Mac - page 81

It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.

When Newton North High School in Newton, MA was rebuilt recently as a new, state of the art facility, a primary goal was to teach students information literacy using current technology. With a generous budget and the opportunity to start fresh, the result is a school with five Mac-based computing labs, over 130 new iMacs, and a library that rivals one found at many colleges.

It’s enough to make any Apple user envious, and much of the potential is still untapped. “With a lot of this being so new,” says Phil Golando, IT Manager, “we don’t even know all the ways we can use this stuff.”

Artist Michael Tompert takes Apple’s products and wrecks them with blowtorches, sledgehammers, handsaws and handguns. His large-scale prints of the detritus are surprisingly colorful and beautiful.

“It’s an alternate viewpoint,” explained Tompert at a preview of his first gallery show, which opens in San Francisco today. “They’re beautiful inside. They’re beautiful when you open them up.”

At a preview last weekend, Tompert’s three kids sat on the floor playing with iPhones and iPod touches underneath their father’s artwork. The irony was lost on no one. In fact, it’s our obsession with Apple’s products that Tompert is commenting on.

Feast your eyes on this beautiful gallery of Apple products destroyed in the name of art. The work is by artist Michael Tompert, whose show opens tonight in San Francisco. But you don’t have to be in California to enjoy the pictures. We have all 12 prints — plus detail shots — in the gallery below.

The photo above, called “Breathe,” shows a 2008 MacBook Air shot with a 9mm Heckler & Koch handgun.

Is the writing on the wall for iTunes?

For the first time, U.S. music fans are streaming as much music as they download — and streaming is set to overtake downloading in a matter of months.

NPD Group says 30 percent of U.S. music consumers streamed music in August; the same percentage that downloaded music to their computers.

But streaming is growing fast. In a few months, it will far outstrip downloads, NPD Group spokesman Lee Martin told Evolver.fm.

Incredibly, the new numbers also include downloads from peer-to-peer file sharing networks as well as legal downloads from iTunes and Amazon.

Apparently, the convenience of streaming services, which now offer instant access to vast libraries of music of a wide variety of devices, even beats out piracy!

Good thing Apple has a $1 billion server farm coming online soon (if not already). But when are we going to see streaming from iTunes?

Evolver.fm: Americans Now Stream As Much Music As They Download

UPDATE: I go to dinner and all hell breaks loose. Sorry for the bogus info. My bad. I should have checked this out first. Apparently, this combo update is not good — it causes kernel panics. Here’s a legit link to the 10.6.5 combo update on Apple’s site: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1324

Here’s the hidden URL where you can download the Mac OS X 10.6.5 Combo update. This combo update is not visible on Apple.com

Some folks think it’s usually better for your OS to install the combo update. From what we understand, the combo update does a more complete update than incremental updates applied through OS X’s Software Update. For example, system glitches caused by earier updates may be fixed because the combo update reinstalls everything that was included in previous updates (in this case, everything in 10.6.1 through 10.6.5).

It can also help avoid update headaches, we’re told.

Thanks Roman Zavřel of Letem Světem Applem.

Comment of the week comes from reader Flash Man regarding the story that Adobe’s Flash kills battery life. Writes Flash Mac:

A new study also indicates that using web and desktop applications will significantly decrease battery life. In fact, in a stunning series of tests soon to be released, scientists have determined that simply running the computer would decrease the battery by up to 50X compared to keeping it in the ‘off’ or ‘standby’ mode. Scientists are looking for solutions to this problem. One five year old girl suggested plugging in some kind of ‘charging device’ to combat this threat. Fanboys quickly dismissed the idea as too simple and instead suggested purchasing multiple Macbooks and having an elaborate series of spares available at all times. Additionally, Apple suggests purchasing an AppleTV and an iPhone to make end users feel better.

In June 2008, on a flight home from Europe to San Francisco, I was given a fascinating demo of some jaw-dropping technology.

