Hasta La Gadget!

The day after rumors broke about an updated Apple Xtreme and Time Capsule, Apple went ahead and launched them both. The new Airport Xtreme and the Time Capsule still has your basic 802.11 specs, including A, B, G, N, but the N flavor now covers both the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz spectrum, giving it dual band capabilities. This will get the most out of your throughput, so when other devices are cluttering up the 2.4Ghz band, the Xtreme and Time Capsule will kick in to the other band and free up some of that bandwidth. The Time Capsule will be offered in 500GB and 1TB options, as was before.

Another interesting and useful feature is guest networking, which creates a separate hot spot for guests who you basically don’t trust. This way, you won’t have to give up your precious password thereby keeping them off of your network drives and peripherals.

Leave it to the good ole FCC to uncover more hidden rumors about Apple’s purported launch on March 24th. According to AppleInsider, new regulatory filings have been approved by the FCC, revealing diagrams of what looks like the Apple Time Capsule and the Airport Xtreme. Since the Time Capsule is basically a NAS drive, larger capacities than those of the current 1TB and 500GB options are to be expected. As for the Airport Xtreme, it’ll likely be 802.11n still, possibly with improved throughputs and hopefully with a different design than the polished white ones. If the new Macbook Pros are any indication, we might even see a “Unibody” Aluminum version

via AppleInsider

Few companies in the tech world are so highly regarded for their product announcements that even the dates of their press conferences are the subject of shrouded speculation. Apple, of course, is not like most other companies, so when a “source” discloses that the company is planning an event for March 24th, it naturally becomes big news.

The date, of course, aligns with the company’s general product cycle. The source told World of Apple that “the event would be similar to the notebook event held by Apple last October.”

If the rumor is in fact true, the company will most likely use the event to refresh the iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini lines.

The Unibody 17-inch MBP completes the circle of Apple laptops that received the new aluminum enclosure. The design is absolutely gorgeous, and with all the additions, including a huge battery and twin graphics chipsets, Apple still kept it feathery light; it’s the lightest laptop in its class. The big story here, though, is the battery, as it is now a non-removable one. Despite the initial shock, what Apple did actually worked in its favor. The original 68WH battery is now 40% bigger, now at 95WH. Without benchmarking the system, you already know that battery life is bound to improve.

See how the battery scored after the jump.

If you’ve seen the movie “21” or other similar stories you know about card counting. It’s a method for controlling the odds in blackjack by varying your bets as the deck becomes more or less favorable for the player. Casinos would rather this be a game of chance than a game of skill–though counting is legal in most locales. What’s illegal is counting with the help of any device.

For casual players card counting is tough to do and unless well planned easy for the casino to discover. Once they know you’re counting a quick shuffle of the cards removes any edge.