Have you ever asked yourself how did Apple (formerly Apple Inc.) chose its name? It was all decided on the 1st of March, 1976. Since Steve Wozniak and Steve Job needed a name for their company, the brilliant idea came up as they were driving along Highway 85.
Steve was still half involved with a group of friends who ran the commune-type All-One Farm in Oregon. And he would go up and work there for a few months before returning to the Bay Area. He had just come back from one of his trips and we were driving along and he said ‘I’ve got a great name: Apple Computer.’ Maybe he worked in apple trees. I didn’t even ask. Maybe it had some other meaning to him. Maybe the idea just occurred based upon Apple Records. He had been a musical person, like many technical people are. It might have sounded good partly because of that connotation. I thought instantly, ‘We’re going to have a lot of copyright problems.’ But we didn’t. Both of us tried to think of technical-sounding mixtures of words, like Executek and Matrix Electronics, but after 10 minutes of trying, we both realized we weren’t going to beat Apple Computer.
As time passes by, more and more users reported that Apple’s new iMacs suffer from a nasty bug that locks everything, making the system unusable, until the owner reboots it.
Quoting the customers, the bug doesn’t actually stop and freeze the system. Everything is functional, but the computer is impossible to control by the user.
Whatever was going on at the time continues, so if you were listening to music it continues to play. The mouse pointer moves but you cannot select anything. Tabbing through apps doesn’t work.
Those reports didn’t went unnoticed to Apple. They are aware of the issue, but they haven’t found a permanent fix just yet. Since August when the iMacs launched, there were two software updates (1.0 and 1.1) that contained important updates regarding video drivers, but none of them actually had a fix for this freezing issue.
We’re waiting for more information as soon as possible.
74 days ago, Apple released iPhone, a revolutionary little gadget-like device that was to keep the front page of tech blogs for days to follow. Today, the very same Apple sold the 1,000,000th phone. Therefore, the predictions turned out to be true, as they passed the milestone before the end of September as presumed.
In the end, I congratulate Apple for the accomplishment and for those interested, here’s a small quote from the press conference. Fear the fruit, Gates!
Apple(R) today announced it sold its one millionth iPhone(TM) yesterday, just 74 days after its introduction on June 29. iPhone combines three devices into one-a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod(R), and the best mobile Internet device ever-all based on Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface and pioneering software that allows users to control iPhone with just a tap, flick or pinch of their fingers.
“One million iPhones in 74 days-it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product into the hands of even more customers this holiday season.”
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.
If you’re a comfortable person, or if you just love to have the latest entertainment gadgets, the researchers from the Osaka university have just the thing for you. The gadget is designed to make you control your iPod with a maximum of ease and absolutely no use of your hands.
The headgear uses “infrared sensors and a microcomputer” to detect when you clench your teeth for a second or more and uses that to send commands to your iPod. The system is said to avoid accidental mouth gestures and allows you to talk or chew gum in the same time as you use the iPod headgear.
And the developers don’t plan on stopping here, they say they want to make this available for larger arrays of devices, and of course better the system itself. It might be comfortable and some might like it, but I really don’t think it’ll be such a great (or useful) gadget, but then again, I’m not the person who likes to make weird faces when changing the song I listen to.
New iMacs were expected for a while now. That’s why Apple’s morning release was not such a shock to the tech passionates out there. To skip straight to the point, Apple released new iMacs. Built from aluminum and strong glass the prototypes “suffered” a complete redesign. These now come in two basic sizes. A 20-inch and a 24-inch.
Here are the main features, for those interested:
* USB 2.0, Firewire 400/800 ports
* SuperDrive
* iSight camera
* Glossy display
* New keyboard (mini wireless or extended wired / Bluetooth 2.0 included)
* Core 2 Extreme 2.8GhZ processor
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphic card
* 1TB storage space
* Wireless and Bluetooth 2.0
* 1GB of standard RAM
The price for these fancy iMacs? $1,799 for the 24-inch one and $2,299 for the Core 2 Extreme. They might seem a bit expensive in the beginning, but trust me, they truly are worth it.
Heads up, Europeans. The iPhone has been hacked for real now. Senad, a 28 year old hacker originating from Macedonia, along with a team from hackint0sh.org cracked the iPhone, enabling full functionality and support for European SIM cards.
Senad’s nickname is Deepdark, and he was previously involved in various projects of Digiturk Cryptoworks as well as the Digital Satellite scene. He said the hack is very real and was accomplished by using a simple SIM card reader/writer unit and some sophisticated software.
They simply enabled the iPhone in Europe, allowing people to take advantage of all of its features (incoming/outgoing calls, SMS, GPRS/EDGE).
“It was just a matter of time…”
Senad (Deepdark)
VideoGamer.com had a short little chat with Senad, and I strongly encourage you to read it.
A while now after the iPhone release, after all the fuss has gone away, Apple’s phone is almost out of the news, but not entirely. Let aside the iPhone’s arriving to Europe there are other interesting subjects on the matter, such as the new widgets provided by Plusmo.
Plusmo is a free media service that allows user to crate mobile content and share it charge free. Now they launched a widget service for Apple’s iPhone and they are ready to offer over 20,000 personalized widgets. They would be available via a customized interface and are said to simplify tasks when using the iPhone. Although it seems nice, you have to remember that almost all content is user-generated so you must be careful what you install. Other than that it seems that it’s worth trying some of them, for free of course.
“Plusmo makes text- and photo-based content far more readable than the iPhone Safari browsers zoom-and-pan interface. Plusmo also offers iPhone users easy access to external iPhone widgets.”
With such a big launch and so much media attention it’s only natural that the iPhone has drawn the eye of hackers of all sorts. And it didn’t took long until the first hacks were revealed for the iPhone.
For example if you remove the SIM preloaded in to the iPhone and replace it with an older, disabled SIM, you can use the iPhone as a WiFi device, without any need of being connected to a telephone network. Or even better take a look at this video that shows an iPhone that can make phone calls using a Australian Telstra SIM.
A bit over a week ago, the new Energy Star specifications went into effect. These specifications are expected to save 1.8 billion dollars in energy costs within the next 5 years.
* Use of energy efficient power supply. Desktops must use power supplies that are 80% efficient
* Operate efficiently in Standby/Off, Sleep, and Idle modes. Desktops must use less than 2 W in standby mode
* Include and enable power management features of the system and provide user education about these feature
The big surprise? Only ~125 desktops and laptops meet the new requirements as I’m writing this. To those interested in the actual list, it can be found here. You will be surprised to see that Apple does not have a single computer that matches the requirements. Furthermore, Dell is in with only three computers.
It seems that the new specifications have been available to them for months now, and it’s a big surprise that they didn’t take any measures to stay updated.
