New & Noteworthy: 'Traffic' Director Uses a Mac; Palm to

Offer m130 Refunds; Windows Media 9 Unveiled

'Traffic' director uses a Mac Steven Soderbergh is the director behind Traffic, Ocean's Eleven and Erin Brockovich, which have had the large casts, complex crews and expensive equipment expected from a Hollywood blockbuster. The UK Guardian reports that for his latest film, however, Soderbergh decided to try something different: shooting the whole thing on equipment you can buy in the high street. The film, Full Frontal, now on release in the US, was shot on consumer-range MiniDV cameras, and edited with off-the-shelf editing software on a standard Apple Mac. More.

Palm to offer m130 refunds CNET reports that handheld maker Palm said that it would offer refunds to customers who bought its m130 device and are upset that it does not display as many colors as the company advertised it would. Last month, Palm admitted that the unit was not capable of displaying the 65,000-plus colors that the company claimed in advertisements. More.

Windows Media 9 unveiled ZDNN has posted a report on the newly announced, Windows Media 9, formerly code-named Corona. The software has been in development for nearly four years at a cost of about $500 million, Gates said. It improves on earlier versions of Microsoft's digital player and server technology on a number of fronts. For businesses, the technology includes improved media management features, for example. For consumer media playing, the system is updated for speed and seamless playback to create a more TV-like experience on the PC. More.

Formac offers 20.1" LCD Formac has introduced the gallery 2010, a large active matrix TFT with an effective diagonal length of 20.1' which features a high-definition UXGA resolution of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. The gallery 2010 is equipped with ADC or DVI interface, and is Macintosh and PC compatible. The monitor will be available at the end of September for US $1699. More.