Surprisingly, the Mac mini, Magic Mouse, iMac, MacBook, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule updates are not the only things Apple updated today. Several other products were updated today, which include:

• Apple Wireless Keyboard: This keyboard, the subject of several update rumors, did get revised today. It now only requires 2 AA batteries, down from 3 in the previous model.
• Apple 60W MagSafe Power Adapter: This adapter now has a aluminum connector, much like the one found on the 45 watt adapter for the MacBook Air; it should be more durable for use.
• VESA Mount Adapter Kit: This model for the 24 inch Apple LCD Cinema Display and the previous 24 inch iMac now supports the new 27 inch iMac.

Also, the wired mouse-formerly-known-as-Mighty Mouse -- which is still available -- was renamed to "Apple Mouse." This is consistent with the trademark for Mighty Mouse (the computer mouse) being finally picked up by Man & Machine, instead of CBS and Apple.

Are you going to enjoy the improvements in these products? Let us know in the comments below!

Whether you're moving to another country or just visiting, chances are pretty good you're going to be bringing a lot of electronics with you. Chances are also pretty good that whatever country you're going to is going to have an electrical system with a different voltage or frequency than your home country, and probably differently-shaped outlets, too.

When traveling abroad, this vast array of voltages, frequencies, and plug types can be confusing, and whether you're packing a $200 iPod nano or a $2000 MacBook Pro, it can lead to a great deal of trepidation as well. The traveling geek's worst nightmare goes like this: you plug your very expensive, potentially irreplaceable electronics into some weird Romanian outlet, and suddenly sparks start flying. You try to unplug your precious device as quickly as you can, but the damage is done -- with a whiff of ozone, hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of equipment has just become a glorified brick.

Happily, most modern electronics shouldn't experience this issue, and that includes all recent Macs and iPod/iPhone power adapters. Here are a few dos and don'ts when it comes to international electricity.

This (extremely loud, be careful) video has been making the rounds lately -- it's a demo of a new app called Nearest Tube that isn't quite in the App Store yet, but uses both your location information along with the iPhone's compass and video camera to show you an augmented reality picture of where and in which directions around you the nearest London Tube station is. Very cool use of the technology, and while I'm not actually in London to use it (and I don't have a 3GS -- obviously the compass is required to make this all work), it looks like it works pretty well. Some of you folks in London will have to give it a try when it gets approved and tell us what you think.

Oh, and the whole augmented reality thing -- get ready to hear that term a lot. On the TUAW team list, we were just chatting about microprojectors as well (rumored to be coming to iPhones and iPod touches), and as all of these technologies (video, projectors, compasses and location information) all start to get combined and hooked up to some serious computing power, your phone will be able to tell you more and more about what it sees in the world around you, from Tube or road directions like this app, to restaurants and stores, stars in the sky, and even other iPhones and their users. Hold on to your hats, because more and more, developers won't need to simulate the world around you when they can just show you an augmented version of it through your iPhone's screen.

Last week I ordered my iPhone 3GS from the AT&T Store (no Apple Stores out here in the boonies). Five days later it was ready to be picked up and I drove out to the mall to get it.

While the AT&T employee activated it and performed the soul-stealing voodoo that accompanies a new sale, a woman at the next counter was exchanging her own AT&T phone (not an iPhone). I only heard a part of her conversation, but it went something like this:

"Can I use my old adapter with this one?"

"No, m'am. You'll have to buy a new one."

"What about my car charger?"

"No, that will need to be replaced, too."

"Ugh. OK. I'll just throw them away."

What a nuisance. She's got to spend extra money and those plastic and electronic doodads will occupy the bottom of a landfill until The End Of Days. The problem is even worse in the Europen Union. Fortunately, a group of manufacturers, including Apple, is working to change that. Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion have agreed to support a European Union-backed initiative to standardize these devices across the EU. It's a good idea that would benefit consumers and the environment.

The agreement is limited to smartphones for now, but if all goes well, will be expanded in 2012. Good luck to everyone involved.

Do you have Pre-envy due to the Touchstone and wireless charging capabilities? Well, good news then. A company called WildCharge has stepped in to give you similar charging capabilities with your original iPhone or iPod touch. The bundle is just shy of $80 and includes the charging pad and a gel skin that needs to be attached to your phone. Once installed, just lay your phone on the pad and get your charge on.

