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President Obama
I’ve never been more proud to be an american.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democrocy, tonight is your answer. -Barack Obama (election night)
Royal Caribbean Goes Mac
Mr. Bruce Wolf from Royal Caribbean cruise line announced that their newest ships are going to use Macs in a big way.
Apparently Apple, together with Nanonation designed a Mac solution that will modernize Royal Caribbean’s in room entertainment and onboard signage.
This relationship started back in 2006. Both the Freedom of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas, shipboard signage are driven by Mac Minis with an XServe back end and Samsung displays. They’re used for custom messaging to the passengers (announcements, shore excursions, fitness center scheduling, and touchscreen ship maps). All of Royal Caribbean’s new ships will have entertainment (music, movies, and photos) and reservations capability (dining and activities) right from the staterooms.
Keynote Announcements
Steve Jobs hasn’t lost his touch. While this keynote wasn’t as exciting as the iPhone announcment keynote (what is?), it was very good and a lot of fun to attend. Apple already has the keynote available for you to watch for yourself. But if you don’t have the time, I’ll sum it up for you…
Time Capsule
This little wireless wonder is WiFi base station and a 500GB ($299) or 1TB ($499) hard drive that automatically backs up your digital stuff using Time Machine.
iPhone Software Update
This update includes a lot of what users have been asking and wating for, including “find me” mapping, web clips, and home screen customization. I can’t wait to try it all out.
iTouch Update
You iThouch users can now get Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Stocks added with this latest $20 iTouch update Seems like a deal to me.
iTunes Movie Rentals and a redesigned Apple TV
You can now rent movies on iTunes for around 4 bucks. You can keep the file and watch it anytime within 30 days, but once you start watching it, it will expire in 24 hours. I personally don’t think 24 hours is enough time. I think they should extend this to 36 hours, to give people more fexiblility. Either way it’s exciting that every major studio has signed on. So that will offer users a ton of great content.
The new Apple TV will let you rent those movies in HD for around 5 bucks (same rules apply), but no computer is required. You can do it all through Apple TV. My favoirte feature though are all the photo accessibility enhancements. You can now access your .mac and Flickr photos to display in full HD glory.
MacBook Air
Though we kind of knew it was coming, it was still exciting to see the much discussed MacBook Air a reality. This thing is super thin and very light. It starts at $1799 and comes with a 13.3 inch display (LED), a full keyboard, built-in 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, built-in iSight, 80 GB Hard Drive, and 2GB of RAM. Plus, it gives you a lot of the same gesture control you love from your iPhone right on the trackpad.
Nice.
Waiting… And Waiting…
It’s only 7:30 in the morning here, and we’re in the Moscone Center all lined up for the Keynote. It started in the wee hours of the morning outside, wrapping around the building. Then around 6:00am the Apple employees arrived, and this place started coming to life.
Soon there were security guards and line monitors, the lights in the Moscone center turned on, and before we knew it we were being escorted up the escaltors to our new line here on the second floor.
For those of you keeping tabs, I’m number five in the Platinum/Super pass line. That’s right. There are at least five geekier people than me, including the guys from Mac Rumors (hi Arnold & Jeff). Who knew?
MacWorld 2008
I’m fortunate enough to be attending MacWorld 2008 (Jan. 14-18) and I’ll be covering all the news like the rabid Mac geek that I am. This year promises to be a lot of fun and will hopefully feature some great new technology from everyone’s favorite (or at least mine) software/hardware developer.
This will be one of the biggest conferences in history, with over 50k registrants. That’s a lot of nerds for just two city blocks! If you’re lucky enough to be attending this year too, here’s a quick map to the nearby Starbucks. See all the important information you’ll find here?
If you’ve never been to a MacWorld before, the pinnacle of excitement is the keynote delivered by Steve Jobs. That’s when uncle Stevie announces all the new Apple goodies for the year, and the companies stock reacts accordingly. The keynote really is fun to attend, as Steve is one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen. Check out the 2007 MacWorld keynote, complete with the iPhone announcement, to see what I mean.
