Out of Japan, a set of stackable add-ons for the Mac mini that transforms it into a towering music system.
Made by a company called Greenhouse, the components are a 15 Watt subwoofer (bottom); a speaker and USB hub (the one with the knob); and a hard-drive case for storing gigabytes and gigabytes of digital music. On top is the mini itself.
Unfortunatley, there’s no other information about cost or shipping — or how it sounds. Sure looks good though.
(Via courtesy of Akihabara News)
Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab was offfered Mac OS X for free for his $100 laptop project, the WSJ reports.
Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.’s chief executive, offered to provide free copies of the company’s operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative’s founders. “We declined because it’s not open source,” says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Under present plans, the first production version of the laptop will be powered by an AMD microprocessor and use an open-source Linux-based operating system supplied by Red Hat.
Steve Jobs will unveil the first Intel-based Macs at Macworld in January — and it’ll be the flat-screen iMac and the 15-inch PowerBook, according to a somewhat-believable report at AppleInsider.
Most observers had expected low-end products like the Mac Mini to switch first, but AppleInsider says:
Although Apple has only committed to introducing the first Intel-based Macintosh systems by mid-2006, extremely reliable sources and a several-month-long investigation have revealed that January’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco is being primed as the launch-pad for at least one of the Mac maker’s next-generation Intel systems.
Surprisingly, the most reliable information indicates that the iMac and PowerBook — two of the company’s most recently revised Mac offerings — are targeted to be the first two Mac models to receive Intel processors in January. The iMac and PowerBook are also believed to be Apple’s best-selling Mac models, which explains why the company will be upgrading them with Intel processors first and refreshing their associated product lines for the second time in as little as four months.
A several-month-long investigation! Well, it must be true. We’ll see. Macworld rumors sure are flying early this year. But, people are saying AppleInsider is the new ThinkSecret.
The developer of the the iLoad CD-to-iPod loader is hoping it will be a hit so he can pay off his court-ordered restitution.
Reports the Colorado Springs Gazette:
A Monument businessman convicted of theft and securities fraud won’t be allowed to travel to China to market a product he invented, a judge ruled Friday.
Sanford Schupper, 56, has been convicted of defrauding Citibank Visa of as much as $200,000 and sentenced to six years in prison. In another case, Schupper was convicted of swindling a family out of $872,000 and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Friday, Schupper’s lawyer asked senior state District Court Judge Donald Campbell to grant Schupper permission to go to China to market his latest invention, an accessory for Apple iPods.
Schupper says the product could make him millions and allow him to pay court-ordered restitution to victims of his crimes. He hasn’t revealed specifics about the product because of fears someone might steal the idea.
Meanwhile, Schupper is sparring with Gizmodo.
For future reference, TUAW has some sage advice for selling a used Mac:
Sell it as soon as you can! The longer that Mac sits unused, the lower its price will be when you finally sell it. I’ve personally made that mistake several times, sitting on a used Mac for months (or even years) before finally getting around to listing it. It’s not a pleasant realization that your procrastination lost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Shawn Morton has published a very handy howto for converting a classic Mac into a bog roll dispenser, or Apple iWipe. Now that’s time well spent.
One of my co-workers was giving away and old Atari 800XL and Macintosh SE case. He had been planning to do a mini-ITX project, but had never gotten around to it. Always wanting an excuse to tinker with something, I decided to take them off of his hands.
Well, as soon as I saw the Mac SE case, I realized that this one had the most potential. So this weekend, I bought a few things at Home Depot and got started making my Apple-power, wireless, portable toilet paper dispenser — the iWipe.
The whole project took a couple of hours and cost about $15.
As seen on Flickr, the San Francisco Gate finds a clever use for image “alt” tags.
Mark Williams, a programmer from Nottingham, UK, had dreams of hitting the big time by designing and selling an iPod case that “isn’t a glorified condom.”
This is his cautionary tale:
The story of Shufflicious – making an ipod case to sell
This morning I could hardly contain, cough cough, my excitement as I get the box of samples. I open it up to reveal about a 100 solid perspex cubes containing chinese figurines dressed up as a western bride and groom. WTFF?
You COULD NOT make this stuff up. Its like a sitcom – Carry on manufacturing. Mix up at the depot you say, stickers on the wrong boxes you say. Hmm. I feel sorry for the person who was expecting their kitsch loveliness and instead gets a box of tri-colored vaginas.
Coming soon: the iLoad, a gizmo for loading CDs right onto the iPod. There’s no details except the promise it’s “coming soon” and this:
iLoad copies your CDs onto and iPod or other Digital Music Player, along with all album and track data at a high rate of speed.
The site says the “iLoad” trademark is owned by Wingspan Partners of Campbell, CA, which claims to be also working on a MagLev train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas!
I wonder why anyone would want a CD loader when the computer already does a pretty good job ripping CDs. And where will the track data come from? ITunes goes online to fetch them; will this?
