The Apple-Google competition just gets more interesting. Google has purchased startup firm Agnilux, a San Jose company founded by a number of defectors from P.A. Semi, the chip company Apple bought in 2008, according to a "peHUB" report (http://www.pehub.com/69556/google-buys-stealth-hardware-startup-agnilux/).

On April 22, 2008, it was made public that Apple had agreed to buy a boutique microprocessor design company called PA Semi for US$278 million. The company was known for its design of sophisticated, low-power chips.

Many of P.A. Semi’s chip developers stuck with Apple, but others -- including some system-level folks -- launched a stealth startup called Agnilux, funding it with proceeds from the Apple acquisition, says "peHUB." The article adds that Agnilux previously held strategic investment...

Extensis (http://www.extensis.com), a division of Celartem, has begun testing a new web font service that enables commercial web designers to incorporate custom fonts into web sites.
 
For years, web designers have been very limited in how they can use typography on the web, says Celartem CEO Osamu Ikeda. Previously, font use on the Web was limited to the few standard fonts installed on a reader’s machine, he adds. For typographic flexibility, designers most often have resorted to static text images in their designs. But the tradeoff was steep: this text was not easily updated, and could not be indexed or searched.
 
Due to recent technology improvements, web browsers now support the use of custom fonts on websites (via @font-face tags). The challenge is that different browsers support different web font formats, and font vendor licenses generally don't allow users to simply put fonts...

AppRiver (http://www.appriver.com), a provider of e-mail messaging and Web security solutions, has reported results of a performance evaluation using the mobile performance monitoring testing solutions from Compuware Gomez. 

The Gomez data showed a link between the AppRiver-Akamai relationship and AppRiver's ability to provide businesses with fast, reliable hosted Microsoft Exchange.  In particular, the results demonstrated that AppRiver's Akamai-enabled Hosted Exchange service can improve mobile e-mail performance by up to 50%.

Interfering factors like Internet congestion and cell network issues can negatively affect e-mail performance, impacting the demands of today's increasingly mobile workforce. AppRiver is the first Microsoft Exchange hosting provider to embed the Akamai global distribution platform into its secure service. As a result, AppRiver customers receive faster connectivity and more...

AutoDesSys had announced the adoption of a new open standard developed through a collaboration with the developer of Wild Tools for PowerCADD. OpenClip technology is being added to bonzai3d (http://www.bonzai3d.com) and form•Z (http://www.formz.com).

It offers a different way to export 2D files into 3D programs other than the conventional means. You can copy and paste, yes, copy and paste, precision vector objects from one program to another. The OpenClip plug-in is free. You can use it if you are on the Mac platform and use PowerCADD 8.0 and either bonzai3d 2.0 or form•Z 6.7.

The Mac versions of bonzai3d 2.0 and form•Z 6.7 from AutoDesSys are the first programs to support OpenClip. It handles Paste from OpenClip in the current plane. Copy will be made available in an upcoming version.

Beehive Software (http://www.SendFile.NET) has announced the availability of the Sendfile Secure Https file transfer system as source code. For the first time, users can develop, maintain and deliver completely custom file transfer applications using the secure file transfer source code.

The Beehive Sendfile Secure client software is available, in source, as a desktop application for Mac and Windows platforms or as a browser Java client for any platform. The secure https server runs on a variety of Linux distributions and can be ported to other Unix distributions.

On-The-Fly streaming compression makes Beehive Sendfile https secure file transfers up to 30 times faster than FTP, according to the folks at Beehive Software. It's used in secure file transfers for printing, prepress, marketing, finance and manufacturing.

RipCode (http://www.ripcode.com/) says its newest product, the TransAct Transcoder V6 can intercept Adobe Flash-based file or live video requests and convert them to a container, video codec, and audio codec accepted by the Apple devices -- all transparently to the end user device and without the need for any pre-transcoding or device-based client.

