Apple has announced its latest product, the button-bedecked Mighty Mouse, revealing their first departure from the company’s traditional preference for single button input devices.
The new mouse carries four independently programmable buttons and a Scroll Ball that lets users scroll all over the place – up, down across and even diagonally.
Apple’s stubborn refusal to include more than one button on its standard mouse has long brought scorn from the Windows community who were at a loss to understand why Mac users were being deprived of the clear productivity benefits of multi-buttoned mouses (Mice? Micii?)
Up to now, professional Macheads have long complained at being forced to shell out for third party products to enjoy the same button-tastic functionality as their Windows counterparts.
Extra buttons are particularly useful in video and graphic design applications, so Apple is hoping that their four-buttoned and programmable Mighty Mouse will prove a hit.
Naturally, Apple have added a little bit of pizzazz to the design, hiding the touch-sensitive technology under a plain shell. This detects which part of the mouse is being clicked, letting users left- and right-click.
Notably, the mouse is a cross platform product, and PC users will be able to tweak and customise the mouse settings using the Mouse control panel on Windows systems.
Sadly, the mouse is a corded device, so we’ll be sticking with our dockable, rechargeable wireless Logitech device for now. And that’s got seven buttons and doesn’t come with a silly name – take that Jobsy!
Apple’s new feast of buttons will work on Mac OS X (programmability requires Mac OS X v10.4.2 Tiger or later) and Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Pricing is £35 (~€50, US$62~) in the UK or a considerably cheaper US$49 (~€40, £28~) in the US.
The BBC’s online coverage of Live 8 in July notched up a record volume of Web traffic on their radio and music Websites. 
The latest figures for the BBC’s online traffic also show a healthy boost in figures for their sports coverage on the Radio Five Live Website, with 910,841 unique users being recorded during June, compared with 840,019 the same period in 2004. 
It was mainly good news elsewhere, with Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 1Xtra, Asian Network and BBC 7 all increasing their unique users compared to the same period last year, with only 6 Music – one of our favourites – letting the side down with a disappointing slump from 418,729 to 356,564. 
Like Popeye with a mouthful of spinach, broadband providers Easynet have barged BT out of the way to claim a lucrative three-year deal to supply wholesale broadband services to Onetel, Centrica’s telecommunications division. 
Ian El-Mokadem, Managing Director, Onetel sounded chuffed with the deal: “The partnership with Easynet will allow us to deploy next generation broadband services and benefit from Local Loop Unbundling economics. The market is set to evolve rapidly and we wanted a partner that could demonstrate experience in the local loop, and a willingness to work in a true partnership. 
Sony has today announced the latest update to its range of ultra-slim DSC-T digital cameras, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5. 
There are a slew of pre-set picture-taking modes onboard to help point’n’shooters get the best from the camera, with a “Magnifying Glass” feature allowing macro shooting up to 1cm from an object and a “High Speed Shutter” to catch fast-moving action. 
This has resulted in the company dramatically cutting its forecast earnings from ¥80 billion (~$712m ~£403m ~€582m) to ¥10 billion (~$89m ~£50.3m ~€72.8m). 
Apple Computer has unveiled updates to its iBook laptop and Mac Mini lines, lobbing in new features, more memory and built in wireless technology – although the anticipated widescreen models failed to run up at the launch party. 
The new iBook G4s now come with a faster Power PC G4 processor running up to 1.42 GHz, with 512MB memory as standard, higher performance graphics and built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. 
The 1.33 GHz PowerPC with 12″ screen G4 iBook retails at £699/US$999 and its bigger 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 iBook with 14″ display knocks out for £899/US$1299. 
The diminutive Mac Mini range features three new models – the 1.25 GHz Mac Mini, 1.42 GHz Mac mini and the new 1.42 GHz Mac Mini with SuperDrive – with memory upgraded to 512 MB throughout. 
Microsoft has launched the first public beta of its Virtual Earth, an online mapping application overlaying satellite images with local searches and maps. 
Virtual Earth will also have the capability to visually point out locations for ATMs, restaurants, and petrol stations – something that the rival Google Maps service has been able to do since incorporating satellite imagery in April this year. 
Mac users, however, will have to wait until autumn for a version that runs on their machines. 
Wags on the Internet are claiming that Microsoft has virtually wiped Apple off the face of the Web, noting that Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters – which can be seen in their full glory on Google Maps – appears as nothing more than a deserted parking lot in Virtual Earth. 
Microsoft Wants To Own Emoticons 
Sony Whips Out A White PSP 
Google Grabs 47% Of All Searches Online 
Punters are being invited to get all interactive with the BBC’s TV and radio schedules as part of their Backstage experiment. The call to action was trumpted at the London hosted Open Tech grass roots conference that ran at the weekend. 
The BBC has already received more than 50 prototype ideas for using BBC feeds and content for non-commercial purposes since the project’s launch in May. 
Champagne corks were firing off at Google like a military salute as the Internet search engine kings revealed that their profits had jumped more than 300 per cent in the second quarter this year. 
The company’s fortunes are currently on a stratospheric trajectory, with April’s first-quarter profit almost six times higher than a year earlier. 
What with the summer in full swing, and the weather in the good old UK being as warm as it has been, I have observed some serious heat issues while using my Mac Mini.
At first, I had put it down to my Mac simply not running as well as it used to for whatever reason, but today it’s been considerably cooler because it’s rained, and all of a sudden my Mac Mini is running perfectly again.