NOTE: It has just been mentioned that this contest email was a mistake, that they had gotten the processor right, but not the computer… Hmm… likely story?  We’ll find out on the 27th!

Since I already have a Unibody MacBook from late 2008, I think I’m going to hold off on buying another one until later this year, when a larger refresh would be likely to occur.

I think there’s going to be another announcement in Q3 that’s going to be what i’m looking for, with a new GPU, another upgrade of the processor (which will still be core i5, but faster), and will include (fingers crossed) Light Peak, a new blazing fast standard for transferring data.  This will likely be the competing technology for USB 3.0 aka SuperSpeed.

There’s a good reason to believe that Light Peak will be part of the future MacBook Pro lineup. From an Engadget article written in September of 2009:

Engadget has learned — thanks to an extremely reliable source — that not only is Apple complicit in the development of Light Peak, but the company actually brought the concept to Intel and asked them to create it. More to the point, the new standard will play a hugely important role in upcoming products from Cupertino.

If it was Apple’s idea it makes even more sense that they would add this to their products.  As for the date, the same article states that they have heard it’s set for a release in Fall 2010 as part of the typical back to school sales.

Adoption of the standard is the only thing that I would be worried about, but if Apple is standing behind this new standard in their products, specifically their laptop offerings, then I’m not too worried.  I think Apple has a strong weight in setting new industry standards, especially due to the fact that Apple customers have such intense loyalty that they’ll trust whatever Apple comes out with and typically buy all of Apple’s latest and greatest gear.

Here’s a totally geeky video of Intel demoing Light Peak at the 2009 Intel Developer Forum:

I can only dream…

I went on vacation this weekend to musical heaven thanks to my new Audioengine A2 speakers. There was a bit of a shipping delay, but let me tell you – the sound is well worth the wait!

First impressions:
On receiving the package I noticed that there was an inspection sticker on the box, stating that they were possibly damaged during shipping, but were fully inspected before making the final delivery to my house.  I noticed on the FedEx tracking page that when the package got damaged they actually sent it back to the East Coast to be inspected.  I opened the package thinking, “Well, as long as they inspected them…”

Upon opening the FedEx box, inside was the actual product box for the speakers, and it was damp! The cardboard was all floppy and everything.  Somebody had probably left it in the rain, which is why it needed to be sent back and inspected for damage.  I continued to unbox the speakers and was happy to find that each speaker was individually packaged inside it’s own suede textured cloth drawstring pouch.  Also included were two other pouches, one of which contained the power supply, and the other which contained audio cables for speaker setup.

I rushed to set them up on my desk and plug them into my MacBook.  The volume knob on the back of the left speaker also functions as the on/off switch, and has a very smooth, solid, heavy feeling to it.  Turning this knob clicked the speakers on and then increased the volume.  I turned on ATB’s Trilogie Part 2 and the sound seemed to come from the whole room, and not from the two little speakers that found their way onto my desk.  This was enhanced of course by the fact that the song has an echoey feel to it.  The sound was superb.

Naturally I proceeded through my collection of music, which contains mostly Hiphop, RnB, Alternative, Piano, and Trance music.  I was in heaven.  The most surprising thing about these speakers is how much depth the sounds seem to have, especially when sitting directly in front of the two speakers.  The depth literally seemed to go out the window, as I kept hearing the sound of a car revving it’s engine (I thought somebody was revving their engine outside).  I kept pausing the music to see if I could hear the sound again, and finally realized that the sound was coming from the speakers.

Of note:
Two things that I feel must be mentioned about these speakers before you rush off to buy them as well:

First, the bass production is obviously not going to be extremely strong, as these are very small drivers.  This is actually one of the things that drew me to these speakers in the first place.  I live in an apartment and can’t really enjoy heavy bass speakers because I don’t want to irritate the crap out of my neighbors, so I find these speakers to be exactly what I was looking for.

Second, I was surprised by the lack of balance there seemed to be between the tweeters and the midrange drivers.  It seemed that the music was all very thick until I opened up the equalizer and in iTunes and changed the settings.  This cleared everything right up, and my worry was quickly subdued.  Of course, if you’re using these as computer speakers, most media players have equalizers that will allow you to fix this issue, but you might want to take this into consideration when buying these speakers.

There are a few more images over at Engadget.

There seem to be a lot of tablet announcements coming out this year at CES 2010, hopefully this doesn’t steal any thunder from the announcement Apple is bound to make at the end of this month.

One of the first things that always grabs my attention about a mouse is the physical appearance, and this mouse looks awesome.  I think it’s the low wide body wedge shape that captures my attention.  It almost seems shaped like a sports car, like a Lotus Exige, for example.  Maybe that’s a bit of a reach, but you get my point.

This mouse has some great features: Logitech’s awesome Hyper-fast scrolling that’s smooth and continues to scroll when you click it, the new Darkfield laser that works on glass, and the Logitech Unifying receiver that lets you connect up to 6 peripheral devices that user the same type of receiver.

