“People are going to love streaming movies and TV shows in 1080p with the new Apple TV, and photos look beautiful displayed at the maximum resolution of your TV,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Apple TV is easier than ever to use with its new icon-based interface and the ability to access your purchased movies, TV shows and music right from iCloud.”

Apple's iCloud services have also been updated to support 1080p video, allowing users to stream their content to any linked device including the new Apple TV. AllThingsD notes, however, that not all studios are participating in the iCloud video streaming, with Fox and Universal having to hold out due to agreements with HBO.

Apple on Friday began redecorating San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with a massive, colorful banner featuring the company's logo ahead of next week's media event.

Workers began covering the glass windows on the center Friday morning in California. Apple typically hypes its product unveilings with decorations throughout the center.

As of Friday afternoon, workers were about halfway done with sticking the design to the center's windows. This year's graphic is a mix of vivid colors in the background, with a giant white Apple logo up front.

The bright colors and what appear to be paint splatters in the design are somewhat reminiscent of the theme for the media event Apple held in early 2010 to introduce the first iPad. As rumors of an Apple tablet were swirling, Apple invited members of the media to "come see our latest creation."

This year's invitation features a picture of an iPad with a fingertip touching the iOS Calendar application icon. The date on the calendar is Wednesday, March 7, which is when the media event will be held.

Apple has unveiled its previous two iPad models in events at the Yerba Buena Center. Last year's decoration was a black Apple logo on a white background, surrounded by colorful dots.

Invitations to last year's event featured the iOS calendar icon peeling back to reveal an iPad. It invited members of the press to "come see what 2011 will be the year of," and at the event Apple declared it the "Year of iPad 2."

We’ve gotten word that iPad pricing is going to be the same across the board as the current iPad 2 models which should be no big surprise given Apple’s history – they rarely raise prices. Even better, some countries with currencies doing better than the US dollar should expect to see marginal drops in prices.

The source had previously revealed part numbers that had appeared in Apple's retail inventory. The source now seems to be suggesting that those part numbers carry the same prices and configurations as the current iPad 2.

MC705LL/A – J1 GOOD A-USA 
MC706LL/A – J1 BETTER A-USA 
MC707LL/A – J1 BEST A-USA 

MD328LL/A – J1 GOOD B- USA 
MD329LL/A – J1 BETTER B-USA 
MD330LL/A – J1 BEST-B-USA 

MD366LL/A – J2A GOOD A-USA 
MD367LL/A – J2A BETTER A-USA 
MD368LL/A – J2A BEST A-USA 

MD369LL/A – J2A GOOD B-USA 
MD370LL/A – J2A BETTER B-USA 
MD371LL/A – J2A BEST B-USA

J1 is believed to be a Wi-Fi version of the iPad 3, while J2 is believed to be one with Cellular connectivity. 

Some had been hoping for a boost in storage capacities to account for the long rumored Retina Display that is expected to be found on the iPad 3. Retina-sized graphics and video will take considerably more storage than those designed for the standard iPad. 

Apple is holding a media event on March 7th to presumably announce the new iPad.

                                                               Image from The Verge
Apple is of course expected to introduce the iPad 3 at the event, with an upgraded Apple TV set-top box also reportedly in the plans. Rumors have also suggested that Apple could show off a new high-definition audio format with "adaptive streaming" that could allow Apple's iCloud and iTunes Match services to send varying qualities of audio files to different devices depending on bandwidth and hardware requirements.

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Official Rules**

This update improves the reliability of booting from the network, addresses an issue that can prevent HDCP authentication after a reboot, and resolves an issue with boot device selection when a USB storage device is hot-plugged.The software updates are: 

- Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.6 - Mac mini (Mid 2011) 

- iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.9 - iMac (Early 2011) 

- MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.4 - MacBook Air (Mid 2011) 

- MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.7 - MacBook Pro (Early 2011) and (Late 2011)

This update resolves an issue that may cause an iMac to not automatically connect to a known Wi-Fi network after waking from sleep. 

It is recommended for all iMac (Late 2009 or newer) users running 10.7.3.

Weighing in at 25.81MB, the update can be downloaded from Apple's software update page.

Preview, Apple's simple, utilitarian image and PDF viewer, offers insight into how the company plans to deeply integrate iCloud into apps and simplify and improve file management in general in this summer's release of OS X Mountain Lion.

iCloud was a top billed feature of OS X 10.7 Lion, replacing MobileMe and adding Photo Stream, Find My Mac and early support for Documents & Data. 

In Mountain Lion, iCloud adds new support for configured Accounts sync between systems, and enhances Back to My Mac with automated troubleshooting fixes. As pictured below, iCloud's System Preferences pane now offers to automatically enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol on your AirPort base station to make sure BTMM will work as intended. 

The evolution of iCloud 

Prerelease builds of Mountain Lion indicate Apple has been experimenting with how to add iCloud features to its own apps, including the simple Text Edit. Initially, iCloud was simply added as the default location for new files (if a user was signed into the service). When you save a Text Edit document, iCloud appears as an alternative location, despite being nowhere on the real local file system. 

This behavior is similar to how iDisk worked, and also similar to using a remote file server. Among other Mountain Lion apps however, support for iCloud is far more sophisticated and simplified, with a strong resemblance to iOS. A key example of how it works is visible in Preview.

Preview not only shows off how Apple is rethinking the toolbar, it also demonstrates how the company wants apps to access documents saved to iCloud. In the open file dialog below, Preview presents two options: the default, graphical iCloud window showing files in Preview's App Library of documents saved on iCloud (below top), and the standard file system available by clicking On My Mac (below bottom).

ICloud is more than remote storage 

While often compared to Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive or other cloud storage services, iCloud is a package of unique offerings that goes far beyond offering just web-based file storage. Apple introduced iDisk for Mac users back in 2000, allowing simple remote internet storage of files. There's nothing new about that.

One major new difference with iCloud it that ties documents with their application. This is similar to how iOS stores apps' files within the apps' own sandbox. When iOS or Mac apps save files to iCloud, they're similarly protected within that app's private library of documents. 

This prevents rogue apps from accessing, erasing or modifying your data. While viruses aren't a problem for Macs today, there is malware users can inadvertently install on their own or be tricked to open. Without the kind of app-level security iCloud provides, these could damage or spy on your data. 

In that sense, iCloud offers apps' documents a new level of security from other, potentially dangerous apps similar to the way file permissions work on a user level to protect all of a user's files from other, potentially dangerous users who might access the system (including a remote attacks).