It Begins: The MacBook Pro

My wet dream has come true: at his keynote address this morning, Steve Jobs announced the MacBook Pro line to replace the PowerBook. What is it? You can see it to your left here: it's a laptop running Mac OS X 10.4.4 on a Core Duo processor. What does that mean? Much faster than any current Apple laptop (at least 2-4 times faster than the fastest PowerBook) because when you have two cores you can basically multitask more efficiently. It also has an ATI Radeon x1600, which is a great mid-range graphics card, and a remote to use the Front Row software. It also comes with an iSight camera and a MagSafe connector so that if someone trips on your power cord, only the power cord itself goes flying. Before that though, he announced the new iMac, which has a faster processor (also a Core Duo though) and is cheaper, and has the remote as well. I think the remote is great for watching movies (I know I've been annoying by having to use my cursor to navigate DVDs before). Both come with a SuperDrive, which can basically do anything you need (burn/read CDs and DVDs of all types). I'll admit that the laptops are a bit pricey, but so is the stuff that comes in that box, and it should take less power than any laptop out there. Oh, and if you're a current Mac user worried about your old software working on these new machines then don't worry: a built-in application called Rosetta will ensure that they work almost a native application, and all new Mac software will be in universal binaries (can work on PowerPC and x86 Macs).

You can read about everything Mr. Jobs talked about over here, where I was eagerly reading it all live. Another major thing he unveiled was the iPod Radio Remote, which allows you to listen to the radio on your iPod (or Nano) and control all the action via a remote. It's a great idea that I had been wondering about for a while since sometimes we all like to just see what's going on on the radio or maybe listen to a sportscast of a came we can't watch at the time. Also in the speech he coined a new term: photocasting. There's no video feed yet so I don't understand how it works exactly, be Jobs described it as podcasting for photos. He also showed how easy it is to put up podcasts and video podcasts with an iMac, and it's true; the latter especially thanks to the built-in iSight. Apple's 30 year anniversary is coming soon, and I think they've done well by the tenets they founded the company on. So I was wrong about a new iPod, but at least I was right about the laptop.

My brother is coming in from India today, and so in about an hour I'm going to meet him at his place to hang out tonight. Hence, I will not make another post tonight. Instead, I'll write about the couple of other things that have gone on so far today and tomorrow's post will cover everything in between. The Google Blog made a post about Google Video, and in it they say that you can now load videos onto your iPod or PSP. You can also download videos just to your computer, but they only run on Google's video player, which I assume is to protect copyrighted content, though I'm sure that people will be able to crack it soon enough. I wish you could preview the videos that cost money since you can on iTunes. The other thing I wanted to mention is that Hostel's huge success has prompted Lions Gate to start working on a sequel, and possibly with Quentin Tarantino. I doubt it'll release before 2008 though since Eli Roth has a few other projects to go still, one of which is written by the masterful Richard Kelly (The Box).

I'm going with the Tuesday Twosome meme this week:

Two things that catch/caught your attention...

1. Outside your window:
It's surprisingly sunny considering that it's 57 degrees Fahrenheit and it was thundering last night, and the sky is blue. Yes, my neighborhood here is just that boring.

2. On your desk:
The external hard drive that I borrowed from my brother (it has tons of music on it) and my broken headphones (a casualty of New Year's Eve).

3. The last time you were in a car:
The Circuit City near our house closed, and a homeless person was being annoying about begging for money. I have no problem donating to charity, but I refuse to give to bums (probably because of those drag rats in Austin).

4. The last time you watched TV:
MTV keeps getting worse, and I can't believe I still haven't seen every episode of The Cosby Show.

5. The last time you listened to the radio:
There actually are slightly fewer commercials, but the quality of music really should improve.