New and Noteworthy: Zune's ridiculous "points" system;� When will Firefox get some Mac OS X love?; more

Zune's ridiculous "points" system Walt Mossberg reports that the Microsoft Zune store will use an inane points system for purchases. "Even worse, to buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of 'points' from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can't just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. You must first add points to your account, then buy songs with these points. So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft, one of the world's richest companies, to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another. And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents." More.

Mozilla answers: When will Firefox get some much needed love on Mac OS X? Slashdot poses that question to Mozilla programmer Chris Beard. The interviewer asks "When will Firefox get some much needed love on Mac OS X? The toolbars look hideous, the form widgets don't look aqua like, and there is no integration into OS X services (like the dictionary). Plus there is always a need for speed improvements." Chris answers "It turns out that it's hard to find developers with rich experience in application development on Mac, but we'd be happy if any passionate open-source Slashdot Mac users want to help out! We're constantly improving our platform support and Gecko 1.9 will have support for Cocoa which will improve our form widget rendering as well as the ability to integrate with OSX services." More.

Is Xbox 360 Video a Landmark Shift? Broadband Reports rounds up ample opinion circulating over Microsoft's decision to offer broadband TV and film downloads via their Xbox 360 game console. "Blogging Stocks says the battle is on between the 360 and Apple's upcoming iTV when it comes to getting video from your PC (or Mac) to your living room." More.

TIME gadgets of the year: MacBook Pro, Nike iPod kit Ars Technica reports that (unsurprisingly) TIME Magazine has chosen the MacBook Pro and Nike iPod Sport Kit in its list of this year's best gadgets. "Once you go through the whole slideshow, viewers have the opportunity to vote on what they think is the official Gadget of the Year. So far, it looks like the MacBook Pro is gunning it out against the DS Lite for the #1 spot (the DS Lite is currently leading the MacBook Pro by 4 percentage points), and all of the others are getting paltry results. Not to sway the vote or anything, but I voted for the Nike iPod Sport Kit. ;)" More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• Firefox 1.5.0.8 released
• Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 released: security, stability enhancements
• Turning off wireless security/switching standard for better AirPort performance under Mac OS X 10.4.8
• mac.column.ted: The trouble with creating bootable drives and discs [Part 1]
• Apple unveils MacBook (13") with Core 2 Duo processors
• iTunes 7.0.2 (#6): Problems playing some files -- fix; Crashes/quits while library is updating -- fixes; more

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