Apple and Psystar are currently negotiating behind closed doors, trying to settle some differences. Meanwhile, the Mac-cloner is releasing some new products. Psystar announced today that they are ready to ship a Mac clone with built-in Blu-ray and NVIDIA 9800GT graphics cards.

You might remember, Steve Jobs recently referred to Blu-ray as a “bag of hurt” due to licensing costs and that’s one of the reasons a Blu-ray drive wasn’t integrated into a Mac so far. I think I speak for most users when I say that Blu-ray will bow down to digital downloads anyway. Though I know that there are people out there who want a Blu-Ray in their Mac. And so Psystar fills the void.

So Apple and Microsoft’s pissing contest continues. Apple has some new ads now. Instead of attacking Vista directly, they now attack Microsoft’s marketing of Vista. After watching this one it seems clear that they are saying less and less with each new ad campaign. It just gets more and more pointless. It’s basically just a “I know you are, but what am I?” type thing. I’m waiting for Microsoft’s next ads to retort, “Infinity!” so we can just all shut up already. Do you guys even care anymore?

A French newspaper, Liberation, has published claims that some Mac Pros have been releasing toxic odors. Apple is apparently investigating claims that its the desktop is full of “seven volatile organic contaminants,” like “styrene, benzene and its derivatives.” The odor apparently takes a few different forms, described as everything from “new car smell” to “cannabis”.

The culprit is believed to be the result of a resin coating on some circuit boards and disappears after a period of time. Apparently once the product has burned in. The phenomenon seems to be only in systems built before this year. Liberation cited an anonymous researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who had his Mac Pro desktop tested for toxins after he smelled some strong odors emanating from the machine.

Targus has launched its first line of Mac accessories, a bunch of stuff in stunning Wii white. There’s a $70 Bluetooth Laser Mouse, a $50 Wireless Mouse, and an $80 Bluetooth Presenter. Each features a touch-sensitive scroll button. On the presenter, it will switch to cursor control, while it will give you four-way scrolling on the mice.

If that’s not enough, there’s also a $50 USB file-transfer cable for direct file transfers between PCs and Macs, as well as a $30 four-port compact USB hub. Want more? How about MacBook and MacBook Pro privacy screens from $50 to $80, and a $50 dual-fan cooling pad. All can be had right now.

Here’s something for old school Mac fans who need a little geek chic. The kind of geek chic that will throw your back out. Someone over at Instructables converted a 1988 Macintosh SE into a chiropractor’s dream. A chunky, spine dislodging MacPack. Basically you just hollow out a Mac and attach some straps. I’m sure you won’t stand out at all. And I can’t see anyone throwing rocks at you, trying to break the screen…

Apple made some updates to its line of popular iMacs today, including adding the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors. These new iMacs have starting prices of around $1,200.

The refreshed iMacs now include, according to Apple, faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors across the line, a 1066 MHz front-side bus and up to 4GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory. The 24-inch iMac also offers a 3.06 GHz Intel processor and the high-performance NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics as options.

Even though Apple’s MacWorld is only a week away we wouldn’t expect Jobs and company to just stay quiet during the whole week of CES, patiently waiting for their time. Today Apple unveiled the new Mac Pro and the Xserve both with the ability to be powered by up to 8 processor cores.

The Mac Pro houses two of Intel’s 45nm Quad-Core Xeon processors at up to 3.2GHz giving it twice the power of the prior model. It comes packing a 1600MHz front-side bus and as much as 32GB of 800MHz memory, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256MB, dual gigabit Ethernet and 4 available HDD bays that combined can bring 4TB of storage to the new Mac Pro. Also, the number eight is most significant here with processor cores but it’s also the number of 30-inch monitors that can be driven by the computer.

It’s official; Apple’s Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is now available for pre-order through the Apple Store and will ship and be available in stores next Friday, October 26 at 6pm. Leopard is boasting over 300 new features in the OS including Time Machine for backups, a new Finder for browsing and sharing files, Spaces for navigating between multiple applications, Quick Look so you don’t have to open an application just to peak at a file, improved chatting and mail applications and a cool dock with Stacks as you can see in the photo here. The new OS also has parental controls to help children safely surf and communicate and the Safari 3 web browser.

