Crave

To boldly go in a top-down perspective.

(Credit: Paramount Digital Entertainment)

Haven't had enough of your "Star Trek" fix now that the J.J. Abrams reboot has sent America into a Trek frenzy? Has the week rolled around only to have you cry out in despair, "more, more?" Well, Paramount Digital Entertainment is there for your desperate cries. Its movie-based multiplayer shooter, Star Trek: D-A-C, hits Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday, exclusively for the 360, costing you a cool-as-Spock 800 points.

What does D-A-C mean? We don't know. And you don't get to know that until you play through the game (we're serious). Set across a series of self-contained top-down arenas, you pilot the U.S.S. Enterprise (or one of five other ships, two more Federation and three Romulan) in one of three different battle games along with Trek-minded others on Xbox Live. Imagine if Geometry Wars and Star Control II had a child, and that child was half-Romulan.

No, this game does not have local multiplayer, making this an online-only affair (which, considering you've downloaded this on Xbox Live Arcade, shouldn't be too much of a problem). Matches can be arranged between two teams with six players each in three different game modes: Deathmatch, Assault (a base-capturing game), and Conquest (a turn-based attack/defend mission). Gameplay is smooth and full of parallax as you glide over vast 3D planets and asteroid belts, with dual-stick controls feeling much like Geometry Wars. The size, speed and weapon variations across ships was very Star Control II - but, unfortunately, you only have two races represented here, and three ship types (Flagship, Fighter, and Bomber).

Ideally, some future game will have a host of races and ships. Romulan versus Federation just doesn't cut it long-term. But if you want a Trek-infused quick shooter fix with pretty graphics, this only costs as much as movie ticket.

Star Trek D-A-C for Xbox Live Arcade hands-on

Electronic Arts and Paramount Pictures have released the first details of The Godfather II, the video game.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

Update (10:52 a.m.): This story has been corrected to reflect that the suit filed in June against Paramount Pictures was filed by Anthony Puzo, Mario Puzo's son. Mario Puzo died in 1999.

It looks like Electronic Arts and Paramount Pictures have gotten the don's blessing, after all.

EA on Friday announced the first real details of Godfather II, the video game, that it will be making in conjunction with Paramount Pictures.

And that seems to mean that the movie studio has been able to work out a deal with Godfather author Mario Puzo's son, Anthony Puzo, after he sued Paramount in June, alleging that he had not been paid more than $1 million he was owed, based on the first version of the game.

The new game expands on the story line spelled out in that earlier game. This time around, according to a release from EA, "After being promoted by Michael Corleone to don of New York, players expand to new cities, as they build up their families through extorting businesses, monopolizing illegal-crime rings, and defeating new families in an effort to become the most powerful mob family in America."

EA did not announce a release date for the game.

One notable element of the first Godfather game was that EA put a significant amount of resources into reverse-engineering the art from the films.

That is, because Paramount wasn't able to provide the game's producers with the original high-resolution digital assets for dozens of characters from the films, EA put several artists on the job watching the films over and over again, in order to re-create much of its look and feel.

It's not known whether EA will employ the same methods this time around, or if it will be able to take advantage of the assets it created last time around.

EA is not involved in the lawsuit.

(Credit: EA Store)

On Wednesday, June 18, documents were filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court by Anthony Puzo, who is suing Paramount Pictures for breach of contract for which he is claiming at least $1 million in damages. The document stated Paramount had failed to hand over any of the revenues from the video game based on the book and award-winning movie.

Mario Puzo, being a "relatively unknown author" at the time and "struggling to support his family," sold the film rights to his book to Paramount at an extremely low price. Anthony Puzo claimed in the court document that the deal was struck between Paramount and his father in 1992, also agreeing to give Puzo a substantial share of the revenue of any audiovisual products sold or rented with elements of the Godfather movies.

In 2006, Paramount licensed video-game publisher Electronic Arts to make and distribute a game based on the characters and storylines of the 1972 Godfather movie. Since then, EA has released The Godfather, The Godfather: Mob Wars (PSP), The Godfather: Blackhand Edition (Nintendo Wii), and The Godfather: The Don's Edition (PS3).