RipCode CEO Brendon Mills says the iPad is poised to further accelerate and expand the mobile video device market just as the iPhone has over the last several years. However, one of its noted shortcomings has been Apple’s lack of support for Flash video playback, given the dominant position of Flash in professionally generated entertainment, sports and news content. HTML5 has been purported to address this dilemma by introducing Apple device applications that are simply "thin clients" communicating back to a web site hosting and subsequently delivering Flash...

AT&T (http://www.att.com) has reported strong first-quarter results. The company activated 2.7 million iPhones during the period -- that's 1.1 million more than it did a year ago.

For the quarter that ended March 31, AT&T's consolidated revenues totaled US$30.6 billion, up $78 million, or 0.3% versus the year-earlier quarter; operating expenses were $24.6 billion versus $24.8 billion; operating income was $6.0 billion, up from $5.7 billion in the first quarter of 2009; and AT&T's operating income margin was 19.6%, up from 18.8 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

First-quarter 2010 net income attributable to AT&T totaled $2.5 billion, or $0.42 per diluted share, reflecting a previously disclosed noncash charge of $995 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, related to recently enacted changes in the tax treatment for the Medicare Part D subsidy. Excluding this charge, first-quarter earnings would...

The DaisyDisk Team has released DaisyDisk 1.5.2 (http://www.daisydiskapp.com), an update to their scanning/mapping system utility for Mac OS X. The upgrade provides 64-bit support on Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"), improved scanning speed, and an optimized memory footprint.

In DaisyDisk, disk contents are displayed as an interactive sunburst map, revealing large files that may no longer be necessary. The sunburst map provides a color-coded overview of disk usage, and can be navigated to preview deeper levels of data.

DaisyDisk supports all kinds of drives, including Time Machine volumes, network share drives, FTP drives, USB thumbsticks, FireWire drives, CD/DVD drives and images, FUSE drives, SATA drives, IDE/ATA drives and RAID drives. When the application is launched an overview of all mounted disks is displayed, with graphical indicators of how full each is. Choosing the Scan button next...

Jumsoft (http://www.jumsoft.com) has launched a free version of Money, adapted for Apple's iPad. In addition, the company has released Money 3.5, an update of the financial management and budgeting tool for Mac OS X that includes a number of improvements including synchronization with Jumsoft Money for iPad.

Jumsoft Money for iPad has most of the features that helped the desktop Money achieve its current popularity, according to Algirdas Unguvaitis, general manager of Jumsoft. Users are able to create different types of accounts for cash, bank accounts, credit cards, and investments and to keep track of all transactions.

The Budget Monitor helps users follow a preplanned budget, while the Bills section reminds users of amounts due to be paid. Its report capability allows for analysis of past income and spending and helps users pinpoint areas for improvement.

The updated Money 3.5 features iPad...

Aspyr Media (http://www.aspyr.com) has announced the digital download release of four Star Wars titles. Knights of the Old Republic, Empire at War, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast at the GameAgent store.
What's more, the titles have received updated versions that will run on Mac OS 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"). Additionally, Aspyr has released two Star Wars compilation retail packs: the Star Wars Mac Pack which includes Kotor and Empire at War, and Jedi Gold which includes the two Jedi Knight titles.

Jedi Academy and Jedi Outcast each cost US$19.99. Knights of the Old Republic and Empire at War sell for $29.99. The Star Wars Mac Pack is available for $49.99, while Jedi Gold is priced at $29.99. Aspyr is offering a limited time 20% discount on Star Wars titles when you buy The Force Unleashed from GameAgent.

Not enough? Well, Aspyr has also released a Mac version of The Secret of...

DriveSavers (http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com) is now offering iPad data recovery services for the new Apple device. DriveSavers Data Recovery Advisors are available 24/7 to help users recover files from an iPad, should data loss occur.

With the power and simplicity of the iPad, users are able to store digital photos, videos, games, e-books, address book contacts, calendar entries, notes and music. One of the biggest concerns for iPad users is losing data before it has been synchronized, says Scott Gaidano, president of DriveSavers Data Recovery. DriveSavers data recovery engineers have extensive experience performing data retrieval on Flash-based solid-state devices that have suffered common and catastrophic data loss and recover iPad, iPhone and iPod data that others might deem lost forever, he adds.