News, News, News is back by popular demand! It's been a long time with no news! March to be exact. We've got a lot of catching up to do folks, so turn the heater up, grab a hot drink, get comfy and scroll through the magical Mac blogo-web-news-phere that is News, News, News.

• Wired has a gallery of the lamest tech mascots. Jeeves, Clippy, they're there. But Clarus the Dogcow - lame? I don't think so! No matter how cruel Steve Jobs was to axe Clarus from OS X, she will always have a place in my heart.
• While most of us Australians have never experienced the fabled Genius Bar in an Apple Store (will change soon though!), the Geniuses aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're actually humans, and have feelings. A Mac Genius spills the beans in this article, putting their side of the story across. "I bet you can't solve this Genius!"
• Arstechnica - "Manganese electrode could double lithium ion battery capacity". Yippee, give me a 12 hour laptop battery already!
• Got a Linux app you want to run on OS X? Harnessing the power of Fink lets you do just that. This walkthrough will guide you through the motions of Fink and UNIX.
• The Apple Blog lists 10 rumours that never came true. Who remembers that strong rumour that Apple was going to make a TV and put a Mac Mini in it? hahah
• Need a hand choosing a digital point and shoot camera? The Online Photographer gives you tips - basically they say they're all crap and it's hard to go wrong.
• Computerworld explains what RAID is and how to get a speed and/or a safety net going on your Mac Pro. RAID-0 is sweet - but make sure you've got backups!
• A US$800 titanium case for your iPod Nano. Looks cool, but damn, $800 buys you a lot of iPod Nanos, what's the point except to say, "Hey Jim, I just spent $800 on this iPod Case!"?
• Wolf Paulus gives us a list of all the buttons you can press when your Mac is booting and what they'll do.
• Want to run OS 7 or older on your new shiny Mac? Off a USB key? ]nothickmanuals.info shows you how!
• MurphyMac is a cool blog with screencasts aimed at the Mac user who is just starting out. Maybe even a few veterans can get some use from it.
• Bargain Blog has a very good post about how to get cheap Apple gear in Australia. Apparently the best deals on Macs are found by shopping overseas. But if that's not your style, there are other tips in the post too.
• APC Magazine has a post for the newbies - how to pair your Bluetooth device on OS X. Basic, but useful.
• MacTech published their list of the most 25 influential people in the Mac industry. I wasn't mentioned, aw.
• Engadget compares the new LED backlit MacBook Pros to the older CCFL backlight models. No surprises as to the victor.
• Want to listen to your iPod in the shower? iHome has you covered with their iH20 Hidro-Fi Water-Resistant Shower Speaker System. Just what I need! Also on wacky iPod accessories, you can now purchase an iBreath - which is an alcohol breathalyzer and FM transmitter *in one* for your iPod. Don't use your iPod while drunk guys - who knows what you'll end up listening to.
• An Australian link to the iPhone! All the names Apple are using in the demo iPhone for contacts, came from a NSW high school class of 1981. MacDevCenter explains how they discovered this.
• Streetwise, a Melbourne based reseller have some cool free training sessions on Final Cut Studio, iMovie, converting analog music to digital and an absolute beginners intro to Mac. Not too bad for free! They're all happening over the next couple of weeks in June, so book now to make sure you don't miss out.
• MacZealots take a look at the new version of Camino. It's Firefox, but prettier and without Firefox's wonderful extensions.
• Erik Kennedy is pissed off there's no iLife or iWork updates yet. SO AM I. Damn you Apple, how dare you get me hooked on these yearly software updates, then don't deliver!?!
• MOTU, long time the professional's choice for audio recording hardware on the Mac, has released a new product dubbed V3HD. A FireWire Video interface in the same vein as the AJA IO-HD we saw at NAB this year together with Final Cut Pro and ProRes 4:2:2. Knowing MOTU, this is likely to be one slick unit.
• This idiot got himself a Zune tattoo. Oh dear.
• Mac and Windows have always had different approaches to how font rendering should occur. This is most evident in the Windows release of Safari, apparently making websites look very unusual for our Windows using cousins (illegitimate cousins). Joel on Software explains why this is so.
  Office 2008 is on track for release in the 2nd half of 2007 (i.e 31st December knowing most tech deadlines) according to the MacBU. Would be great to finally get rid of the only PPC app I currently use now that Adobe has shifted to universal binaries.

• Some apps I've found during the News, News, News hiatus:
• iQuiz Maker - Super easy way to make interactive quizzes on the iPod.
• MachineHead - Manipulate and mash up music and video with a beautiful interface, taking advantage of CoreAudio and CoreVideo
• Jumping Steve - An iTunes visualiser of a dancing Steve Jobs. Hilarious!
• Pages Templates - Would you like some more templates for Pages? Jumsoft has 20 quite nice ones for you to purchase.
• ProfCast - Recording a presentation you're giving with your laptop? Profcast can easily make you a high quality enhanced podcast with slides of your presentation with a single click. I love this app!
• ArtRage 2 - If you like to draw, but can't afford Corel Painter (or don't need most of it's features), ArtRage is awesome. There's a free version, and a US$20 version with more features.
• DoubleTake - Merge photo panoramas with ease and using CoreImage (which is always nice).

Wow, there we go, that's a lot o' news. To reward you for trawling through that, here is a picture of a cute kitty cat:

I haven't read the news yet, but GO TEAM CAT!

Re: Australian iPhone link - Woah... One name matches exactly, another a partial match... And the third sort of matches if you rearrange all the letters.

I LOVE THIS THREAD! My cats cuter

And to thank you, Anthony, for the return of news, I give you www.kittenwar.com

Oh no, I showed it to my girlfriend and I think I've lost her for the rest of the night. Damn you kittenwars! Why must you be so cute?!

I should mention that miniVmac will run on DS (No sound support) and possibly PSP soon

Omg Kitty!

GO the CAT <3

Great Stuff Decrypto...

Man I love this Mactalk site.
(You're all my newest, verrry bestest friends.)

If the cute kitty on the MacBook pees... and it was my MacBook, well, it wouldn't be a cute kitty anymore.

Something like this:

I can't look at the kitten without imagining Clockwork's CSI-style deconstruction of his kitty litter / carpet crime scene. Funny stuff.

I feel there are too many cat pictures on this forum.. I think MacTalk needs to become species neutral

That or have more dog pictures!!

CAT THREAD!

Hear hear... and so here is my Oscar!

Great to have the News, news, and more news threads back though - thanks mate!