According to the court filing, Paramount failed and refused to pay the Puzo estate the sums owed to them in respect to the game, and, therefore, is in material breach of the audiovisual products agreement.

(Credit: Humanscale)

Whether you're talking about a day trader, wannabe security guard, or voyeur extraordinaire, it seems that some people just can't get enough computer monitors to stack together. The latest example of this obsession comes from the "Paramount Parabolic Multi-Monitor Display" made by Humanscale.

Accommodating up to eight displays, the system tops even CineMassive's six- or seven-screen "MasterPlex" line. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this set-up--which apparently provides only the rack and mounts, not the actual LCDs--is that it requires no tools. Additional monitors just "snap into place," Dvice says.

Convenient, perhaps, but we wouldn't want to be in front of them during an earthquake.

Will we ever get one disc to rule them all?

(Credit: kotaku.com)

Ah, the emails and voice mails were flying fast and furious yesterday after Paramount and DreamWorks made their little announcement about going HD DVD exclusive. At just after 4 p.m. in New York, Fox and MGM put out a press release saying they were unveiling "an aggressive global Blu-ray Disc release strategy, including 29 new release and 'must-have' catalog titles that runs through the end of the 2007 calendar year."

The release went on to say that Fox intends to put out "at least one state-of-the-art title per month featuring numerous BD 'firsts'" and highlighted the fact that "Blu-ray was out-performing HD DVD 2-to-1 at retail in 2007." Among the 29 new releases, my eye was drawn to Master & Commander, Ronin, Cast Away, Independence Day, A Bridge Too Far, 28 Days Later, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Die Hard trilogy.

After the email went out, the phone started ringing: All the CNET the home-theater editors were contacted, so the PR folks at GCI Group in LA were working overtime, trying to do a little damage control. The basic message was, they may have this, but we have a whole more of that. And, did you hear that the Paramount deal doesn't include any of Spielberg's movies and that the deal only ran for 18 months? Tit for tat. Tat for tit. The war was raging.

Then, thanks to a New York Times article, word got out this morning that indeed (as I suspected), someone was getting paid off. The article noted that, "Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified." Microsoft denied paying anything, but wouldn't rule it out as a tactic in the future. There was no word on who might be paying Universal for its exclusive HD DVD agreement, but you gotta think there's a pretty sweet deal in place there, too.

... Read more

It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up--Vince Lombardi

(Credit: codyl.com)

Just when you thought the next-gen DVD war was on the verge of being over, a couple of studios decide to muck things up even further. Today, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation announced that they will exclusively support HD DVD on a worldwide basis.

According to the press release, "The exclusive HD DVD commitment will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment."

"The companies each said that the decision to distribute exclusively in the HD DVD format resulted from an extensive evaluation of current market offerings, which confirmed the clear benefits of HD DVD, particularly its market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs. Paramount Home Entertainment will launch its exclusive HD DVD program with the release of the blockbuster comedy hit 'Blades of Glory' on August 28th and follow with two of the biggest grossing movies of the year 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third'."

Until today, Paramount was putting out movies on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, so needless to say, the announcement came as a surprise. Also, all of this comes in the face of reports that on the software front, Blu-ray was outselling HD DVD by a 2-1 margin, and that both Blockbuster and Target would be pushing the Blu-ray format in stores. (Note HD DVD fans: Yes, Target will continue to carry the XBox 360's add-on HD DVD player). Consensus was that things were looking pretty bleak for HD DVD. Is this a game changer?

... Read more

Imagine you're a huge automobile manufacturing company. (Imagine harder! You're a complex of buildings, factories, offices and... Oh, never mind. Bad metaphor.)

OK, specifically: Imagine you're a marketing exec at GM. Now imagine the ginormous year-end bonus you're going to get as a result of your collaboration with Paramount Pictures and toy-maker Hasbro on this summer's Transformers movie. Are you imagining swimming in cash? Good job.

Click on the Solstice for more photos.

