Hasta La Gadget!

The new iMac Apple introduced without much fanfare a couple of weeks ago is an evolutionary upgrade, retaining the slimline design it debuted with last year’s pre-holiday refresh, and introducing some major specification bumps under the hood. For owners of any of those machines, it probably won’t be surprising to hear that this year’s upgrade takes what was a great computer and makes it even better, especially for demanding users.

As reviewed:

• 27-inch, 2560×1440 display
• 3TB Fusion Drive
• 3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
• 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M w/ 4GB dedicated RAM
• 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
• MSRP (as tested): $2,699
• Product info page

Apple’s redesigned iMac is as nice this year as it was last – the slimmer profile affords it some much-needed weight savings, and the cleaner look leads to a much better overall aesthetic for a home office setup. The 27-inch model, which I reviewed, is still going to be a beefy device, but it’s no longer an absolute horror to move and reposition.

The redesign does change some aspects that users coming from previous generations should note, however – there’s no longer any optical disk drive, and the SD card slot has shifted from the side to the back, owing to the much narrower edges of the new iMac. These are worthwhile sacrifices, in my opinion, since I haven’t used an optical disc since who knows when, and while the SD slot was easier to access on the side, it’s something you get used to reaching sight unseen on the new chassis pretty quickly if you need to use it frequently.

Also for those coming from devices older than the 2012 model iMac, you’ll probably notice less glare on the glass display, and better color rendering (in my unscientific opinion). Overall, the iMac’s design, while unchanged from last year, continues to place it atop the market in terms of attractive looks for an all-in-one computer.

The new iMac offers up improved configuration options for one of Apple’s most interesting recent tech innovations – Fusion Drive. The Fusion Drive is a cocktail of software and hardware that allows Apple to offer capacious storage capacities not available affordable in SSD, but with the speed and performance benefits that come from SSD. It does this by pairing a platter drive with a small segment of flash storage, and then intelligently keeping information that’s likely to be accessed on the flash portion, while constantly shuttling less immediately relevant data on to the platter hard disk drive.

The result, for most users, is an experience that compares very well to having a totally solid state drive in terms of boot speeds, wake from sleep times, program launches and program performance. One of the big downsides of switching between a 2011 27-inch iMac and my 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has always been that the iMac always feels like a relative dinosaur with its 5,400 RPM HDD, but that perceived gap is completely erased with the Fusion Drive in the new 2013 27-inch iMac. This is my first experience with Fusion, and it genuinely does seem like the best option for anyone wanting both storage space and speed without much compromise.

Another huge benefit of the iMac if you’re new to it, especially if you’re adding a home computer to your existing Mac notebook, is Target Display mode. Connected to another Mac via Thunderbolt, the iMac can act as a second display. It’s actually better in some ways than getting a Cinema Display, since you have the option to use it on its own, but have a smaller/lighter package to work with. It’s not a new feature, but it’s a good one to keep in mind with this device for new buyers.

The iMac’s display is likewise the same as the one found in its predecessor, but it’s an excellent screen that’s worth noting. The 2560×1440 display isn’t so-called Retina quality technically, but it gives you plenty of screen real estate to work with, and offers excellent color rendering, brightness and contrast. Plus, viewed from a reasonable distance, text still appears plenty crisp, and the screen does great work operating double-duty as a TV for watching movies and shows from a distance.

Working with two browser windows side-by-side works perfectly on the new iMac, as does tiling a number of applications including a browser, IM client, Twitter client and others. It’s also a great screen for working with windows, and compared to older models, the glare is much diminished. I’m using the review unit in a well-lit room with a window directly behind me facing the screen, and I’m still able to work on image-intensive tasks like photo editing without noticing too much glare.

