Beginning today, all four major music labels — Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI — and thousands of independent labels, now offer their music in the DRM-free iTunes Plus format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding. iTunes customers can also now purchase and download songs directly onto their iPhone 3G over their 3G network — just as they do with Wi-Fi today — for the same price as downloading to their computer. And in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available for 69¢, 99¢, or $1.29, with most albums still priced at $9.99.

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro features a durable and beautiful aluminum unibody enclosure and a revolutionary new built-in battery delivering up to 8 hours of use and up to 1,000 recharges. It has a high resolution LED-backlit display and the same large glass Multi-Touch trackpad introduced with the new MacBook family. The new notebook also includes state-of-the-art NVIDIA graphics and the latest generation Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors, available up to 2.93 GHz.

Apple today unveiled iLife ’09, which includes major upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand and an updated version of iWeb. iPhoto ’09 introduces Faces and Places, breakthrough ways to easily organize and manage photos based on who appears in them and where they were taken. In iMovie ’09, you’ll find powerful, yet easy-to-use new features that let you create a movie quickly or add refinements and special effects if you have more time. And GarageBand ’09 now offers a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar with Basic Lessons, which teach fundamentals, and Artist Lessons (sold separately), in which original artists teach you how to play the songs they made famous.

Available today, iWork ’09 adds powerful new features to each of its popular productivity applications. Keynote ’09 introduces Magic Move, which offers an easy way to automatically animate any image, graphic or text repeated on consecutive slides. In Pages ’09, a new Full Screen view lets you focus solely on your writing while the new outline mode lets you organize your thoughts. And Numbers ’09 introduces a quick way to group and summarize data and a dramatically simplified way to create complex formulas. Apple also introduced the public beta of iWork.com, a new service for sharing documents online.

FileMaker today announced the availability of FileMaker Pro 10. The new version of its award-winning software features a sleek new interface and intuitive new design. For example, database users can now place frequently used FileMaker features in the redesigned and customizable Status Toolbar, resulting in streamlined navigation, better workflow, and time-saving shortcuts.

Ever receive multiple, related email messages that you’d like to file in the same folder or delete? You could delete or drag them into a folder one message at a time. But in Mail, you can save time by deleting or filing all the messages at once. Find out how by watching the latest Quick Tip of the Week.

“The new status symbol,” report Matt Richtel and Laura M. Holson (nytimes.com) “is what your phone can do — count calories, teach Spanish, simulate a flute, or fling a monkey from a tree.” While some “programs can genuinely help productivity,” others are simply “jaw-dropping“ fun. The apps, say the authors, “have become a form of social currency” that is driving “a new kind of business.”

“The 17-inch MacBook Pro is my main computer,” says Brian Cox. A particle physicist, Cox works at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, which scientists will soon use to try to recreate the “Big Bang.” Cox uses the Mac because it can run both UNIX for research and productivity apps for everything else. And he’s not alone. “When you look around a physics conference now,” he says, “you see more Macs than anything else.”

If you’re traveling this holiday season, be sure to take the Weather Channel with you. Yes, everyone’s favorite source for weather now takes to the road on iPhone and iPod touch. The Weather Channel app offers location-based weather, customizable weather maps, and severe weather alerts. You can even share a weather alert or forecast by emailing it from your iPhone or iPod touch.

Then you’ll enjoy the Forum Network Lectures brought to us by WGBH. In the mostly video lectures, we hear noted planetologists, mathematical physicists, authors, and biologists explore such subjects as the birth and death of stars, the canopy ecosystem of coastal redwoods, and time travel. Come and “entertain your brain” with the Cambridge Forum Network Lectures on iTunes U.

In Defiance, the four Bielski brothers (played by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, and George MacKay) recruit Jewish refugees to the Belarussian forest, where they ultimately build a 1200-person strong force of resistance fighters. The film, directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai), opens in theaters on December 31.

To effectively train and communicate with its 4,000 staff members, 800 reserve personnel, and nearly 20 divisions, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department found a great solution in podcasts. Unfortunately, it could take weeks for the department’s video staff to produce and deliver their podcasts in a variety of formats. Until, that is, Podcast Producer turned weeks of arduous production into mere hours of automated production.

Did you know that in Safari, you can easily bookmark multiple sites at the same time? Or that once you save your new collection of bookmarks, you can open them all at once in separate tabs? Find out how by watching the latest Quick Tip of the Week.

It has already been nominated for multiple prestigious film awards. Yet, one of the curiosities about “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is that so little of the film was actually shot on film. In fact, most footage was captured digitally on HD cameras directly to hard drive. Then, the $150 million dollar film was post-produced in Final Cut Pro using a completely tapeless digital HD workflow from camera to final output.

Yes, you have a number of simple ways to capture screenshots in Mac OS X Leopard. Some may require you to use an image editing application to remove unwanted elements. But one lets you save clean screenshots of Finder windows, menus, and icons. Find out how by reading the latest Mac OS X Pro Tip.

Deep in the heart of Texas, they’ve learned a thing or two about successful study habits. And you can, too. Just by listening to Wired Study Tips. Brought to us by the Continuing and Professional Studies Office at Texas A&M University, the tips are just a few minutes long but offer great advice that, thanks to iTunes U, we can all take advantage of.

Ever wish you could grow younger with the years? Then you’ll want to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Coming to theaters on Christmas Day, the film, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was written by Eric Roth and directed by David Fincher. It stars Brad Pitt as Benjamin and Cate Blanchett as Daisy. Do the two lovers grow old together?

When Nine Inch Nails went on tour, there used to be “racks of equipment that we had to carry around to reproduce all the different elements,” explains Keyboard and Sound Technician Mat Mitchell. Now all they need is a MacBook Pro and Logic Studio. With MainStage, says Trent Reznor, “I can do all of my synth work, and my guitar rig, and my vocal processing in an understandable graphic interface that’s easy to change.”

If you use Aperture 2 or iPhoto ’08, the free update extends RAW file compatibility to eight additional cameras, including the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon PowerShot G10, Pentax K2000K-m, Leica M8.2, and four camera systems from Leaf, including the AFi-II 6, AFi-II 7, Aptus-II 6, and Aptus-II 7.

Run completely on Macs, Charity Checks is a giving program that lets you make contributions to any charity while your gift recipient chooses the cause. With Charity Checks everyone comes out a winner.