(Credit: Paramount Pictures)

All of the Autobots--the "good guy" Transformers battling to keep humans safe from the "bad guy" Decepticons--are robots that turn into vehicles manufactured by General Motors. It's not hard to imagine the toy people, the car people and the movie people all toasting each other's success this summer, as they co-brand cars, toys and related products.

Check out our slide show of vehicles "starring" in the film from this spring's promo event hosted by GM and Paramount. Like any other movie stars, they got their own red carpet treatment.

SAN FRANCISCO--Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs announced a set of new products during his speech at Macworld Tuesday. We covered his keynote from the floor, so check below for continuous updates as the news happened.

Click here to see photos from the keynote.

The iPhone is looking legit.

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)

11:10--"We've got a really special treat today. We don't have many traditions at Apple, but Jon Mayer has helped us with many products," Jobs says.

Jon Mayer plays a song. All the 12-year-old girls in the audience are screaming. Oh, wait, that's right, there aren't any, this is a technology trade show.

Mayer praises Steve for making products that make people happy. An actual quote, "It's like the opposite of terrorism." Yes, Jon, you're totally right.

He's playing again. Waiting on the world to change? Dylan, he aint. I'm waiting on the song to change.

11:02--"I couldn't sleep last night, I was so excited about today," Jobs says.

We've had some revolutionary products. And we're going to do it again with the iPhone in 2007. There's an old Wayne Gretsky quote, 'I skate to where the pick is going to be.'"

"We've always tried to do that at Apple, and we always will," Jobs says.

"I want to highlight the folks who worked on these products." Workers stand up to applause. "We also can't leave without thanking the families, all of our families," he says. "Without the support of our families, we couldn't do what we do."

10:59--"Today, we've added to the Mac and the iPod; we've added to Apple TV, and now iPhone. And the Mac is the only one you think of as a computer."

"So, we've thought about this. We are announcing today that we are dropping the "computer" from our name, and we will be known as Apple Inc.

10:58--Steve Jobs is back on. "As Stan said, we started work together about two years ago, and we come from two pretty different worlds. We're going to bring some great stuff to market together over the years. Let's take a look at this market, how big is this market?"

Steve's clicker isn't working. "The clicker is not working. They're scrambling back stage right now."

Steve ad-libs a story about Woz.

"You know, when I was in high school, Steve Woz and I made this little device called the TV jammer, a little device that would screw up a TV. And Woz would screw up the TV, and just as somebody was about to fix it.

Just about a billion phones sold last year worldwide.

1 percent market share equals 10M units. This is exactly what we're going to try to do in 2008, is grab 1 percent market share."

10:55--You know Steve and I, we entered into a contractual agreement without ever seeing the design of the phone, Sigman says. And every time I see this, it's just wow. It's really, really cool, Sigman says.

I brought with me another company to celebrate, it's the new AT&T.

Cingular became a full part of the new AT&T familty. This family will help fulfill the vision of wireline, wireless and video in the ways customers haven't imagined, Sigman says.

Sigman says the partnership takes the mobile phone experience to a whole new level.

He says it's a multiyear exclusive partnership, only available with Cingular wireless services. This is not an MVNO, whatever that is, Sigman says. Someone shout from the audience: "Is it locked?" Sigman doesn't respond.

10:49--The iPhone will ship in US in June, in Europe in the fourth quarter and in Asia in 2008, he says.

Our partner is going to be Cingular, Jobs says, adding that it's the best and most popular network in the country with 58 million subscribers. Cingular is going to be Apple's exclusive partner in the U.S.

It's a unique partnership. We're not just going to be selling phones, we're going to be doing innovation together, he says.

Apple worked with Cingular on the visual voicemail. That's the first fruit of this collaboration, he says.

The iPhone will be sold in Apple and Cingular stores.

Cingular CEO Stan Sigman joins Jobs on stage.

10:48--Speaking about the phone's design, Jobs says "multitouch, OS X, more miniaturization than we've ever done."

Jobs says Apple filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone, and we intend to protect them.

"iPhone is like having your life in your pocket," he says.

