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Laptop that fits in an envelope

San Francisco: Apple has already made waves with its iPod, iPhone and trendy desktop computers, but on Tuesday the company threw out a new challenge to its competitors, the world’s thinnest laptop.

The secretive Silicon Valley company confirmed the launch of the $2,366 Macbook Air, which is just 2cm deep — thin enough to fit inside an envelope.

In his Macworld Expo keynote speech, speculation over which has been rife for weeks, chief executive Steve Jobs said Apple would try to take control of the video industry with movie rentals and a revamped Apple TV to stream films direct to television screens.

Until now iTunes customers have been able to buy movies outright, a business which has not been as successful as Apple’s entry into music. Apple TV, which allows video to be streamed from a computer to a television screen, has struggled to make an impact. But Mr. Jobs predicted that a re-launch of the device would mark a significant shift in the film industry.

“On iTunes we’ve sold 125m TV shows, and we’ve sold 7m movies — it’s more than everyone else put together, but it didn’t meet our expectations,” he said.

“I think we’ve got it right this time. We’ve all tried to figure out how to get movies over the internet and on to the TV - but we’ve all missed, no one has succeeded yet.

“We tried with Apple TV, but it’s not what people wanted. So we’re back with Apple TV take two — no computer is required. You can rent movies directly on your widescreen TV and you can rent them at DVD quality or you can rent then at high definition quality.”

Costing $229, the system hooks into the company’s plans to offer films to rent over the internet through its iTunes store, also confirmed on Tuesday.

The company said it would join film studios including 20th Century Fox and Sony to allow iTunes users to stream movies direct to their computer or TV for a one-off payment of between $3 and $5.

The system will have 1,000 new titles and back catalogue films available by the end of February.

It will start immediately in the U.S. and in other territories later this year. “We’re dying to get this international as well,” said Mr. Jobs. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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