If you tried to log into any of the Apple stores, you’ll find that they are all closed for maintenance. When all the online Apple stores are closed it means a major announcement is in the works. Although some Apple stores have been closed on the past three Tuesdays many online stores, from other countries, were open for business.

Apple Insider was able to confirm that three Apple formatted part numbers MB402LL/A, MB403LL/A, and MB404LL/A have materialized in inventory management systems of both Apple and one of its resellers Best Buy. The part numbers, for future MacBook Pro models, also included pricing that matches current prices offered by Apple, $1999.00, $2499.00 and $2799.00. That’s good news for those looking to update their Mac or switch over to a new Mac since you won’t be paying a higher price.

If you’ve been waiting for the release of Time Capsule it looks as though your wait is almost over. Best Buy is featuring Time Capsule in this week flyer. Apple had stated on their website that the Time Capsule would be released sometime in February.

Neverwinter Nights 2 has gone gold. There’s no surprise there. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a computer role playing game. It’s the sequel to BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights. Neverwinter Nights was based on the highly successful Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. Aspyr announced that they will begin shipping Neverwinter Nights 2 on February 26, 2008.

Sunday night saw the 80th Academy Awards ceremony take place, an event which is broadcast live around the world, and gets millions of television viewers in all territories. So where better than to market your console?

The Asus EeePC is the little laptop that could.  Fitting in the UMPC class, it is a small lightweight laptop but some say it could be more powerful.  The Celeron M processor used in it is not exactly fast.  The upgrade is not for the weak-hearted as some soldering is required.

If you’re a science junkie and a Mac user, you’ve watched enviously as your friends and colleagues used biotechnology software on their PCs. Now you don’t have to look from afar anymore, as companies like GeneGo are bringing gene technology and bio applications to the Mac (and to Linux users …

Along with the updated MacBook and MacBook Pro Apple announced that iTunes has breezed past Best Buy to become the number two music retailer in the US. This was measured by unit volume, market researcher NPD Group. The top position is held by Wal-Mart. Featuring over 50 million iTunes customers their combined purchases has surpassed four billion songs. On Christmas day iTunes sold over 20 million songs. iTunes offers the world’s largest music catalog and boasts over six million songs from all major and independent labels.

Microsoft is trying to gets its OOXML (Open Office XML) certified by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Google instead wants Microsoft to comply to the same standards as everyone else with Open Source. OOXML is not a truly “open” technology, and still allows Microsoft some restrictions on its users, while Open Source is just that: completely open.

How is this for irony? Sony wants to make it easy for consumers to copy music. A new turntable announced by Sony will allow music to be transferred from vinyl to a PC over USB, allowing consumers to convert the music to digital storage.

Remember the recent disaster that left parts of the Middle East and India without Internet for days? That incident happened because of damage done to an undersea cable internet system. That is the very same type of system that Google has decided to invest in.

The Encyclopedia of Life project aims to aggregate information for all of the 1.8 million known species and publish it on the Internet. It will pull content from a series of scientific databases and focus on engaging the scientific community to add content as the project matures. Will that strategy, in its scientific niche, work better than Wikipedia’s more open approach?

Amazon is currently offering two iPods for the price of one. When you purchase the 32GB iPod touch you’ll also score the tiny 1 GB iPod shuffle for free.

Well it’s about time! Apple has finally updated the MacBook Pro. The MacBook has also received an update. The cases, for both models, have remained the same. The MacBook and the MacBook Pro feature the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives (up to 300GB) and 2GB of …

Microsoft is going to be playing the role of “big brother” even if users choose not to install SP1.  The service pack is due for release in mid-March but another update will be seeking out illegal copies of the software.