Apple sets media event for 10 a.m. PT March 7

You may want to sit down, because we’re going to talk about the iPad—and sitting is really the most comfortable way to use it, isn’t it? Apple on Tuesday invited members of the media to a special event on March 7 at 10 a.m. Pacific.

Apple's email services push up to German border, but no further

Apple has been forced to turn off its iCloud and MobileMe push email services for users in Germany to comply with an injunction in a patent lawsuit brought by Motorola Mobility.

Toshiba and SanDisk shrink 128gbit memory chips

Toshiba said Thursday it has shrunk the size of its 128gbit NAND flash memory chips, in the race to bring more and tinier storage to products like USB storage and memory cards.

Intego finds new, insidious strain of Mac Flashback Trojan horse

Intego announced on Thursday that it has discovered more strains of the Flashback Trojan horse. The company says that “many Mac users have been infected by this malware,” especially the latest variant, Flashback.G.

OS X Mountain Lion: A big cat for business?

Apple surprised the tech world last week by unveiling a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion, the next generation of its desktop operating system set to ship this summer—just a year after OS X 10.7 Lion arrived.

Based on the information Apple has released so far, Mountain Lion will continue in the footsteps of its predecessor and bring more features from iOS to the desktop as well as strengthen ties to Apple’s iCloud service. (iOS powers Apple’s iPhone and iPad.) That makes Mountain Lion something of a mixed bag for enterprise environments: it has some features that are very useful for business users, while others—like its near-total integration with Apple’s personal cloud service—will likely raise red flags in the minds of CIOs and IT professionals.

IT takes wait-and-hope approach to Mountain Lion

On Thursday, Apple released the developer preview for Mountain Lion, which will be generally released late summer 2012. Among the key changes: Versions of applications and services originally created for the iOS mobile platforms; built-in integration with the iCloud service; and a new application security feature called Gatekeeper.

Apple’s focus continues to be individual consumers, not enterprise IT groups, according to analysts and IT users. In some cases, these “consumerized” features can naturally boost the usability, productivity and security for corporate Mac users. But what’s currently missing, or at least not yet apparent, is whether Apple will provide tools that make it possible to administer and secure Mac users in groups.