The current Mac Pro desktops are getting a little long in the tooth. Also, any power hungry geeks already have had March ‘09 circled on their calendars, as Q1-9 has long been expected release for the Nehalem Core i7 Xeon release. Based on what’s available, that’s the brains most likely to go into the next revision of Mac Pro. MacRumors notes now a specific date has been given, March 29th, in typical PR fashion of waiting to the last days of the given window.

When these processors will be made available in volume is yet to be seen. Apple has previously been among first dibs on Intel gear, such as the dual 4-core Octo powerhouse a couple years ago. The safe money I’d think would bee to say anytime between March and the Snow Leopard release…

Vitrue has announced the inaugural ranking of the top social brands for 2008, The Vitrue 100. The list is a provocative mix of blue chip brands that are commanding attention and engagement within social communities online.

Vitrue has applied its technology and data capturing capabilities to measure what is being most talked about on the social web. Each day, Vitrue analyzes online conversations on a variety of social networking, blogging, micro-blogging, photo and video sharing sites. In turn, brands earn a composite score that enables Vitrue to rank terms.

iPhone reigns as the #1 most social brand, outscoring its innovator and parent, Apple, which ranks #3. Overall, Apple dominates by also securing iPod at #7 and the Mac at #16…

Once thought to be building Flash for the iPhone mostly on its own, Adobe has mentioned at the World Economic Forum that it’s not only continuing work on the animation plug-in but has teamed up with Apple to make it a reality.

In an interview with Bloomberg at the Davos, Switzerland event, Adobe chief Shantanu Narayen describes development as a complicated two-way process rather than maintaining the previous image of a one-sided effort that would depend on App Store approval before it could launch…

One of the most interesting rumors I’ve been tracking here at Macworld Expo in San Francisco surrounds the mysterious four-core iPhone. While the current iPhone has (roughly) the processing power of the Sony PSP, an upgraded four core iPhone would slaughter pretty much every portable gaming platform on the market. The other part of the story is firmware 3.0, which is said to be required on the iPhone “quad.”

Imagination Technologies will announce the PowerVR SGX543 at CES tomorrow (TGDaily), it’s the firm’s first multi-core capable GPU technology and Apple could have access to it…

Apple made good on a target set by Steve Jobs when he originally announced the release of the original iPhone in June of 2007. He wanted the iPhone to take 1 percent of global cellphone market share by the end of 2008, and according to at least two different market research firms, Apple has met, and surpassed that goal. That number puts it pretty much on par with HTC, who makes a large number of different handsets, and ahead of Sharp, who also offers many different models.

For the sake of reference, consider that Nokia still dominates the space, taking a whopping 38.6 percent. Research in Motion, makers of BlackBerry devices, also still outshine Apple, with 1.9 percent, which is up from 1.1 percent in 2007. So yes, technically, BlackBerry gained as much ground as the iPhone did in the same period, but Apple was also only really selling one device, while RIM has an entire line of products aimed at different categories of consumers. Also, the iPhone was only sold in 2007 from June forward, so Apple had less time to sell their product…

If the only time you set your iPhone down is to catch a wave, then Surf Report from Oakley deserves a spot on your mobile device. With this app close at hand, you’ll always know what the surf conditions are where ever you happen to be.

Surf Reports features listings for surf spots from North America to Asia, so you’re sure to find at least a few of your own local breaks. In my testing, I found 19 of my local surf spots listed in just a few seconds.

The first thing you will notice when opening up Surf Report is the sleek, beautiful, and intuitive interface. Finding your local surf spots couldn’t be easier with the “Near Me” button, which uses the location features in the iPhone and iPod touch to automatically bring up a list that includes the current wave height. Tap on a spot in the list, and you’ll be presented with many more details such as current and forecasted air and water temperatures, wind direction, wave period and direction, tide times, and sunrise and sunset times. You also can tap a button to get a map of the surf spot…

The iPhone and iPod Touch take another step toward recognition as legitimate atristic tools with the introduction of an app called Lignt, from Digital Film Tools. The app allows users to introduce realistic lighting and shadows to any photograph using digital versions of the gobo library created by Gamproducts.

Normally used in front of lights during photography, gobos, or patterns, are widely used by lighting designers in theatre, film, photography and television to create atmosphere, project scenery, and generally enhance the visual impact of their lighting.

With Light, these same exact patterns can be applied digitally to an entire image or inside a selected…