Apple plans to charge close to US$1 million for ads on its mobile devices this year and perhaps even more to be among the first, ad executives told the "Wall Street Journal" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870364830457521241150098304...). The execs say they're used to paying between $100,000 and $200,000 for similar mobile deals.

The "Journal" says Apple is making waves on Madison Avenue with its price tag, which comes with initial demands for greater control over advertisers' marketing campaigns. "It's a hefty sum," says Phuc Truong, managing director at Mobext, a mobile marketing business owned by Havas SA whose clients include Sears, Choice Hotels, Amtrak and Volvo. "What Apple is trying to do is certainly above and beyond what's been done in the past."

At the April 8...

Tellini has updated Wiz Solitaire (http://www.tellini.org/mac/wizsolitaire/) -- a collection of several classic card games (Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, etc.) for Mac OS X to version 1.47. It offers the possibility to create and use decks with your favorite pictures.

Wiz Solitaire supports different deck formats allowing you to choose between thousands of available card sets. You can also create your own decks with the included Deck Editor. Version 1.47 expands the list of available games including The Fan, a simpler variant of Trefoil that allows Kings to be moved to empty spaces.

Wiz Solitaire requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later. It's a shareware product and can be purchased for approximately US$20. Registered users are free to upgrade to any 1.x version of the product. A demo is available for download.

Future Media Concepts (FMC) -- a digital media training organization for postproduction, broadcast, and content creators -- has announced the latest additions to its Mac IT Academy curriculum: Apple's Snow 303 T3: Mac OS X Security and Mobility 10.6 and Xsan 301: Xsan 2 Administration "Train-The-Trainer" courses.

Launching in April and May, these "Train-The-Trainer" courses, offered only by select training companies worldwide, will incorporate FMC's manufacturer authorized training curriculum. Available at select FMC branch locations beginning in April the four-day "Snow 303 T3: Mac OS X Security and Mobility 10.6" course prepares Apple Certified training professionals for implementing and delivering Apple's Snow 303 course.

The Snow 303 T3 course is designed for Apple Certified Trainers looking to add the ability to deliver the Snow 303, Security and Mobility course to their repertoire. It covers DNS, VPN, firewalls, certificates, and proxy servers, as well as...

NZWidgets has released SmuginProForAperture (http://nzwidgets.com/smugin/SmuginProForAperture/SmuginProForAperture.html), a new plug-in for Aperture, Apple's software for pro photographers. The plug-in allows the uploading of images to the SmugMug photo and video sharing site.

SmuginProForAperture's features include: caption and keyword handling; hierarchical gallery selection based on category and subcategory; and manual or template based gallery creation. The plug-in adds custom fields to the Aperture metadata for exported images. The generated custom fields can then be used to create smart albums of all images that have been uploaded to SmugMug, or to a specific album.

Each image can be exported to a different gallery if required. You can choose whether to replace an existing image with a new...

In case you hadn't noticed, Apple CEO Steve Jobs isn't a big fan of Adobe Flash, a multimedia platform that is popular for adding animation and interactivity to web pages. And in an online post (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/) he tells why -- and why he doesn't want Flash on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

"I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads," Jobs says. "Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store -- but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain."

You can read his entire post for details, but here's a summary...

Monster (http://www.monstercable.com), a manufacturer of headphones, says its Miles Davis Tribute in-ear headphones will be available next month in Canada for $579 CAD.

Created in conjunction with Miles Davis Properties, the Miles Davis Tribute headphones are being offered in limited edition at retailers across Canada, including The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Futureshop.com, Boutique iStore and Layton Audio. To coincide with the Canadian launch, Monster will be launching an online social media contest headphone giveaway through Twitter and Facebook.

According to the folks at Monster, the Miles Davis Tribute headphones have been designed to capture the essence of the music icon’s style, featuring a striking gold/brass finish based on the actual trumpet played by the artist, as well as a Miles Davis silhouette and gold-etched signature on the earpiece. The headphones are complemented by a ”...

The market for pocket projectors, which are small handheld devices that enable a larger image to be projected onto a wall or screen in either stand-alone or embedded/dedicated formats, is poised for strong growth in 2010 and beyond.

In its recently released "Pocket Projector Technology and Market Forecast Report," the DisplaySearch research group (http://www.displayresearch.com) forecasts that the total pocket projector market will grow from 0.5 million units and US$117 million in revenues in 2009 to 142 million units and $13.9 billion in revenues in 2018, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 70% for revenues and 88% for units.

“There were over 130 new pocket projector models released in the market in 2009, along with the first releases of embedded projectors into the market," says Jennifer Colegrove, director of Display Technologies at DisplaySearch. "Despite this, pocket...

HP and Palm have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of US$5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP, in a press release. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”

And adding to the love-...

AT&T has published a fact sheet (http://www.att.com/Common/about_us/files/pdf/emerging_devices/iPad_fact_... )offering details on its iPad data service plan. As previously reported, the plan offers a recurring monthly charge with no long term contract.

For US$14.99 per month, you get 250GB; $29.99 gets you unlimited storage. Data plans for iPad include access to more than 20,000 AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots nationwide at no additional cost.

nova media has unveiled FrameLoader, software for synchronizing digital picture frames with Mac OS X. It features a one-click sync of iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists and custom media files.

FrameLoader will convert pictures, music and videos automatically into a format that can be displayed by the chosen digital fotoframe. It works with most digital picture frames, USB memory sticks and memory cards.

To select the media contents, FrameLoader displays a list of iPhoto albums and iTunes playlists. They can be checked or unchecked to be synced. Custom media files can be dragged and dropped into FrameLoader and selected accordingly. A click of the sync button starts the synchronization process and an activity monitor displays the details of the sychronization process.

FrameLoader features a SyncMonitor to synchronize media files automatically. Once the to-be-synced iPhoto albums and iTunes playlists are selected within FrameLoader, it's not necessary to open...

Other World Computing (OWC) has announced a price drop of up to 20% off on its entire line of NewerTechIntelligent Battery Charging/Conditioning Stations, which are designed to keep batteries in optimal charged condition for maximum "unplugged" usage.

Available immediately and starting at US$119.95, the NewerTech Intelligent Battery Charging/Conditioning Station is available for the a variety of Mac notebooks. For details go to http://eshop.macsales.com/search/charger+conditioner .

Apple set a new record last Friday, closing at US$270.83 a share. And three Apple execs took advantage of that.

"Fortune" (http://macosg.me/2/6m) notes that "among the people lucky -- or prescient -- enough" to sell before the stock dropped to $256.41 in mid-morning trading Wednesday were three senior Apple officers: Scott Forstall, senior vice president for iPhone software; Mark Papermaster, senior vice president of devices; and Betsy Rafael, vice president, controller and chief accounting officer. According to SEC Form 4s filed Tuesday, the trio sold a total of 61,632 preferentially owned shares between Friday and Monday at prices ranging from $267.01 to $271.43 a share. Total proceeds: $16.5 million.