News Roundup for November the 18th

Well, there’s some good news for those whining gits lucky people who have new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, as Apple has issued a firmware upgrade designed to fix the clicking issues shown by the new glass touchpads. The rest of us will have to make do with a QuickTime update. (”Improved H.264 compatibility with iChat,” eh? Who doesn’t need that?) It should at least tide us over until OS X 10.5.6 comes out — which may be as early as this Friday. (Hmm… isn’t that when iPhone OS 2.2 is rumoured to be showing up, too?)

But even as Apple giveth Apple also taketh away — they have discontinued the venerable 23″ Cinema Display, following the recent release of the new glossy glassy 24″ model.

The iPhone’s march to worldwide domination continues, with the news that it is now available in Venezuela and bound for Taiwan in December. So what great apps can the Venusians and Taiwanners look forward to running on their super phones? Well, there’s Google’s voice recognition for a start, which is now available as a new feature in their upgraded Google Mobile App. And then there’s CastCatcher, which has been allowed back into the App Store. I guess the regular App Store rejection guy just got back from his break. But what I reckon they’re really all after is the Atari 2600 classic Adventure (pictured above). Okay, it’s a start I suppose, but I’m not going to take back everything I’ve said about the iPhone as a gaming platform until we see a version of Jet Set Willy.

Finally, Sun has released the final version of StarOffice 9, their $35 Office-killer. Finally. Which remind me I really should get around to that review of OpenOffice 3. Maybe.