Leander Kahney - page 47

Aerial footage of Apple’s massive data center in rural North Carolina clearly show how large the $1 billion complex is.

Shot recently by a local realtor, the footage shows a massive facility the size of a shopping mall.

Experts note that Apple’s data center will be among the largest in the world, rivaling centers run by internet giants like Microsoft and Google. The unusual size of the data center suggests that Apple is investing heavily in cloud computing. At 500-000 square feet, the facility is five-times the size of Apple’s West Coast center in Newark, Calif.

Apple has said little about the complex, except that it’ll be its east coast data hub.

The aerial footage after the jump:

Steve Jobs unloaded on Flash during a meeting with Wall Street Journal executives last week, according to Gawker.

Jobs met with editors of the Journal to show them the new iPad. The Journal make widespread use of Flash on its website for video, infographics, etc., and editors raised concerns about the absence of Adobe’s plug-in.

According to Gawker: “Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the meeting tell us. He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy.”

Esquire magazine has a marvelous profile of film critic Roger Ebert, who has lost his lower jaw and voice box after several years of cancer treatments.

Having lost the ability to speak, Ebert is pouring himself into writing instead.

His astonishing online journal runs to more than 500,000 words on topics as disparate as his life, the afterlife (none-he’s atheist), alcoholism, travel, books, and friends, living and dead.

To communicate in everyday life, Ebert uses text-to-speech on his MacBook Pro, Stephen Hawking-style.

Gelaskins has teamed up with National Geographic to produce a new line of stunning, nature-themed MacBook and iPhone covers.

Priced between $14.95 and $29.95 depending on device, the covers showcase photos of cute baby seals, weirdly-colored snails and trippy space nebula.

More info at the Gelaskins website.

More pictures after the jump.

I’ve been a long-time user of messenger bags, ever since I was a bike courier here in San Francisco in the mid-1990s. I’ve been though a few of them, including an original Zo bag, but one of the best I’ve used is the Large Messenger Bag from Incase.

Note: It’s Bag Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest bags on the market. Read all the bag reviews here.

Here’s some video of Wired‘s digital version of the magazine in action.

Check out the amazing 360 of the car ad at the 1.33 point. A glossy magazine ad comes to life and you’re able rotate it with your finger. It’s totally sci-fi — and very, very cool.

Wired’s EIC  Chris Anderson says the iPad and other tablets are a big opportunity for the publishing industry, and Wired is betting big on them.

“Much is still to be answered about magazines and other media on this emerging class of devices, from the business and distribution models to the consumer response. But what is already clear is that they offer the opportunity to be beautiful, highly engaging and immersive, going beyond what’s available on the web. I think tablets are going to sell like hotcakes, in part because they offer such an intimate, rich media experience. We’re betting big on them, as you can see, but this is just a taste. Stay tuned for a full release this summer.”

The app is designed to run using Adobe’s Air, but can be easily repurposed for the iPad and other devices, Anderson says. He showed it off for the first time last week at the TED conference.

Via Wired’s Epicenter blog.

Big shocker: Microsoft isn’t supporting Adobe’s Flash in its brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Windows Phone 7 joins Apple’s iPhone and iPad in snubbing the widely-used plug-in.

The news was delivered to Information Week, which received a surprise email from Adobe saying:

“While the newest version of Windows Phone won’t support Flash at initial availability, both companies are working to include a browser plug-in for the full Flash player in future versions of Windows Phone. More details will be shared at Microsoft MIX next month.”

Information Week is skeptical. It says it’s not clear if Flash is coming to WinMo 7 at all.

Microsoft launched WinMo 7 on Monday to great acclaim. Blogs like Gizmodo and Wired’s Gadget Lab, which got to play with the new system at the Mobile World Congress, say it looks better and is easier to use than the iPhone. (Giz: Windows Phone 7 Interface: Microsoft Has Out-Appled Apple; Gadget Lab: Hands-On With Windows Phone 7 Series

Of course, Microsoft makes its own Silverlight platform, a rich-media platform which competes with Flash on the web.

Although Apple has remained officially mum on the issue of Flash, it’s widely understood that the company views the plug-in as buggy and power-hungry.

Not all smartphone makes are snubbing Flash, however.  Adobe just announced Flash for Google’s Android platform, it’s first step into mobile.

Information Week: Windows Mobile 7 Won’t Get Flash

Via Gadget Lab.

Steve Jobs is finally cooperating with an official biography, the New York Times reports.

Jobs will collaborate with Walter Isaacson, author of two well-regarded biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.

The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple, these people said.

Mr. Jobs, who will turn 55 on Feb. 24, has invited Mr. Isaacson to tour his childhood home, one person with knowledge of the discussion said.

… Cooperation with Mr. Isaacson could be a sign that Mr. Jobs has emerged from his recent health battles with more of an interest in shaping his legacy.

The digital version of Wired Magazine for the iPad and other devices will be a “game changer,” Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson said Friday.

