hardware - page 33

Back when everyone thought Apple’s tablet was going to be called the iSlate, HP stole the rumored name for their own iPad-esque wedge of aluminum and metal, the HP Slate, but the specs remained a mystery. Now Spanish gadget blog Clipset has the details on HP’s forthcoming tablet, confirming pretty much what we knew all along: it’s basically a netbook with the keyboard broken off.

According to Clipset, the HP Slate is driven by Intel’s Atom processor, and contains built-in USB ports, a memory card reader for expandable storage, and the poorly thought-out placement of a backwards-facing webcam.

That Intel Atom processor would be just fine if the HP Slate was being driven by a custom touchscreen OS like the iPhone OS, but instead it runs Windows 7, which runs chunkily at best on netbook processors and has a long way to go as a multitouch-driven OS.

The cost? €400, or almost $550, although my guess is that in the US, HP won’t dare go higher than the entry-level iPad’s $499 price.

It’s a nice try, but one that falls short. They might confuse some people: in chassis design, the HP Slate looks so much like the iPad that it resembles a Chinese knock-off more than a competing product. Caveat emptor. But there’s just no way anyone is going to mistake Windows 7 for iPhone OS.

[via Gadget Lab]

It was inevitable that Apple’s 27-inch iMac would eventually be stripped off the computer guts that drove it and pared down into Apple’s long-anticipated update to their original LED-backlit Cinema Display… and now that the 27-inch iMac’s perpetual quality assurance problems seem to have been ironed out, it looks like that’s just what we’re going to see.

According to Apple Insider, sources have told them that the 27-inch display has been floating around Apple’s labs for sometime, referenced by the codename “K59.”

The only thing stopping Apple from releasing K59? The cost of the 2560 x 1440 display panels. The 27-inch iMac is already an absurd deal, the equivalent of getting a top-of-the-line cinema display and getting a computer built-in for free. If the K59 can be delivered for a significantly lower price point, some of us might be looking at 54-inch desktops in our immediate futures.

A terse entry from the sometimes reliable Digitimes might spell bad news for MacBook owners waiting for an imminent hardware refresh: Intel is having a hard time meeting demand for their latest Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, the most likely CPU candidates for the next iteration of Cupertino’s laptop line.

It all comes down to Acer. Apparently, the Windows laptop maker was so optimistic about consumer demand for Intel’s latest processors that they made an abnormally large order, slurping up practically every batch spit out of the assembly line. This has caused Intel to prioritize delivery of the remaining chips to major clients.

The question is: is Apple still considered a major client for Intel? Intel and Apple simply aren’t as close as they were two years ago, mostly due to Apple’s GPU partnership with NVIDIA: now, with Apple getting into chip development of its own, Intel may well see the writing on the wall… Apple’s an up-and-coming competitor.

Of all the eccentric Mac-lover accessories out there, these clocks might be some of the most phoned-in I’ve ever seen: they’re basically just old Apple keyboards clawed out of an electronics dump with their keys shaken loose and stuffed with cheap horological guts.

Even so, I’m sort of tempted by the iMac Bondi Blue Clock: it seems like just yesterday when I was bringing one back home for the first time. Oh, how time passes for an Apple fan.

What do the crafters at Geekware do with all of the keys they’ve got left over after they make a clock? No surprise there, really: they try to convince you they’re jewelry. Again, I’m guilty here of thinking these Apple key cufflinks are absolutely ridiculous and yet kind of wanting to own a pair.

During CES, Casemate showed off its newest iPhone and iPod Touch wireless charging solution, the Hug, and promised an imminent release date. Two months later, and here it is, ready for shipping in its beautiful but bulky, wirelessly-charging glory.

The Hug is similar to the PureEnergy’s WIldCharge — both allow you to charge your iPhone or iPod Touch by placing it in a case and just laying it down on a charging pad — but the Hug uses a full enclosure case made from injection-molded materials, as opposed to soft silicone. The result is that while the Hug looks more attractive than the WildCharge, it is also bulkier.

It’s also, unfortunately, more expensive: Case-Mate is shipping the Hug right now for $99.99, $20 more than the WildCharge.

Personally, I like the idea of wireless iPhone chargers, but I don’t see much of a point with them, since the iPhone can’t wirelessly sync at the same time. Connecting my iPhone to a docking cable isn’t such a big deal that it’s worth a $100 to me, but your mileage may very well vary.

The world’s most advanced music AI runs on a rickety old Power Mac 7500.

Called Emily Howell by its creator, music professor David Cope, the program just released “her” first album, From Darkness, Light, in January.

