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By Sam Oliver Published: 10:00 AM EST Apple is among a list of top handset makers who have agreed to support a European Union-backed initiative on standardizing phone chargers across the continent, which should benefit both consumers and the environment. More specifically, the deal will see companies including Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion, develop handsets that can be charged by a standard micro-USB socket , ensuring that each phone is compatible with a standard type of phone charger. The move aims to cut back on the thousands of tons of waste that results from discarded phone accessories in Europe each year, according to EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen. "People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone," he said. In addition to the environmental benefits, the initiative should also lead to cost savings for companies and end-users down the line. That's because phone makers have also agreed to stop including chargers with their new handsets in Europe once the new micro-USB chargers become commonplace. Anyone who needs a new charger after this time will be able to purchase it separately. The agreement, which applies only to data-enabled smartphones at this time, appears to support a broader initiative by the GSM Association to develop a universal micro-USB charging solution that would appear by January 1, 2012. The GSMA says these chargers would boast a 4-star or higher efficiency rating in order to be three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger and consume 50% less stand-by energy. It estimates that greenhouse gas will be reduced by 13.6 - 21.8 million metric tons as the replacement rate for existing chargers decreases. In total, this week's agreement was signed by 10 companies, who combine to represent 90% of the European phone market. Other adopters include Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments. Given that the Dock Connector has long been Apple's standard on iPods and iPhones, and is now also vital to the iPhone 3.0 third-party accessories strategy , the company is likely to comply with the initiative by including a micro-USB adapter with iPhones sold in Europe.

By Aidan Malley Published: 06:40 PM EST Apple nearly saw a repeat of last year's sellouts on the weekend with widespread, but brief, iPhone 3GS shortages at many of its US retail stores. Also, NVIDIA has launched plugins that let Macs with newer video cards dramatically speed up tasks in Adobe's Creative Suite 4. iPhone 3GS stock runs dry over the weekend Keeping to its now traditional approach of tracking iPhone supplies closely in the immediate wake of a launch, Apple has posted an iPhone 3GS availability tool that lists stock by store and by model -- and which has hinted at continued strong demand for the third-generation handset a week after it first appeared. As followed by ifo Apple Store , the weekend began with only minor shortages that saw 29 of 257 shops nationwide reporting any kind of limited availability. By Sunday evening, however, very few stores had any stocks of the white iPhone 3GS model while only the white 32GB model was available at more than 52 percent of stores. Black versions of 16GB and 32GB models were only available at just over a third of stores at 35 percent each, and about 39 stores had no stock whatsoever. A day later, the situation had improved substantially, with only six stores reporting no iPhones in stock and only a small amount more going without one or more models. Whether or not the situation will remain the same in weeks to come is hard to tell. Last year's iPhone 3G launch saw even more severe shortages around this time last year and maintained a similar dire state for weeks afterwards, but it's possible both that Apple has better prepared itself for its latest launch as well as that economic woes have kept certain customers out of stores. These figures are updated hourly and so should be accurate for the iPhone maker's own supply, but they don't include AT&T, Best Buy or Walmart, all of whom play an important part in Apple's true sales numbers. NVIDIA releases Adobe CS4 CUDA plugins for Macs Owners of more recent Macs with fast video cards were given an extra speed advantage on Monday with a new set of Adobe Creative Suite 4 plugins . The suite includes four plugins from third parties and centers on Elemental Accelerator 1.2, a video processing add-on. Those using Mac Pros with a Quadro FX 4800 video card can use the general-purpose computing feature of these graphics chipsets to accelerate video encoding for H.264-formatted videos well beyond what would be possible with the processor alone. NVIDIA estimates that the task can run 11 times faster than it would without the plugin. The others, from Boris FX ,proDAD and Red Giant Software, provide less conspicuous gains but help out other key apps in Adobe's library, including After Effects, Flash and Photoshop. Such plugins are a rarity for the Mac, which has supported CUDA since last year but has only occasionally been supported by widely available apps. The situation should change with the release ...