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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Video: Flash Video on New iMac — No Problems To Report

imac_video

Following reports of problems playing Flash video on the new iMac, here’s some footage of a quick video test I conducted. (Hit the jump).

BTW: Don’t miss our comprehensive review of the humungous new 27-inch iMac.

Thanks Dane for fixing the video.

I’ve been playing video on the machine for several days now with no problems. And the kids have been playing a lot of Flash games. Again, no problems so far.

This is a 27-inch iMac with a 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chip and 4GB of RAM.

In the above video, you can see a clip of Desperate Housewives playing on Hulu. As you’ll see, it plays fine in fullscreen — and at high resolution.

The video continues to play even as I open more Safari windows to play the same show. With four Safari windows open — and four simultaneous Flash video streams — the iMac continues to perform without hiccups or stuttering.

However, when I open a fifth Safari window, the video starts to stutter, though the sound is fine. Activity Monitor shows the CPU cranking at 120%.

I conducted the same test on a 24-inch iMac (2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM) and the video starts to stutter when I open the fourth window; so the new 27-inch machine performs slightly better.

Conclusion: no problems with Flash video on this machine — so far.

About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is senior editor of Cult of Mac, editor of two books about technology culture, Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, and has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Observer in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

Email the author | Read more posts by Leander Kahney.

4 comments

    desperate housewives? is that all hulu has to offer?

    @matr. just the first thing i clicked. i hate that show. should have chosen hill street blues or miami vice, which i never saw back then but am quite enjoying now.

    you want a good laugh. go watch 21 Jump Street. I was in love with that show when I was like 5. now I have to just laugh at how bad it is.

    I wonder why so many others are having issues, then?

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