Archive for the ‘Mac’ Category
iMovie update reveals new Apple video format
October 13th, 2009 | 
Author: Like most companies, Apple periodically releases software updates for its applications, fixing minor issues. However, an iMovie update released on Tuesday revealed a brand new video format the company has been developing.
(Credit: Apple Dubbed iFrame, the new video format is based on industry standard technologies like H.264 video and AAC audio. As expected with H.264, iFrame produces much smaller file sizes than traditional video formats, while maintaining its high-quality video. Of course, the smaller file size increases import speed and helps with editing video files.
iMovie 8.0.5 released on Tuesday adds compatibility with camcorders using the iFrame video format. Currently there are two cameras that support iFrame: the Sanyo VPC-HD2000A and the Sanyo VPC-FH1A.
The two cameras were introduced earlier Tuesday and default to shooting video in the new format. iFrame shoots at 960×540. The cameras can also record in high-definition 1080p (1920×1080), as well as high-speed video formats for slow-motion playback, according to Sanyo.
Apple hasn’t said how long it has been working on iFrame or if other video camera manufacturers would adopt the format. The company also didn’t say when support for the iFrame format would be added to its Final Cut Pro video-editing suite.
The iMovie update can be downloaded from Apple’s Web site or from the software update mechanism in Mac OS X.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10374263-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
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Heads up Apple, the Intel Netbook is unstoppable
Friday night at a Best Buy in Southern California. Maybe not the hippest place to be but some interesting dynamics were at work.
HP ‘Mini’ promo: more than a few of the newer Netbooks are not low quality
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)
A typical flow of people passed through the laptop section in the 20 minutes I was there. Towards the end, all of the remaining customers (a few men and women, each) were marveling at all the cute, inexpensive laptops. Cute, inexpensive laptops to them, Netbooks to us in the media who like cut-and-dried categories.
I was mildly shocked to see these people ignore the 50 or so standard laptops behind them and focus solely on Netbooks. So, I began querying the sales guy and one of the customers. It came down to essentially two things: price and selection (surprise, surprise). Best Buy now has a large selection of Netbooks–10 or so on display. A far cry from the Best Buy display of six months ago: a single, tiny, neglected Asus Eee PC pushed into a corner.
And I visited a second Best Buy. The sales guy there gushed about Netbooks. “They’re extremely popular,” he said, adding that “almost all of my customers” just want to do e-mail and surf the Web.
That is circuitous way to get to my point. The Intel Netbook is not going away and is just getting more popular as this marketing research report indicates. Apple’s Tim Cook dissed Netbooks back in April for what seemed like acceptable reasons: cheapness equates to downmarket, shoddy products. But that Apple reasoning needs an update–the fall 2009 version: a lot of the newer Netbooks coming out now are not shoddy nor cheap feeling. (And I am hereby updating my previous pessimistic take on Netbooks too per this post.)
People like cute, light, and cheap–especially in a laptop. This sentiment won’t be overcome, as Intel believes, by the emerging ultrathin laptop category, which ranges from about $500 to $1,000 (formerly called CULV or consumer ultra-low-voltage). Certainly not this year. Ultrathins are not different enough in appearance from a standard laptop and not cheap enough. (And recent reports indicate that the ultrathin category is not taking off as expected.)
Intel will never admit in a thousand years that it has created a Frankenstein monster of sorts. Intel will of course take credit (which it should) for the creation of a new category of computing devices but my sense is that the company is not head over heels about the Netbook business model–and this is also a reason for Apple’s very conscious decision not to make a Netbook. And, as many people are predicting, its reason for pursuing a more upscale tablet-like touch device.
Best Buy has a large Netbook selection
(Credit: Best Buy)
Intel’s sales chief Sean Maloney has intimated in the past that Netbooks are not huge money makers. Speaking about the expected emergence of the ultrathin laptop category back in May he said that this is “an opportunity for upsell. We don’t need to give this stuff away. The industry doesn’t need to give this stuff away. We can reach new price points and we can also get paid for it.”
But there is just too much marketing momentum now behind Netbooks at large PC makers–and in retail. Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer all are pushing Netbooks. And in Japan, easily one the largest PC markets in the world, the Netbook is a hit–despite initial resistance from Japanese PC makers–for all of the same reasons cited above: small, light, inexpensive–and add fashionable. Major Japanese tech Web sites (such as ASCII) and large retailers (like Yodobashi Camera) have a significant Netbook focus now because that’s what readers and consumers are demanding.
And I just don’t think performance is that much of an issue for many consumers. Some will of course return a Netbook because their expectations were too high (I heard this from a sales person at Frys Electronics) but a lot of people across all consumer segments (kids, students, business people) will continue to buy these things by the boatload (unless Intel intentionally sabotages the category–which I hope Intel is savvy enough not to do.)