The great looks made me inherently think that it was going to have a great feel too.  Unfortunately, the mouse didn’t feel as good as it looked.  I think my only gripe with it is the width of the front of the mouse by your fingertips.  I usually rest my ring finger on the outside of the mouse, and it would have been really nice if my finger hit a more curvy portion of the surface instead of the edge.  It seems that they made this mouse to fit three fingers on top of it instead of two which I’ll just have to get used to.  It still feels decent but I was just a little surprised.  It looks so awesome yet feels just normal…

The Darkfield technology piece of this mouse is truly amazing.  I can use this mouse virtually anywhere.  I can even use it on glass and rough uneven surfaces that make other mice cursors jumpy.  Another thing about the darkfield laser is that there is no visible laser shining out of the bottom, which is sort of eerie.  How does the darkfield technology work?  From the Logitech website:

Optical and traditional laser mice use irregularities in the surface to track the direction and speed of your mouse. The more irregularities on a surface, the easier it is for the sensor to track your movements.

But use your mouse on a smooth, glossy surface like clear glass, and there just aren’t enough imperfections for your standard mouse to work. This is where Darkfield Laser Tracking comes in. Darkfield uses the smallest possible details to create a micro-road map of the surface—so you get better precision on more surfaces.

The scrollwheel on the mouse uses the Hyper-fast scrolling that many other higher end Logitech mice have had in the past.  With a click of of the scrollwheel it toggles from Hyper-fast to the old ratchet type scrolling.  I prefer Hyper-fast for just about everything, but some like to play it old school.  This mouse will please either way.

One thing I love about Logitech mice is the attention that is paid to detail.  Not only am I buying a product that looks great on paper, but the build quality feels excellent too.  The solid construction and clean lines are always a welcome feeling.  The matte finish makes the mouse feel sort of industrial.  The two double A batteries also keep the Anywhere MX feeling weighty and solid, though the mouse can survive on just one battery, which could be good if you have to scrounge for batteries. Even the on/off slider on the bottom of the mouse has a very smooth easing feel to it.

There are two slight downfalls I can see occurring with this mouse after a little bit of wear and tear:

1. The bottom of the mouse contains a compartment that stores the batteries AND the usb receiver.  My gripe comes with the fact that you actually have to slide off the bottom of the mouse to package up the receiver, instead of the slide in receiver that has become so standard on Logitech’s nicer notebook mice.  I mean, the receiver is freaking tiny!  You’re telling me you couldn’t find a nice place for it to slide in from the outside of the mouse?  It’s not that big of a deal, but it means that I have to slide off the battery cover every time I want to package the mouse up – and everybody knows that sliding the battery cover off a million times eventually ends up in taping the battery cover on, just like that old TV remote. I’m sure their excuse here was that with the tiny receiver you’d just leave it in the computer all the time, but this isn’t the case for me as I use multiple machines and switch frequently.
2. The second gripe I have is with the cool little case that they give you.  It’s just a tad too small and not as well formed as it could be.  I feel like every time I zip it up I’m going to scratch the mouse with the zipper because it practically rubs up against the mouse while you’re zipping it up, no matter which way you put it in.

Overall I call this mouse a big win.  In some ways I miss my slightly older Logitech VX Revolution, but that’s alright – this one works on glass and looks sweet.  At 60 bucks (I got mine from Best Buy on sale) I consider this a slight upgrade from Logitech’s previous notebook mice, the vx nano and the vx revolution.

Logitech VX Revolution, for comparison.  Notice the nice curved area for your ring finger.  I wish the Anywhere MX had some sort of curvature on the right side.

I’ve been speakerless in my Apartment for 2 years now.  My Altec Lansing 4.1 speakers finally died.  Just the bass actually, which is larger than my desktop machine so I threw it away.  My 690 sq ft. apartment doesn’t have room for that garbage unless it works!

Anyway.  I threw them out and have been surviving with headphones and laptop speakers, which are extremely under par.  I’ve been looking for some great speakers to replace them, but have been uninspired to buy anything.  Well, tada!  I’m inspired again by this down to earth review from Smoking Apples.

These speakers are on my wishlist…

In Apple’s most recent earnings report (Q309) they again squashed any hopes of coming out with a netbook computer saying that they’re not going to make a piece of junk.

Rumors have been flying around nevertheless about an “Apple Media Pad.”  The rumors are complete with pictures of course.  Above is the most recent concept.  Below is the earlier depiction.

