Later today we’ll see new Apple gear. Cultists know that Apple announces news then. But most don’t realize why. So I poked around and found out the answer:

Apple news turns out to be just another practical left brain decision built entirely around the news cycle.

Travel: Journalists won’t travel on Sundays, a non working day, for an event or presentation on Monday.
Weeklies: While a blog or website only needs moments to distribute the news, the longest lead time of any publication that can still be considered timely is the weekly.

Google has figured out that it can save money by getting product ideas from users rather than engineers. After all, you can’t pay engineers in “shout outs” on their blogs like their offering for users.

Yes, the tanking economy is hitting the mighty Google just as hard as every other company out there, and they’re having to cut costs as a result.

Filed under: Fandom, Home Entertainment

With all the different holidays in December, I’m sure a good majority of you received at least one gift at some point in the last week or so. And seeing as most of the folks who read this blog are serious movie nerds, we’re guessing your gift(s) were related to movies in some way, shape or form.

Six months and 150,000 signups later, boxee is preparing to move from alpha to beta status, ready to drop any unsent invites on all interested parties by the 25th ahead of the open alpha period starting January 8, 2009. While OS X / Apple TV / Ubuntu have been the required attire so far, Windows users won’t be out in the cold much longer, as CEO Avner Ronen revealed in comments on the boxee blog that the Windows alpha program will start “early 2009″ with thousands of invites sent out every week.

While we may not know exactly what item we’re looking at in the photo above, we do know that we like it. This hot peripheral showed up on Lenovo’s photostream without any explanation, and from the image it seems pretty much like a keyboard-lover’s dream; it looks to be wireless, psychotically thin, and boasts an integrated trackpad and numpad.

Pat Holt has resumed her blog, Holt Uncensored.

A daily round-up of the latest publishing news: Robert T. Kiyosaki, Grand Central to Publish Online Book for Free; Judith Regan Vs. Michael Wolff; Powell’s Ask Employees to Cut Hours; Team of Rivals to Viking U.K.; David Hirshey to Edit Sarah Silverman; Melville House to Publish Reporters Chicago Blog; Don J.

In a statement on his blog Tuesday night, Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt announced that the Christian publishing house has laid off 54 employees, or 10% of its workforce.