Price: "People spend $499 for an iPod and smart phone. So what should we charge for iPhone? It's got a lot more than just that. We thought long and hard about it. For 4GB model, price at the same $499, with a two-year contract, 8GB model for $599."

Avilability: shipping these in June. "Apple is announcing it today, shipping in June, we have to go get FCC approval," he says.

10:41--"It's been great having the two greatest companies on the Web right down the block, Google and Yahoo," Jobs says. "Internet communicator, iPod and a phone. Let's put them all together and see what you can do in a real life scenario."

He starts a demo.

Go into iPod, listen to music. Jobs gets a phone call. The music fades out, screen changes, and the ringtone plays. You can ignore it, Jobs says, "but I'll answer it." He puts Phil's picture up on the phone.

Phil asks for a photo of Hawaii, Steve pushes the home button, but stays on the call. He goes to photos, and there is a green bar at the top that allows you to go back to the phone. Can e-mail the photo without leaving the call. Still on the call, he is e-mailing the photo.

Then he keeps talking. Phil wants to go see a movie. Jobs keeps talking, and browses over to Fandango.

He touches the top, goes back to the call and hangs up. Then, the music starts up exactly where it pausd when the call came in.

10:37--Jerry Yang on stage: "I'm not a board member of Apple, but I'd love to have one of these," he says.

"We are really proud at Yahoo to be partnehing on e-mail. It's the first one we're doing, but a variety of other popular services with Apple."

Yang says he hopes they can get Yahoo "OneSearch" onto this phone.

Mail is a killer app on the phone, he says. "Yahoo is trying to redesign the Internet experience."

"It's lke have a Blackberry without the Exchange server."

Lastly, we want to be able to take what Apple is doing, reiventing the phone, and we want to do that on the Internet, take great form factors and experiences and UI that we're taking from the Web and translate into a seamless Web experience.

10:35--Google's Eric Schmidt is on stage.

"I've had the privilege of joining the board," Schmidt says, and he jokes about merging the companies. "AppleGoo?"

"What I liked about the new device and the architecture of the Internet is you can merge without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time, and I think he's shown that today," Schmidt says.

Internet architecture allows you to take the enormous brain trust generated by the Apple design team, and take it with open standards lke the Google Internet stuff, Schmidt says.

"Google pushed very hard to partner with others, and especially Apple, the cultures are similar," he says.

Steve showed a little of the components, but understand this is a set of data from maps and partners so you can get the full integration. This the first of a whole new generation of data services," he says.

You can't think about the Internet without thinking about Yahoo. Have Yahoo search built right in, and of course we also have Yahoo imap e-mail.

Jerry Yang joins Steve on stage.

10:32--Cisco calls CNET News.com reporter with a statement about Apple's use of the term "iPhone" for its new product. "Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today."

10:30--Jobs shows off the iPhone's widgets, checks Apple's stock and, believe it or not, it's up.

"Now I'm going to show you something truly remarkable, Google Maps on iPhone." You can already get Google Maps on Palm and Windows mobile, and it doesn't appear that the Google iPhone version is any different right now. But you can place a call right from the maps screen.

Steve calls Starbucks and orders 4,000 lattes to go. He cancels the order.

Can use fingers to zoom in on the map. Can replace the map with a satellite image. Again, I belive that's a standard part of Google Maps for Palm or Windows.

10:25--Jobs gives a demo of how the Web part of the iPhone works. There is an e-mail inbox, running live on Yahoo inbox e-mail.

Photos are built right into the e-mail, online photos, rich text e-mail.

iPhone parses out phone numbers. "I can just touch it and I'm going to call this place," Jobs says.

"I can look at e-mail from a split view, like how you can preview the e-mail while still scrolling through the inbox, it's real e-mail just like you're used to on your computer."

And again, free imap e-mail from Yahoo.

There is a touchscreen keyboard to type e-mail. How dirty is that screen going to get? No details yet on the physical specs of the screen, the type of material, etc.

Jobs shows Safari running on the mobile device. Jobs is loading the New York Times. Rather than just give you a WAP version or wrapping around, the iPhone is giving you the whole thing. In landscape mode, you can scroll around a Web site just like a real browser.

