According to the site Videgame Charts, the Nintendo Wii has sold 2 million units worldwide, while the PS3 hasn’t event sold 1 million. Part of this could be due to supply, but I am also sure that the price tag on the PS3 has something to do with it.

Now, if I could just find a Wii for my office…

The folks over at MacHeist are trying to raise some money for charity this week. They are offering a bundle of 10 apps, normally valued at close to $300 for only $49. If they reach $50,000, they will unlock Newsfire. If they reach $100,000, they will unlock TextMate.

A great deal if you are a Mac user and want some great apps. Here is what they are putting in the bundle.

• Delicious Library. (info, normally $40)
• RapidWeaver RapidWeaver. (info, normally $40)
• iClip 4 iClip 4 (exclusive beta access) (info, normally $39)
• FotoMagico FotoMagico (info, normally $80)
• ShapeShifter ShapeShifter (info, normally $20)
• DEVONthink Personal DEVONthink Personal (info, normally $39.95)
• Disco Disco (info, normally $14.95)
• Pangea Games Pangea game of your choice (info, normally $19.95-$29.95
• NewsFire Newsfire? (info, normally $18.99), unlocked for all at $50,000 raised for charities
• TextMate TextMate?!! (info, normally $49), unlocked for all at $100,000 raised

Head on over and help them raise some money!

Mozilla has officially relased Firefox 2. Although it has been available for the past 24 hours on the FTP site, it is now available for download via the Mozilla website.

You can also get

It has been rumored for a while now that Apple would be releasing a red iPod Nano to aid U2 frontman Bono in raising money for the Project Red charity, which helps raise awareness and money for The Global Fund.

The Chicago Tribune posted this photo today of U2 and Oprah at the Michigan Avenue Apple store in Chicago, clearly showing the red iPod Nano. Also, someone posted a photo of the Apple store in Manhattan getting a makeover, converting the normally white “apple” that hangs inside the entrance to a red one.

Ten dollars of each PROJECT RED iPod purchased will go towards the PROJECT RED Charity.

Google has finally brought Writely into the fold, fully integrating it into its other services. Before, Writely existed as a seperate service, still sporting the same interface it had when it was purchased by Google. Writely is a web-based word processor that allows you to create documents that are compatable with Microsoft Word.

With the launch of Documents, Google combines Writely and its recent Spreadsheet app into a single site. People have always talked about the possibility of a Google “Office” app
something that could replace the need for Microsoft Office. This could be the first step.

New outlets everywhere are confirming the purchase of YouTube by Google.

The deal is regarded as a largely defensive one that leapfrogs Google into a leading role in a burgeoning Internet marketplace. Moreover, the Google/YouTube deal highlights how Google and other Internet companies are betting heavily on video to attract more customers and generate more advertising revenue.

Microsoft’s “iPod Killer”, the Zune, will retail for $249.99, while songs for the device will cost about $.99 each. At this price, it sounds like Microsoft could take a loss on each unit sold, similar to what it did with the XBox 360.

Microsoft said it needed to put a comparable price on Zune, even if it meant that the company will suffer a loss from the device’s sales this holiday season.

“Halo Wars” is the next big real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires. Designed exclusively for the Xbox 360, “Halo Wars” allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective.

The time frame for Halo Wars is set before Halo 1, when the UNSC first encounters the Convenant. The game is being developed as an XBox 360 exclusive and no release date has been announced.

Walt Disney chief executive Robert Iger said on Tuesday the company sold 125,000 movie downloads worth $1 million in revenue through Apple Computer’s iTunes Store during the offering’s first week, Reuters is reporting.

Seems to be a pretty good start for the service. With results like this, I would expect to see other studios jumping on board soon.

Marking the next big milestone for its Connected Entertainment vision, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled details of the first products to be released under its Zune™ brand. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for consumers to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection — connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.

The Zune features a 30GB HDD, 3″ QVGA (320×240) screen, and WiFi. No word on price yet, although some speculate around $300, and it will be available this holiday season.

With all the Apple goodness going around yesterday, it seems that the release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD sort of slipped under the radar. The three disc set with a bonus disc is available for about $50 on Amazon.

Each disc includes 2 versions of the original Trilogy: the “enhanced” version with new scenes and special effects, and the original theatrical release.

UPDATE: I apparently linked to the wrong product at Amazon. Here are the links to all three episodes.

• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Nice little app here. It written in PHP4 with some nice AJAX sprinkled over it for effect.

YShout is a lightweight package that allows you to easily add a shoutbox to your website. Shoutboxes are a great tool to receive feedback from your visitors, and YShout allows you to chat with them in real-time! YShout is also:

Think of it as a basic version of Campfire written in PHP rather than Ruby.

Amazon has the Apple Mac Pro for under $2400, offering a $150 rebate on the system. This is only the base system. If you want to configure it further, you probably need to go directly through Apple or one of its resellers.

They also have:

• $200 rebate on 15″ MacBookPro $2299 – $200 = $2099
• $200 rebate on 17″ MacBook Pro $2799 – $200 = $2599
• $100 off white MacBook $1299 – $100 = $1199
• $100 off the black MacBook $1499 – $100 = $1399

All with free Super Saver Shipping!

More Apple Deals At Amazon

Google launched Picasa Web Albums about 2 months ago. Unfortunately, the only way to upload images to the service if you were on a Mac was via the web interface. Today, Google released two tools for Mac users that make it easier to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums.

The tools that have been released is a stand-alone uploader application and a full-on iPhoto plugin (think FlickrExport) that lets you send photos directly from iPhoto to Picasa Web Albums. I decided to give them a little test drive and here are my thoughts.

The iPhoto plugin works well enough. You select which photo or photos you want upload, chose Export from the File menu and click on the Picasa Web tab. You can either upload the photo to an existing album or create a new album. It will also let you resize the image on upload or leave them alone.

Once it starts uploading, it shows you a progress window with how much time is remaining, how fast your are uploading and how much data you are transferring overall (3mb of 4mb, for example). Once the upload is complete, it gives you an option of opening the album in your browser.

The standalone uploader works very similar to the uploader tool that is bundled with Flock. You drag the photos you want to upload into the interface, where you can create a new album or add the photos to an existing album. You can also add a caption to the photos before uploading them. Aside from the drag and drop function to add the photos to the upload batch, it works in much the same way as the iPhoto plugin.

Both apps are listed as Beta (of course), and seem to be pretty stable. I just uploaded 2 photos using each method and ran into no problems. Will they sway me from using Flickr and FlickrExport? Probably not, but they are nice to have and at least if I DO want to upload images to my Picasa Web Album, I don’t have to use my web browser to do so.

Republished from the author’s site with permission.

37Signals has finally lauched the long-talked about Calendar for their Backpack application. However, the Calendar is only available to paying subscribers. Just taking a look at some of the features of the Calendar, it may convince many to upgrade to at least the $5/month plan.

Two of my favorite cartoons in recent history are The Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. Both shows were wacky enough for kids to enjoy, but had enough double entendre and obscure cultural references to make it a cult classic among high school and college kids as well. The ending to each episode of Pinky and the Brain, with Brain posing the question “Pinky, Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” was always a great way to wrap up an episode.

Well, I was flipping through the channels tonight at home and caught the tail end of a commercial adveritising DVD sets of both series. The Animaniacs DVD Set contains 25 episodes and the Pinky and The Brain DVD Set contains 22 episodes. Both are definitely on my wishlist.