Archive for the 'Apple' Category

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Battery recalls continue to wreak havoc…

Published on Sunday, October 1, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy, PC and Technology. 1 Comment

Sony are deep in the mud this time After Dell and Toshiba issued a battery recall for some (not all) of their laptop batteries, Lenovo (formely IBM’s PC Division) and Sony themselves have issued battery recalls for their laptops. The affected laptop batteries are made by Sony, and after recent incidents where a Dell exploded in Yahoo’s building, and a Lenovo ThinkPad exploded at LA’s International Airport, Sony have taken some action. Other manufacturers which use Sony’s batteries are Apple and Panasonic.

he Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer says that the recall is to address concerns regarding “recent overheating incidents,” and that they are working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to formulate a plan for the recall. They cite microscopic metal particles that enter the battery during the manufacturing process as the reason for the battery failures. The particles, they say, come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, causing the battery to short-circuit. Sony claims that these batteries would normally just power off, but in “rare cases” may overheat and cause flames. [ArsTechnica]

Lenovo are recalling around 526,000 of their batteries (image above), Dell around 4.1 Million and Apple 1.8 Million. Sony is a very large producer of Lithium-ion cells, and supply various third-party manufacturers so if you think you are affacted, make sure you keep an eye on your laptop manufacturer because they soon could be added to the list.

Aperture 1.5 released

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006 in Apple, Software and Technology. Closed

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the only thing that came out from Apple at Photokina today was Aperture 1.5. Though this is a let down to those who would have wished for new MacBook Pros, Apple have made significant improvements over the previous version of Aperture. The main new features of Aperture 1.5 are:

It will run on all Macs – From mini’s to Mac Pros.
It is a free update for everyone who already has Aperture, and $299 for those who don’t.
A new library system allows storage of photos on different media, even iPods!
It also allows for photos to be stored on different drives, ie, some on your Mac, others on a external hard drive.
There is also support for 3rd party plugins to do various different tasks.
Advanced colour control, add your own adjustment presets and exporting meta data are just a number of other features.

You can read more about the new features of Aperture here, or click the link below for Apple’s Aperture homepage.

Core 2 Duo iMacs have 802.11n?

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy, Technology and Wireless. Closed

According to a poster in the MacRumors forum, who goes by the name Peace, the new Core 2 Duo iMac apparently has a 802.11n chip built in. Well at least, Vista ‘recognises’ the ‘chip’ that is supposedly there that it is a Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter. The poster does stress that he did not fake it, and though people have been doubting the authenticity of the photo, another photo was posted. This depicts a an actual iMac in the photo, with Windows Vista clearly seen in the image.
I think this is real, as there would be no point of faking a photo like this (unless someone has too much free time on their hands). However, it doesn’t show up in OS X, because I think that Apple wants to wait until the standards for .11n have completely been settled. With all the pre-n stuff around, who knows what will be compatible with each other. It also eludes as to whether Apple will introduce a new Airport Extreme Base Station, which has 802.11n, even if it is pre/draft-n. It’s a shame Apple didn’t release any new MacBook Pro’s which could support this, and maybe have Core 2 Duo’s as well. An interesting thing to note though, is during Stevie’s keynote at the showtime event, when iTV was announced as having 802.11 wireless, without specifying the protocol. This could mean that the iTV could have 11n connectivity.

Links for 24/09/2006

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Internet, Microsoft, Random Stuff, Technology and TV's. Closed

Shorts for 24 September 2006.

Amazon UK attribute the Zune to “Apple Computer”, recently fixed it (above) [link]
Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive adds 1080p, for $170, to be released on November 22nd in Japan [link]
Digital fingerprint lock broken by MythBusters’ photocopied fingerprint! (video) [link]

Sony takes a page from the MacBook

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in Apple and Technology. Closed

It seems that in an attempt to create a new line of VAIO’s — which I have always liked the design of — Sony took some, or rather, a lot of inspirational design ideas from the MacBook.

The VAIO N10 series is for everyone who wants a practical, general purpose notebook for use at home or as a student. It represents excellent usability without frills, but – and this is key – it remains very much a VAIO at heart. One look at the clean, classic design makes that clear.

