Photo: Apple Inc.

[UPDATE: On Monday, Nov. 10, nearly a month later, Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.2, an extensive update that fixed the guest-account bug and more than three dozen other Snow Leopard problems. For a full list, see here.]

Call it fallout from the Sidekick fiasco.

Having watched Microsoft (MSFT) go through a weekend from hell for wiping out the personal data of thousands of T-Mobile (DT) customers, Apple (AAPL) finally acknowledged a data-swallowing bug that Snow Leopard users have been complaining about since September.

"We are aware of the issue, which occurs only in extremely rare cases, and we are working on a fix," an Apple spokesperson told CNET's Erica Ogg on Monday.

According to several hundred messages on Apple's discussion boards, the Snow Leopard problem is triggered when users log in and out of an old Leopard guest account and then try to log back in to their regular account. One victim described the effect as follows:

"Not only did Snow Leopard wipe out ALL of my documents, my email accounts, my address book, it broke the dynamic spell checker in yahoo messenger, caused random problems with Safari, InDesign, and others, caused lockups, spinning beach balls, loud fans… and it was just getting worse. I am restoring Leopard (sans snow) as I write this." (link)

The Sidekick disaster is of a different magnitude — which may be why Apple is willing to have the two discussed in the same news cycle. More

Ben Foss, director of access technology in Intel's Digital Health Group, uses the Intel Reader to scan a book. Photo: Jon Fortt.

When Ben Foss's father in law was dying of liver cancer months ago, friends suggested Foss read "How We Die" to help the family with the grieving process. Foss has dyslexia, and finding an audio version of the book or scanning it into a computer typically would be an ordeal. But in this case he was able to plow through it at 250 words per minute.

Foss did it with an early version of the Intel (INTC) Reader, a $1,500 device he dreamed up along with colleagues in Intel's Digital Health Group. The device launches today as the first consumer product from the five-year-old group. And though its name seems to place it in the same category as trendy ebook readers from Amazon (AMZN), Sony (SNE) and Barnes & Noble (BKS), this reader is profoundly different.

This is not another thin tablet that displays text; instead it's more like a chunky digital camera that instantly captures the words on a printed page and pronounces them aloud. That makes it little more than a curio for mainstream gadget lovers, but a potential godsend for those who struggle to read standard text because of learning disabilities or vision problems. More

Deal for AdMob accelerates scramble for a whopping $416 million in revenue.

As was trumpeted across the Internet Monday, Google (GOOG) is buying mobile display advertising startup AdMob for $750 million in (increasingly) precious Google stock. Wall Street digested the news and sent Google stock up almost $11.

Citi analyst Mark Mahaney says the deal “makes sense, because Google is moving aggressively to take advantage of the strong growth opportunity in mobile, which is fueled by smartphones.” Sandeep Aggarwal at Collins Stewart likes the deal, arguing “mobile advertising will be a $4 billion revenue opportunity by 2012-2013.”

Over my dead BlackBerry. More

A Mad Magazine cartoonist's guide to the 111th Congress runs afoul of Cupertino's censors

Illustration: Tom Richmond

Someone at Apple (AAPL) needs to take a refresher course in American history — and maybe a lesson in libel law.

Last summer Tom Richmond, one of Mad Magazine's top illustrators and two-time winner of the National Caricaturist Network's "Caricaturist of the Year" award, began drawing a likeness of every Senator and Representative in the 111th Congress — 540 caricatures in all, including non-voting members from Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.

The idea, he explains, was to create an illustrated database for the iPhone and iPod touch that would allow users to find the name, party affiliation, phone number and website of their senators and congresspeople via zipcode or GPS. Each head was placed on one of 12 cartoon bodies and would bobble when shaken or flicked with a finger.

The project was the idea of Ray Griggs, director of the movie Super Capers (rated PG for mild language, rude humor and brief smoking), for which Richmond did the art. Griggs had shown the finished app around and stirred up some interest. He was booked to appear as a guest on Fox News next week with Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee.

You can probably guess what's coming next.

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The videogame fans in your company are a valuable resource. Here’s how to make sure they stay engaged.

By Ted Price, CEO, Insomniac Games

If you employ videogamers, and based on statistics you probably do, it’s important to remember that gamers often respond to different motivators than non-gamers.

For those of you who have been in the business world far longer than I have, I apologize if the following seems too “been there, done that.” These are the things I’ve found most relevant after years of working with hardcore gamers (and being one myself).

