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Computer
Cubed Apple's one design failure since its creative rebirth was a round mouse that seldom went where you willed it. The misbehaving rodent is history. All new Macs will come with an optical mouse that has a more traditional shape and also does away with the usual, gunk-attracting track ball. Jobs also unveiled a bigger keyboard and spherical Harman Kardon speakers to complete the range of elegant peripherals. Music EMI Gets Down and Digital EMI has become the first major record label to wade waist-high into the music download market, making hundreds of songs available for sale as digital files over the Internet. Sony and BMG have carried out limited Net trials, but EMI has gone further, making 200 singles and 100 full-length albums available for purchase through over 50 online retailers. EMI says if all goes well it will gradually release its entire library online. You won't find any songs in MP3 format, though. EMI prefers piracy-proof Windows Media and Liquid Audio files. Currently on offer are titles by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker and Pat Benetar. That should tear the college kids away from stealing pirate MP3s on Napster. From the Web A Website for Peeping Toms It has not been the easiest of months for Li Ka-shing-backed Uberportal tom.com. On July 19, shortly after the website officially launched in Hong Kong and China, its CEO abruptly upped and left -- after five months of hyping tom.com as a future "Time Warner of China." On the same day the remaining tommies had to take action against an imitator, avtom.com -- a pornographic portal that copied the original site's look but added some indecent embellishments to tom.com's dancing, asterisk-shaped logo. Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com Quick Scroll: More stories from Asiaweek, TIME and CNN |
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