In case you can’t tell, I’m excited to be attending, and I’ll do my best to feature all the great new tech right here for your geeking pleasure.
MacWorld 07 Keynote Announces iPhone
You’ve waited and waited. You’ve been patient…ok, maybe not. But, just as you were about to abandon hope for the elusive iPhone, it comes.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Apple has reinvented the cellphone with the sought after iPhone. But, they also introduced the long awaited widescreen iPod, and a very robust mobile web communicator…all in the same device.
First of all it looks very cool with Apple’s signature sleek form factor. And it’s interface is brilliant. In fact, it’s OSX. On a cell phone! You operate it using the worlds best input device…your fingers. It features multi-touch control, allowing you to zoom and pan with a pinch or swipe of your fingers. It comes with powerful, desktop level applications like rich email, calendar, photos, widgets, Google Maps, and it has a 2mp camera. It runs exclusively on Cingular’s network.
While you’re watching videos on its beautiful wide screen, you can turn it sideways and it automatically adjusts the screen from vertical to horizontal and back as you physically move it. There are way to many features to cover here. You can read all about the iPhone on apple.com. While you’re there, you can watch Steve Jobs walk through its features during MacWorld’s keynote.
If you want one, and I’m sure you do, you’ll have to wait till June. That’s when Apple thinks they’ll be ready to ship. The iPhone will cost $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB) with a two year contract. You can sign up over at Apple to stay in the know until it’s ready.
The only thing I think is missing on the iPhone is iChat. I would love to be able to video chat using my phone. But sources (some Apple guy on the conference floor) tell me that it’s a limitation of the network. Luckily Cingular is working towards a 3G network that would allow for iChat. So, I may not have to wait too long.
Apple also announced Apple TV, which I’m sure will be successful, but has been lost in the shadow of the iPhone.
The Future Of Flash
If you’re like me, you may have been just a little nervous about Adobe’s acquisition of Flash. I think Flash is the best drawing tool on a computer, and drawing in Illustrator feels like drafting technical blueprints.
Well let me ease your fears and say that Flash CS3 maintains all the things artists love about Flash. All the drawing tools work the same… except for one. They have taken the Pen tool from Illustrator and used it in Flash. And that’s ok by me. Flash didn’t have the best Pen tool, and it’s nice to only have to learn one set of shortcuts and all those modifiers are the same in both programs.
Now that you’re relaxed. Let me get you fired up about some of the new features coming in Flash CS3.
Shared User Interface
One thing you’re going to love about the whole CS3 suite is the way Adobe has shared the Tools user interface. Of course, some programs have features that others don’t. But wherever possible, the tools are laid out and docked the same, and have the same tooltips. Plus they’re really working to make the interface fade into the background and let your work take up that valuable real estate. To that end, the tool palates offer an iconic mode that puts all your tools in one thin palate that expands when you pick one.
I like it.
Now here’s a new feature I love.
Convert to ActionScript
Have you ever wished you could take an animation you tweened using the timeline and quickly convert it to ActionScript? If you haven’t you must not be aware that you can accomplish those animations using just ActionScript. Thus making your file size much smaller. If you have, guess what? Now you can do it really quickly and simply. I just watched a demo of it working and it’s very cool. You simply select the animation in the timeline and Control click it. Then select the brilliantly added “Convert to ActionScript” option. Enter the instance name to apply it to and viola. The XML formated ActionScript is sitting in your clipboard just waiting for you to paste it wherever you want.
But there’s one more thing…
Import PhotoShop Files
I’ve saved the best new feature for last. Who among us hasn’t wished we could import .psd files into Flash? Well fellow designers, our day has come. You can now import .psd files directly into Flash.