I think it’s possible that Apple has something cooking and that they’re trying to squash rumors by saying they’re not going to come out with a netbook.  But what’s depicted in these photos would be far from a netbook, or even a tablet.  It’d be WAY better.  Apple hasn’t squashed any tablet rumors lately…

Toshiba just announced it’s upcoming mobile phone, the TG01.  It looks promising aesthetically, and the hardware sounds pretty good (minus the touchscreen), but the OS on the phone (Windows Mobile 6) sort of ruins the whole experience.  The user interaction is TERRIBLE.  Little quirks about the phone’s interface ultimately gave this phone a bad review.  I noticed that SlashGear started off the introduction with the dreaded “iPhone Killer” question, but then nearly every paragraph in the article starts with a statement about some disappointing feature of the phone.  Reading the technical specs of the phone unveils a myriad of different things that would instantly take it out of any competition with the iPhone:

1. Resistive touch screen – you actually have to push hard on the screen to make it register.  Traditionally, resistive touch screens also make it difficult to do any sort of dragging on the surface without the screen thinking your finger is bouncing along the surface, losing and regaining contact along the way.
2. No 3.5mm headphone jack – SlashGear actually recommends that you buy bluetooth headphones.
3. It’s running Windows Mobile.  Gross.  Because of this the entire interface of the phone is hard to use – buttons haven’t been sized correctly and the layout of the menus hasn’t been changed appropriately for this size of device.
4. The web browsing experience is sub par for a device of that form factor.
5. The keyboard’s spacebar is really… small.
6. The list goes on and on…

My, what a large spacebar you have!

It does have a few things that the iPhone doesn’t have (which usually correlates to things that you don’t need), but some might see these as perks.

Read the whole review over at SlashGear.

I just jailbroke my phone last night, but the experience was far from smooth.  I jailbroke my phone 3 times, and the first 2 times my phone couldn’t get any service form AT&T.  I’m posting this tutorial thread to help others overcome any of the same issues that I had.

Step 1
Download PwnageTool from the iPhone Dev Team.  Read that post in its entirety before following my tutorial.  They have some special rules/reasons not to use PwnageTool.  Continue at your own risk!

Step 2
Download the latest version of the iPhone 3.0 software through iTunes.  If you upgraded your phone through iTunes you shouldn’ t have to download it again.  You just need to make sure that you’re using the same computer when you run PwnageTool (PwnageTool will automatically find the file for you).

NOTE: If you’re a developer and you’re having issues jailbreaking using the GM seed you should try using the later release 3.0 OS.  If you’ve never actually downloaded the 3.0 firmware through iTunes then plug you phone into iTunes and click Restore.  This should make iTunes start downloading the latest version.  When the application starts downloading just unplug your phone that it doesn’t actually restore it.

Step 3
Run PwnageTool.  You can leave it in beginner mode – it should recognize your 3.0 ipsw file you downloaded from iTunes that way. When PwnageTool asks you if you’ve ever jailbroken your phone before, just say no so that it takes you through the DFU steps.

Step 4
Open iTunes.  iTunes should recognize your phone as a phone in recovery mode.  Alt/option + click the restore button.  This should prompt you with an open file dialog.  Select the ipsw file that you saved from PwnageTool.

Step 5
Wait for everything to finish – you should be golden.

IF YOU’RE NOT GOLDEN/IF SOMETHING DOESN’T WORK:

Did you get an error 1600 or 1604 (or any other error) when you tried to install the custom .ipsw file?  Your phone probably had an issue going into DFU mode.

• Press and hold the power and home buttons for 10 seconds.  Release the buttons.  This turns your phone completely off.
• Wait 5 seconds.  Just to make sure your phone is ready to be turned on again.
• Press the power button again.  This should turn your phone back on in the normal mode.
• Open PwnageTool again and click the “DFU” selection at the top of the app to put your phone into DFU mode again.
• Try installing the ipsw again.

If that still doesn’t work and iTunes gives you an error:

• Rebulid the ipsw file by running PwnageTool again.
• Try installing the ipsw file again.

If your installation of the jailbreak works fine, but then your phone has no reception:

• I’m not sure why this happens, but it happened to me twice.  To fix this I did two things, and I’m not sure which one of them solved my problem: I downloaded the public 3.0 release of the iPhone firmware, and I switched from my unibody MacBook to my old 17″ MacBook.  Things worked fine after this.

If you’re having any problems in general:

• Are you using a unibody MacBook?  These have been said to have issues with DFU mode on the iPhone.  I would try using iTunes on a previous generation MacBook or a different Mac.
• Don’t use the GM seed to jailbreak.

If you have any questions at all please let me know in the comments below!

Got your attention?

The sensor device that is used has an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and can detect full body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition.   I’m surprised how well the sensors interpret the physical movement – it seems pretty accurate!

I would love to see the sensor device reach beyond gaming and make it’s way into productivity applications.  It would sure beat capturing gestures with a webcam like we’ve seen others doing.

For more complete coverage of the demonstrations of Natal at E3, check out my buddy’s new blog, Atom6. He’s got some more videos posted there as well.

The biggest downfall to me is the resolution.  at 2880×900, it’s hardly a very high resolution.