Introducing the all new Apple TV

Posted Sep.01, 2010 under Apple/Mac

Apple announced today during their keynote the all new Apple TV. Although it was released back in September 2006, the new Apple TV will have many improvements over it’s previous version.

The new, smaller, Apple TV is less than 1/4 the original size of Apple TV comes loaded with a ton of features and accessories, including WiFi, HDMI, Optical audio, and an Ethernet port. Users can stream (720p) HD video, no syncing, with a photo slideshow. The new Apple TV comes with a remote that looks similar to a taller iPod Shuffle, so you can browse through movies, TV shows, podcasts, music and quickly and easily navigate through the menus.

Consumers can rent commercial-free HD TV shows for $0.99 from Apple, with a ABC and FOX TV shows, with more Hollywood studios to follow soon. Users can stream from Netflix, YouTube, Flicker and MobileME. Consumers can also stream HD movies for $4.99.

Apple is introducing a brand new UI, unlike anything they have released before. The interface includes ratings, reviews from a variety of different sources and information about the movie or TV show including actors and directors. Users will also be able to stream media from an iOS device, such as the iPad, and stream right onto the Apple TV, allowing you to stream to any Apple TV device in the home. This feature will be available in November, when iOS 4.2 comes out.

Apple TV will retail for $99 and will be available in US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Australia. Apple TV will be available in 4 weeks, and is available for pre-order today.

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Apple announces new iPod touch, nano and shuffle

Posted Sep.01, 2010 under Apple/Mac

Apple hosted their first web stream today in years, and introduced a variety of new products and software updates.

Apple showed off their entire line up of refreshed iPod products, including the iPod touch and iPod Nano. First on Apple’s release list is the iPod touch 4th generation. The new iPod touch will feature a similar body to that of the iPhone 4. The iPod touch 4G will come with a 960 x 720px rear camera, front facing camera and will feature a Retina display. The Touch includes the A4 chip that powers the iPhone, 3-axis Gyro, FaceTime and up to 40 hours of music playback. Users can FaceTime between other iPod touch’s and iPhones.

The iPod touch will retail for $229 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 32GB, and $399 for the 64GB model. They are all available for pre-order today, and will ship next week.

The new iPod Nano will have a multi-touch screen and run a similar, more compact operating system. The small device will feature 4 icons on the device, per screen, with a full iPod, Fitness, Clock, Voicenotes, built-in FM radio, photos and many more. With a swipe of your finger, you can rotate the screen and flip it any direction you want, so the screen is always oriented correctly. The iPod Nano will be available in a variety of colours.

The iPod Nano will have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and volume up and down buttons, similar to the iPhone 4. The iPod Nano will sell for $149 for the 8GB model, and $179 for the 16GB model.

The iPod Shuffle was also refreshed. The updated model includes a smaller frame, with easier to touch buttons. The Shuffle will not feature a screen, but you can easily navigate through songs with a click of the wheel. The iPod Shuffle will retail for $49.99.

The iPod touch, Nano and Shuffle will all ship next week and are available for pre-order today.

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Apple iOS 4.1 release next week, 4.2 for iPad in November

Posted Sep.01, 2010 under Apple/Mac

Apple announced today during their live stream broadcast about the upcoming iOS 4.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The new improvements include fixes for a lot of security issues, bugs and adds a lot of additional features. iOS 4.1 will include GameCenter, which allows you and your friends to play games together by sending invites, which notify you in-game.

Among the new options, is Apple’s HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology. The new addition to iOS 4.1 takes three photos, one under exposed, and another over exposed. The software algorithm overlays the images, allowing you to view more detail in each image. Users will get a chance to select which photo they like better, the standard photo, or the HDR image.

Apple also announced iOS 4.1 will be available next week on iTunes, and is a free upgrade.

Apple demonstrated and showed off iOS 4.2. iOS 4.2 will be available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the first 4.x update for the iPad since it’s launch in April. The update will bring functions like printing and AirPlay, so you can stream your video and audio right over WiFi. iOS 4.2 is scheduled for release in November 2010.

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Google’s browser gets opt-in features via about:labs

Posted Aug.27, 2010 under Google, Google Chrome

Google has been at work trying to come up with new ways for users to manage and use their web browser. Many of these ideas may never get pushed into builds, however with a recent Chromium build, Google has added a page that allows you to enable the advanced features called about:labs. This will ease the lengthy process of enabling features, as before you had to use command line flags.


about:labs feature Tabs on the left

In the Windows version of Chromium, the unofficial Google Operating System blog reports there is currently just one about:labs feature. This one feature, called “Tabs on the left” allows for, you guessed it, tabs to display vertically on left side of the browser. Tabs on the left is geared for wide screen browsing as most web pages are relatively thin compared to the full screen resolution of monitors on today’s market.


about:labs feature Tab Overview or “tabposé”

Perhaps a more interesting lab feature is Tab Overview, which works as an exposé for tabs. As people have come to use browsers more and more, the idea of tabs came up to help organize one’s browsing. Now that people are reaching a point where even their tabs are getting crowed/full, there needs to be a way to easily manage them. Mozilla’s answer to this was Tab Candy, or officially “Panorama” in which you can group sets of tabs together and add tags to them. Google’s answer was to make an exposé for tabs so the user could see everything at once. This project has been going on since July.

Windows has tabs on the left, and OS X has Tab Overview, but as of now Linux does not have an about:labs listing. All of the command line flags will still work though, and the two features I mentioned here can be accessed via the flags “–enable-vertical-tabs”  for tabs on the left and” –enable-expose-for-tabs for Tab Overview. about:labs is enabled on the latest Chromium build only, but hopefully we will see this feature trickle down to the dev channel as well.

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