Can zoom out to scroll faster around a big site like the Times, and then click again to zoom in on a Web page.

Can have multiple Web pages open, like having Windows open on a desktop screen.

"If you've ever used a Web browser on a phone, you know how revolutionary this is," Jobs says. "We are bringing the real Internet onto your phone."

10:19--"We have reinvented the phone," Jobs says. "So, now let's take a look at an Internet communicaitons device."

Rich HTML e-mail on a mobile device works with any pop or imap client, Jobs says.

Safari is running on the iPhone. It is the first fully usable HTML browser on a phone, according to Jobs.

Google maps is built in.

"We have widgets," he says.

The iPhone communicates, automatically switches to Wi-Fi if it detects a signal. That's an amazing concession from whatever carrier plans to carry this, still no details on that.

Jobs highlights Yahoo mail, the biggest mail service in the world, with 250 million users. "Today we are announcing that they are going to provide free push imap e-mail to all iPhone customers. That's like having a Blackberry iPhone. It pushes your Yahoo e-mail right to the iPhone."

10:14--Jobs moves onto a demo of SMS texting. "Now I go to the SMS icon in the upper left corner, and push it. I can do multiple sessions, can be alerted to multiple messages, and iPhone sets it up in an Internet-style reply e-mail.

There is a touchscreen keypad with autocorrection. Push the buttons with your fingers and send the message and go. The keypad disappears.

Photos--"I have a two megapixel camera, and the coolest photo management app ever. I can just scroll thorugh photos with my finger," Jobs says. "To go through pictures, I just swipe them from side to side to scroll through photos.

"You can take pictures and make them bigger, can take fingers and adjust the size of the picture, zoom in and edit photos with your fingers, move the sizing around, you can also choose to make a photo my wallpaper. That's part of our phone package for iPod," Jobs says.

10:10--Jobs gives a demonstration of how the phone works. He shows four things--the phone app, photos, calendar and texting.

Users will scroll through contacts the same way they scroll through music. "If I want to call somebody, I scroll around, and push his mobile number."

Jobs is calling Jony, Apple's design chief. It's the first public phone call with iPhone, Jobs says.

Phil Schiller calls, and Jobs shows how the call does three-way calling.

Jony: "It's not too shabby, is it?"

Users can add contacts from a recently-called list, can edit favorites, move people around, delete and add entries. The iPhone lists the recent calls as red if missed.

"If I'm real last-century," Jobs says, "I can push the keypad," and he calls 408-996-1010.

10:05--What's the iPhone's killer app? Making calls, says Jobs.

"People use their recents as their address book; we want to let you use contacts as never before. You can sync your PC with your Mac like never before."

The iPhone will use "visual voicemail." "Wouldn't it be great if you had six voicemails, and you didn't have to listen to five first before listening to the sixth?" Jobs says.

It is a quad-band GSM/EDGE phone. "We decided to go with the most popular international standard," Jobs says. "And of course, we have Wi-Fi and bluetooth."

10:03--Jobs says the iPhone has a great album view that shows all the album art, and I've also got videos.

"It's a video iPod and a regular iPod, plus a phone. And it's widescreen when you hold it in landscape mode, on its side."

There are touch controls on the video iPod as well--play, pause, etc. The phone is a candy bar shape. There don't appear to be any moving parts; all the buttons are touch-screen except for the home button.

"It's the best iPod we've ever made," Jobs says."

Jobs says he was giving a demo to somebody inside Apple who had never seen it before, and they told him, "you had me at scrolling."

9:59--Jobs keeps referring to Apple's phone as the "iPhone," even though Cisco owns the trademark.

There is a slider bar switch above the home button, four touch-screen buttons to activate the iPod. Users can hit the home button to go back home.

Want to scroll through songs? Touch the screen and flick toward the top of the screen, or the bottom. Select songs by touching them.

Flip the album art for the track listing, with a button in the upper right hand corner.

Turn the phone into landscape mode, and it shows you all your albums in the cover flow applications.

He's really got to get some new demo music. I've heard way too much Green Day at Apple keynotes.

