Is the Macbook worth the large premium that Apple charges for it? In short it depends on what you are going for. If you are going for having the thinnest and best looking laptop that exists today then yes it is for you and you would think it is worth it. But if you are interested in a good computing power to weight ratio as well as concerned with price then it is definitely not worth the large price just for a thin laptop. You would be better off with a Macbook pro for example. To explain you could get a Dell XPS M1330 at a similar price to the base Macbook Air and get double the hard drive space on a faster hard drive, A 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and for an extra 100 dollars, you could also have double the RAM. So in essence if you are looking for the best bang for the buck then do not go with a Macbook Air but if you are going for looks then this is the thing to buy.
Today at the annual Steve Jobs Keynote to MacWorld he released 4 different things. The main of which being the all new MacBook Air. This is by quite a bit the thinnest laptop i the world at only .76" thick at its thickest point. It is available for preorder now with units shipping in 2 weeks. This is more of a for show computer rather than a powerful one. Although it ha 2GB of RAM and an option for a 64GB Solid State drive, the measly 1.8Ghz processor may feel a little slow to many people. The SSD option is also an extra $1,000 although should perform much better than the 4,200 RMP 80GB Hard Drive that comes standard. In other news he also released a NAS Storage Device to be used with Leopard’s new Time Machine Backup feature. It comes in either 500GB or 1TB Sizes. Also released was the long awaited Itunes Movie Rentals and along with that a redesigned User Interface for the Apple TV as well as a price drop. The Movie Rentals work the same as most in that you have 30 days to start watching the movie after it was purchased and after you have started the movie you have 24 hours to finish it and watch it again. Also released was the Ipod Touch/ Iphone firmware upgrade bringing many different and new features to both devices. (For a full list hit up Engadget.com)
Photo from Engadget.com
As most of you already know Macworld is starting tomorrow at 9AM sharp with Steve Job’s annual keynote. The main rumors going around are the recent postings on different blogs about the new MacBook Air and its possible release tomorrow. The rumors hint at a very small laptop, almost a cross between an unltraportable and a thin and light laptop for it is rumored to not have a disc drive as well as the possibility of not having a wired LAN connection. Which means that the latopt would rely solely on Wi-fi or some other means of wireless communication (WiMax???). The other subject that Jobs will most likely talk about is the upcoming launch of the Iphone/iTouch SDK release in February. Probably a pricing system and the details of the whole operation will be talked about tomorrow. Hopefully this year his talk lives up to the overwhelming amount of hype that his keynote always garners(it usually does).
Photo from Wired.com.
Engadget reports that Microsoft has come out and oficiialy released the Keyboard that snaps onto the Xbox 360 controller. This keyboard is a full keyboard and will work with the Spring Xbox Update. Included in the Update is support for Windows Messenger which will be the main reason for owning one of these new keyboards. the keyboard itself snaps onto the bottom of the controller adding to the bulk. It goes into the headset jack on the controller and comes with its own headset to be plugged into what looks like a single jack. The people that have actually used the keyboard have said that it has a very nice feel to it and that people with bigger hands will benefit more from the keyboards becuase of the spacing and the size of the keys. The whole keyboard is backlit so that during those long tournaments of Rainbow Six late into the night you can still chat with your friends. The Spring Update for this year includes a lot of needed upgrades. First off release date is set for the week of May 7th. The Marketplace will have its own tab in the Dashboard. The update will also feature the ability to watch partially downloaded things, some new UI tweaks, and Windows Live Messenger will be integrated into the system and people online will be able to see what you are playing. This will definetley up its posistion on the PS3 a little bit as the PS3 only has some basic keyboard options. Other than that it just adds to the already great Xbox Dashboard System.
