Thursday's Thrilling Victory

Go Sox! The curse has been lifted! Halloween's almost here. Time to fire up the pumpkin Dremel. Columbus discovered Cuba on this day in 1492. Eli Whitney applied for the patent on the cotton gin in 1793. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886. It's French you know. The first baby was born in an aircraft in 1929. The Cuban missile crisis ended in 1962. Happy birthday Jonas Salk, 1914.

1. Big announcements from Apple. As expected Apple announced the new black and red U2 iPod on Tuesday, and for once the rumor sites were right about the iPod Photo. But up here the biggest excitement is reserved for the announcement that the iTunes Music Store will be available in Canada next month. That's what I'm talking aboot.
2. Gateway has also announced a digital music and photo player. The 4 gig Gateway Photo Jukebox is $250.
3. GeorgeWBush.com has figured out how to handle the Denial of Service attacks that closed it down last week. According to Netcraft, the official re-elect Bush site is rejecting all traffic from overseas. I was able to get in from Canada, but that's a province of the US anyway, isn't it?
4. Yahoo is matching Google with its new SMS search. You can use your cell phone to query Yahoo, and unlike Google, you can click the search results to dial the phone. Yahoo prez Dan Rosensweig is calling cell phone search the "tipping point." Both companies are looking to mobile phones for future growth.
5. Meanwhile, Google has purchased the earth. Well, a really big map of the earth, anyway. Google, spending a little of its stock windfall, as acquired Keyhole Corp., a company that has developed a 12 terabyte 3D image of the planet. Google is cutting the price of the Keyhole software to $29.95, but you can try it free from keyhole.com.
6. I like this headline in PC Pro: Microsoft's Ballmer tells customers to stick with Windows. No kidding. The latest FUD from Redmond is that Microsoft is more responsive to security flaws than Linux and has fewer holes to begin with. Wow. Ballmer must be really scared.
7. The RIAA has given Outkast the award for most downloaded digital song in 2004. The multi-platinum Hey Ya! sold 400,000 copies online (you're welcome, my daughter bought both the instrumental and vocal versions). The new digital gold award requires sales of 100,000 online copies. Digital platinum rewards sales of over 200,000 copies.

Listen in tomorrow at 8:35a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles.