Leopard delay may signal deeper problems

Apple's ambition may be starting to get ahead of the company's ability to achieve it, reports MercuryNews.com.

Renowned in recent years for its operational excellence, Apple, in the last two months, has delayed two high-profile products, the Apple TV set-top box and Leopard, the upcoming update to its OS X operating system.

The company pushed back the release date of Leopard so it would not have to delay an even more highly anticipated product, the iPhone.

Chinese authorities have vowed to purge the Internet in China of pornography, amid rising disgust over the explicit content in cyberspace, state press reported today.

According to iAfrica.com, the curtains will be drawn on cyber strip-shows, while sexually explicit audio and video clips will be erased as 10 government departments spend the next six months removing pornography from the Web, Xinhua news agency said.

"The boom in pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds," Xinhua quoted the public security ministry's vice-minister, Zhang Xinfeng, as saying.

Media giant CBS has signed with AOL, Microsoft, Comcast and numerous others to create a video distribution network it has christened the CBS Interactive Audience Network, says ClickZ Network.

Under terms of the various agreements, CBS will share its programming with partners, while handling primary ad sales itself.

Other partners in the new network include Brightcove, CNET Networks' TV.com, Bebo, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh, which join pre-existing distribution arrangements - both paid and ad-supported - that CBS has with Yahoo, Apple iTunes, Microsoft's Xbox, Amazon UnBox and YouTube.

Brazil's TAM is about to become the first airline to promote itself in the Second Life online virtual world by offering cyberspace flights that correspond to its real-world international service, states Reuters.

Second Life, created by US-based Linden Lab, has millions of registered users and its own economy and currency, known as the Linden dollar, which can be exchanged for US dollars.

TAM said yesterday it will offer avatars - users' 3D representations that, ironically, can fly on their own - gifts to take virtual TAM flights to Second Life islands called Milan, Paris, New York and England.