I was sitting next Inon Beracha, CEO of Israeli company PrimeSense, which had developed a low-cost chip and software to do 3D machine vision.

The system used a pair of cameras and an infrared sensor to highlight people and track their movements.

On his laptop, Beracha showed me videos of people waving their hands in the air to control Wii-like games. He showed people controlling TV programming menus by gesturing their hands in the air. And, most impressive of all, someone flipping through a photo slide show like they were Tom Cruise in Minority Report. It was so slick, I asked him if it was CGI. It was real, he said, and so cheap, the technology could eventually be found everywhere in the home, office and car.

Of course, PrimeSense’s system is at the heart of Microsoft’s new Kinect game controller, which is getting rave reviews and looks set to be a monster hit. It’s a “crazy, magical, omigosh rush,” says the New York Times‘ David Pogue.

And it almost belonged to Apple.

This is a guest interview by Mike Bastoli of The Pixar Blog, a popular news blog about the studio.

Lee Unkrich is the director of Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, which was released on DVD, Blu-ray and iTunes today. He also served as co-director of Toy Story 2 and editor of Toy Story, and is a member of Pixar’s Senior Creative Team.

Unkrich is an avid Mac user and Apple ‘addict’ who can be spotted at Apple’s events from time to time. “Whenever I’m invited, it’s something awwwwwwesome,” he tweeted to his 80,000 plus followers on Twitter ahead of the launch of the iPad in January.

Here’s an exclusive interview with Unkrich, who talks about his first Mac, Apple cameos in Pixar’s movies and Steve Jobs feeding his Apple addiction.

Apple’s massive new data center is a 21st-century broadcasting system to rival the TV networks of old, says a leading expert in cloud computing.

Nick Carr, author of the “The Big Switch” a bestseller about the cloud, says Apple’s North Carolina facility is a “broadcasting system” not unlike NBC or CBS, but one that distributes software as well as media.

“Apple increasingly views its mainstream computers, from iPod Touch to iPhone to iPad to MacBook Air, as media players, with “media” spanning not just audio and video but also apps,” Carr wrote in an email. “From that perspective, the North Carolina data center can be seen as essentially a broadcasting system that will enable Apple to make the shift from a downloading model of media distribution to a streaming model. It’s a proprietary broadcasting system (not altogether unlike traditional broadcasting systems), which means it’s a very different model of the cloud from the open model promoted by Google.”

At 500,000 square feet, Apple’s $1 billion data center will be among the largest in the world. The unusual size of the data center suggests that Apple has ambitious plans for cloud computing.

The massive facility is coming online before the end of the year, Apple has said, although what it will be used for, the company hasn’t detailed.

It’s assumed it will be used to stream music and movies from iTunes. Reports suggest the company is going to build a big office complex next door and is “going after the cable market.”

But it goes deeper than that, says Carr. The facility will help transition Apple from a download model of computing to a streaming model of computing.

Here’s what else he had to say about Apple’s unique take on the cloud:

We’ve received a tip about an unexpected application for the NFC chip Apple is expected to build into the iPhone 5.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless connection technology that would turn the iPhone into an electronic wallet or security passkey.

NFC is already in use in Asia and is expected to explode here in the next three to five years, especially if Apple adopts the technology. NFC has been rumored for the iPhone 5, and Apple appears to be gearing up for a NFC revolution. It has made a lot of NFC hires, including a a leading NFC expert and has patented a lot of NFC technology.

If the iPhone 5 does have NFC, applications like an eWallet are a no-brainer. But we’ve been told that Apple is also researching NFC for remote computing.

I want to like MobileMe.  It’s the Apple-sanctioned slice of cloud computing, integrated with the Mac and iOS operating systems.  The setup is simple, the price is reasonable, and despite the unprofessional name and lack of phone support, when all is humming along things just work.

Except MobileMe doesn’t keep working.  It stops syncing.  It loses data.  And Apple provides little or no advance warning of potential problems, nor easy ways to fix issues that occur.  Apple TV may have moved on to a professional product stage with the latest iteration, but from a business perspective MobileMe is still a “hobby” for Apple.

