With the launch of Apple’s Application Store today came a whole mess of applications newly available for download to use on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Topping the list of the free ones is the Remote application, which allows users to control iTunes and even AppleTV wirelessly with your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The application requires the iPhone 2.0 software update and comes in 16 different languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Norwegian among others. The remote application lets you control playback of your media and see the songs and album art on the mobile device with the application.

Vudu is making some moves to keep in strong competition with the yet-to-be-released second version of AppleTV, this time offering a software update and more high-def content. This software update to version 1.2 comes not much more than a week after Vudu gave their system a 25 percent price cut bringing it down to $295 and closer to AppleTV’s $229. AppleTV had recently announced the “take 2″ version will add on features that will allow users to download video content to the appliance without the need of a computer in between, which is a feature that Vudu possessed and AppleTV did not.

The recent software upgrade for the Vudu video system brings some new features to improve user experiences with choosing videos to download. A new indicator will evaluate the current broadband speed and indicate if the selected video will download and show well without any skips or extended delays. When searching for a video it can also recommend titles for instant start based on the connection speed.

Apple announced the immediate launch of iTunes Movie Rentals today during the MacWorld 2008 keynote speech, allowing iTunes users to get limited-time download of movies from any of the major studios for as little as $2.99. The new service is part of iTunes version 7.6 which is available now and gives a rental download of movies for 30 days, but once you begin watching the movie the rental will run out in 24 hours. It can be watched as many times as you would like within that time. You can even start watching on your computer and then transfer the video to your iPod and finish watching the movie on the go.

Apple appears to have picked up all the major studios with this offer with the list of participants including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. iTunes plans to have over 1,000 titles available by the end of February with rates of $2.99 for regular titles and $3.99 for new releases. For another dollar iTunes will deliver titles in high-def with Dolby 5.1 surround.

Steve Jobs’ latest effort to synergize entertainment with computers is now ready to come into your home theater room. Apple TV, the company’s newest piece of hardware, is now shipping to customers.

Say you want to download the latest episode of “Battlestar Galactica” or “Lost” to your iPod but this time there’s a bunch of you that want to watch it. Instead of crowding around the pod screen, when you hook up Apple TV to your computer (whether it’s a Mac or PC), you can now stream the broadcast straight to your television. You …

It appears that Apple is now taking orders for their new Apple TV for $299 with free shipping, although the device will not ship until February. If you plan on ordering one, here is a quick rundown of what you’ll get for your $300.

The actual Apple TV is pretty small, measuring a mere 7.7 inch square and being just over 1 inch tall, weighing in at 2.4 pounds. True to rumors before the Apple TV launch, it does contain a 40GB hard drive, and it runs on an Intel Processor.

The device is compatible …

Today at MacWorld in San Francisco Steve Jobs unveiled the highly anticipated Apple TV, dubbing it the iTV multiple times during his keynote speech. The Apple TV was overshadowed and did not come with as many surprises as the Apple iPhone, but nonetheless has many impressive features.

The Apple TV connects directly to a television to allow viewing streamed iTunes content such as movies, photos, TV shows, and music directly on the TV, from up to 5 different PC or Mac computers at a time. There …