Here’s where the new iMac shines, thanks to latest generation Intel Haswell processors, and much improved graphic card options on all levels of the device. The one I’ve got has the top-of-the-line Nvidia 700-series option, a GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB of dedicated video memory. It’s powerful enough that it hardly breaks a sweat running Civilization V in windowed mode at 1920×1080 resolution in addition to powering Photoshop CC, Final Cut Pro X, and any number of browser tabs and communication software.

The improved processor also makes everything feel lightning quick, and again, my first experience with a Fusion Drive from Apple has proven very eye-opening. Unless you’re working frequently with extremely large files which are processing in real-time, I see little reason to pay up to three times as more for dedicated SSD storage vs. Apple’s sophisticated hybrid tech. I’ve used aftermarket hybrid drives in the past, too, but because Apple’s solution is tied directly to firmware and system software, it provides much better performance benefits overall. The average user definitely wouldn’t be able to tell Fusion from all-flash storage.

In general, gaming performance was excellent on the new iMac, including sample tests performed using the recently released Mac App Store versions of Bioshock Infinite and Lord of the Rings: War in the North. This iMac isn’t one that will back down to a gaming challenge, though the most demanding gamers will probably still want to spec out and build their own custom Windows gaming PC if only because of library size.

Apple has provided a fairly standard upgrade for the iMac with these most recent versions, much like it does between major generational shifts for the Mac that happen every few years. But the hidden nature of these changes belies their benefits, especially for users working at the top level of the iMac’s capabilities. A fully-specced machine isn’t for everyone (the price tag alone will put most off), but barring anything truly shocking in terms of a price tag for the upcoming Mac Pro, the top of the line new iMac is the creative professional’s current best friend. And no matter the price point/configuration, Apple still definitely makes the best all-in-one available.

There has been no shortage of leaks that claim to show off Google’s next Nexus smartphone (including this not-so-subtle nod from Google itself) over the past weeks and months, but we may have just hit the mother lode this weekend. The folks at Android Police have gotten their hands on a hefty, near-final draft of a 281-page service manual for the forthcoming device, which still technically bears the LG D821 model number.

Really though, LG isn’t fooling anyone here. The document is chock full of diagrams and images (some of the device in various states of disassembly) that depict a very familiar-looking phone sporting some Nexus 7-like branding on its rear end. An earlier FCC filing already revealed some of the juicy details — the inclusion of a 4.95-inch 1080p IPS screen and a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 with 2GB of RAM — but this newly leaked manual manages to shine a little extra light (not to mention extra credibility) on those earlier reports.

The new Nexus will likely be available in 16 or 32GB variants, and will feature an LTE radio and an 8-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (there’s no mention of that crazy Nikon tech, though). NFC, wireless charging, and that lovely little notification light are back, too, but don’t expect a huge boost in longevity — it’s going to pack a sealed 2,300mAh battery, up slightly from the 2100mAh cell that powered last year’s Nexus 4. That spec sheet should sound familiar to people who took notice of what happened with the Nexus 4. Just as that device was built from the foundation laid by the LG Optimus G, the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2.

At this point I’d usually urge you to approach such leaks with caution, but it hardly seems necessary now. As much as I love my mental image of a lone prankster toiling into the wee hours of the morning on a meticulously crafted forgery, the sheer complexity and granularity of the information contained in this document makes that scenario an unlikely one. And the icing on the cake? LG asked Android Police to pull the offending document and images earlier today — AP complied with the request, but there’s no way to get the cat back into its bag now.

It’s hard to argue with the timing, too. The first anniversary of the Nexus 4’s unveiling is fast approaching, and as solid as the device was, it found itself being outclassed by a more powerful breed of smartphone within a matter of months. The Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 4 made their official debuts in October 2011 and 2012 respectively, and now that we’ve got persistent rumors of a Google event scheduled for October 14 floating around, I’d wager all this cloak-and-dagger business should be dispensed with very shortly. Until then, feel free to dig around in the full document below for more technical tidbits — happy hunting!

LG D821

So this is what CrunchWeek is like without adult supervision.