Focus on short term goals

Gamers are goal-seekers. We’re conditioned to strive for that next rank, to solve the tough puzzle. Because of this we’ll respond positively to short-term goals that result in a reward. And that reward doesn’t have to be monetary. Most of the time gamers are simply looking for peer recognition. More

How social networking can transform the CIO into a superhero

By Alan S. Cohen, vice president enterprise, Cisco

Workers unite! Cohen says social networks can empower employees. Photo: Cisco

I recently spent a few days with 100 of Cisco’s (CSCO)  top customers, Chief Information Officers (CIOs), representing a range of industries – private and public and geographies. These folks are often the unsung heroes of  their organizations, enabling employees to perform great technological feats while helping management wring huge cost savings from their budgets.

During our time together, the conversations focused on how work has changed: from local to global, from centralized to decentralized, and increasingly, from live to asynchronous or even virtual.

In the past 20 to 30 years, our customers’ organizations have invested tens of billions of dollars in transaction systems – from ERP to email – to reduce latency and inefficiency in value chains. This considerable investment underpins the heart of the “Six Sigma,” process-driven revolution that became the ultimate strategy for operational excellence. However, today we’ve reached the zenith of transactional gains.

So, from where is the next wave of innovation and productivity emerging? Allow me to posit a simple answer: from people. More

Touch technology help non-tech industries improve business, efficiency, and their bottom lines.

The SMART Table brings touch to masses and classes. Photo: SmartTech

We all oohed and aahed when Apple's (AAPL) iPhone came out because of how cool it was, especially its multi-touch capability that let us flick through photos and "pinch" and expand photos and websites.

Now, with Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 7 specially formatted for touch capabilities, and everyone from manufacturers to hotels touting their tough capabilities, we know human contact with computer screens is more than a gimmick — it’s here to stay.

Touch is already a big business — estimates indicate that sales will be more than $3.66 billion for this year and will catapult 145% to almost $10 billion in the next five years.

Only half of that revenue is coming from consumer electronics (i.e. cell phones, digital frames, etc.) — the rest is from retail, hospitality and more. What many people forget is that this 30-year-old technology has been integrated in non-tech industries for years — mainly as a way to improve efficiency, but never as a centerpiece.

So, we decided to take a look at the best of the rest and highlight the most innovative, business-savvy ways other industries are implementing touch technology — and helping improve their bottom line. More

Despite a hasty fix to repair the last update, reports of problems continue to pour in

Photo: Apple Inc.

Only hours after Apple (AAPL) released version 3.0 of the software that runs its Apple TV set-top box, complaints began appearing on its online discussion boards — the company's own early warning system for detecting major bugs.

By Saturday, Nov. 7, when Apple advised owners by e-mail to immediately update to version 3.01, the discussion topic TV 3.0 — Many Problems had drawn 134 posts and been read more than 10,000 times. A second topic, Apple TV lost all media, had 108 posts and more than 3,000 reads.

Unfortunately, update 3.01 addressed only the "lost all media" issue. The other problems — periodic freezes, random restarts, overheating, sluggishness, disappearing networks, screens going "blocky red" etc. — haven't gone away.

"3.0.1 has actually made things worse for me," wrote user "laozi" late Saturday evening. "Now iTunes won't see the AppleTV at all, and no combination of rebooting/resetting is helping. Totally stuck. Apple, please fix this."

Apple TV may be a "hobby" for Steve Jobs, but Apple's customers don't sound happy about being treated like hobbyists.

"I don't know about you," wrote a user who calls himself baron von benjamin, "but this is the most problem-prone upgrade to any hardware I've ever seen."

Below the fold: The e-mail Apple sent Apple TV owners Saturday afternoon.

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The opening of a retail store near the Louvre draws huge crowds in Paris

Photo: Fabio M. Zambelli, setteB.IT

Who says Parisians are blasé? Tout Paris, it seems, turned out Saturday morning for the opening of Apple's (AAPL) first retail outlet in France. The video posted below the fold shows lines of shoppers that stretched for blocks.

Planning for the store, located in the Carrousel du Louvre, an upscale shopping mall beneath the Tuileries garden and adjacent to the museum, began more than two years ago. A second store in Montpelier was actually ready before this one, but its opening was postponed, according to ifoAppleStore, in deference to the City of Lights.

There are several videos of the event, including a four-minute version suggested by reader Rick in San Jose, Calif. But we've selected piratec.net's because it's been edited down to less than two minutes:

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