Showing off a demo of the digital magazine at the TED conference on Friday, Anderson said the interactive magazine brought print’s high-production values to digital for the first time.

“We think this is a game changer,” he told the audience.

Anderson said the digital magazine is on track for a summer release. The iPad is expected to be on sale by the end of March.

Via Wired’s Epicenter.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Saturday is the last day of Macworld 2010 and you can bring a friend for only $15 when you use priority code SHARE. The Expo Hall hours are from 10:00am to 6:00pm.

If you want to show the kids a good time do the following:

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Steven Chan and his wife gave their three kids the same initials: M – A – C.

There’s Maxwell Alexander Chan, his brother Matthew and sister Megan.

“We’re in the printing and graphics business and we just loved the Mac from the very beginning,” said Chan. “Its the tool of our trade, so…”

In a dozen years reporting on Apple, the Chans are the first people I’ve met who named their kids after their favorite computer company. Although there have been rumors of kids named after Apple or the Mac — Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple, for example — it has become an urban myth, often rumored but never verified (if ever). I don’t know of another documented case.

I met the Chans on the Macworld show floor. They’d driven up from Southern California for the Expo. The Chan’s printing business is in Riverside County.

“We’re both fanatics,” Chan added, laughing. “There’s five of us but we have eight Macs in the house. There’s more Macs than people.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — The guys at Topaz Labs thought business would be slow at the first Macworld without Apple, so they packed only 250 CDs of their software.

They sold out in the first few hours of the first day.

Worried it was just an opening-day rush, and that day two would be dead, they had just 250 more overnighted to their hotel. But those too quickly sold.

“It’s been awesome. I’m exhausted,” laughed Ivan Randall of Topaz Labs. “It’s been a great show.”

Almost all the vendors we talked to told the same story: Macworld 2010 has definitely been worth the money. Many had low expectations, but turnout has been great and business is brisk.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — The second day of Macworld 2010 was another big day with throngs of showgoers crowding the show floor.

Some vendors had worried that the big crowds on day one would thin significantly on the second day. But there was steady stream of attendees and brisk business for vendors.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — You’ve probably seen the late pitchman Billy Mays on late-night TV smashing his hand with hammer while it’s wrapped in Impact Gel — a super cushioning material used for insoles.

In fact, Impact Gel was featured in the first episode of PitchMen, the Discovery Channel show featuring Mays and his partner Anthony Sullivan.

Now, Impact Gel is being used to make a laptop sleeve that can be hit with a hammer and dropped without damaging the contents.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — One of the most welcome aspects of the post-Apple Macworld is the absence of the giant booths devoted to iPhone accessories.

In recent years, Macworld was in danger of becoming the iPhone case show. Many of the biggest and most prominent booths on the show floor were devoted to cases and screen covers.

This year, they’re mostly absent. While there were about 100 case and accessory makers at CES in January (in the iLounge pavilion), the 150 iPhone developers at Macworld are mostly software publishers. It’s a welcome change.

SAN FRANCISCO — Veteran Mac programmer Bill Atkinson took the stage at Macworld for the first time in 23 years to show off PhotoCard — an app for sending fine-art postcards through the mail.

Written by Atkinson himself (he’s the genius behind early and great Mac software such as QuickDraw, MacPaint and HyperCard), PhotoCard allows you to write a postcard on your iPhone. When you hit send, a beautifully printed postcard is sent through the mail.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Programmer Bill Atkinson, one of the lead authors of the original Mac system, says the iPad will be a big success — and that you have to play with it to understand the magic of the multitouch interface.

“This guy is going to be a real winner,” he said, holding up a model he’d made for himself to visualize how his PhotoCard app would look on the device. Atkinson took part in Guy Kawasaki’s Friday morning keynote presentation.

“Once you get it in your hands and play with it you don’t want to set it down,” he continued. “I think Apple’s got a hit on their hands here.”

Atkinson said he’d played with an iPad for a couple of hours. It’s not a laptop and its not an iPhone, he said, but an entirely new, third device. The magic is in using your fingers to directly manipulate elements onscreen.

Returning to using a mouse is like using a remote control, he said — clumsy and awkward.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Graham Clarke, prepress manager at TravelSmith, a travel clothing website, is wandering Macworld in search of software to help him bring offshore jobs back onshore.

Clarke is looking for easy-to-use masking software, which will allow his company to bring a lot of image processing work — currently performed in China at rock-bottom rates — back to the U.S.

Travelsmith processes about 6,000 product images a year. Each has 10 or 15 masks, which are currently processed in China for $10 per image. “It’s very long, boring and labor intensive,” explains Clarke.

Clarke is taking a closer look at packages like Graphic Authority’s Photoshop Suite and Topaz Remask, which make masking easy.

“Now it’s like painting,” Clarke says. “It’s so quick and easy, why pay for the labor? If we’re paying someone $10 to do something that takes 10 minutes then it’s time to bring it back in-house. It’s ironic. What work went offshore is now coming back because it’s so easy to do.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Years ago at Palm conferences everyone used to get out their Palm Pilots and beam contact information at each other via infrared.