Apple’s new 11-inch MacBook Air is astonishing. It’s unbelievable. It’s the most exciting consumer PC that’s come out for years. It’s a netbook, but it’s not a PoS. It’s blazing fast. It’s unbelievably light and thin. It’s beautifully made. Really beautifully made.

It has an older CPU and skimpy RAM, but it is NOT underpowered. For users like me, who aren’t editing Hollywood movies, it’s more than adequate. Heck, it’s a huge leap forward. Like Jobs said at the launch, this is the future of notebooks. Extremely thin and light, yet capable of running dozens of applications without bogging down. There are compromises, of course, but the most important things — portability, durability and functionality — are very much in place.

Last year, I bought a 13-inch MacBook Pro, which I loved. But in comparison to the 11-inch Air, it looks like a bloated old relic. It’s positively primitive: a porky throwback to a previous computing era.

I know what you’re thinking, “Cult of Mac. This guy’s a zealot. He’ll buy anything Steve Jobs tells him too.” I admit, I’m a fan. But the Air is important. It’s different. It’s right up there with the iPad and the iPhone. This is a breakthrough product.

Cult of Mac members and fans of Bloom County, a long lost friend has returned.  Straight from the labs of the RetroMacCast and brainchild of RMC co-host John, the Banana Junior 9000 Fully Portable Personal Computer has been reborn!  It Computes, Sorts, Prints, Draws, Figures, Doodles, Slices, Dices, Whistles, Whimpers, Dances, Prances… and most important of all… It Turns ON!

Holy Mackerel this thing is fast! 46 tabs in Safari and 21 in Chrome; 18 open applications, including hogs like Safari, Mail and iTunes.

No spinning beachballs!

There’s no slowdown whatsoever. It’s amazing. This thing flies. It’s the $999 11-inch MacBook with only 2GBytes of RAM — the machine people said would be underpowered. But it’s not. Not by a long shot.

It’s the fastest laptop I’ve used in years, and Apple is going to sell boatloads of them. It’s very exciting.

I’ve got to go on a scout trip with my son. Full review on Monday, and more pictures after the jump.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ifrXlloH9s

Cult of Mac was asked by CNBC’s Street Signs to contribute our thoughts on the current market debate of whether it’s wiser to invest in Gold or Apple. Even though we don’t masquerade as financial advisors, the debate in the short-term seems fairly straightforward to us, and here are a few of the major points:

Steve Jobs is reportedly having a one-on-one meeting with President Obama.

Jobs is meeting the president just before Obama speaks at the Palo Alto home of Google executive Marissa Mayer’s this evening.

The meeting with Steve Jobs is not on the president’s official calendar, but a White House official confirmed the meeting will occur.

Jobs is no stranger to meeting presidents. In June, he hung out with Russian president Dimitry Medvedev (who is an iPad user), and has had President Clinton over for dinner. Jobs and his wife are Democratic party contributors; and Obama is a famous Mac user.

Obama’s speech at Marissa’s Mayer’s house is at 7PM PST/10PM EST.

Silicon Alley Insider: President Obama Meeting With Steve Jobs This Afternoon

Steve Jobs has a penchant for ruthlessly killing off old technology. Throughout his career, Jobs has been celebrated for ditching dying technologies in favor of new: the command line (first Mac), the Floppy Disk (first iMac), SCSI drives, serial ports, dial-up modems, and FireWire on hard drives and iPods.

With Apple’s event yesterday Steve Jobs, went on a killing spree. Here’s eight technologies he gave the kiss of death to:

I hate to crow, I really do, but we nailed it on the MacBook Air rumors.

Just look at our mockup above, which we published on Monday, and the real deal. It’s pretty uncanny, especially as the designer, Don Draper, mocked it up based on a description from a source. Of course, Apple is very consistent with its design language, which makes things easier. We got the color of the screen bezel wrong and forgot to include the headphone jack. But still — just look at it.