9:56--The iPhone's screen will be 160 pixels per inch. "It's gorgeous," Jobs says. There is only one button, the home button.

It's really thin--11.6mm, thinner than the Q or Blackjack. And we've got controls on the side," Jobs says.

The iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera, iPod headphones fit right in, there is a place for sim card, and it has a wake/sleep switch.

A proximity sensor senses your face and turns off the iPod and turns on phone when you bring it up to your face. And ambient light sensor switches the light based on the available light. It has got an accelerometer for portrait vs. landscape.

"It's an iPod; you can touch your music," Jobs says. "And it's got cover flow."

9:49--"We've been very lucky to have brought a few revolutionary user interfaces to the market--the mouse, the clickwheel, and now multitouch," Jobs says.

"We're going to build on top of the interface with software, software on top of mobile phones is like baby software. Today we're going to show you a software breakthrough, software that's 5 years ahead of what's on any other phone," Jobs says.

The iPhone runs OS X.

"Why do you need such a sophisticatd OS on a mobile device? Because it's got everything we need. It's got power management, the mobile multitasking that has let us create desktop class applications, not the crippled stuff you find on most phones."

"We love software...Alan Kay, people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

"We're bringing breakthrough software to a mobile device for the first time. The second thing we're doing is learning from the iPod, syncing with iTunes. People know how to sync media onto their iPod. You're going to do the same thing with iPhone," Jobs says.

"iTunes is going to sync all your media on the iPhone, but it also syncs a ton of data, already can get contacts and calendar on the iPod, and all that stuff can be moved over to iphone automatically."

"Set up the phone in iTunes, just like an iPod or Apple TV. It is just like an iPod: Charge and sync."

9:48--"We're going to start with legendary user interface," Jobs says. "The problem with the standard ones is the keyboard; they are there whether you need them to be there or not, control buttons that are fixed in plastic. Every application wants a set of buttons optimized for it."

"So what do you do? It doesn't work, because the buttons and controls can't change."

"How do you solve this? Turns out we have solved it; we solved it in computers 20 years ago," Jobs says. "A bitmap screen, and a pointing device; we solved it with a mouse."

How are we going to take it to a device? We're going to get rid of all these buttons, and just make a giant screen. Who wants a stylus? Nobody wants a stylus, so let's not use it.

We're going to use the pointing device we're all born with. We have invented a new technology called 'multitouch.' You don't need a stylus, and it is far more accurate than any pointing device that's shipped. And boy, have we patented it!"

9:45--"We are calling it iPhone," Jobs says. "Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, and here it is."

Jobs shows a spoof of an iPod with a old-style rotary phone. Much laughter. Joke, joke.

Jobs says he will talk about "a category of things called smart phone, which combine a bunch of things." "Problem is," says Jobs, "they aren't so smart, and they aren't so easy to use."

Smart phones are definitely a little smarter, he says, but they are harder to use.

9:42--"This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. You're very fortunate if you get to work on one of these for your career. In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn't just change Apple; it changed the whole computer industry," Jobs says.

"In 2001, we introduced the Apple iPod, which changed the entire music industry," Jobs says.

"Today, we're introduing three revolutionary products of this class."

The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls.

9:40--He's demonstrating content synced from computer to Apple TV. He demonstrates what happens when Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, comes over with a notebook.

It can connect to a new iTunes, running on Schiller's machine. He has to type in a PIN, and Jobs can load Schiller's MacBook and look at Schiller's TV shows.

You can watch movies from an somebody else's notebook on your iTV. But how is that DRMed? It doesn't appear to allow you to transfer content between friends, just stream.

The price is $299. Apple will be taking orders today, and shipping them in February.

9:37--Jobs gives a demonstration of how Apple TV will work. It can stream video directly over the Internet to TV and you can control it with a remote to browse for shows or trailers on the iTunes store.

Jobs is showing demos of movies, TV shows and music. There are album covers, movie posters and TV commercials floating around the interface as you select a song, TV show, or whatever from the menu. You can put photos, as well, on your TV, stream them over a wireless network or move them to Apple TV.

