Adobe’s Mike Chambers has released more information on his blog about the forthcoming alpha release of Apollo.

Now, call me sceptical, but I’m finding it very hard to be enthused about Apollo. A downloadable runtime that allows programmers to leverage existing skills to develop RIAs sounds jolly exciting on paper, but, in reality, I expect this product to be another white elephant like Generator or Flex*.

* What??!! You don’t agree that Flex is a dud? Just look at Adobe’s Site of the Day entries for Flex. The Monfort College of Business Virtual Tour is particularly bad, embodying everything that is irritating about the web. If Flex doesn’t go the way of Generator within two years I’ll eat my hat: a bold statement, given that my headgear of choice happens to be a 4ft wide sombrero made of lead.

UPDATE

Seems I’m not the only one with reservations.

The Camino Project has released the latest beta of the Camino browser for OSX. First impressions seem good - it’s noticeably faster that Firefox. The new features are nothing to write home about, but overall, it’s a significant step in the right direction.

An online petition calling for Digital Rights Management to be banned in the UK has been dismissed by the government. The official response, posted on the e-Petitions website on Monday, states that:

Many content providers have been embedding access and management tools to protect their rights and, for example, prevent illegal copying. We believe that they should be able to continue to protect their content in this way.

However, the government does concede that:

It is clear though that the needs and rights of consumers must also be carefully safeguarded. It is reasonable for consumers to be informed what is actually being offered for sale, for example, and how and where the purchaser will be able to use the product, and any restrictions applied.

You can read more on the story at CNET.

The Jamaica Label Art website features over 1,000 examples of artwork and design from Caribbean vinyl releases.

With Vista finally on the shelves, Microsoft is now turning it’s attention to its successor. Codenamed Vienna, the new operating system is likely to appear in 2009 judging by comments made by Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development with Microsoft’s Windows Core Operating System Division:

“You can think roughly two, two-and-a-half years is a reasonable time frame that our partners can depend on and can work with,” he said. “That’s a good timeframe for refresh.”

In an astonishing display of technobabble, Fathi continues:

“We’re going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Maybe it’s a new user interface paradigm for consumers.”

In practise, I guess we’ll see nothing more than a redesigned Start menu - perhaps a triangle next time?

The original Pink Panther car is listed on eBay with a starting price of £75,000 (approx. $140,000). Designed by California pop-artist cum car stylist Jay Ohrberg, the car boasts a 7 litre engine, but it isn’t road legal in the UK unfortunately.

Tempted? Place your bids here.

After over thirty years in private beta, Google’s Gmail is finally available to the general public. It’s a pretty good offering too: Gmail’s spam protection is pretty robust, and the 2.6gb of storage is more generous than accounts offered by Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.

You can sign-up for a Gmail account here.

I recently found myself unable to resist the appeal of a next-generation gaming console. Despite a short period of intense desire to own a Wii, I opted for an Xbox 360. Graphically it’s superior, it has a larger library of games available and its backwards compatibility means I can consign my Xbox to the back of the cupboard.

Shopping for a decent deal on an Xbox 360 is not easy at the moment; the post-Christmas availability of these consoles, particularly in view of the desperate shortage of the Wii and Sony’s delayed PlayStation 3 launch, has meant that Microsoft’s machine is in high demand.

I searched my regular online* electronics retailers** and struggled to find a decent bundle at a price I was prepared to pay. In the end I remembered www.letsbuyit.com. Full of hope, I steered my browser in its general direction. Sadly the site was unable to process my language selection, so I’m not sure whether I could have got a cheep console or not. Here’s what greeted me (pay special attention to the CardCheck banner):

Now I’m not normally one to point out the failings of others but come on guys, how on earth did no-one spot that horrendous spelling of ‘enquiry’? “Which one?” I hear you cry. Exactly! Spelt incorrectly in two different ways in the same ad!

Oh well, made me chuckle anyway.

* Or as those folks at CardCheck would have us say, “on-line”.
** I could have saved myself so much time by shortening “online retailer” to etailer, but would have to have hated myself for ever.