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5:57PM We’re inside and front and center. In just a few sweet moments Steve Ballmer will take the stage and launch us into a phantasmagoric world of keynote goodness. Keep your internet terminals tuned to this channel!

Continue reading Live from Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Live from Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Phil doing the honors, nobody really thought Apple was planning on revolutionizing anything this morning — sure, there were plenty of rumors, like always, but most people weren’t expecting the moon. What we were expecting, however, was for Apple to come clean on a few things, so bear with us as we file this missing persons report.

Notably absent:

• Push notifications. This was supposed to roll out in September and is sorely needed.
• Snow Leopard. Last June Apple said the OS was due in “about a year,” so we would expect to start hearing a bit more about it — or at least notification of a delay.

Woulda been nice:

• Matte display options for other MacBooks. Pretty please?
• Mac mini refresh. The little box has become woefully underspecced — especially for the price — and is also lagging a little in the design department.
• A mid-range tower. This is just wishful thinking, but seriously Apple: the demand is there.
• iPhone 32GB. In pink, of course.

Dodged a bullet (for now):

• iPhone nano. Our hands aren’t getting any smaller, and this SimCity isn’t gonna get plumbing all on its own.
• iTablet. Sure, it’s been every Newton-head’s dream since forever, but that doesn’t mean the market for a UMPC-ish iPod touch-like device is there just yet.

Yeah, Apple doesn’t have to do anything — in fact, that yearly grind of expectation is probably one of the reasons the company is bowing out of Macworld altogether — but would it really be too much trouble to at least drop some verbaige on some of this stuff? Just wondering, is all. Oh, and in case you’re more of a visual type, Apple’s video of the keynote is now online, hit up the read link for all the non-action.

Filed under: Desktops

Macworld ’09: a show of no-shows originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here are a few best features of iPhoto ’09, including Faces and Places, which recognizes people in your albums and the locations you took those photos in.

Cool stuff: separating your photos by people, which you can then scrub (move your mouse) over and see all the images of them you have. iPhoto is smart enough to try and recognize which people are which with semi-decent accuracy, and you’ll have to confirm each one as you go. Once you’re done, you have a corkboard full of Polaroids of the people you know.

Geolocation is great for travelers, and if you go to a lot of different countries, your “Places” section will have a rich map made up of all the pins you’ve been to. You can fill in location data yourself, or if you have an iPhone or other GPS-enabled camera, it’s automatically filled in for you.

Other cool stuff is Facebook and Flickr integration (includes tagging as well), plus themed slideshows. [iPhoto]

Finally providing a noticeable difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple has pushed the Pro’s screen to 17 inches, its price to $2799, and thrown in a high-capacity (non-replaceable!) battery.

The new Pro has the unibody aluminum build—and virtually everything else—in common with its smaller 15″ brother. But now you won’t have to put your fancy new notebook next to the cheaper 13″ variant to see what you’ve paid for. There are precious few under-the-hood upgrades:

Available late this month, it’s just under an inch thick, weighs in at 6.6 pounds, and is claimed to be the “thinnest and lightest” 17″ notebook on the market.

The 1920×1200 screen has LED backlighting standard, with a 140×120 viewing angle, an impressive 700:1 contrast ratio and 60% greater color gamut than the last 17-inch display. There’s also an optional anti-glare coating option for the screen that’ll run you $50.Overall, the specs are mostly identical to the last MBP iteration, with the notable exception of the battery.

Apple says it’s the longest lasting MacBook battery ever—it’s a non-removable lithium polymer battery with “three times” the industry standard lifecycle, courtesy of “adaptive charging.” How long does it last? 7 hours with discrete graphics, 8 hours with integrated graphics. That’s 3 more hours than the previous-gen 17″ MBP. And it’ll cycle through that at least 1000 times with minimal wear.

The new MBP comes in just one base configuration: At $2799, you get the 2.66 ghz processor, 4gb ram, the dual-video card solution, a 320GB HDD and the Superdrive. It’s available for pre-order now.

