Gearfuse

FastMac recently announced its release of an external Blu-Ray player for the Mac OS X, beating out Apple to the punch of integrating Blu-Ray into the Mac infrastructure. This could be a huge advantage for Blu-Ray over HD DVD now that Mac users will happily have the capability to watch their favorite Blu-Ray movie.

The Blu-Ray drive upgrade will allow for a 1x BR-RW burn speed, and will also allow for 8x DVD-RW. It comes bundled with the award-winning Toast 8 Titanium software and includes one 25GB Blu-ray rewritable disc so you can get started on the double. Though, this technology won’t come cheap. The FastMac Blu-Ray Player is available now for $799.95. — Andrew Dobrow

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With news of Apple’s patent for a touch controlled mouse, other similar concepts and releases are jumping out from the drawing boards. Saitek has released its Wireless Obsidian Mouse which features a touch scroll wheel along with a high-precision 1000dpi optical sensor that operates through RF. The mouse also comes with a USB dock for charging and a spare battery.

The mouse just as an all around cool look to it, with its sleek black, curved design. Luckily for everyone, the mouse works with both Windows and Mac OS X systems. Yay for us! Available now for $50. — Andrew Dobrow

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Before you run out and buy a FM transmitter for your iPod, consider this. This MP3-playing Watch comes with its own FM Transmitter. The watch has everything built in to have tunes blaring through your car stereo whenever you want them too. And although there has been other wirelessly transmitting MP3 watches, the difference with this one is that it actually looks cool.

The watch is available in storage choices of 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB models for the price of 12,800 yen ($107.83), 16,800 yen ($141.53), and 19,800 yen ($166.81) respectively, and has a cool control interface via buttons on the watches side. They are compatible with both Microsoft Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X. The FMP3 Watch is a nice substitution for a typical transmitter. Available now from Thanko. — Andrew Dobrow

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The 6th major release of Apple’s Mac OS X is slated for release as early as late March, says sources. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which became available for testing last August, is marked as a major release featuring the added innovated feature of both 64-bit and non-emulated 32-bit drivers.

64-bit capability allows users to use higher then 4GB of memory in their computer, and is said to run even quicker then 32-bit with same memory amounts in both. The faster bit-rate for 10.5 Leopard will allow a faster reaction time for loading applications.

Also added to the OS X is a few application surprises, including Time Machine, a automatic session restoration and backup program, and Spaces, an application allowing easy navigation between programs needed for the same task. Along with the new programs comes a dashboard of over 2,500 widgets, improved Spotlight and iChat support, and a “Core Animation” developers tool for minimal coded animation. — Andrew Dobrow

Report: Apple to release Mac OS X Leopard as early as end of march [MacDailyNews]