Apple’s current chipset bedfellow, NVIDIA, has just announced that the first iteration of its upcoming Ion platform will come in desktop form, and should be expected this upcoming Spring.

The new architecture integrates Intel Atom processors with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics card, making it a good candidate for netbooks, as many suspected the chipset’s inaugural device would likely be. Instead, the graphics card maker says the new desktop will be a “very small and affordable,” low-power consumption model…

Speakal has introduced the iBoo, a new iPod speaker system. The iBoo is a ghost-styled system featuring an integrated iPod dock, three speakers, including a 9 Watt subwoofer, a 3.5mm auxiliary input, touch-based controls, an included mini-remote, and a total output of 15 Watts. Available now in red, white, and blue, the Speakal iBoo sells for $90.

At long last, Apple will (allegedly) stop charging customers for the “Pro” features of QuickTime by building them into Snow Leopard. Finally.

You’ll recall that Apple has been gradually increasing the options available to the free version of QuickTime, like full screen playback mode. Other features of the Pro version — like simple editing and export options — were unlocked with in a recent developer’s build of Snow Leopard…

Eknath Kadam has released his new “UK Driving Theory Test (car)” app for iPhone and iPod touch. The application delivers robust drivers education content straight into the hands of teenagers and new drivers. UK Driving Theory Test (car) contains DSA’s official theory test question bank which has over 960 multiple choice test questions on following topics. Detailed results for tests taken are delivered which may also be emailed.

“I can’t think of a better medium to deliver a content rich drivers education program to teenagers and new drivers who are preparing for their theory test”, says Eknath Kadam, the developer of the app…

Building permits issued by Fairfax County (Virg.) confirm that Apple will open a retail store at the Reston Town Center, in the very upscale suburb northwest of Washington (DC), and about five miles from Dulles Airport. The permit to demolish the existing storefront and put up temporary barricades value the work at $10,000, and was issued February 4, 2009. The 6,290 square-foot space occupies a conspicuous corner location at the outdoor mall, which is set among towering office buildings and parking structures. Unincorporated Reston is among the country’s most affluent, and in fact is among the top 10 communities for average household income where an Apple store is located (Manhattan Village, Calif. is #1). The store could open by the Fall…

When you’re trying to pick up the nuances of a different language, it’s one thing to see how a phrase translates from English to another tongue, but it’s quite another to hear how to pronounce something properly. That’s the idea behind Future Apps’ newly released line of iSpeak translation-language learning tools for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The apps, built in conjunction with speech specialists Acapela Group, feature a text translator to convert English phrases into other languages. But there’s also a text-to-speech feature, which pronounces the translated phrase in the targeted language.

The iSpeak apps come in eight languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Each app costs $2. Future Apps says it plans to offer other languages soon.

Because of the text-to-speech feature, each iSpeak app is a pretty large download for an iPhone offering. Apps range in size from 80.5MB for iSpeak French to 182MB for iSpeak Swedish.

German-based PearC is the latest company to start selling Intel-based Mac clones, this time to customers in Europe. PearC follows American company Psystar, which is being sued by Apple for selling Mac clones in the U.S.

The computers being sold in Europe come in three models: Starter, Advanced, and Professional. The systems start at €499 ($645) and go up to €1,499.

Each system has a variety of build-to-order options, including having Mac OS X Leopard pre-installed…

According to the official WebKit blog, the browser rendering engine now supports some explicit CSS animations. A recent nightly build brings support for keyframes and repeating animated effects coded directly in CSS. The animation features are currently exclusive to test builds of Safari, but they have already been put into play by Apple in the iPhone and iPod touch’s mobile Safari browser.

Since that’s the easiest way to see them live, I fired up mobile Safari on my iPhone and had a look at the three demos available. There are falling leaves, pulse, and a bouncing box. The falling leaves were probably the most impressive example of the potential this new tech offers, but all three were promising and looked good on the iPhone. They should soon be supported by Safari for the desktop as well, and they have been submitted for inclusion in the official CSS standards, as determined by the W3…

Google has made its online catalog of books available in an iPhone-optimized web viewer — but Amazon is dropping hints it will expand its previously exclusive Kindle e-books to support other mobile devices.

On Friday, Google launched a mobile Google Book Search with finger-ready navigation for iPhone and iPod touch devices as well as handsets using its own Android mobile operating system.

The move gives iPhone owners access to about 1.5 million books available in the US (and about 500,000 international books) in the public domain either through expired copyrights or open licenses, all without having to download proprietary apps.

Google’s Book Search team says the feat of optimizing the collection was accomplished by using automatic text scanning to reformat the books for the small screens instead of using the raw page images. Some texts produced in difficult-to-scan formats aren’t immediately available but should be added as technology improves…

Tiffen announced Tuesday the release of Photo fx for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The software includes 26 filters/effects with slider controls for an infinite range of custom effects within five different, fun groups and an extensive range of 27 different film looks.

Users can enhance photos either taken stored on the device. The resulting image can be saved, and then shared. Highlighted effects include Face fx, Outer fx, Fun fx, Classic fx, and Wild fx.

The software is available via Apple’s iTunes app store for $2.99.