News

Recently, Little Snitch, a security tool, threw up a notice about something odd happening with one of my devices. (I’m still working on figuring that part out with the help of Cocoatech Support, maker of Path Finder. Note: 4/1/2009: turns out to be an aggressive Samba search by Path Finder — something that can be…

The new online ads are currently featured prominently on the New York Times Web site, and include a banner ad and two tile ads on either side of the Times’ logo. The banner ads consist of two slot machine wheels — on one side is a wheel with a washed out Mac and various worthless…

Also on Monday, Seth Weintraub delved into some of the things that Apple didn’t talk about at the iPhone 3.0 event, but which various developers have discovered. More disclosures like these are likely to emerge as developers dig into the new SDK.On Tuesday, I read about a new competitor to boxee called ZeeVee. For now,…

Steve Perlman, a former member of Apple’s QuickTime team who is now CEO of OnLive, on Tuesday presented the service to a packed house, according to Macworld. He demonstrated Onlive on a TV, a Del laptop, and a MacBook, acknowledging that Macs “never get their fair share” of the gaming pie. (Macworld’s article says that…

— Andy Grove No company with more than one employee is perfect. Changing companies often simply replaces one set of problems with another set. So if you’re thinking about going to work for Apple, or even some other company, and you’re wondering what’s good and bad about Apple for comparison, I’m going to describe the…

Physicists like to talk about the probability, calculated by Statistical Mechanics, of all the air in a room moving to one side and suffocating the inhabitants. It can happen, but the probability is such that it’s unlikely to happen or have ever happened in the lifetime of the universe. Similarly, the probability of everyone abandoning…

Prince of Persia, which was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC last December, takes the venerable series in a new direction. Players take control of a new unnamed Prince as he makes his way across a mysterious land with help from Elika, a woman he meets after a sandstorm causes him to lose…

On a TV, gamers plug in the MicroConsole, which is about the size of a deck of cards. On a Mac or PC, gamers use a browser plug-in. In addition to solo and multiplayer gaming, OnLive will offer a variety of community features, including the ability to watch live games in action, make Brag Clips…

Prior to playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Mac, I never would have guessed that there was an amazing musician just waiting to be discovered within me.There still isn’t, but that doesn’t make the game any less fun.Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the Mac port of one of the latest…

TomTom expects (apparently with good reason) that the new iPhone OS will not go public until late in the summer, August or September. The plan is for TomTom to release their GPS app sometime soon afterward, likely in the fourth quarter. Initially, the app will not support subscription services, such as traffic updates. This support…

“DeepDyve’s search technology is a breakthrough compared to the traditional keyword search that we know today,” he said. “The company has the potential to transform Deep Web search, and I’m excited to help bring about that transformation.”DeepDyve is an online research engine designed for researchers, students, technical professionals, business users and other information consumers that…

You either run with the herd or get left behind and eaten. That’s all there is to it. Also, on Monday, there was an interesting New York Times article about how the escalation in use of cell phones on the 3G networks is revealing infrastructure problems. Even though AT&T has been spending billions, technical issues…

The International Year of Astronomy The year 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. From the website: “The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky,…

* All new Setup Assistant.* Improved data handling to reduce sync conflicts.* Fixed a problem that caused an error on the Storm and other newer devices: “DeviceException: Device error: Error reading record from device.”* Fixed a problem that caused the error “Device error: Caught exception: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException.”* More reliable data handling when choosing to sync selected…

The first thing I noticed is that many netbook users had put Apple logo stickers on their Acer or Dell branded hardware, and as soon as I started poking around, I realized that most of the netbooks I saw here were running Mac OS X Leopard, not Windows. Granted, I saw less than 50 such…

Maine’s initial program for getting iBooks into the hands of 7th and 8th graders was a high profile deal for then-perceived-as-struggling Apple in 2001 — it was eventually signed into law in 2002. It has been challenged along the way, deemed a success and expanded a couple of times, but the new program completes the…

The San Jose Mercury News reported that the tech idol fractured his foot, but ABC also confirmed that he will be appearing in the next episode of the show. Mr. Wozniak and his dancing partner, Karina Smirnoff, scored a 13 out of 30 points from the judges in his first episode of the show, but…

“The growth for Mac games is on the rise, with TransGaming leading that effort,” Paul Nowosad, vice-president of marketing and licensing for TransGaming, told me. The company’s Cider technology, which promises to make porting games to the Mac easier but leaves PowerPC owners out of the equation, lies at the heart of the titles published…

Macintosh users, especially Mac Pro and MacBook Pro users, are often concerned about the temperature condition of their high performance computers. Temperature Monitor 4.6 from Marcel Bresink provides not only full temperature data, but also history graphs that can be exported for research and documentation. I have been using a wonderful utility called iStat to…

For a long time, Apple enthusiasts have watched with amusement as the Windows OS has grown to become a monster on the desktop. Typical users are befuddled by the modern Windows OS, like Vista, with its Registry and complex maintenance issues. As a result, users just ignore potential problems, then get into trouble, especially with…

Reporter Wei Yi Lim said that Taiwan-based Wintek Corp. is developing the display, while Apple’s longtime manufacturing partner Quanta would be manufacturing the device. Sources from within these overseas manufacturing operations have long been a major source for leaks on Apple’s product plans, though those leaks don’t always pan out when everything is said and…

The Race to the Bottom Helped by Netbooks Mr. Gottheil said that while declining prices were helped by the gaining popularity of cheap netbooks, prices declined across the entire spectrum of PC products. “Netbooks showed both consumer and business purchasers that, for most uses, they do not necessarily need top-of-the-line PCs,” wrote Mr. Gottheil. “The…

Concern about Citigroup ($1.02, a loss of $0.11 (-9.73%)) and GM ($1.82, down $0.38 (-17.27%)), two non-tech companies, helped set the selling mood on Wall Street. Both companies became the focus of renewed worries about their long term health. While those two companies set the dour tone, the tech sector was knocked around, in part,…

John Champlin, Ambrosia’s head of Public Relations, told me: “You might have played all the tracks when it was first released, but now you go back and it’s a completely new game thanks to tracks being created, and dozens and dozens of nicely designed cars free to download. The variations in this game make the possibilities nearly endless.” Some of…