We got most of the specs right too.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M1r-xsFw0Q

We’ve been playing around with the new beta release of FaceTime, and while it’s slim on features, we’re fairly pleased with the app considering it’s still in the beta phase. So far FaceTime for Mac is a simple replication of FaceTime from iOS, but it’s simplicity is what I like about it so far.

This is the software reinstall disk for the new MacBook Air. Cool eh?

Here’s the details of what’s on it, according to Apple’s knowledgebase article:

Professional post-production photo effects software complete with hundreds of detailed, fine-grained controls to create virtually unlimited artistic styles for under a hundred bucks?

No way, you say.

Way.

PostworkShop is software from Xycod, a small Hungarian company that has built creative artists — of whom a number use Macs, apparently — a tool that so exceeds its cost in value, it’s nearly as breathtaking as some of the work it can be used to create.

Just as they did for September’s iPod Event, Apple will be live streaming Steve Jobs’ ‘Back To Mac’ announcements later today, starting at 10:00AM PDT. You can find the official link here.

Like last time, the live stream is only open to people using Mac products. Here are the compatible devices:

• OSX 10.6 Mac running Safari
• iPhone running a minimum of iOS 3.0
• iPod touch running a minimum of iOS 3.0
• iPad

Don’t worry if you’re stuck on an office PC: we’ll be live blogging the event, as usual.

This marks the second time in recent years that Apple has live streamed their own event, supposedly to test their new data centers, although Apple did experiment with live streaming earlier in the decade… only for the whole site to keel over under the strain of just 50,000 viewers.

This Wednesday, Apple holds a media event in Cupertino entitled “Back To The Mac.” As soon as they sent out the invitations, the internet started frothing with rumors. What will OS X 10.7 look like? Will there be a new MacBook Air? Will my iPad finally make coffee? The list of apple rumors is tremendous. Vegas odds makers are even taking bets on what Apple will unveil during the announcement.

I think the New York Times bits blog described the frantic Apple rumor mongering best:

When Apple makes an announcement about a coming press event it can sometimes feel like the National Hurricane Center has identified a new hurricane.

There is usually rampant speculation surrounding the importance and impact of the event: Will it be a Category 5 announcement with a revolutionary device, or a less-important Category 1, with basic updates to operating systems or gadgets?

Keeping with this tradition, the blogosphere was in full swing on Friday as technology experts and Apple fans tried to guess what Apple’s chief executive will announce next Wednesday when the company hosts “a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X,” and other new products.

And this isn’t a new phenomenon. This happens Every. Single. Time.

I wanted to know why. How can a computer company create such a frenzied pitch about a routine product announcement? And what can other companies learn from the Apple method? After looking at Apple product launch and product development strategies, I have come up with a few deductions. Here are some of the secrets that make Apple fans incredibly loyal and the press keenly interested in Mac product updates.

During his anti-Google diatribe this afternoon, Steve Jobs said the Google-versus-Apple, open-versus-closed debate is a smokescreen. It makes no sense to say Apple is closed while Google is open when the real issue is fragmentation versus integration.

Jobs said Google’s Android platform is fragmented. There are too many different versions of the operating system and too many devices, making it a headache for consumers and developers. Apple’s iOS devices on the other hand aren’t fragmented, because they are “vertically integrated.” Apple closely integrates the software with the hardware, and they “just work.”

But what does he mean exactly by “vertical integration?” And why is it so important?

I wrote about this at length in my book, Inside Steve’s Brain. In fact, I think it’s critical to understanding why Jobs and Apple are killing it in consumer electronics right now.

So here’s Chapter Eight — “Total Control: The Whole Widget,” — in its entirety.

Check out the great graphic below from designer Spencer Caldwell. It shows the screen sizes of Apple’s full lineup of machines — and where the rumored 11-inch MacBook Air will slot in.

Look how neatly it slots into the lineup. It’s pretty stunning. It’s almost like there was a hole just begging to be filled with a 11.6-inch machine.