Leena Rao and Colleen Taylor, the show’s two regular hosts, were both out of town this week, but there was still plenty of news for TechCrunch writers — specifically Greg Kumparak, Alex Wilhelm, and me — to talk about. We weighed in on the anticipation around Twitter’s IPO filing (and what was revealed in its S-1 filing), the shutdown of anonymous Bitcoin marketplace Silk Road, and reports that Amazon is developing its own smartphones (one of them with a whopping four cameras).

By the way, apologies for the occasional bursts of random background noise. I blame the gremlins hiding in the TCTV studio.

Lark, which launched a wearable silent alarm onstage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference back in 2010, has raised $3.1 million of an intended $3.6 million round of funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I’ve emailed the company and its CEO Julia Hu for confirmation, and I’ll update this post if I hear back. The filing doesn’t specify the investors in the new round, but intriguingly, it does identify Weili Dai, president and co-founder of Marvell, as member of its board of directors.

Although Lark started out with a silent alarm, it expanded its product lineup to include a sleep coach product called Lark Pro and a more general device and app called Larklife. The company announced Larklife in October of 2012, and Hu described it to me as a way for folks who aren’t as serious about fitness or weight loss to track and get actionable recommendations about their diet, exercise, sleep, and more. Like Lark’s other devices, Larklife was sold in Apple’s retail stores (and elsewhere).

I actually tried the service out for a few months late last year and early this year. During that time, everyone kept asking me about the blue wristband (the look definitely wasn’t as subtle as, say, the Nike+ Fuel Band). I thought it had potential, but eventually I decided that it wasn’t providing enough value to justify the (minor) inconvenience — and, perhaps more damningly, the ridicule that it prompted from my roommate. In the months since, while I’ve seen an increasing number of people around San Francisco wearing some sort of fitness device, it usually isn’t the Larklife wristband.

Lark previously raised $1 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, CrunchFund (which, like TechCrunch, was founded by Michael Arrington), and others.

Welcome to our continuing series featuring videos of robots that will, when they become autonomous, hunt us down and force us to work in the graphene factories of Mars. Below we see Wild Cat, a fully untethered remote control quadrupedal robot made by Boston Dynamics, creators of the famous Big Dog. This quadruped can run up to 16 miles an hour and features a scary-sound internal gas engine that can power it across rough terrain. Wild Cat was funded by the DARPA’s M3 program aimed at introducing flexible, usable robots into natural environments AKA introducing robotic pack animals for ground troops and build flocking, heavily armed robots that can wipe out a battlefield without putting humans in jeopardy.

Next up we have ATLAS, another Boston Dynamics bot that can walk upright on rocks. Sadly ATLAS is tethered to a power source but he has perfect balance and can survive side and front hits from heavy weights – a plus if you’re built to be the shock troops of a new droid army. ATLAS can even balance on one foot while being smacked with wrecking balls, something the average human can’t do without suffering internal damage. I can’t wait for him to be able to throw cinder blocks!

Finally we present these charming self-assembling robots from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory which we covered earlier today. The robots exert an internal force to spin and then connect with each other using magnets, allowing them to fly into the air for a second and then fall down next to their brothers and sisters in exactly the right spot. This allows these completely featureless squares to form any shape they want and, like autonomous LEGOs, they can build complex devices out of a few simple shapes.

“There’s a point in time when the cube is essentially flying through the air,” said researcher Kyle Gilpin. “And you are depending on the magnets to bring it into alignment when it lands. That’s something that’s totally unique to this system.”

They may look innocuous but imagine these things self-assembling into, say, a wall, a door, or even a plate of explosives. They could sneak through pipes into your home and create a robotic assassin to destroy you in the sleep, thereby freeing up your “Schlafplatz” for other humans who have been reduced to sleeping out of doors after the robots took over most habitable locations for the storage of fermenting human slurry. Stay frosty, humans!