May 14 - 9:10am EDT   Various images have emerged for two of Apple's major new retail locations: the Boylston Street store in Boston, Massachusetts, and the first store in Sydney, Australia, located on the corner of George and King Streets. The Boylston store should open this Thursday at 6PM, and is comprised of three floors and 20,000 square feet. As the photo below reveals, Apple has also chosen to go with a glass exterior reminiscent of the flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City. [full story]

May 14 - 8:45am EDT   AT&T's cellular Internet access will be more than five times faster in 2009 than it is this year, the company's mobility chief Ralph de la Vega said today at Morgan Stanley's annual Communications Conference. The executive says that the company's HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) network will be improved from the theoretical peak downloads of 3.6 megabits per second common across most of the network today to about 20 megabits per second in 2009. [full story]

May 14 - 8:10am EDT   Swiss national carrier Swisscom today revealed that it too will carry the iPhone, making it the fifth new European country after the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, and Portugal confirmed to be offering the device. The provider echoes previous announcements for other providers and doesn't provide specifics as to the devices or plans. The iPhone will be available "later this year," the company says. [full story]

May 13 - 11:50pm EDT   Apple has premiered two more TV ads in its "Get a Mac" series, pitting Apple computers against those with Windows. The first of these, "Pep Rally," features a squad of cheerleaders, and positions Macs as having "record sales," and being the most popular computers on college campuses. The second ad is entitled "Group," and continues the arc of Windows Vista suffering from instability issues, whereas Macs are positioned as reliable and less crash-prone. Update: Apple has posted yet another ad titled "Sad Song," in which PC, dressed as a cowboy, laments the loss of users by singing the Vista Blues: "So many users are leaving me and ain't coming back: Vista's got issues...they're ... [full story]

May 13 - 11:30am EDT   Two new job openings at Apple may point to technological trends at the company. Recruiters are firstly searching for a senior module process engineer, who would be hired full-time in Apple's home city of Cupertino. There they would be responsible for leading engineering efforts on multi-touch displays, from conceptualization to product formation. Candidates are expected to have a PhD in Physics or Mechanical Engineering and three years of experience, or an MS degree with five years of experience. [full story]

May 13 - 10:45am EDT   The first early details have surfaced regarding Research in Motion's first touchscreen device and position it as a direct answer to the iPhone, according to a rumor launched by BGR. Tentatively labeled as the BlackBerry Thunder for the public and the 9500 with its model number, the device bucks earlier expectations by dropping any signs of a physical keyboard in place of an almost entirely touch-driven interface. Only the call, answer, BlackBerry, and escape keys survive the transition, according to the claim. [full story]

May 13 - 9:30am EDT   Apple has confirmed that CEO Steve Jobs, along with a "team of Apple executives," will deliver the keynote at this year's WWDC conference. The event is scheduled for 10AM Pacific time on June 9th, and will take place in the West wing of the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. Although details of the keynote have not been made official, Apple notes that it will focus on Mac OS X Leopard, and "OS X iPhone," as it is now branding the iPhone's firmware. [full story]

May 13 - 8:55am EDT   Beating yesterday's predictions by Portfolio, HBO has already launched its programming (iTunes link) on the US iTunes Store. Six TV shows are presently available, including The Wire, The Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, Flight of the Conchords and Sex and the City. Listings for the shows further confirm that while most episodes are priced at the standard iTunes rate of $1.99, those for Rome, Deadwood and The Sopranos are $2.99 each, marking the first time Apple has allowed variable pricing for TV shows in the US. [full story]

May 13 - 3:05am EDT   The Microsoft Mac Business Unit on Tuesday announced the release of Microsoft Office 2008 Service Pack 1, a major update that provides increased stability, security, and performance enhancements, as well as an update for the former 2004 version. The update culminates several months worth of feedback from the Microsoft Error Reporting Protocol tool into optimization and improvements. Microsoft is posting the download on its website, but says it is also available through Microsoft Auto Update. [full story]

May 12 - 11:25pm EDT   Not every computer has a built-in microphone or speakers, and to fix this problem, you typically have to connect your own peripherals through multiple cables. Worse may be that if the cables aren’t long enough, you’ll still be tied to the computer if you want to make use of the hardware. To avoid these two problems, Logitech offers its ClearChat Wireless headset. [full story]