T-Mobile Sells 1.5 Million G1 Pre-Orders [T-mobile G1]
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/419695532/t+mobile-sells-15-million-g1-pre+orders
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
President Bush Signs Bill To Create Cabinet-Level Intellectual Property Czar [Piracy]
The cabinet position will give a single point of authority to a job now handled by a scattered handful of different agencies and committees. It also calls for increased strength to prosecute and punish IP offenders. A provision that hoisted the responsibility for civil (in addition to criminal) prosecutions for IP cases on the Justice Dept. had to be thrown out first, as it would have effectively gave the already over-burdened folks at the DoJ the added enjoyment of being the entertainment companies' civil trial lawyers. Also, interestingly, the Bush administration apparently forgot about their earlier weariness to politicize a position (by appointment) so closely related to dealings of the legislative branch and the judiciary—because avoiding that kind of thing has been this administration's hallmark, right?
What it will mean day-to-day for us modern web users remains to be seen, but creating a czar worked so well for the war on drugs, why not try it again? [CNET]
New Technology Helps Ground Telescopes Outdo Hubble [Telescopes]
The PRIMA system consists of many small mirrors that are moved by pistons at levels that are smaller than an atom. The light from each telescope is reflected into underground tunnels in a way that cancels out the light waves from a star. What remains is the faint light of an orbiting planet—hopefully a planet capable of harboring life. Apparently, PRIMA will start hunting down E.T. in about six months time—and according to Fred Kamphues, developer of a major component of PRIMA called a Star Separator, we stand a good chance of finding them inside the next 100 years. Meanwhile, a high-level government official who has had E.T. on ice for the last 60 years is laughing his ass off. [Wired Science]
A Brief History of MacBook Redesigns and Upgrades [Apple]
Tomorrow we'll see the first fresh MacBooks in almost a year, and likely the first all-new case designs since the arrival of the MacBooks—or before that if you're a stickler, since the MacBook Pro is basically the same as the PowerBook G4, and the MacBook ain't so different from the iBook G4. Check out our timeline of every MacBook update since the lines were introduced to see just how much (or little) has changed since the beginning.
Some notes—these are all stock configurations with prices at the time of release, and specs are only noted when they change. For instance, if the MacBook kept a 60GB hard drive standard for two revisions, you won't see it on the second update on the chart. Click on the image to see the massive full-size chart.[MacBooks on Giz]
Acer's AX3200 is the little Blu-ray PC that could, has a 1080p LCD friend
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419166781/
Filed under: Desktops, Displays, Media PCs
LaCie intros 5big Network drive array to RAID junkies the world over
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419212272/
Filed under: Storage
[Via Technabob]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
LG announces Prada II
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419276200/
Filed under: Cellphones
Elcomsoft uses NVIDIA GPUs to crack WPA2
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419586476/
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
[Via HotHardware]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Yoggie intros mini security computers for Mac desktops, laptops
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419690078/
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Peripherals
Yoggie's mini "security computers" have been at the disposal of PC users for some time now, and it looks like the company has now finally decided to give Mac users a taste of the completely hardware-based security solution. That comes in the form of both Mac-friendly versions of Yoggie's Gatekeeper ExpressCard and its Gatekeeper Pico USB stick, each of which are "full-blown" Linux-based computers in the own right, and include a slew of applications that promise to both increase security and take some of the load off of your laptop or desktop. What's more, it looks like Yoggie is also giving Mac users a slight discount for their patience, as the Gatekeeper ExpressCard and Gatekeeper Pico are now available to pre-order fro $150 and $119, respectively, a 20% discount compared to their usual price, and their PC counterparts.
Averatec debuts Atom-based, 18.4-inch All-in-One desktop PC
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419818330/
Filed under: Desktops
Well, it looks like Averatec is now fully on board the Atom bandwagon, with it now pushing its Buddy netbook out the door, and also getting official about the US launch for its Atom-based, 18.4-inch All-in-One desktop PC, which was first announced in Europe last month. This one's apparently intended to complement the company's larger, equally unimaginatively-named 22-inch All-in-One PC, and comes loaded with some expectedly more netbook-like specs, including 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Windows XP and, of course, that ever-present 1.6GHz N270 Atom processor. You won't find anything like the 1680 x 945, 18.4-inch display on a netbook, however, or on many other desktop PCs with a $550 price tag, for that matter.
[Image courtesy of Laptop]
[Image courtesy of Laptop]
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic just chills with the FCC for a little while
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/419878611/
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Cranky Windows Guy: Apple Laptops Still Too Damned Expensive [Apple]
As you may be aware, I'm a Windows guy. I'm not diehard about it, however. When the time comes for me to get a new laptop in the next year or so, I'll be open to switching, making me Apple's target market. But there's one big reason that is holding me back from making that switch: price. Apple's laptops are expensive as hell, and the prices aren't justified.
Let's just look at the 13-inch MacBook that was just announced, for example. For $1,300, it comes with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. Over at Dell, I can grab an Inspiron 13 laptop with a 13.3-inch screen, a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. For $750. For those of you keeping score at home, that's a $550 difference, and the specs are better on the cheaper Dell.
And it's not like Apple is offering anything great for my $550. You have a fancy new manufacturing process, awesome. Your trackpads are glass. OK. I'd rather have $550 and a plastic trackpad, thanks. I'm not sold on no physical buttons anyways.
Apple has always put a price premium on its products, and people pay it, which is great for them. But for people who aren't already on the Apple bandwagon and for people who aren't having their computers bought for them by rich parents, like the college kids! who sna p up these laptops every August, there's no incentive to switch.
Maybe Leopard is way better than Vista. I don't know, I haven't extensively used either. But when the time comes to buy a new computer that comes loaded with one or the other, one thing is going to make my decision for me, and it isn't shiny glass things or funny commercials. It's the price. And I don't think I'm alone on that one.
Download Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 With Awesome New 3D Tab Interface Now [Firefox]
Nokia's N-Series Wants to be Touched More [Nokia]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/421051677/nokias-n+series-wants-to-be-touched-more
NVIDIA GeForce 9400 M, 9600M GT get official in new MacBooks
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/420733675/
Filed under: Laptops
As expected, Apple has tapped NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 M as the base graphics for its new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and updated MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs himself says is five times faster than the current Intel integrated graphics they've been using. That's aided in no small part by the chipset's 16 parallel graphics cores, not to mention a generally beefier GPU that occupies a full 70% of the die area. If that's not enough for you, Apple is also throwing NVIDIA's 9600M GT into the MacBook Pro, which'll give you two GPUs and either 256MB or 512MB of memory. That power will unsurprisingly come at the expense of some battery life, however, with the 9600 cutting things back to four hours from the five hours you can expect with the discrete GPU switched off. In the Q&A after the announcement, Apple also confirmed that it'd be the first taking the chipset to market, but that anything further is up to NVIDIA. Expect to hear more about that tomorrow, when NVIDIA is supposedly making its own announcement.
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