The skin unfortunately adds an unsightly hump at the base where the dock connector is, but that may be a small price to pay if you really need your iPhone charged sans wires.

The iPod touch version is available now with the iPhone version coming next month.

I have a MacBook Air. Although I can get about 5 hours of mobile use out of it by dimming the screen, turning off all wireless, and only running one app at a time, there are times I'd love to be able to stay unplugged for much longer. I could always get a solar charger, but that won't work well when it's dark out.

QuickerTek has announced the MacBook Air External Battery, a US$350 external box designed to let you run your MBA for up to 16 hours before plugging in. It's relatively small (7" x 3.5" x 1" -- 17.8 cm x 8.9 cm x 2.5 cm) and adds 1.2 pounds to the weight you'll have to lug around.

In order to connect the external battery to your MacBook Air, you'll either have to send your existing MagSafe cable in to be converted for use (US$25) or buy a modified cable from QuickerTek (US$100). The final bill for the MacBook Air External Battery and the cable is almost as pricey as that solar-powered charger, but it's going to give your MacBook Air much longer battery life. Now if QuickerTek could just come out with a battery to let me play Monopoly (click opens iTunes) on my iPhone for 10 hours straight...

According to a press release issued by Apple this morning, two Apple vice presidents are leaving the company for personal reasons, "as they devote more time to their young family."

iPod division senior vice president Tony Fadell and his wife, Danielle Lambert, vice president of human resources, will "reduce their roles" at Apple. Lambert will stay until the end of the year to transition to a successor.

"Tony and Dani have each made important contributions to Apple over the past eight years. We're sorry to see Dani go, and are looking forward to working with Tony in his new capacity," said Steve Jobs in the press release.

Former IBM chip executive Mark Papermaster will be joining Apple later this month to replace Fadell, and will gain the new title of Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering. He's expected to bring his 25 years of experience to Apple's server technologies, as well.

Papermaster unfortunately arrives with some baggage: IBM filed suit against Papermaster attempting to forbid him from taking his knowledge of the Power chip architecture to other companies.

IBM said in a statement to CNET that "Mr. Papermaster's employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM. We will vigorously pursue this case in court."

[Via MacDailyNews.]

Managing the power consumption of your Macs just got a little easier with the latest version of the LANrev cross-platform client management tool. In the new 5.0 build, the headline feature is bright green: you can assign power saving preferences to machines, including toggles based on whether a user is logged in and new reporting fields to monitor energy savings. For government users, the new FDCC SCAP component helps Windows clients meet Federal Desktop Core Configuration standards for 300-odd security settings on XP and Vista (yee-ikes).

LANrev's sometimes-confusing UI has been simplified, bringing many of the server-oriented functions (software distribution, license monitoring, etc.) under a single window; machines can now be categorized for ease of searching and organization. Software deployment has been jazzed up with new metapackage/multi-payload options and Adobe Creative Suite CS3 direct deployment for installers and updaters (no word yet on CS4 support). LANrev still offers one-click Mac reimaging without setting up a Netboot server, which is a big plus in large deployments.

Pricing for LANrev starts at about $50 per seat for corporate buyers ($40 for education markets) with tiered discounts for larger installations.

It has been a couple weeks since Apple started the recall process for USB iPhone power adapters. According to Apple, these adapters have the risk of their metal prongs breaking off inside the power outlet, creating a shock risk.

Many TUAW readers have noted that their replacement power adapters have been received. In addition, Mac|Life has posted some pictures of their replacement, noting that they're shipped in a huge box. They also have a side-by-side comparison of the defective adapter and the replacement -- the only difference being a green dot on the new one.

You can order a replacement on Apple's website, or visit an Apple store starting on Oct. 10. If you exchange your adapter at an Apple retail store, you will need to have your iPhone 3G and your affected adapter.


Thanks, Sean!

Electronista reports on a patent filing for an iPhone/iPod touch dock that could allow you to both charge and play video in landscape mode, simultaneously. The patent was filed on September 5, 2007 -- near the time of the iPod touch debut. The so-called "dock" looks more like the tiny holder that ships with the iPod touch, with the exception of a dock connector plugged in.

Apple does, however, file patents that it might not ever use -- as do most other companies. What do you think? Could this be a new dock design, or is it the patent for the included iPod touch stand?

