If you put in a pre-order now you’ll get your hands on Apple’s new Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on October 26th. Besides now being completely 64-bit (with full 32-bit compatibility) it features all kinds of goodies:

• The Dock is now more 3D-looking and features Stacks to get rid of desktop clutter
• The Finder is updated with support for stuff like Cover Flow and you can use boolean logic (AND, OR etc) as well as quick date ranges to quickly find the files you need
• Quick Look lets you preview all kinds of documents in full-size before opening them
• Time Machine is the new backup system, besides keeping regular backups it lets you “step back in time” and revert to older versions of your files.
• Multiple virtual desktops on a single screen with Spaces

Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard ($139.00)
Amazon: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard ($109.00)

Steve Jobs just announced that the public beta of Safari 3 is available as a free download, but the real kicker is of course that it’s available for Windows now as well. The old Mac / Windows barriers just keep on falling apart, don’t they?

The Windows version looks just like the Mac version and (according to Apple) it’s two times faster than Internet Explorer and 1.6 times faster than Firefox – but before you get your hopes up you should bear in mind that this release is rightfully marked beta, there’s plenty of reports of websites rendering poorly in it still.

(There’s a demo video available for those still not believing.)

Apple.com/safari

Popular Mechanics got Microsoft to demonstrate Surface for them so grab a new cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the video below:

Popular Mechanics: Microsoft Surface: Behind-the-Scenes First Look
Microsoft.com: Surface

(Via OhGizmo)

I wrote about Barbarian Software’s Magnetosphere earlier and claimed that it was one of the most beautiful audio visualizations I’ve seen ever (see the original video here). Now (finally!) they’ve managed to convert it into a free, interactive and absolutely stunning Mac / Windows iTunes Visualizer.

Barbarian Software: Magnetosphere iTunes Visualizer (Mac, Windows)

Check out a video of it in action after the jump:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFJjoiNEbdw]

(Via Macfeber)

The WebKit-based Mac browser Shiira recently left the beta stage and released version 2.0. Quite a few fancy features in this one, or what do you think about:

• Safari Exposé (treats tabs just as your ordinary Exposé)
• Folding paper page transitions (for those who want it, but only in Tiger)
• Refreshed user interface
• Private browsing
• Safari and Firefox bookmark integration
• Extensive RSS support

…And much more. If the whole “based on WebKit” thing sounds suspicious to you I can add that Safari is based on it as well.

Download Shiira

(Via TUAW)

Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani has combined a number of different Firefox extensions designed to power-up Gmail usage in Firefox into one, huge extension called Better Gmail. So, now you can get saved searches, attachment icons, label colors, keyboard macros, filter assistants and right-click conversation previews out of a single extension.

Lifehacker.com: Better Gmail Firefox extension

Version 2.0 of the free e-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird is now available to the general public.

As usual it’s available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and the new features include:

• Advanced folder views (different ways of organizing and display your folders)
• Message tagging (tags that can be combined with saved searches)
• Message history navigation
• Improved search (including a quick search that starts searching as you type)
• Saved searches
• Improved “You’ve-got-mail!”-alerts
• Phishing protection and improved privacy features
• Easy access to popular web mail services (Gmail, .Mac etc)

… and much more. Read more about the new features here.

Mozilla.com: Download Thunderbird

Some dashboard widgets are useful, some are not – Mighty Monitor is one of the former. This beauty tracks the battery status of your Mighty Mouse and/or Apple Wireless Keyboard, letting you know when the juice is about to end. Simple and elegant and it’ll probably save you from a couple of frustrating moments of dead computer peripherals.

Apple Dashboard Widgets: Mighty Monitor

(Via Apple Gazette)

Adobe presented the Adobe Media Player (formerly code-named “Philo”) at the NAB 2007 conference in Las Vegas today – a desktop media player designed to stream, download, manage, queue and play Flash video. This application skips the whole idea of storing the media locally and uses RSS and other feeds to help you find on-line media to watch or subscribe to (no more pesky web browsers between you and the media). If you want to you’ll still be able to store some media locally for later off-line watching as well.

Adobe Media Player will be available for both Windows and Mac with support for Linux to follow.

Adobe Labs: Media Player

Microsoft just announced their new browser plug-in Silverlight (formerly known as WPF/E to developers) in Las vegas. This plug-in is obviously designed to compete with Flash in the areas of video, interactivity, animation and other rich media experiences on the web but this puppy is High Definition-ready right from the start.

Also, the plug-in won’t be exclusive to Windows and Internet Explorer, it’ll be available for Safari (Mac) and Firefox as well.

Microsoft.com: Silverlight
SeattlePi.com: Big names back Microsoft’s Silverlight browser plug-in

Update: So what does the Adobe CEO think of Microsoft Silverlight?

“Even though they say Silverlight is going to be cross-platform, and maybe the first [version] will be, I’m not sure our customers or the people that are trying to deliver that content will have the degree of confidence that if they go with Microsoft, they’ll be able to provide them with a complete cross-platform solution forever,” he said.

(Via On10)