The folks over at Computer Choppers have customized a MacBook Pro and posted some pictures of it on their site which makes the normal silver MacBook Pro’s look just seem kinda’ gray. They said they hope to it up in their gallery soon but until then the few pictures they have says quite a bit. It features a 24 carat gold case, a diamond studded Apple logo on the cover and even the keyboard is paint-matched in gold. The company says they aren’t into mass production of these items so you’ll have to call and have yours custom-built if you want one, maybe to have it match your gold and diamond iPod Shuffle?

Brenthaven, a developer of computer cases, introduced yesterday a new line of slim, stylish cases for MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The Eclipse Sleeves come in three sizes, ranging in price from around $40 to $45, are available starting this month.

The Brenthaven Eclipse Sleeves I, II and III are custom fit for the MacBook 13.3″ and MacBook Pro 15.4″ or 17″ and are available in multiple colors including black, pink and green. They are made of a lightweight material which features a 4-side, high-density foam protection system and a faux-suede interior. A retractable handle and back slip pocket are also built in.

More rumors are being fuled across the blogosphere from ThinkSecret with additional information on the new iMacs from Apple. It looks like the release of these new units are on track for an August launch and will be sporting a brushed aluminum enclosure instead of the shiny white plastic. Although the frame overall will be very similar to the current iMac it will be thinned down to only 2 inches thick. The bottom space below the screen will be shorter too, giving more screen compared to overall size on the enclosure.

The real anticipation for these Macs comes from the Santa Rosa chipset that’s expected to come along inside them maxing out a 2.4GHz. They also are rumored to come in sizes of only 20″ and 24″, and the line of smaller 17″ screens …

Spare batteries for your notebook sure are convenient when your on the road. A coast to coast trip or all day convention and you’ll be glad you had the extra one. The only problem with the an extra battery for the MacBook is that you can’t charge it up unless you had it in the notebook. That is until Newer Technology came to town with their battery charger/conditioner.

The NewerTech Intelligent Battery Charging Station is compatible with a number of Apple systems including different models of the MacBook, MacBook Pro, PowerBook and iBook and aftermarket batteries. The charger has two bays that both charge and one will also “deep condition” to avoid memory issues with Li-Ion batteries and potentially extend the overall life of your battery.

The intelligent part of the ‘Intelligent Battery Charging Station’ is that it …

Apple always loves to keep things interesting. As iPod fanboys await the launch this month of the iPhone Apple continues to update other product lines. The latest case in point is the refreshed MacBook Pro notebook computers announced today.

The latest Apple MacBook Pros, priced between $2,000 and $2,800, sport the newest Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well as up to 4GB of RAM. You also get nice add-ins like an iSight video camera for video conferencing, a power adapter which disconnects the computer when under strain and built-in 802.11n wireless networking.

Three models are available in the new MacBook Pro line up – 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz 15-inch MacBook Pros and a 2.4 GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro. All come housed in a lightweight, aluminum enclosure one-inch thick. Apple is touting that “the 15-inch …

A company out of California called SubRosaSoft has just released a new product called the MacLockPick, and it does just what the name implies. The device is able to extract OS user passwords, logins for different Apple applications, website history and passwords to different visited sites and more.

The MacLockPick software is installed onto a USB flash drive that when inserted into the USB drive of a computer running Mac OS X, it will start extracting all the private data off of the computer and save it to the USB drive in an organized little database. The owner of the MacLockPick can then take the data pack to their own computer running OS X, Windows or Linux and read the data.

This little “live forensics” intended device can get 24 different points of data from the OS X system, including everything from the operating system login for the current …

Apple has uncovered the specs behind its two new Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro and they’re drool worthy. The company is offering two models, an 8-core or quad-core one, and at different processing speeds.

The higher end 8-core unit consists of two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors and has a processor clocking in at 3.0 GHz while the two Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors model comes in three processing speeds, 2.0 GHz, 2.66 GHz and 3.0 GHz. Apple claims that the latter speed demon runs up to two times faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad already on the market.

Customers have the option of selecting from three different graphics card options (NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, a ATI Radeon X1900 XT or a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT). You can slide in up to four hard drives offering a healthy 3 TB of disc …