Ah, game developers (especially EA game developers, of which id software's John Carmack is now one, after their announcement at E3 that they'd work together to publish games). They thrive on hype, and live, it seems sometimes, off of speculation. That's probably why Carmack has told Forbes that not only does he love his iPhone, and not only does he not want to "announce anything specifically," but id wants to make a game for the iPhone and "it would be," according to Carmack, "a graphical tour de force." See what we mean? Ah, game developers.

Anna Kang, who's the president of id Mobile (no relation), says that any id game they might be working on for the iPhone wouldn't be a new IP, so that puts it very much in the range of a Doom, Wolfenstein, or Quake game, and considering that another Wolfenstein sequel is being worked on right now, that probably makes it the most likely.

For his part, Carmack sounds really excited to have the iPhone as a platform (especially since he hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with Apple) -- he equates it in terms of power to a PS2 or Xbox, and says that a company could easily shell out $10 million on an iPhone game, be it a first person shooter or a deep MMORPG. But he admits that the 99-cent sales in the App Store can't support that yet, and it probably wouldn't be the best thing for id Mobile to pour their resources into something like that quite yet. Nevertheless, we'll wait and see what they come up with.

[via Joystiq]

In an interesting test by the folks over at Tom's Hardware, solid-state drives (SSDs) suck more power than their platter-based counterparts. Why should you care? Because the MacBook Air features an SSD in its higher-end configurations.

Tom's looked at four different SSD models, and compared them with a 7,200 RPM disk of the same size. One disk, from Crucial, touted its "low power consumption" in marketing materials. However, the disk reduced its test laptop's battery runtime from seven hours to six hours. Ouch.

SSDs are significantly faster, of course, but the idea that they consume less power appears to be false. As manufacturers develop thinner and thinner sub-notebooks, power consumption can only become more and more important.

Update: Many commenters are pointing out problems with how Tom's Hardware conducted the test. Peter cites a comment from our sister blog Engadget that says "The TH article was, as usual, significantly flawed. The benchmark they used to test battery life restarts itself after each completion, doing so until the battery is dead. However, the article did not report how many times the benchmark was able to run on the SSD vs. the mechanical HD." Commenter Greg recommended this Anandtech article as a counterpoint to this one.

Perennial iPod peripheral maker Griffin announced that their new PowerDock multiple-iPod / iPhone charging station would be available in June, and now it's apparently almost here.

Available in two- or four-dock models, the charging station is designed for nerdy families like mine with multiple iPods, or perhaps just gadget freaks. It supports most every flavor of iPod and iPhone, with adapter inserts included, and it's made of brushed metal which is always a lovely choice.

No word on a street date, but presumably it's still on schedule for a release this month. The two-dock version will run $49.99 and the four-dock version will be $69.99.

[via Gizmodo]

TUAW reader Scott Benson pointed us to these fab-u-lous earrings made from the power buttons of two old Powerbook cases. After drilling a hole in the tab, they make a beautiful and geekalicious pair of earrings. From an Apple-female-wise karma-point-of-view, these earrings go a long way towards making up for the fact that the iPhone was designed in a way that forces women to trim their fingernails or otherwise tupe loke this.

[Via Treehugger]

For all the wonders of the MagSafe connector -- scores of marriages saved and pets kept from the pound, as laptops that would have otherwise experienced impromptu gravity testing remained happily on stable surfaces -- there's been a remarkable gap in the charger offerings for Apple laptops since its introduction: no sanctioned car chargers. This is a point of contention for those of us who use our laptops as DIY entertainment centers on long trips, and has led to some family tensions in my household ("Why do the kids have to watch DVDs on MY machine?!?").

MCT does offer a homebrew solution that grafts a MagSafe connector onto a Kensington AC/DC adapter for universal chargeability, but at a fairly steep price; the basic conversion of a MacBook or MBP adapter to work with a DC transformer is cheaper, but still a little scary. With these limitations in mind, I went for a somewhat more traditional solution: an inexpensive, 96-watt inverter (DC to AC converter; I got mine for $10 on woot.com but there are other models and other deals) coupled with the lowest-wattage adapter available that would still run my MacBook Pro. In this instance, that's the 60-watt MacBook adapter, which runs and charges the MBP under all but the heaviest load and also is substantially smaller than the 'big brick' MBP adapter; works like a charm in my car. If you get a second charger for home use, might as well make it the MB adapter and add the inverter for mobile fun.

DISCLAIMER: Any use of an inverter, off-spec or off-brand power adapter, or other unofficial charger is at your own risk. I Am Not An Electrical Engineer.