News: MacBook surround sound, manual disinfection of Flashback, iAd Producer 2.1, and more!

An Apple patent published by 9 to 5 Mac examines the possibility of a MacBook portable with surround sound. The patent discusses how Apple could eventually use multiple speakers in configuration for semi-surround sound capabilities in future machines, and with laptops and mobile devices getting smaller and thinner, better speakers will always be appreciated. F-Secure has manual disinfection instructions for checking to see if your Mac has been infected with the Flashback trojan. It has been revealed that the Flashback trojan has infected over half a million machines worldwide and counting, so it's definitely a good idea to run a few quick commands in the Terminal to see if you have been infected, and, if so, following the rest of the instructions to ensure you're clean.

Apple has released iAd producer 2.1,  which lets users assemble rich content for the iAd network with a minimum of programming. The new version supports the new iPad, and has a few other nice changes from version 2.0 including support for Twitter content in ad content.

Apple has also announced a Q2 2012 earnings conference call for the 24th April, which should reveal more metrics about how Apple is faring financially as a company, as well as smaller tidbits about how many iOS devices have been sold to date.