Apple’s products and marketing are good but not infallible. And the lack of a Netbook may come back to bite Apple at some point. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But maybe next year. One of the Best Buy customers eying a Netbook made a comment that was a powerful counterpoint to all the Apple Mac-PC ads. To paraphrase: “You have to pay an arm and a leg for Apple (pointing to the Apple corner), I’m trying to make a practical business decision here.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10351387-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Google reforms Chrome for Snow Leopard
Google released an update for Chrome to fix compatibility problems with Snow Leopard on Monday, which along with other fixes shows the gradually maturing state of the Mac OS X version of the browser.
Chrome 4.0.203.4 for the Mac is only a couple notches up the version ladder than the version 4.0.203.2 it replaces, but there are some significant changes in the developer-preview software. For Snow Leopard compatibility, programmers fixed a garbled text bug, said Jonathan Conradt, a Chrome engineering program manager, in a blog post Monday.
Google began Chrome on Windows but has been gradually moving it to Linux and Mac OS X. Those versions so far are still only developer-preview incarnations not ready for prime time yet, though I find myself gradually slipping over to Chrome on my Mac system now that it’s getting mature enough for me. I suspect a beta version isn’t far off.
Google is fleshing out some basic features, though. One user-interface tweak enables support for command- and shift-clicking.
Another feature coming to the Mac is support for the tab-to-search feature in the omnibox. That lets you perform a site search directly from the address bar by typing a URL, for example news.cnet.com, then the tab key, then search terms.
Tab-to-search also works with Amazon, Google, Google News, and Yahoo, The New York Times, but not Bing yet. I search a lot, and this saves me one step and waiting for a page to load just so I can click in its search bar.
The tab-to-search feature has arrived on Chrome for Mac OS X, too.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
The most annoying issue I’ve found–and let me know if I’m missing something obvious here–is that I lose the file-upload dialog box while using Gmail with Chrome on Mac OS X if I switch away from the application while halfway through. If I don’t attach a file immediately, that tab’s instance of Gmail becomes useless because I can’t get back to it.
Performance still is an issue with the Mac version, though. I was pleased to see some work on new-tab creation speed, with programmer Mark Mentovai using various changes to work the time from 1-3 seconds down to a fifth of a second.
Google is working hard to spread Chrome, though it has small market share at present. It’s now installed as the default browser on some Sony laptops, as Endgadget noticed in July with the Vaio NW, and I heard about earlier in August.
Google has been advertising the browser as well and is at work making it the foundation of its Chrome OS.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10322746-264.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Opera 10 browser is here
The Opera 10 browser is now ready to download for Windows, Linux, and Mac three months after the beta first emerged (hands-on Opera 10 beta review).
If you’ve been keeping up with the beta updates, the final build of the cross-platform browser shouldn’t surprise you. Opera Turbo, the browser’s much-publicized compression engine for slow-poke connections, remains a feature highlight. Opera claims that Opera Turbo runs the browser up to eight times faster on suffering connections than do competing browsers.
The refreshed user interface is also noteworthy. Joining the new default skin (changed from version 9.6), are changes to tab bar behavior. The conventional tabs double as thumbnail images. Double-click the thin gray bar below the tabs (indicated by dots) or click and drag to expand open tabs into preview windows that you can navigate by clicking among them.
Other enhancements include an expanded Speed Dial (a feature that has later been adopted and adapted in Google’s Chrome browser) that shows more commonly visited Web pages than in previous Opera browsers. You’re also able to customize it with a background picture. You’ll see that spell check will be applicable to any text field (for 51 languages), and that Opera’s incorporated e-mail client takes a page from Google’s books by threading e-mail conversations.
Developers get access to a newer version of Opera Dragonfly, the publisher’s online development tools, but everyone can benefit from the speedier rendering engine that, according to Opera, makes version 10 up to 40 percent faster than version 9.6–before switching on Turbo’s compression.
Despite all the additions that Opera hopes will keep Opera 10 competitive, there are still two notable omissions for this final release. The first is Opera Unite, which uses your browser as a Web server for sharing your content with others. The second is the Carakan JavaScript engine that promises to process JavaScript about 2.5 times as fast as the engine used in Opera 10 alpha.
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10320478-12.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Mac OS Snow Leopard: Great news for Windows 7, too
OS X 10.6 includes Boot Camp 3.0, a new collection of software drivers that make Windows run much better on Mac hardware.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)
Every time I see the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads on TV, I can’t help but wonder, “Why not both?” And it has never been a better time for that.
It’s been a three weeks since I first got my hands on Apple’s new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. (If anything, this means lots of hard work benchmark testing the product while trying to keep my mouth shut about it till now, which was even harder.)
Overall, personally, I found that while the new Mac OS doesn’t warrant a “wow,” it’s still definitely worth the $29 upgrade price.Mac users can read more about Snow Leopard in my colleague Jason Parker’s full review. On the other hand, for Windows users, especially Windows 7, the release of Snow Leopard is straight-on great news.
Full Story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10315168-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