When you import .psd files you get this great dialog box where you discover that you can import any or all the layers and folders! Plus Flash will gladly convert any effects your layers are using that could be accomplished in Flash (like drop shadow) to an editable Flash effect. Also, in this dialog box from heaven, you can assign instance names individually or in batch. AND you can assign custom compression levels for each layer. But Flash sucks at compression you say? Yes, it used to. But now, it uses the same bitmap compression engine as PhotoShop!
That’s all they had time to Demo for me, but already Flash CS3 looks great. Hey Adobe, I wouldn’t mind beta testing for you. Have your people call my people and set something up.
Virgin Galactic
When I was a kid I would dream of flying to space. Well, it looks like that dream is finally becoming remotely plausible, thanks to Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic is Richard Branson’s effort to bring space travel to the masses (well, at least those masses that can afford $200k for a ticket).
You can book a seat for a 2009 launch right now, that includes 3 days of training and what looks to be about a 30 minute flight. That’s not very long, but it should be a thrilling 30 minutes. You’ll go 62 miles up, outside of Earths atmosphere, and see the Earth like very few have. Plus you’ll be weightless in zero G’s, and able to “fly” around inside the ship. Check out this amazing (but a bit slow paced) animation of what it will be like to be on the space flight:
It’s very exciting to imagine that I could be a commercial astronaut in my lifetime.
Apple’s WWDC Keynote
If you’re like me and you can’t make it to this years conference, you’ll be happy to know you can live vicariously through Engadget’s live blog coverage.
The keynote begins at 1:00 Eastern time. What will his Steveness announce? Your guess is as good as mine. But check back here in a few hours to find out.
UPDATE: O.k. it’s all over and there was some pretty cool stuff announced. You can watch a video of the keynote here. There was nothing as tantalizing as an iPhone unveiled, but Leopard looks great. Here are some of the new features to look out for:
64-bit top to bottom
Core animation
Universal access
Enhanced parental controls (which were not covered)
iCal is going multiuser
iChat enhancements (like desktop and photo sharing)
Enhanced mail (HTML email templates, notes, to-do’s, etc.)
Enhanced spotlight (search multiple computers)
Dashboard (easier than ever to make widgets)
Web Clip (add any part of a web page to a widget)
Xcode 3
Spaces (think virtual desktop)
Time Machine (automatic back-up and file retrieval)
Leopard should be ready by next spring. But you can buy the new Mac Pro now. It’s decked out with four hard drive bays, up to 2 TB of storage, two optical drive slots, fireWire 800 and another USB on the front, 4 full-length PCI stores and a double-wide graphics slot on the bottom.
“One standard configuration… Dual 2 2.66 dual core Xeons, 1 GB, 667 MHz FB-DIMM. 250GB HD. Nvidia geforce 7300GT, 256 MB and a 16x superdrive for $2499.” That’s about $1000 less than a similarly configured Dell. I’m not used to Apple being the cheaper option. Wow.
Google Checkout
Google has finally launched Google Checkout, yeah!… wait a minute…
Google’s tagline “Find it with Google. Buy it with Google Checkout.” sounds nice enough, but if you’re in the interactive marketing business, you’d better take notice.
With this service, Google promises users can ‘Control commercial spam’. If you sign up, you can keep your email address confidential, and easily turn off unwanted emails from stores where you use Google Checkout, stores like Starbucks and Fossil, even Google Video (the list is growing everyday).
The picture above is from my purchase on Starbucks. Bypassing all that merchant registration tedium really is nice. Just click the Google Checkout button and your purchase is confirmed. Google even hides your full credit card number from the merchant.
This is a concept I think we’ll be seeing more of in the future. How will e-mail marketing programs adapt? Under CAN-SPAM laws, businesses can e-mail existing customers. What happens when businesses no longer have their customers’ e-mail addresses? (Google is, after all, calling these emails ‘commercial spam’).
Merchants are going to have to get very creative at developing incentives if they expect to build their e-mail lists in the future.