The tradition is alive and well at Macworld, except people are using the popular Bump iPhone app. The free app transfers contact info wirelessly via Wi-Fi or 3G when two iPhones are bumped together.

Wandering the show floor, you can see people bumping their iPhones together. I saw one group of about six people standing in a circle bumping each other.

“I made them all do it,” explained Liana Lehua of the Fittorrent website, nodding at the rest of the group. “I don’t carry business cards, so everyone downloaded the app.”

Woah, Macworld is Packed!

Much to my surprise and delight, the crowds are showing up in droves for Macworld. Though the gates opened just 30 minutes ago, the show floor is already crowded with attendees.

“It’s a zoo up there,” said one paserby who queued up to get an entrance badge.

True, the show is restricted to the Moscone Center’s smaller North Hall (instead of both South and North halls), and it’s not as jammed as some previous opening days, but it’s still a very healthy crowd.

To be honest, I’ve always hated the Macworld show floor. The throngs get old really quick, with people shuffling along in a Magadon dream, bumping you with rucksacks full of crap, or interrupting a briefing with dumb questions.

But still, I’d be sorry to see it go. So best of luck to Paul Kent and co. Long live Macworld!

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Helped perhaps by low expectations, David Pogue’s opening keynote here was a surprising success, playing to a packed, standing-room-only audience and bringing in a steady stream of laughs at Apple’s expense.

Pogue’s keynote was a variety show, with interviews, skits, singing and dancing — and a one-act play starring LeVar Burton as Steve Jobs.

Pogue also showcased the work of The Gregory Brothers, a quartet of Brooklynites behind Autotune the News.

Overall, the show was charming and funny light entertainment. A traditional Steve Jobs keynote it was not.

One of the characters in Pogue’s play managed to call Steve Jobs a “creepy vegan megalomaniac.”

That kind of thing would never fly if Apple were here at the show. And perhaps it shows what future Macworlds might be like without the anchor tenant.

The absence of Apple allows the show to be about the bigger topic — the Apple ecosystem — rather than being just Apple, and Apple alone.

“It’s liberating,” said one attendee coming out of the keynote. “I feel good about it. It’s not just about Apple any more.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — New York Times tech columnist David Pogue just kicked off Macworld Expo with an impression of Steve — Steve Ballmer, that is, not Jobs.

Pogue stormed the stage grunting and whooping in an exuberant impersonation of the Microsoft CEO, who is famous for his Monkey Boy stage appearances.

“Steve Jobs would have been too obvious,” Pogue said.

It wasn’t a bad start to the Expo. Except for the obligatory song, Pogue is bringing the house down with a string of good jokes at the expense of Apple, AT&T and Twitter.

SAN FRANCISCO — Three years ago Steve Jobs took the stage to introduce the iPhone here at Macworld. The presentation was one of the best in Jobs’ career, generating enormous buzz and expectation for the device.

Also important, fans could check out the device in person on the Macworld show floor (Well, kinda — there was a prototype in a glass case). It was obvious the iPhone was a big deal, and by the time it went on sale in June, there were lines around the block. Looking back, I think the success of the iPhone’s debut had a lot to do with the venue, and the audience it was introduced to.

The best thing about Macworld was always the parties. MacWeek’s annual Mac The Knife Party was a drunken bacchanal for the ages; Peachpit and O’Reily put on nice literary soirees with cash bars; and Microsoft’s events always had fancy hors d’oeuvres.

Even Apple, a stranger to shows of public hospitality, once threw parties with generous helpings of food and booze. I got so ploughed at one event, I forgot my heavy laptop bag — computer, camera and all. Apple designer Jonny Ive kindly picked it up and lugged it about all evening until we ran into each other later at a nightclub, and he handed it back.

Macworld 2010 opens today. It is the 25th annual gathering of Mac users. That’s right, 25 years!

But thanks to the absence of Apple this year, this “Mecca for Mac Heads” may be the last. So check it out while you can.

• The show runs for 5 days. The Expo showfloor opens on Thursday at noon.
• For the first time since the eighties, it now includes a Saturday. Expect big crowds, lots of kids.
• There’s 250 exhibitors, down from 400 last year. Here’s the Exhibitor List.
• Attendance is expected at about 30,000 visitors. (But most Expo visitors this year got free passes instead of paying the usual $25 fee).
• People are hoping this isn’t the last Macworld but consider the history. As Jim Dalrymple notes: “Apple pulled out of Macworld Expo Boston/New York — it failed; Apple pulled out of Macworld Expo Tokyo — it failed; Apple pulled out of Apple Expo Paris — it failed.”
• Macworld Expo Floor Hours: Thu 2/11 12pm-6pm; Fri 2/12; 10am-6pm Sat 2/13; 10am-6pm
• Twitter hashtag is #macworld2010

And here, in chronological order, is the top 5 things to do at the show: