The Z-bar, from Zillion TV is a compact set-top box that pulls HDTV signals from your broadband connection to offer you ad-supported HDTV shows and pay on demand.
The service is currently in beta, but when it’s available later in the year, you will be able to view shows for free with advertising attached, or buy them to watch ad-free shows.
Some big names are attached, too, such as NBC Universal, Disney, 20th Century Fox Television, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.
Zillion TV claims 15,000 titles in the current library and by launch they say they’ll have more. Is this the future of TV in your home?
Wasn’t it great to see Apple roll out a huge number and variety of new Macs and accessories on Tuesday without the benefit of Steve Jobs? The company’s culture and talent run deep, and Apple is in very capable hands with Tim Cook in charge. The new line-up is quite nice.
On the other hand, Tuesday’s announcements summed up and put the spotlight on the single-greatest opportunity that Apple isn’t capitalizing on right now: making the Mac mini the must-have living room computer of the century. WIth just a few small tweaks, the Mac mini would become the killer digital entertainment product the AppleTV aspires to be. No BluRay. No HDMI. Under-sized hard drive. No plans to offer monthly subscriptions for access to the video library. If the company took care of this stuff, hardware makers and content providers alike would be quaking in their boots at the thought of the Mac mini. But Apple left it out yesterday. Again.
To see why the company can’t see an opportunity that’s right in front of its face, click through.
If nothing else, Apple’s product refresh announcements Tuesday serve notice that even when the world around them seems to be coming apart at the seams, the product teams in Cupertino can be counted on to refine and improve the company’s product line at regular intervals.
And to, more often than not, prove the Apple commentariat wrong in the process.
A case in point is the refresh of the Mac mini. Written off almost a full two years ago by AppleInsider as a dead item, Apple has since then made THREE updates to the product line, two of them substantial. AI were originally saying the mini wouldn’t make it to Intel.
And then, just last fall, Gizmodo tried to bury the mini under rumors that European inventories were being allowed to thin.
The truth of the matter is that as much as great thinkers in the press and great dreamers among the consuming public may want Apple to craft product in the image of their hearts desire, the producers and designers inside One Infinite Loop have their own vision and their own timelines to which they prove, again and again, focused and true.
Yes, the era of locked-down secrecy may be at an end, as leaks and (invariably badly lit) spy-shots tend to precede product announcements more these days, but those who would seek to bury an Apple product before the company itself issues an EOL statement are more likely than not digging a hole they might look to crawl into months or even years down the road.
Apple is apparently refusing to cover the cost of repairs to some MacBook Air notebooks, even though the devices are under warranty, according to a report at Engadget.
Some MacBook Air owners who embraced the device in its original iteration (Rev.A) have found that over time, with normal use, the hinge fitting the screen to the body of the laptop becomes irreparably loose, sometimes even catching and cracking.
Discussion about the problem first hit the Apple Support fourm back in Feb. 2008 and appears to be well documented, though as an official matter Apple says it is not a “known” issue.
The Engadget report relates a case in which “Apple did the repair for free, but only after we escalated the issue to a manager, who let us know how very nice of them that was.” Apple classifies the damage as “accidental,” and thus not covered under the normal warranty. The hinge repair costs around $800.
Let us know in comments below how widespread this problem might be among Cult readers and whether you think you’d have what it takes to get an Apple Repair manager to cover repairs to your broken MacBook Air screen.
Apple made a huge detail about the non-removable battery it created for the 17″ Unibody MacBook Pro. By going with a sealed design, the company argued, it would be possible to make a much-higher capacity battery. Well, the guys over at iFixit have had their way with one of the new models, and it’s pretty clear the battery isn’t THAT hard to remove. It actually surprises me how much it looks like the interior of my existing MacBook, giant fans excepted.
Definitely check out the full slideshow — it’s good stuff. Anyone picked up a 17-incher yet? What do you think?Check out a couple more shots from iFixit’s meticulous disassembly operation after the jump.
Wow, here’s a fantastic hack from the RetroMacCast forum, in which contributor Charles Mangin creates a new body for a Mac mini – using the body of an ancient Apple Disk ][ drive.
