APPLE SET TO OFFER NEW TV DEVICE, MOVIES AT 99 CENTS

Although Apple chief Steve Jobs has insisted that the company’s Apple TV settop device is merely a “hobby” and that companies that have toyed with similar attachments to TV sets have failed (“No one wants to buy a box — ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months,” he remarked in May) rumors are proliferating that Apple is on the verge of introducing a low-cost box that would allow consumers to “rent” TV shows for a 24-hour period for 99 cents. Currently TV shows available via Apple’s iTunes Store can be downloaded for twice that amount. NewTeeVee.com is reporting that the new device would be a bare-bones apparatus, with little memory and only 16 GB of storage (similar to low-end iPhones and iPads). one-tenth the storage capacity of the current Apple TV.