| We are presenting live coverage for those who can't watch the streaming content. Speaking of which, we have been unable to get the QuickTime 4 streaming to work. Our live reports are coming direct from the Expo Floor.
We will have more detailed reports on many of these issues throughout the day.
[9:42 AM] Apple has announced a new wireless product called "Airport" that works with a combination of a PCMCIA card and a base station/ central hub unit. The product is a joint project with Lucent. Airport basically allows an iBook to be connected to the hub which has a built-in 10/100 Ethernet and 56K modem. the hub connects to the Internet and iBooks can connect to it, wirelessly, up to 150'. Aimed at schools and businesses, this product features 11 Mbps connectivity to the base station and 40bit encryption. The hub will connect up to 10 machines at once. The iBook has a built-in antennae and once the Airport card is installed, the machine will autoconfigure. Each card will be priced at US$99 and the base station/hub will sell for US$299.
[9:19 AM] Mr. Jobs announced that 250 USB devices are now shipping, and that 39375 new & renewed Mac apps have also shipped. A new game called Halo was previewed. According to our reporters, this is an amazing real-time 3D game, very impressive and sure to turn some heads.
An IBM speech recognition demo was also given. This could be some of the best speech recognition on the planet, called "Stunning!" by our reporters.
And the P1!
Finally announced, the P1 is officially "iMac to go" and named the iBook, as we predicted. :-) These are the specs as announced:
12.1 TFT display 800 X 600
4MB VRAM from ATI
300 Mhz G3
24X CD
32MB RAM
USB
Ethernet
Built-in 56k modem
6 hour batterie/full size keyboard.
white and color plastics w/rubber bumpers & handle. It was described as "Beautiful and Superslim" by our staff. It will also not have a latch, but instead has a very cool closing/hinge mechanism.
The iBook will surprisingly be offered in Tangerine & Blueberry!
It will also include a charger.
The price has been set in between what has been predicted (US$1199 to US$1799) at US$1599!
[9:01 AM] Mr. Jobs is announcing a new update to iMac! By August 15th, Apple will have shipped almost 2 million units (1.9 million)!
[8:55 AM] Sherlock II has a new interface. New search criteria have been added that allows users to search for different kinds of results. Apple has added the ability to search e-commerce sites, making navigating those sites much easier. For each new criteria, Sherlock II shows different information in the results list. For instance, in the shopping sites, the results will include pricing. Each of these new criteria are sortable of course. Very cool. The shopping feature could have a major consumer appeal.
[8:49 AM] Steve Jobs announced the next MacOS upgrade, MacOS 9 with 50 new features and other enhancements. MacOS 9 will be priced at US$99 and will be available in October of this year. Phil Schiller is demoing Sherlock II.
[8:30 AM] Over 4 Terabytes of QuickTime movies have been downloaded, an incredible amount of information. Apple has also announced QuickTime TV with streaming content from some of the biggest names in the industry including ABC News, ESPN, Rolling Stone Magazine, VH1, Disney and more! A company called the Akamai Broadcast Network is a partner in the endeavor. Apple is also integrating Flash directly into QuickTime player.
[8:20 AM] Noah Wyle joined Steve Jobs on stage and did a short "bit" between the two.
Check out our MACWORLD Expo Special Report for all of our MACWORLD Expo stories.
MACWORLD Expo Special Report
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