Yesterday, Cupertino surprised everyone by throwing a bonafide legal temper tantrum about rival handset maker HTC’s alleged infringement on up to 20 Apple patents.

Although Apple is targeting HTC, the takeaway here is clear: Apple’s going after Android, HTC’s bread-and-butter. Google recognizes this, and is standing in solidarity with HTC.

As Apple fans, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture here. Competition is good for the consumer, and Android becoming a credible threat to the iPhone’s dominance will only make the iPhone cheaper and better for consumers in the long run.

There’s other aspects that make this sort of patent battle bad news for consumers though. The New York Times Bits blog asked some IP experts on the possible ramifications of the Apple-HTC patent dispute, and according to Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, if Apple wins, we could see the courts order HTC to hit the kill switch on their Android phones, just like what happened in the TiVo/EchoStar lawsuit of 2004.

Apple’s line of notebooks are great computers, no doubt, but you’ve got to admit: they’re slick, streamlined designs come at the price of a paucity of ports. The MacBook and MacBook Pro only have two USB 2.0 ports, where as the MacBook Air only has one. Given how many gadgets charge and sync through USB, that makes USB hubs a way of life for those lugging an Apple laptop around.

CableJive’s duaLink Sync Splitter Cable is a great little accessory to maximize the usefulness of your rare open USB port. Essentially, it’s a standard iPod syncing cable, bifurcating polycephalically to allow you to dock, charge and sync two devices at the same time.

It’s not a big innovation, of course, but it’s a nice little accessory if, like me, you have an iPod Touch, Classic, Nano and iPhone to sync (with an iPad soon to be thrown into the mix), and only one free USB port to do it with. You can pick it up at CableJive’s online store for $26.

[via Technabob]

ThinkFlood’s latest product, the RedEye Mini, is another universal remote dongle for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it’s interesting in that it is both more and less gainly than the iPhone Universal Remote Case we wrote about last week.

Unlike the iPhone Universal Remote Case, the RedEye Mini is a small dongle that plugs into your iPhone or iPod Touch’s 3.5mm headphone jack. In other words, it keeps your Dock Connector open where the iPhone Universal Remote Case hijacks it, requiring you to pull your iPhone out of the Remote Case every time you want to sync it. The RedEye Mini solution is better in this regard, although now you have an easy-to-lose dongle to worry about.

Axiotron, makers of the thing that was closest to being an iPad before the iPad was announced – the Modbook – are not going to give in without a fight. No sir.

They’ve sent out a press release today, announcing a new promotion for buyers of all new Modbooks. Something they hope will make customers think twice before buying an iPad.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gebf8X69tE0

When sinewy-armed Germans Austrians put on some Rammstein, begin to use the word “dude” with abandon and then take a drill to a Powerbook, you just know schiß is about to get extreme.

So what the heck is this? A couple of mean-looking Teutons hack apart a PowerBook and instead of making it into a flame spitting metal dragon or perhaps a battle axe with a special funnel to allow disemboweling juices to sluice out of the handle, they make the wussiest snowboard ever.

It’s just very disappointing. Germany Austria has a long, sometimes ignominious maker’s history of repurposing old metal into some of the most awesome death machines around. These guys, on the other hand, ruin a perfectly good PowerBook, turn it into a snowboard, take it to the slopes and end up displaying all the equilibrium and fluid grace of a toddler pushed off the top of an icy hill while balanced precariously atop a garbage pail lid.

Update: The original post said these guys were German. I, a Berliner, apologize for the inexcusable mistake.

[via Macenstein]

The iPad’s hardware keyboard dock is the best hope for users looking to do serious writing on Apple’s latest device, but if a picture posted by MacRumors forum-goer macduke is anything to go by, it might also reveal some of the tablet’s still unannounced software capabilities.

Although the iPad keyboard dock is mostly similar to the Apple aluminum keyboard, the function keys have been replaced by various shortcut buttons. From left to right, these keys are: Home, Search, Brightness Down, Brightness Up, Photo Album, Keyboard Toggle, Blank, Skip Back, Play / Pause, Skip Forward, Mute, Volume Up, Volume Down and Lock Screen.

That all seems straight-forward enough, but it’s that Blank key above the 6 that is causing a flurry of speculation. Apple doesn’t leave blank function keys on its laptop keyboards, which the iPad’s keyboard dock is most similar to. Therefore, it seems hard to believe that Apple couldn’t think of a perfectly good use for that key.