This is roughly in keeping with the same pattern Apple set in 2006 with the original MacBook Pro, which debuted with a 15-inch screen and saw the two-inch upgrade just a few months later. [Macworld 2009 Coverage]

Apple Introduces 17-inch MacBook Pro With Revolutionary New Built-in Battery That Delivers Eight Hours of Use & 1,000 Recharges

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook(R) Pro featuring a durable and beautiful precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built-in battery that delivers up to eight hours of use and up to 1,000 recharges for more than three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro has a high resolution LED-backlit display and the same large glass Multi-Touch(TM) trackpad introduced with the new MacBook family in October. In addition, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro includes state of the art NVIDIA graphics and the latest generation Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors. As part of the industry’s greenest notebook family, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro is made of highly recyclable materials, meets stringent energy efficiency standards and is made without many of the harmful toxins found in other computers.
“We’ve developed new battery technology that is better for the user and better for the environment,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s advanced chemistry and innovative technology deliver up to eight hours of use on a full charge cycle and up to 1,000 recharges.”

Apple uses advanced chemistry, intelligent monitoring of the system and battery, and Adaptive Charging technology to create a revolutionary new notebook battery that delivers up to eight hours of wireless productivity on a single charge and up to 1,000 recharges without adding thickness, weight or cost to the MacBook Pro’s incredible design.* The longer battery lifespan equals fewer depleted batteries and less waste, which is better for the environment.

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro includes an ultra-thin, widescreen glossy 1920 x 1200 display with 78 percent more pixels than the 15-inch MacBook Pro and a 60 percent greater color gamut that delivers desktop-quality color in a notebook. The LED-backlit display has brilliant instant-on performance, uses up to 30 percent less energy and eliminates the mercury found in industry standard fluorescent tube backlights.

Measuring just 0.98-inches thin and weighing 6.6 pounds, the 17-inch MacBook Pro is the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook. The 17-inch MacBook Pro is the most powerful Mac(R) notebook yet with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors available up to 2.93 GHz, up to 8GB DDR3 main memory and a graphics architecture that allows users to switch between the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor for better battery life and the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics processor for higher performance. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro includes a 320GB 5400 rpm hard drive standard with a 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive and 128GB and 256GB solid state drives as options. As with the rest of the new MacBook family, the 17-inch MacBook Pro includes a next generation, industry-standard Mini DisplayPort to connect with the new Apple LED Cinema Display featuring a 24-inch LED-backlit widescreen display with a built-in iSight(R) video camera, mic and speakers.

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro joins the aluminum unibody MacBook family in setting new standards for environmentally friendly notebooks with every model achieving EPEAT Gold status.** Each MacBook unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. The new MacBook family meets stringent Energy Star 4.0 requirements, contains no brominated flame retardants and uses internal cables and components that are PVC-free. The battery in the new 17-inch MacBook Pro provides additional environmental benefit because its extended lifespan means fewer depleted batteries resulting in less waste. Depleted batteries can be replaced for $179 which includes installation and disposal of your old battery in an environmentally responsible manner.

Pricing & Availability
The new 17-inch MacBook Pro will be shipping at the end of January and will be available through the Apple Store(R) (http://www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), and includes:

— 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
— 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
— 1066 MHz front-side bus;
— 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;
— NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
— NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video
memory;
— 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
— a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
— Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
— built-in AirPort Extreme(R) 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth
2.1+EDR;
— Gigabit Ethernet port;
— built-in iSight video camera;
— three USB 2.0 ports;
— one FireWire(R) 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
— ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
— one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both
optical digital and analog;
— glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
— built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
— 85 Watt MagSafe(R) Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR 3 memory, 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, anti-glare display for $50 (US), Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*A properly maintained Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro battery is designed to retain 80 percent or more of its original capacity during a lifespan of up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/17inch-battery.

**EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit http://www.epeat.net.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, MacBook, Multi-Touch, iSight, Apple Store, AirPort Extreme, FireWire and MagSafe are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Today at Macworld 2009, Apple showed off a new iPhoto with true facial recognition, a better iMovie and other iLife updates—$79 solo, $99 for family, requires Leopard, available late January.

It’s a good solid upgrade full of very nice features. One big catch, though: You need Leopard for it to run. Here’s the rundown, app by app:

iPhoto stuff:


Faces: Goes through and identifies distinct faces, automatically tagging them so you don’t have to slog through all your photos yourself.

Places: Geotagging, basically. iPhoto gives you a map with pins of where photos are taken. If your camera or iPhone encodes GPS info, iPhoto can figure out if the shot was taken at a particular landmark.