(Via MacFeber)
Behold the i-Stones, a pair of stone iPod docking stations.
Sold by Brand Incubator of Japan, the i-Stones come in two models: Wabi and Sabi. They feature USB 2; audio and S-Video out.
Wabi-sabi, according to Wikipedia, “represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic.”
It is difficult to explain wabi-sabi in Western terms, but the aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete. A concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the first noble truth – Dukkha.
… Many Japanese arts over the past thousand years have been influenced by Zen philosophy, particularly acceptance and contemplation of the imperfection, constant flux, and impermanence of all things. Such arts can exemplify a wabi-sabi aesthetic.
(Thanks Nobi!)
Recognizing the diversity of new distribution channels, the Daytime Emmys are about to announce a new award for video aired on computers, cellphones and video iPods, reports the New York Times.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, best known for handing out the Daytime Emmy Awards, is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has created an award category to recognize original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable.
The category is to have its debut at the academy’s next Sports Emmys presentation, and ultimately be added as a category for other Emmy presentations as well, including those for news and documentary, business and financial reporting and daytime television. The category will not be included in the prime-time Emmy Awards, which are overseen by a sister organization.
Although it’s verboten, ZDNet UK installed the x86 version of OS X on a Toshiba Portégé M300 notebook.
It’s the first test by a respected testing lab I’m aware of. All went smoothly and ZDNet was impressed.
Mac OS X looks in amazingly good early form on the x86 platform. As far as power consumption and OS performance are concerned, it can already keep up with Windows XP. Application performance clearly lags behind, though, and still needs to improve.
…
So far, mainly because of performance and price issues, the Apple platform has failed to tempt many Windows users. This could change soon: from the middle of next year, a Mac OS X x86 platform will be available, which will offer more performance to the Windows world.
Doom now runs on the iPod nano, the iDoom project has announced.
Check the video of Doom on the Nano.
Note: the game requires installation of iPodLinux first, which likely voids the warranty.
The iPod nano now ships with a little plastic sheath to protect it, notes a poster on the iLounge forums.
This is clearly a quick fix in the run-up to Christmas.
Says another iLounge poster:
I love Apple and I love my nano… But it seems this is sort of a lame attempt to admit guilt, well… maybe not guilt, but neglect on their part for not including a case with nanos to begin with. At the same time, no press release / news has been made about now including cases… Sneaky.
Let’s at least five them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll handle this properly and offer something to those who bought nanos already.
What ever happened with that lawsuit?
Sony’s copy-protected CDs — the ones that secretly install a sneaky Hax0r “root kit” on customers’ PCs — can also install copy-protection software on Macs, according to a Macintouch report:
… I was surprised to find a “Start.app” Mac application in addition to the expected Windows-related files. Running this app brings up a long legal agreement, clicking Continue prompts you for your username/password (uh-oh!), and then promptly exits. Digging around a bit, I find that Start.app actually installs 2 files: PhoenixNub1.kext and PhoenixNub12.kext.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of anyone installing kernel extensions on my Mac. In Sony’s defense, upon closer reading of the EULA, they essentially tell you that they will be installing software.
The CD in question was Imogen Heap’s new Speak For Yourself, and there’s lots of discussion about the sneaky software on her messageboards.
(Via Boingboing)
The Nimzy Vibro Blaster is an unfortunately named “vibrator” that turns any flat object into a speaker.
Developed by Digital Infotech of Singapore, the Nimzy Vibro Blaster transforms audio from an iPod or other gizmo into mechanical vibrations. Placed on a flat surface — wood, stone, glass or plastic — the company claims its “advanced electro acoustic technology” sounds “loud and clear!”
A wonderfully cheery e-mail from the company’s new US marketing operation in Plantation, Florida, proclaimed:
Believe it or not, no more bulky speakers, any flat object can become one…
Owners of IPODs or any other MP3 players can use Vibro Blaster to share their favorite music anytime, anywhere; Business executives can travel with this compact toy to do presentations with audio from laptop. Hence they become more convincing to the audience; bored in hotel room, travelers can enjoy their own music while conducting multiple tasks, most importantly, hear the phone ring!
Once again, Digital Infotech Inc brings more fun to life and work with innovative technology.
Here’s a link to the only product page I could find. Warning: the page makes a horrible racket.
The Camino project has released the first full version of its highly-regarded “Firefox-for-Mac” web browser.
Though still a beta, the Camino 1.0 browser boasts a giant laundry list of improvements and additions, including vastly improved tabs; Spotlight search through bookmarks; and support for Midas, an inline, rich text editor.
Based on the recently-updated 1.5 version of Firefox 1.8 version of the Gecko rendering engine, Camino always had a reputation for speed. I used the previous alpha version but it never really grabbed me. It seemed incomplete compared to Firefox. I shall, however, definitely give the new version a test drive. After all, Camino claims to blend the best of the Mac and Mozilla:
Camino combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with powerful web-browsing capabilities such as the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine.