Apple’s new 24″ LED Cinema Display suffers the fatal flaw of “ridiculous, terrible glare,” according to Jason Snell, editor of Macworld, who informed his Twitter followers Monday he’s putting his monitor back in the box and returning it to Macworld Labs.
Snell has spent his professional career as a writer covering Apple and, despite the presumed objectivity of his position as the editor of one of the larger, more recognizable mainstream media brands associated with the Cupertino computer maker, likely wouldn’t give up on such a major piece of Apple hardware unless he felt it was poorly executed.
Snell, of course enjoys a luxury many consumers do not, in that he can give his display back to the magazine’s lab and not have to worry about its cost or the space it may take up sitting unused in a corner or on a shelf. Average folk who’ve bought Apple’s new display and discovered after using it for a time that the glare is unbearable have far fewer options for doing anything about it.
What about you, dear reader – how do you feel about Apple’s embrace of the glossy screen on its flagship display? Is it worse in the wild than the glossy notebooks’ display? Would you send it back to “the Lab” if you could?
Not long ago, I reviewed Altec Lansing’s expressionist CLASSIC PC speakers and found them great value for the money. After listening to them for a while beyond the publication of that review, I still loved the sound quality from those $80 speakers but found myself wishing for a little more oomph on the bottom end.
Well, I should have known Altec had already thought of that. Ingeniously engineered into the small-footprint housing of their Expressionist BASS computer speakers, powerful 4″ (100mm) long-throw subwoofers deliver all the lows that are typically missing from the little speakers you find sitting on desks all over the world.
Of course, you could spend lots of money on high-fidelity audio components for a computer set-up, which in many cases would include a separate subwoofer that sits at your feet or hides somewhere nearby, effectively dispersing the low frequency signals you need to get a truly rich audio experience on the computer. Altec Lansing has managed to put that all together for you in a pair of attractive desktop cones that are super easy to hook up and sound great without breaking the bank.
Twin 1 ½” drivers deliver mid and high frequencies so vocals and details come through with the clarity you expect from the company’s long history as a quality speaker manufacturer, and the sub-drivers in each speaker really do provide that punch-in-the-head color you want from your online gameplay, movie watching and YouTube browsing. They also have an auxiliary input for conveniently connecting portable CD, DVD, and MP3 players.
To get the most out of these speakers I had to play around with the EQ in my iTunes app to correct for their increased bass response, but once I got everything balanced the way I wanted it, I found I could actually listen to all sounds from my computer at a lower overall volume than previously and now, two weeks into using them, I find I actually mute the computer volume quite a bit less than I used to, and I work with music on in the background more as well.
For $130, Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass computer speakers could help you come to love computer audio.
In the last of our stories from owners of original and classic era Macs, we talk to Nigel Curson. His Mac Plus has seen action as a desktop publishing workhorse, early internet client, and now toy for kids. And it’s still going strong.
Meet Rob Baca. He’s a serious vintage Mac collector, with a total of 75 machines in his possession. He’s also the man who co-directed the documentary Welcome to Macintosh, which counts among its interviewees our very own Leander Kahney.
One of Rob’s computers – bought from a friend on the condition that Rob would give it a loving home – is this original 128k Mac.
Australian Cult reader Dirk Spennemann is one of those lucky people who, on starting a new job where everyone’s on Windows boxes, can insist on a Mac. His fabulous photo set demonstrates just how much he admires these old Macs, but we wanted to know how he got his hands on that 128k.
Tarus Balog got in touch to tell us this fantastic story of an original Mac that got dumped. Tarus rescued it from certain doom, gave it a little TLC – and found a little software surprise waiting for him.
Get the full story, and some more great pics, after the clicky jumpy thing.
Apple has delayed shipment of some of its new unibody MacBooks by up to a more than a month after originally promised, according to a report Friday.
In one case, a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro ordered earlier this week won’t ship from its Chinese plant until February 26th and may not reach the buyer until early March, a reader told Apple Insider.
In another instance, Apple has automatically upgraded shipping to overnight for MacBook buyers.
Here’s an informative video by Sascha Pallenberg, conducting a brief interview with a chap who’s got OS X Leopard running on his MSI Wind netbook.