Origional at Engadget.com
Engadget.com reports that the Black Xbox 360 that people have been speculating about is on its way sonner than we think with some amazing specs. It will be sold with the Premium and Core
bundles. Its model will be the Elite. It had a 120Gb Hard Drive, HDMI Output, and will run cooler than the original Xbox 360. It will cost $479. The HD DVD drive is not bundled or built in to the devidce however but I do not think that Microsoft had any plans to do so anyway. I think this would definetley up the market share in the future of the Xbox 360. The hard drive will also be available as an add on in the sub $200 range. This would definetley put the PS3 to shame because now the hardware is the same or better on the Xbox 360 and the PS3's
software is no better than the Xbox 360's. We will have to see how this plays out in the future.
Engadget.com
The image is of the original Xbox 360 Developers Kit.
Xbox Live for Windows is launching May 8th. We will finally find out who is better, the keyboard and mouse, or the console controller. Unfortunately you can't choose whether you go up against a keyboard or a controller so that may ba a problem but otherwise a great thing to counter the announcement of the Playstation Home concept. This completes Microsofts vision of a unified experience between PC and all the other electronics in the home. This is directed straight at the gamer audience who were in heated debates over the keyboard versus the controller and it complements the Xbox Live Gold Service very well. If you have Xbox Live Gold it will work on your Vista powered computer as well. You will use the same gamertag as on Xbox Live. Achievement Points will be added for doing things in the games that are supported. The durrent games that are supported are Halo and Shadowrun. It requires Xbox Live Gold to play online and also requires Vista on your computer to work.
Image from Engadget
The Neoya X2VGA 2 is a HD VGA Transcoder that works with any video or gaming device that has just a standard video output. It works with the Xbox, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, and the Gamecube. It allows you to play games on your HD VGA monitor in 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. How do you know if your monitor supports VGA? Click here, that's how. For those of you who want to play games on an HD monitor without spending a lot of money on an HDTV, this is a relatively cheap ($60) way to do it. With the X2VGA 2 you can easily switch between seeing what is on your console and what is on your computer— all it takes is the press of a button. You can only buy it at its website here.
Images from X2VGA
Recently at the 3GSM show in Barcelona, Spain there was a show of marvelous technological advancements in the cellular phone interfaces. Now, I know that "Harker" blocked a certain fairly popular online video viewing website, and this video appears on that website. So it might be slightly hard to watch this video at school, but you all should be doing academic things only. As you see, this splendid phone with splendid graphics you may be wondering when it will be released and who makes it. Conviently enough, I have one of the anwsers. It's produced by O2 and I don't know when it will be coming out.
Haven't you always wanted to put on your nifty electrode embedded helmet and start up a game of pong with one of your colleagues. Well soon you can! A company called g.tec has invented a prototype of this software/hardware that will allow you to do tasks on a computer. I would personally love to have one of these cause it'd just be so awesome to throw on a helmet and play some new exciting game like pong for endless hours. But unless your too lazy to move your fingers or your Stephen Hawking and are disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, this won't help you on homework. Meaning that you cannot type essays within seconds or do homework within minutes. You cannoth control you computer with this helmet as of yet but hopefully this will be included in a future revision.
So to recap, does not work for work, but it looks deliciously fun.
I have been really looking into these rumors about a possible black Xbox 360 lately because I am planning on getting a 360 soon and I want to know if I should wait for this new version. If the rumor is true, then the black version will have a 120GB hard drive, 65nm processor, an HDMI port, and will supposedly cost $584. From what I have read, it will be arriving in April. But, it is already March and with no mention of it at this weeks GDC in San Francisco, I am really having my doubts. Would it even be worth the money? Sure, a bigger hard drive would be nice, from what I've been told the 20GB drive is not big enough. But I have no use for HDMI and the 65nm processor will bee faster and cooler, but is it really necessary? As far as confirmation goes, there isn't much. Aside from a few pictures that could have easily been photoshopped. But the piture above is interesting. It is from an ad on Gamespot. I could not confirm that this ad exists because it is no longer running on Gamespot, but I have seen it on several reliable sites including Gizmodo and Endgadget. So keep your eyes open, but don't keep your hopes up.
Image from Gizmodo