Now, the image itself was initially posted over at iLounge, snapped at the January 27th iPad announcement. Is it possible that key is blank so as not to leak some yet-announced feature of the iPad? Say, a dashboard, or perhaps (even better) a multitasking app switch screen? No word from Apple yet… but we should know within a month.

Update: Reader Seth points out that there’s a lot of commentary on this exact same issue over at 9to5Mac.

Thanks to the App Store, the iPhone and iPod Touch have a wide library of frankly excellent remote apps available to most users. If your device can accept commands through WiFi or Bluetooth, the iPhone family is the best universal remote out there… but with most homes filled to the gills with dumb gadgets that can only be controlled by blinking infrared beams, that’s a big “if.”

Power A’s latest product, the iPhone Universal Remote Case, adds the IR functionality to the iPhone and iPod Touch, allowing it to communicate with any of your household’s stupidest devices. The IR transmitter’s built right into the sleek case, which adds a minimal footprint to your existing device.

Once your handheld’s ensconced, controlling every gadget in your house is as simple as loading Power A’s app, which will even update itself with new device profiles overtime. Not bad indeed… although that $60 price seems a bit much.

Unfortunately, Gizmodo seems to have pulled the story, but before they yanked it down, they posted a fascinating screenshot of Best Buy’s system showing several new dummy SKUs for new Apple products with a release date of February 19th, 2010…. in other words, tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Gizmodo yanked the post before I could grab a shot, so the image attached here is a lower resolution copy pulled from this scraper site. Sorry about that.

Either way, if this turns out to be true, Apple still tends to release new products on Tuesday, so it’s unlikely we’ll see anything new. The $1,999.99 price shown in the shot probably implies a 27-inch Core i5 2.66GHz iMac, presumably a restock. Still, given the display issues plaguing the 27-inch iMac line, the fact that Apple thinks it’s gotten a good enough handle on the problem to start shipping new machines is worthy of note.

I guess we’ll know tomorrow if this is just random database junk or the first glimpse of something more..

FatMan’s latest high-end audio couple is the Wi-Tube and Fat Dock, a combination that allows you to use the Wi-Tube valve amplifier to stream music wirelessly from a docked iPod, iPod Touch or iPhone to anywhere in the house.

The Wi-Tube and Fat Dock handle other media players, of course, thanks to a standard 3.5mm input, but Apple products are this duo’s bread and butter. The Fat Dock not only will stream music wirelessly, but charge any iPod slapped into it, while also offering syncing ability to a Mac or PC through USB.

As for the Wi-Tube amp, it can accept input through RCA as well, while the FatDock can output by RCA, USB, Video or S-Video in addition to its wireless functions. The whole thing is controlled by a bundled remote control.

It’s an attractive combo, but unfortunately it’ll cost you when it hits stores in late April: $599 is a hell of a lot to pay for an iPhone dock.

This is the sort of apocalyptically messy work room that any man can be proud of, but Flickr user Grant ups the ante for Mac fans because of the deliriously implausible and achingly retro home server housed within.

What you are looking at are three old school Power Macs : a 9600/200MP “Kansas” running Webstar 4 and RumpusFTP, an 8500/120 “Nitro” running MacHTTP and a Dual 450MHz “Mystic” with 1GB of RAM and a 30GB hard drive running OS X 10.4.11.

Those are pretty rad, but even better is what’s not in the shot: his Apple Newton web server.

Grant, we salute you. That’s just some amazing mileage you’re getting out of a garage of old-but-still-in-their-prime Power Macs.

[via MAKE]

Mea culpa. If you bought a MacBook between 2006 and 2007 and your hard drive sounds like an unoiled rock tumbler trying to work its way through a belly full of rusty bolts, you could be eligible for a free replacement, courtesy of Apple.

Admitting that a “very small percentage” of plastic MacBooks (namely, the original 2006 model and the mid-2007 model) “may fail under certain conditions,” Apple is inviting owners with a failed hard drive to hit up their local Genius Bar and see about a replacement.

If you’re one of the unluckily lucky eligible, Gizmodo has some helpful advice from a Mac Genius on how to make sure your computer gets the replacement: “If you really want to freak out a genius bar employee, just sidle up and mention you have a CS-matrix-eligible macbook hard drive replacement. or don’t because we’ll hate you for being douchey.”

Sounds like a good plan… although an Apple Genius calling a customer douchey? Why, hello, Mr. Pot… this is Kettle.

SAN FRANCISCO MACWORLD 2010 — It’s hard to miss the FastMac booth at Macworld. Just to the right of the Expo floor’s main entrance, the growing gadget and peripherals company has a prime space on the first aisle that was chock-a-block with visitors clogging the walkway to peer in at product demos and snap up the company’s awesome Apple-oriented t-shirts on the conference’s opening day Thursday.