I’ve heard a lot about OS X on the Wind, but this is the first chance I’ve had to actually see it in action. And I confess, I’m impressed. OK, it’s taken this guy a little bit of hacking around to get the machine working smoothly like this (with all the extras like wifi, webcam, and volume controls working properly) – but the end result looks worth the hassle.
In Apple rumor news having nothing to do with Steve Jobs’ health, a new Mac mini, featuring Intel’s Atom processor and the same Nvidia GeForce graphics processor found in the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros is said to be set for release in March, according to a report at Tom’s Hardware.
Citing an Nvidia partner as the source for the information, Tom’s reports the refreshed mini will pair Nvidia’s GeForce 9400 graphics processor with Intel’s dual-core 1.6 GHz Atom 330 processor and come to market around the time of CeBit, the world’s largest trade show for information and telecommunications technology, held annually in Hanover, Germany.
An update to Tom’s original report cites conflicting rumor talk out of AppleInsider suggesting that Apple may be using Nvidia’s Ion platform for an updated Apple TV, while acknowledging that no one really knows what’s going on for sure.
As I’m preparing to spend away all of my money for a Macbook my classes require, I’m starting to think about protecting it. Not just protecting it, but protecting it in style. I like the custom made Macbook pouches on Etsy because I know that if I buy one, I’m probably never going to see someone with the same pouch. There may be a handful of others out there, but they’re so few and far between that you can consider your purchase unique.
fernfiddlehead has a barrage of Macbook envelopes that look excellent. There’s a simple pattern to their dimensions, but the fabrics available are vibrant and exciting:
So here’s another fantasy Mac design from Sait Alanyli, the guy who did the [L-shaped Mac mini](https://cultofmac.com/l-shaped-mac-mini-might-be-shape-of-things-to-come/5523) concept that we featured here back in December.
This is the Mac Tower, and I have to confess there are some things about it that I find rather appealing. The ideas of a pop-up casing and a pop-up remote are very cute, and the thought of putting a battery inside with enough juice to power a Time Machine backup in case of sudden mains power loss is, well, one of those things you wonder no-one has done before.
If you’re looking for a compact, efficient solution to shooting and editing high definition video, you’d probably be very interested in Florent Porta’s work with the new Canon 5D Mark II and a Macbook Pro. The video above (best appreciated at the Vimeo page or at Dailymotion) was shot in three days and edited in two. This was released shortly after the last Macbook/Macbook Pro announcement, so it likely wasn’t on the latest Macbook Pro.
With the significant upgrade of the new Macbooks and the Canon 5D bringing fantastic high quality photo and video to consumers, a few thousand dollars certainly goes a lot farther and a lot lighter than other shooting and editing solutions. Some suggest that tethering for video might even work, but there doesn’t seem to be any real solid confirmation on that.
Of all the surprises to come out of the CES show this year, Palm’s revival as a serious player in the handheld device market is perhaps the biggest of all.
Most people – myself included – had long since consigned Palm to the dustbin, confident that it would never re-invent itself out of the hole it had fallen into, out-manouevred and out-featured by rival devices.
Not so.
The initial reports coming from CES are that the Palm Pre is an excellent device and offers the iPhone some proper competition.
And at least some of that success might be because the team at Palm has a few former Apple employees on board.
“How Apple centric is the new Palm team? Well, Chris McKillop is director of Software at Palm … One of the PR people at Palm did PR at Apple. Jonathan Rubinstein, who runs the Palm Pre team and led off the announcement, was a key person in development of the iPod and lots of people followed him from Apple to Palm.”
Partly because my first ever PDA was a Palm, and I was a happy Palm user for many years. I don’t want to see the company fail. And partly because any serious competition for Apple is a good thing – anything that gets people umming and ahhing over whether they should buy an iPhone or a Pre will make Steve Jobs sit up and start paying attention when people ask for simple, basic stuff like copy/paste and syncable text notes.
UPDATE: I’ve just noticed that this post is very similar to another post by my esteemed Cult colleague Mr Mortensen not four hours previously. My apologies for the repetition. At least we can be sure that two great minds here think alike. I’m not having a good week, am I?
