A lot of buzz was created after Apple seeded Mac OS X 10.6 Build 10A432 which was purported to be the Gold Master or the final build. In the release notes (pdf) of Mac OS X 10.6 Build 10A432, Apple lists the Mac machines that can support 64-bit kernel. So, the developers can develop and test their 64-bit applications along with 64-bit device drivers.

Snow Leopard will ship out starting August 28th as a $29 upgrade.

Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on August 28

CUPERTINO, Calif., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X v10.6 Snow Leopard(TM) will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard® users for $29.

“Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we’re happy to get it to users earlier than expected,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “For just $29, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world’s most advanced operating system and the only system with built in Exchange support.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder(TM); Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast;* Time Machine® with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup;* a Dock with Expose® integration; QuickTime® X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari® 4 that is up to 50 percent** faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal®, iChat® and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software developers to write applications that take advantage of multicore processors. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with built in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and it allows you to use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can also take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight® searches and Quick Look previews.

Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, the next major release of the world’s easiest to use server operating system, will also go on sale Friday, August 28. Snow Leopard Server includes innovative new features such as Podcast Producer 2 and Mobile Access Server and is priced more affordably than ever at $499 with unlimited client licenses. More information and full system requirements for Snow Leopard Server can be found at www.apple.com/server/macosx/.

Pricing & Availability

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard on August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers, and online pre-orders can be made through Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) starting today. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). For Tiger® users with an Intel-based Mac®, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife® ‘09 and iWork® ‘09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-to-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-to-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, whichever comes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html.

Its hardly a surprise that the new PS3 Slim is Officially ‘ON’. It’ll be out in the first week of September (September 1 in North America and Europe, September 3 for Japan), will retail for $300 (or 300 Euro, or 29,980 Yen), and around 20k in Indian market. It’s smaller and lighter, has a 120GB HDD, and packs “all the same features” of the regular PS3 while consuming 34 percent less power and taking up 32 percent less space. Existing PS3 SKUs have their prices dropped a hundie apiece tomorrow in anticipation, so be sure to grab a space heater while you’ve still got a shot though we’re not sure why you’d pay $300 for an 80GB PS3 when you can wait a couple weeks and get 120GB in a cuter package. A couple pics of the unveil are after the break.

The new 3.0 firmware will be released concurrently with the PS3 slim, which should provide a breath of fresh air for existing machines. Other new features of the PS3 slim include BRAVIA Sync, which allows you to control the PS3 XMB over HDMI through your BRAVIA TV remote, and System Standby to shut off the PS3 when the BRAVIA TV is off. Sony also claims this new machine will run more quietly than existing PS3 systems, which is good news for people who like to watch movies or have conversations in the general vicinity of their game console.

Check out the PS3 Slimmer and Fatter comparision in pics, the new one really seems to have reduced a lot. Below we have the PS3 video.

TuneWiki turns song lyrics into subtitles so you can read along while you listen.

You must have herd about Lyrical, the free app that lets you look up lyrics for the currently playing song but TuneWiki does better, spooling out lyrics as the song plays. It actually streams lyrics in Real Time.

With TuneWiki for iPhone and iPod Touch, you choose a song from your library using TuneWiki interface, then watch the lyrics scroll past as it plays.

The song has already been “time-synced” by another user. If not, you’ll have the option of advancing the lyrics yourself so the app will know the sync points in the future.

TuneWiki also lets you stream music from countless Shoutcast radio stations, and works the same lyric-subtitling magic with most songs.

It also includes a YouTube video search option and supports both Twitter and Facebook, it can automatically update your status to show what song you’re playing. It even emulates the TuneWiki site’s mapping option to show you who’s listening to what in various parts of the world.

Overall, It’s a pretty cool app. But browsing your song library is a slow, awkward process, in part because TuneWiki lacks the alphabet-shortcut menu on the right edge of the screen.

The menu options and icons aren’t logically designed or organized. Most buttons don’t look like buttons.

If you like to read lyrics while you’re listening to music its the best. The subtitling works pretty well, and it’s hard to complain too much about an app that costs nothing to use.