Apple today announced that MacBook Air is now shipping while the new Apple TV software update will be available in a couple of weeks. The Apple TV software update will allows users to rent high definition movies directly from their widescreen TVs. Apple plans to make the free software download available to existing Apple TV customers in another week or two.

With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TV, users can click a button on their remote to rent movies from a catalog of over 1,000 titles by the end of February. DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals are $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99. Apple TV connects to widescreen TVs and home theater systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports.

Apple's MacBook Air measures a 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. It comes equipped with a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera and it is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache. The new MacBook Air is now shipping for a suggested retail price of $1,799 (US).