Update: Chris Lawson writes: “Camino is no more based on Firefox 1.5 than Netscape 7 is. Both Camino and Firefox use the 1.8 version of the Gecko rendering engine for their core HTML rendering. (At least you didn’t make the mistake of saying it’s based on WebKit, which I’ve also seen out there.)
Author Jackie Huba just bought a PowerBook after 20 years of being a PC user, and she’s so psyched about it, she made a pseudo Switch ad.
As you can see, she’s already a Mac zealot. Welcome to the cult, Jackie!
Jackie is also co-author of Creating Customer Evangelists, a word-of-mouth marketing book, and the Church of the Customer blog, which is “all about word of mouth, customer evangelism and citizen marketers.”
There’s a new Flickr group dedicated to glowing Apple logos. Some of them are pretty good – like the picture above, which was taken from Eric Payette’s photostream.
(Thanks Steffen Nork!)
The next version of Motorola’s stylish RAZR phone, the RAZR V3i, will come equipped with Apple’s iTunes software.
The V3i is the second Moto phone to carry iTunes. Like its predecessor, the ROKR (dubbed the CROCKR because of its limitations), it will likely be limited to 100 songs maximum.
The RAZR is “the first choice for a select group of fashion elite and Hollywood ‘it’ girls,” according to the Moto press release. That may be, but the Register isn’t impressed:
If Apple and Motorola are serious about phones as a digital music player, they need to shape up fast. Thanks to a single-chip design, Nokia is able to push today’s high-end Symbian smartphones down into the midrange next year, and features like WiFi are standard across next year’s N series and E series models. More importantly, Nokia is determined to allow users to share their songs and playlists over a personal area network connection using WiFi or Bluetooth – something that Apple is extremely reluctant to do. As the cheeky graphic nicely illustrates.
PS: Be sure to check the Register’s graphic.
The French site MacBidouille has detailed step-by-step instructions for souping-up a 12-inch iBook and turning it into a something comparable to the 12-inch PowerBook — at a considerable saving.
It requires disassembing the iBook, swapping out the optical drive and hard drive, and adding Bluetooth and a ton of RAM. It takes a couple of hours, and “this transformation is not a piece of cake,” but:
All parts including the iBook have been purchased for 1,598 euros VAT included. To compare, the same iBook 80GB 5400rpm without the SuperDrive costs : 1,677.99 euros VAT included and the PB 12″ Superdrive 1.2 GB with 80 GB 5400rpm : 2,168 euros VAT included.
Steve Jobs is a money machine. His other company, Pixar, reported profits of $27.4 million on revenues of $45.8 million for the last three months — double Wall Street estimates, according to Reuters.
The windfall was due to strong home video sales of Finding Nemo, as well as lower taxes and “a one-time reduction in expenses.”
In a separate AP report, Jobs said Pixar was “deep in discussions” with Disney, and may strike a partnership by year’s end.
Meanwhile, Pixar has amassed a huge horde of cash, which will likely be used to finance future flicks:
Pixar has said that it would like to own 100 percent of its films in the future. The company has amassed cash of more than $1 billion as it prepares to fully finance its own films.
For the first nine months of the year, Pixar reported net income of $122 million, or 99 cents per share, compared with $86.5 million, or 73 cents per share in the same period last year.
Revenue for the first nine months was $233.5 million compared with $165 million in the same period last year.
BoingBoing has a pic of a pack of chocolate cigarettes picked up in Mexico with a really nice iMac design.
The graphic is really good — as are the others BoingBoing points to. Graphic design is alive and well in Mexico.
Two more TV networks will begin offering primetime shows on demand for a buck a pop, but not through iTunes online store, reports Reuters, because of fears of digital piracy.
“NBC and CBS unveiled separate plans on Monday to make some of their hottest prime-time shows available for viewers to watch at their leisure — without commercials — for 99 cents an episode, throwing open the door to “on-demand” television,” the Reuters report says.
NBC will offer “Law & Order SVU” and “Criminal Intent,” “The Office,” and the cable show “Battlestar Galactica” to viewers with a DirecTV Plus DVR.
Likewise, CBS will offers four hit shows on demand — “CSI,” “NCIS,” “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” — to Comcast digital cable customers in various cities.
Both platforms are pretty well locked down, with no easy way for owners to get video off the settop boxes and onto file-sharing networks.
In a seperate Reuters report, NBC said it will offer movies and hit shows online only when watertight copy-protection mechanisms are in place.
“We can’t provide them (Google, yahoo and presumably Apple) with content unless they can adequately protect it,” said NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright.
MacAlly’s mTune is a sweet looking set of cans with a dock for the iPod nano. Only $50 — though no ship date has been set.
They’re cordless, naturally, and don’t even require any batteries. There’s a standard jack for use with a computer or other music player.
Update: There’s also white headphones for the iPod shuffle!