Back at the Macworld Expo in January, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that some 20 percent of the installed base was running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. But do we have any sense of the current adoption rate for Leopard? Of course, Apple has the best statistics but it’s unlikely that we will receive much word on adoption rates until the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Still, aside from the semi-educated guesstimates available for a fee from analyst companies, there are several developers that provide a unique view of the installed base. Mac developer The Omni Group, a Seattle-based maker of a number of Mac OS X business applications, collects OS version information from its customers and provides it for…

Although the voted ended Saturday, people will have to wait a couple of days to find out for sure if Open XML will be certified as an ISO standard.

It may not be live yet, but the news aggregation service is the latest experiment in online journalism.

Want to turn your Wi-Fi-enabled 3G phone into a wireless hot spot? A company called TapRoot Systems has launched a product that will enable you to do just that. There’s just one catch: The WalkingHotSpot service will be marketed to wireless carriers, who will then offer it to their subscribers. I spoke with Mike Linstrom, vice president of carrier solutions for TapRoot, and he says the company is in talks with several wireless carriers but is not yet ready to publicly announce any deals. I assume that carriers will charge extra for the service, and he says that’s a decision that each wireless company will make. (Sounds like a yes to me, since WalkingHotSpot users could consume considerably more 3G…

Today the web is alight with speculation as to how Apple will sell 45 million iPhones in 2009.  The catalyst for this speculation is Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster who continues to stand by a prediction made in June 2007 (weeks before the iPhone went on sale) that by 2009 Apple will be shifting iPhones at a rate of 45 million a year. How could Apple achieve these stratospheric targets?  Munster offers the following roadmap: Release a 3G iPhone in 3 - 6 months Expand the iPhone range to include two or three models, including a lower-priced model Keep entering new countries Adding new features Even compared to iPod sales, 45 million iPhones a year is an ambitious target 45 million…

Google launched a new feature in Japan called Google Dajare. Dajare is similar to an English pun. This new Google service expands Google’s mission to organize the worlds information by also “organizing the world’s laughter”. To see the new feature in action, check out these search results for “domestic flights” on google.co.jp. Of course, this is very likely just an April Fools joke, as April 1st has arrived in Japan already.

According to Haaretz, an Israeli team of computer scientists has developed a software that ranks facial attractiveness of women. Instead of identifying basic facial characteristics, this software has been designed to make aesthetic judgments — after training. The lead researcher said this program ‘constitutes a substantial advance in the development of artificial intelligence.’ It is interesting to note that the researchers focused on women only. Apparently, men’ faces are more difficult to grade. But read more… The picture on the left shows how the system is initially calibrated: “Facial coordinates with hair and skin sample regions as represented by the facial feature extractor. Coordinates are used for calculating geometric features and asymmetry. Sample regions are used for extracting color values…

Microsoft joins the MIT Kerberos Consortium, a security authentication and authorization group.

The grant-making outfit says it will put up $100 million to fund novel ideas, vaccines, or drug-delivery systems that protect people against infectious diseases.

We hear stories of “voting irregularities” around the world, not least of all right hear in the USA, but surely the ISO is different. No? The Register reports that delegates have been “complaining loudly about alleged heavy-handed tactics and misdeeds in the voting process” on Microsoft’s OOXML standard. The Register says that Microsoft appears to have locked up the election after a number of countries’ standards bodies made abrupt switches to favor the format. Norway’s Geir Isene says the country sees a booming business in fixing “such a broken standard. The meeting: 27 people in the room, 4 of which were administrative staff from Standard Norge. The outcome: Of the 24 members attending, 19 disapproved, 5 approved. The result: The…