Facebook and Flickr support: Automatically upload your pics straight to your service of choice. (So glad to hear that one!) iPhoto will even grab Facebook image tags and use them in Faces. Flickr geo tags can be used in Places.

Themes: Page layouts for slideshows, with different fonts, caption boxes, etc., with crazy transitions. You can save slideshows to iPhone and iPod touch. It can detect faces in shots, so that they are centered during the slideshow. There’s a geo-tag slideshow called Travel Books that looks and acts like a scrapbook.

iMovie stuff: Sounds like they’re finally putting back some power functionality—let’s hope so…


Precision editor: It’s an expanded timeline for audio and video, for tighter cutting.

Advanced drag and drop: You can drag one video on top of another and get advanced context menus.

Themes: Select a theme and it automatically sets style for titles, transitions and credits.

Advanced travel maps: Put in starting and ending points, and it renders a 3D globe of where you traveled.

Video stabilization: Helps you fix shaky shooting when you’re editing. Takes some processing time, but the results are amazing.

Other editing features: Skimming, seeing edits (before and after cuts), overlaying audio.

New project library: Organize videos in a more logical way with helpful thumbs.

Garageband stuff:
Yes, Garageband is still getting developed, even though I think it’s been a while since even Walt Mossberg recorded a solo project. (Knowing Pogue’s talents, he probably has a nice ProTools rig, or at least Logic.) Good thing this version is apparently looking for new musical recruits…

Learn to play: It has an instructional feature that helps teach you how to play instruments like guitar and piano.

Artist Lessons: Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, Sting and other FOJ jam for your edification. Only $5 a lesson. Hmmm. (More on this.)

There are also updates to iWeb and iDVD, but Apple didn’t feel the need to show them off, so they must not be terribly exciting. Here’s the press release:

Apple Introduces iLife ’09

Major Upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie & GarageBand

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today introduced iLife(R) ’09, which features major upgrades to iPhoto(R), iMovie(R) and GarageBand(R), and includes iDVD(R) and an updated version of iWeb(TM). iPhoto ’09 builds on the ability to automatically organize photos into Events by adding Faces and Places as breakthrough new ways to easily organize and manage your photos. iMovie ’09 expands on the revolutionary super fast movie creation introduced in iMovie ’08 by adding the depth users want through powerful easy-to-use new features such as the incredible new Precision Editor, video stabilization, advanced drag and drop, and animated travel maps. GarageBand ’09 introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar with 18 basic lessons and optional lessons from top artists such as Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sting. iLife ’09 is included with every new Mac(R) purchase and available as a $79 upgrade for existing users.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With iLife ’09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

iPhoto ’09 makes it even easier to browse and search photos, not only by when they were shot (Events), but by who appears in them (Faces) and where they were taken (Places). iPhoto automatically scans photos to detect people’s faces and when you assign a name to any face iPhoto will automatically find more pictures of that person. The library can be searched by name or browsed using the new Faces View. Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or any iPhone(TM) or you can manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, you can easily explore them with a simple search or an interactive map. iPhoto ’09 lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod(R), or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie ’09 adds powerful, yet easy-to-use new features to let you create a movie quickly, or add refinements and special effects to your project if you have more time. Drag and drop one clip on top of another to reveal new advanced editing options, including replace, insert, audio only, and even picture-in-picture or green screen. With the revolutionary Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying precisely how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie ’09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.

GarageBand ’09, the updated version of Apple’s popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand ’09 application. GarageBand ’09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iLife ’09 includes iWeb ’09 for authoring custom websites and iDVD ’09 for creating DVDs. iWeb ’09 adds new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight(R) video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.

Pricing & Availability

iLife ’09 will be available this month for a suggested retail price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store(R) (http://www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each.

iLife ’09 requires Mac OS(R) X version 10.5.6 or later, a Macintosh(R) computer with an Intel processor, a PowerPC G5 or 867 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), QuickTime(R) 7.5.5 or later (included), a DVD drive for installation and 4GB of available disk space. iPhoto print services and GarageBand Artist Lessons are available in select countries. Full system requirements and more information on iLife ’09 can be found at http://www.apple.com/ilife.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iLife, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, iWeb, iPhone, iPod, iSight, Apple Store and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

[Macworld 2009 Full Coverage]