We received an exclusive demo of a product FastMac is rightfully excited about — an updated version of its iV extended battery and portable charger that could soon mute some of the widespread criticism of the iPhone’s anemic battery life.

Many products in the extended battery class are clumsy and brickish. Despite their utility they often fall into disuse because they fundamentally alter the sleek and sexy feel of the so-called Jesus Phone. The new iV, which will apparently come in two flavors, the iV Light and an as-yet unnamed version, could make many power hungry iPhone users rethink the proposition.

With a new, super light-weight construction and supple rubber-like feel, the next-gen iVs will come with a full enclosure for 100% protection of the phone in a form factor that barely increases the weight and dimensions of the naked phone.

With a built-in LED light that calibrates with the iPhone’s camera, still and video captures in low-light situations should help elevate iPhone photography to new levels of quality and creativity.

The still-unnamed product, which should be available “soon,” according to FastMac principal Michael Lowdermilk, will incorporate a red LED which, in combination with a free remote control app, will turn an iPhone into a universal remote that can be used to change TV channels, stereo settings and a host of other useful and disruptive functions.

With no looking back, Macworld is clearly moving on in the post-Apple era and companies such as FastMac stand to gain increased attention with innovative products such as the iV — this is definitely a company to watch.

Apple’s refusal to spec their devices with memory card readers continues to irritate. My assumption has always been that the lack of an SD card reader on the iPhone has to do with two things: discouraging customers from buying the lowest priced iPhones and cheaply supplementing the storage with an SD card instead of shelling out a couple hundred more on the higher-capacity models, and making sure iTunes is the only real entry to shift to the device.

Still, when Apple updated the iPhone OS to firmware 3.0, adding functionality for iPhone peripherals into the mix, it was only a matter of time that we’d see an aftermarket SD card reader accessory… and here it is, ZoomIt.

Essentially, you plug the ZoomIt SD reader dongle into your iPhone or iPod Touch’s dongle connector, launch the free ZoomIt app and you’re free to shift any file supported by the OS to and from your device.

Of course, this isn’t really an expandable storage solution, but it wouldn’t be a bad way to backup photos from your camera while you’re on the road… and it should even work on the iPad. You can pre-order the ZoomIt now for $50, with a ship date in April.

The announcement of the iPad has done a lot of things: it’s stoked up excitement in the Mac using community, it’s got a bunch of developers feverishly coding exciting new stuff, and it’s got retailers and cell phone companies the world over drooling over the money they can make from it.

And it’s also somewhat upset my plans for buying a new Mac.

It’s been a month since my review of Google’s “SuperPhone”, the Nexus One. Since that time, we’ve surfed, updated facebook, navigated, called, played endless hands of cribbage and even tried to freeze it to death on a trip to Dayton Ohio. Follow me after the jump to find out does the “SuperPhone” stand the test of time, or is it a phonebooth’d Clark Kent.

Amazon obviously has a lot to fear from the iPad, and they seem to know it, if their latest acquisition is anything to go by: they have just purchased Touchco, a small company that makes very cheap multitouch displays. Oh, and they are merging it into their Kindle division. Duh.

Touchco’s touchscreen technology is pretty cool: not only is it cheap, but it’s sensitive to pressure, and can detect an infinite number of simultaneous touches. It’s also totally transparent, which means it won’t mute the full color LCD screens for which it is designed like other touchscreens solution.

It’s pretty clear Amazon’s planning a truly impressive, full-color, multitouch update to the Kindle… but they need it sooner rather than later. The iPad’s not even out yet, and it looks like Apple’s won the battle. Better crack the whips on those Touchco engineers, Amazon.

Boy Genius Report has an interesting chart of Apple’s price points. The site claims the chart shows that Apple has all the price points covered:

“From $59 to $7,000, if you want an Apple product, there’s a pretty darn good chance you’ll be able to pick something in your price range. Simply brilliant,” says the site.

But note that the chart does not show ALL Apple’s products and price points: there’a lot of products missing. But it does show that although Apple has a reputation as pricey, it does hit a lot of sub-$1,000 price points.

There’s so much expectation and hype about the things the Apple tablet will include, but there’s one thing I want it to exclude: wires.

Behold! The OfficePOD!

The OfficePOD gives you just over 4 square metres of space to swivel your chair and tap on your Mac keyboard. It comes with LED lighting, secure locks, and an electrical connection to your home. All you need to do is move yourself and your Mac inside, and you’re ready to work!

But what else does it have going for it?