Apple`s new iMac is home media hub

Apple has designed its iMac G5 to be a home`s central point for accessing everything from music files to television, in a bid to strengthen the links between its computers, music players and online music store, reports eWeek.

The G5 was launched along with a video-playing iPod this week. The slimmer iMac G5 was designed to go with a streamlined line of iPod music players, which were introduced earlier this year. The iMac G5`s new chassis is a half-inch thinner and comes with a built-in iSight camera and a remote control.

The new machine`s ability to manage multimedia marks its biggest change. Apple will load the new iMac G5 with Front Row, software that provides an interface for accessing music, video, DVD movies and photos. Front Row`s icons are visible from across a room, and it works in concert with a six-button remote. The remote, which resembles an iPod Shuffle, has a range of about 9m.

Intel is expected to begin the introduction of its Montecito processors with three models running at 1.6GHz and 1.4GHz, with at least six more scheduled to arrive by mid-2006, according to CNET.

The broad portfolio is shown in an Intel road map seen by CNET News.com. The plan also shows an even broader portfolio of Xeons, a more popular server chip that unlike Itanium can run the same software as other x86 chips such as Pentiums.

The road map also shows that Itanium clock speeds will get a 200MHz boost from the addition of Intel`s new Foxton technology, which allows chips to run faster as long as they are kept cooler.

Montecito, the first major redesign of Itanium in years, is the first in the family to come with two processing engines on one slice of silicon. The dual-core design rivals the chips that Sun Microsystems and IBM have been using. Despite the significant change, Intel is retaining the Itanium 2 moniker, though augmented with a 9000-series numbering scheme.

Nokia will debut the E61, its first keyboard phone, in the first quarter of 2006, reports Businessweek.

Nokia joins the swelling ranks of would-be BlackBerry killers by unveiling a device with a similar look and feel of the e-mail device made by Research In Motion (RIM).

The E61 follows the introduction of non-clamshell devices from HP and Motorola that feature a typewriter keypad for thumb tapping. The look and feel of the phone was first popularised by the BlackBerry from RIM and then by Treo from Palm.

Microsoft`s Xbox 360 is finished and in production. But rolling out a next-generation games console in the US, Europe and Japan virtually simultaneously is proving to be a greater challenge than anyone imagined, the BBC reports.

"We`re going to ship all around the world; how we`re going to do that, I don`t know," says Xbox marketing boss Peter Moore. "We`re going to rent every 747 we can find."

Microsoft is trying to do something its rivals have never done and it has 2 500 people working hard to ensure the global launch goes according to plan. The downside has been a rush to get the console, games and online support ready for the 22 November launch in the US, and in Europe for 2 December and Japan for 10 December.

The Xbox team admits that despite its best efforts, there will be some logistic issues around getting enough machines into the shops.

Anti-RFID protestors descend on a Dallas Wal-Mart this weekend to protest against the company`s use of RFID chips and alleged corporate plans to use the technology to secretly track consumers, reports The Register.

Contrary to business claims that RFID is simply a way of improving stock control and warehousing procedures, companies have blueprinted ways to track consumers and their purchases through "spychips" in everyday objects scheduled for the shelves of retailers like Wal-Mart, says activist group Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering.