Leopard stalks Windows

A Leopard is set to join the Apple family, the latest in a string of animal-named products aimed at taking a bite out of the competition, reports Indystar.

Apple calls Mac OS X Leopard its biggest operating system upgrade ever. At $129, it`s due in stores on 26 October and promises 300 new features.

Leopard, which replaces OS X Tiger, arrives as Apple is having a record year. Its stock has doubled in 2007, from about $85 a share in early January to nearly $170 now. It has sold more than a million iPhones, the year`s most hyped and discussed tech product.

Google said its Chinese users were being redirected to other Web sites, but offered no insight into whether the Chinese government, which exercises tight control over the Internet in China, might be responsible, or why such redirection might be occurring, says Information Week.

"We`ve had numerous reports that Google.cn and other search engines have been blocked in China and traffic redirected to other sites," said a Google spokesperson in an e-mail. "While this is clearly unfortunate, we`ve seen this happen before and are confident that service will be restored to our users in the very near future."

It`s possible the incident, or some portion of it, could be the result of malware, which often alters critical files in order to redirect Web traffic.

The chief executive of media giant Viacom has expressed reservations about Google`s plan to enter YouTube content into a database and give owners the chance to take down the material, says PC World.

Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion over content being used on Google`s YouTube Web property without permission. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit event, in San Francisco, Viacom president and CEO Phillipe Dauman expressed a willingness to work with online media properties, but was sceptical of Google`s Video Identification plan.

Dauman said he had an open mind about reaching an agreement and that the announcement of Video Identification was a positive evolution. But it is not enough, he added.

Sony has cut the US price of a PlayStation 3 (PS3) model by 17% and introduced a less expensive version to spur holiday sales, reports Bloomberg.

The PlayStation 3, with an 80GB hard drive, was cut to $499 from $599, effective immediately. A $399 model with 40GB of storage goes on sale on 2 November, Jack Tretton, head of Sony`s US video-game unit, said in an interview.

Sony is taking the steps to narrow the price gap with Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360. PS3, which includes a high-definition Blu-ray movie player, is the most expensive game console.