Briefly: flash iPods, iTMVS?, Jobs\' N2N, Hon Hai, more...

Several reports indicate that flash-memory production is increasing in the far east, with prices falling slightly for chips of 2GB and higher capacities. Meanwhile, continued demand for consumer products has created a price surge for lower capacity 256MB and 512MB chips.

It's believed that Apple is feverishly working on a more advanced and feature-rich flash-based iPod that will make use of the higher capacity flash chips sometime this year.

iTunes Music Video Store ahead of iTunes Video Store?

Columnist Charles Arthur believes Apple's recent iTunes 4.8 release is the first step towards the creation of an Apple online music video store where consumers will be able to buy any of the music videos ever shown on MTV.

"For those looking to sell video, music videos are the easy way to go," he says. "They're self-contained, tell a story, appeal to a young audience which will remain faithful, they're memorable, you can return to them repeatedly and enjoy them, they're short (and so easily transported) and they offer fantastic branding for an artist."

Arthur speculates that such a service would stand to strengthen musicians branding while providing record labels a slight return on the investment made while producing the often costly videos.

"With that huge back catalogue of music videos out there, which otherwise just get aired by MTV or VH1 but don't generate much money, there's a strong incentive for the record companies to dust off the videos and deliver them to Apple."

Apple manufacturer to buy two plants from HP

Hon Hai the world’s second-largest electronics manufacturing service provider, plans to buy two desktop PC manufacturing plants from Hewlett-Packard. As part of the deal, the company, which does business in the United States under the trade name Foxconn, will take over design and manufacturing management at the two plants located in Australia and India, according to China's Commercial Times.

Foxconn currently serves as the overseas manufacturer of several popular Apple products, including the Mac mini, Power Mac G5, and AirPort Express wireless base station.

Photos of Steve Jobs' Gulfstream V Jet

A tipster point out this Airlines.net website, which features photos of the Gulfstream V Jet given to Steve Jobs, by Apple, after returning to the company in 2000.

The Turbo-Jet engine aircraft, named N2N, initially set the company back a cool $43.5 million. However, it continues to rack up usage charges, most recently costing the company $419,000 during its first fiscal quarter of 2005.

Apple recalls 128,000 laptop batteries

Apple and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today disclosed a voluntary recall of rechargeable batteries for Apple's iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 computers.

The recall covers roughly 128,000 units in the U.S. and was prompted by six reports worldwide — two in the U.S. — of the batteries overheating. The recalled lithium ion batteries were used in Apple's 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

The recalled batteries include those with model numbers A1061, A1078 and A1079 and serial numbers that begin with HQ441 through HQ507 or 3X446 through 3X510.

Consumers are advised to stop using the recalled batteries immediately and contact Apple to arrange for a replacement battery, free of charge.