iPatch for the iSight has begun shipping today for $10. What the iPatch is, is a cover to place over your favorite camera lens on Apple Mac's. The cover slides side to side to reveal the lens. This is an advantage for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it allows your lens to be kept dust free. Secondly, business users can use the Mac's in camera banned areas. And finally, for those scared of computer hacking and camera activation, this is your answer. Its a cheap and low cost application, and includes Perma-fix which allows the cover to be kept in place so that companies can now use Mac's without fear of picture taking.

Well it seems Apple have given into consumer pressure, and also pressure from those taking a back door approach to running XP on Intel Mac's. As of today you can download a patch/application called Boot Camp from the Apple website which allows you to install Windows XP, only if you have the official install disks. What this means is, its an official way of installing, with more driver support, which overly means that people wont have to go through the long process of doing the install through the back door.

The software also allows either operating system, Mac OS X or XP, to be booted on restart. It is announced that the software will be Incorporated as standard on the forthcoming Mac OS X v10.5 'Leopard'. The patch includes a step-by-step guide on doing the install, so pretty much anybody can use it. At the moment it will be a trial beta, and the full version will be included in Mac OS X v10.5 'Leopard' in its expected show off in August at the Worldwide Developer Conference.

"Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple's superior hardware now that we use Intel processors," Philip Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a statement. This just shows what power we as consumers have, and judging from it Apple aren't happy either. Apple's shares have risen 6% before markets opened, which shows the possible gain in Apple's future profits from Mac sales. What this may mean though is as sales of Mac's go up, apart from the included version of Mac OS X, external sales of the OS may be hit, so the company have both a gain and loss situation.


Download: [Boot Camp Public Beta]

You only need £13.99 to give some love to your iPods. So, give it what it deserves.

That silly little contest organized by Colin Nederkoorn has has finally drawn to a close. To recap, Nederkoorn offered a nice bundle of cash to the first person who could successfully boot Windows XP on an Intel Mac. A certain narf2006 was the first to submit his solution, and the world eagerly awaited verification - or repudiation - of narf's process.

Now we've received word that Nederkoorn has verified narf's solution (and that narf's been paid, but that's not really the point here, is it?). We're wondering what's going on at Apple and Microsoft as a result of this development. We're thinking that we should await some sort of announcement from those guys. Well, an annoucement would certainly be forthcoming, given how momentous something of this sort would be, whether true or false - but we're really wondering what we can now expect from both companies, especially Apple.

And, of course, we're just dying to give the process a whirl ourselves...

Citigroup analysts see a very high likely-hood of Intel based 'PowerMacs' ('PowerMac' being in quotes because the 'Power' portion comes from the IBM-built PowerPC chips.  PowerBooks with Intel processors are now MacBooks Pro.  'PowerMac' is expected to be replaced with a similar naming scheme...) announced at the World Wide Developer Conference in August of this year.  Typically the WWDC is in June, but Intel's announcement of certain new chips being available in August and then Apple's subsequent WWDC data announcement seem too conspiratorial to overlook.  It is expected that August will mark the final conversion of Apple's line of computers to the Intel platform.

Citigroup goes on to muse that Intel-based iBooks and the long-rumored 6th generation large screen video iPod will come to light as early as April.  April 1st marks the 30th anniversary of Apple Computer.  Watch for a media event from Apple right before or right after April Fool's Day - not for fear of dis-belief, but because April 1st falls on a Saturday this year.