Net Applications newsletter I got in my inbox yesterday, the apocalypse is about strike at Apple. What are the signs of the Apple apocalypse? They cite accounting irregularities (Wall Street didn’t care), the mass recall of notebook batteries (it was Sony’s fault), and a 0.02% drop in OS usage. Yep, just a little 0.02% drop.

Here’s a passage from their newsletter:

“Mac Intel OS usage is growing quickly, and currently has 0.62 percent usage market share, but overall Mac OS usage is slightly down.. Back in December 2005 total Mac OS usage market share was 4.35 percent, but August 2006 numbers show total Mac OS market share down to 4.33 percent.”

So how did Net Applications measure this 0.02% drop? They have an expensive web traffic analyzing service for webmasters called HitsLink. I used to use HitsLink for MethodShop.com but have since switched to a less expensive service with more features. Hummm… could I be the source of the 0.02% drop? Because of all the iPod related articles on our website we tend to have a higher Mac user base. Maybe the 0.02% drop could be attributed to people going on vacation and not using their computer that month. Or what about the wave of blackouts in America this summer. Yes I’m being sarcastic, but can you blame me? It’s only a 0.02% drop.

Besides the fact that Net Applications is all jacked up over a 0.02% drop, can you really match up marketshare (computer sales) with visitor statistics solely based on HitsLink subscribers? No. Web usage by only HitsLink subscribers is just a small random sampling and has nothing to do with overall market share. Maybe Net Applications should offer to share their data with some other web traffic analyzing services before they declare the next 0.02% apocalypse.

Also, how credible is Net Applications? In the same September 18th newsletter they mistakenly reported that “iPod sales peaked at over 12 million units for the 4th quarter of 2005, but have stumbled to 8.5 million and 8.1 million units the most recent two quarters…” 12 million is close, but wrong. In Q1 of 2006 Apple sold over 14 million iPods.

One last thing. The newsletter also reports that 1% of web users are still using Windows ME. Those crazy backwards bastards. God bless ‘em.

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