I don’t know how closer they can get to the design of the MacBook, even the keys look similar. Or maybe they should add a built-in webcam! I personally thought that Sony have always been close to Apple in the design market, as the VAIO’s are one of the most cleanest and nicest looking laptops around. In our family we have had three VAIO’s. One which is around 6 years old, we still have today (runs Win 98), the other is about 2/3 years old. As for the last one, well it kept overheating, and after sending it to Sony to fix 5 times, and then still getting the same problem, we sold it! The two still work fine, albiet a bit worn, but they are in working fashion. As for this, it is as if Sony is running out of ideas. ZDNet points out, that Sony designed the original PowerBook 100 for Apple — you remember, the black one? — but that doesn’t mean they have a right to copy Apple in such an obvious way. What are you thinking Sony?

Links for 21/09/2006

Published on Thursday, September 21, 2006 in Apple, Microsoft, Movies, Noteworthy, Shorts, Software, Technology and TV's. Closed

Today’s shorts for 21 September 2006.

USBCell provides a rechargeable NiMH battery in the shape of an AA battery to use in normal devices (above) [link]
Office 2007 details revealed for Mac, including new UI, with the ‘ribbon’ from Office 2007 for Window [link]
Microsoft steals Zune P2P idea from WeedShare? [link]
Apple sells 125,000 movies on the iTunes store within the first week of its launch [link]
iTV has Hard-Drive, well according to Disney’s Iger, the answer is yes! [link]

Another Apple event: September 25th

Published on Thursday, September 14, 2006 in Apple, Software and Technology. Closed

It seems that in the Apple announcement rush, we forgot that the original rumours about the event, stated that it was to be held one day before photokina, which is a photography event held in Germany on September 26th. It looks like that Apple may still hold this event, as UK press has received invitations, and recently MacWorld did as well. So maybe we have yet another Apple event to speculate about. The invitation is very vague, as always, and has a closeup of a camera lens, much like on the box of Apple’s Aperture, pro photography editing software, with the words “Start photokina a little early this year.” I guess that it will be a new version of Aperture, and/or maybe some bumped up MacBook Pro’s with Core 2 Duo’s maybe? We can all hope for something.

Note: The date has been errornously reported by many sites as September 24th, it is actually September 25th. photokina starts on September 26th.

iLounge spill the guts of the 2G nano

Published on Thursday, September 14, 2006 in Apple and Technology. Closed

So the nano has been out for 2 days and iLounge already felt compelled enough to take the poor nano apart. If that was mine, I’d take better care of it Apple sure managed to squeeze a heck of a lot of things in there, it is so small! Beware: If you open up easily at seeing bare gadgets, then you should not continue.

Apple bought Coverflow

Published on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 in Apple, Software and Technology. 1 Comment

You know that cool browsing view Apple included into iTunes 7? Well it looks like they bought the technology from an individual developer. Well done to him! The coverflow website says:

We are pleased to announce that all CoverFlow technology and intellectual property was recently sold to Apple. It has been incorporated into the latest version of iTunes. Please visit www.apple.com/itunes

Now that is one guy who did very well for himself. I’m sure Apple paid him a good amount of money, and he deserved it, it is very cool! If you work hard, maybe Apple will buy your apps too!

Engadget’s Hands-on with Apple’s new devices…

Published on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Movies, Podcasting, Technology and TV's. Closed

Engadget were at Apple’s “It’s Showtime” press event today and they were able to get hands on with all the new releases, including the iTV prototype, which was a big shocker. Check out the links for all the juicy pictures.

2G iPod nano hands-on [link]
5G iPod v2 hands-on [link]
iTV hands-on [link]
iPod Shuffle and new headphones hands-on [link]

They all look really good, and I’m even impressed with the iTV, even though that hasn’t been officially released. I’m still not sure about the shuffle though, however I do like the nano now. I do want to try them out, but my nearest Apple store is in Birmingham and we won’t go there for no reason just to visit an Apple Store. The other one is in London, and I don’t think we’ll visit it for a while. The other ‘tech’ shops around town are pretty rubbish. They wouldn’t have the new iPods for a while. The Currys.digital shop still has the iPod nano labelled under Hard-disk player. The obviously don’t know anything, but I was amazed to see a MacBook there. I tried it out and it was very fast, I really want one now. After I finished playing with it, one of the store clerks went and started that god-awful screensaver thing they have. I hate those so much; they aren’t really going to get customers to buy the product if they can’t test it.