9:31--Apple TV will allow users to stream content from up to five computers, and autosync from one computer.

"Just like you set up an iPod, set up a TV. The 1- most-watched movies on Apple TV, for example."

TV shows can be set to automatically stream to Apple TV and reside there on the hard drive when you purchase them. If you like Lost, you can set it to download every Lost episode to the Apple TV when you purchase it. Other videos you can choose to keep on your Mac or PC.

"You can also stream from up to five computers, watch on Apple TV but not store on the hard drive, like if your neighbor comes over," Jobs says.

9:28--Jobs introduces what has been known as the iTV. It is now called "Apple TV," consisting of the Apple logo, then "TV". Jobs describes it as a way to enjoy your content on your TV."

Users can wirelessly transmit the content to an Apple TV from a PC or Mac, according to Jobs. "I'm going to use a Mac," he says.

Jobs says Apple TV will use the same hookups as we saw in September and will have 720p high-definition video. "It's got a 40GB hard drive, up to 50 hours of video, and comes in handy for something I'm going to show you," Jobs says.

Apple TV will use 802.11n, the new draft Wi-Fi standard. And it's got an Intel processor in it, but he doesn't say which one.

9:26--Jobs talks about Microsoft's Zune as a new competitor to the iPod. "How did they do?" Jobs asks. Then he cites data for November, which was the Zune's launch month. The Zune grabbed 2 percent market share, according to Jobs. The iPod had 62 percent market share, he says citing NPD.

A Zune goes up in flames, and the crowd titters.

Jobs shows off new iPod ads: the same silhouette ads of people dancing around.

9:23--"We are the fifth largest music reseller in the U.S.," Jobs says. "Because of the growth of iTunes, we have now passed Amazon; we are now No. 4."

You can guess who our next target may be; it's Target."

TV shows--we have sold 50 million TV shows on iTunes. Movies--(the) pioneering partner we had with TV shows was Disney. We have sold 1.3 million movies in the first four months, which I think has exceeded all of our expectations."

Jobs announces Apple's new partner will be Paramount. "They have some awesome movies, all six Star Trek movies," he says to laughs.

"We are going go be moving up to 250 movies on iTunes; we hope to add more movies as other studios throw in with us," he says."

9:21--"2007 was an awesome year for the Mac," Jobs says. "But that's all we're going to talk about the Mac today."

Jobs gives an update on Apple's music business. "We've got iPods. A few things about iTunes--we have crossed a major milestone; we have sold over 2 billion songs on iTunes. iTunes sales were really up this year. It took us three years to get to 1 billion; we got our second billion in a year."

"We're selling over 5 million songs a day on iTunes."

9:19--Jobs references retiring Microsoft exec Jim Allchin's off-cited quote, in which he said he'd buy a Mac if he didn't work at Microsoft.

A Vista ad is shown on screen, with the Mac and PC guys who've starred in Apple's most recent ad campaign. The "PC guy" is in a hospital gown, scared about major surgery.

"Mac," he says, "if I don't come back, I want you to have my peripherals."

9:17--"We said we'd do Intel in 12 months; we did in 7. Beautiful, seamless transition of OS X for Intel processors. Rosetta software created to run PPC apps on Intel processors," Jobs says.

"We didn't do this alone; we did it with a lot of folks. Our new colleagues at Intel helped us. Thank you very much."

"We've had an extremely succesful year, and I want to thank our users very much," Jobs says.

"We are pleased to report that Macs are selling through all channels, over half are selling to people who have never owned a Mac."

9:15--Steve Jobs comes on stage to James Brown's "I Got You, (Feel Good)." He's wearing his traditional outfit, turtleneck.

"We're going to make some history together today," he says.

9:07 a.m. PST--We're awaiting Steve Jobs here at Macworld, a little past 9 a.m. People were lined up by the hundreds in the pre-dawn hours to get a prime seat for Jobs' speech in which he's expected to discuss an Apple-designed phone, the company's iTV product, and who knows what else. We'll bring it to you live as Jobs presents at Macworld 2007.