Lots of Mac Stuff Sans an Announcement

There are times when I think all of us would like to shake Steve Jobs really hard and ask him what's going on with his little company up in Cuppertino. Still nothing regarding the anniversary, and my hunch is that he's holding back due to stalls in talks with movie studios, which must be holding him back for whatever big announcements he had planned for his anniversary. Jobs isn't the kind of person to leave a landmark like this untouched. To make things worse, the EFF's appeal on behalf of a blogger against Apple is April 20, and if they don't win then it could really hurt journalists' ability to report leaks and keep their sources secret. I'm really rooting for the EFF here because it's Apple's own fault if there are leaks, and I don't see how it hurts them that bad for their zealous fans to get a sneak peak at what they're doing. It's not all bad news though, as they're releasing a revision of MacBook Pro with fixes for a lot of the issues that have plagued it since its inception, and they'll likely replace yours with the new motherboard if you're having such problems so be sure to call their customer service line. And now, ironically, a juicy rumor: they're putting goodies in Mac OS X Leopard that will optimize Macs further for the multiple Intel cores and, specifically, the Yonah and Conroe architectures. This will mean that current Core Duo Macs could run significantly faster (without real numbers, I'm not going to purport to give a scale). Not sure if Vista is doing any of this stuff, but they're going to get screwed in benchmark comparisons if they don't.

Speaking of Microsoft, they've decided to make Virtual Server completely free! Of course, businesses will pay them for tech support, but this is their move against VMWare in the virtualization market, and they'll even have support for Linux. How did VMWare retaliate? They opened their virtual machine disk format, which will lead to "value-added" products, which basically means better interoperability of virtualization. This just gets better and better for the rest of us, so please keep fighting! Meanwhile, Intel is trying to fight the existence of third-world countries with the announcement of their initiative for a low-cost computer, but, unlike other efforts, their working at a community PC. This would be like a kiosk for a village, but it would be a really good computer and support high speed Internet and such, which sounds like it could be pretty cool. There's also been an advancement in HD TVs: Mitsubishi is knee-deep in developing a new digital light processing technology that, unlike TI's model, would user lasers, which could allow for thinner and potentially cheaper televisions. It still has another year to go, but the prototype looks way too cool, and I just wonder if they have to pay royalties to TI since it's building off of their patented DLP idea. Wired is reporting that Sun may have stumbled upon something rather brilliant in an open source DRM technology they're calling DReaM, which would mean that all multimedia could have DReaM on it and work on all devices supporting it. Hence, iTunes songs would work on more than just iPods. I'm really excited to see what companies invest in this because it really could change the way multimedia works in an awesome way. Lastly, a new site called Questionville has opened up to allow you to pose your own questions to the mass Internet public much in the vein of Digg, and if it gets big then it could be something really cool to take care of your nagging questions and spark some interesting debates.

The biggest movie item today seemed to be an agreement reached between major studios and Movielink and CinemaNow, which would offer movies for download the day they're released on DVD. They'll cost $20-$30, and their reasoning is that you can create a backup DVD and load it on two computers (whoopty doo). AICN has a scoop on the plot of The Simpsons movie, and it reminds me of the one where Mr. Burns tried blocking the sun. They really need to just kill this franchise because they're slowly killing it with bad writing and ideas already. Supposedly, the next Indiana Jones movie will actually be 10-12 years past the time of the events of The Last Crusade, and they may shoot next year in Australia, according to IGN. I don't care where they film it though as long as it's good. The Princess Bride is being re-released very soon in a special Collector's Edition DVD set, which I'm guessing was prompted by good DVD sales since the movie almost seems like a cult hit even after having been released so long ago. I guess its humor is timeless (like Monty Python). The schedule for QT Fest has been released, and I haven't heard of any of the movies, but I'm sure they're all really cool so you should go if you can afford to (I sure as Hell wish I could). Lastly, Empire has put up a list of their top 50 choices for the best indie flicks of all time, and I'm glad to have seen a majority of the top ten, especially since Donnie Darko made it on there. You should keep a copy of the list on hand for your next trip to the video store.

Now for some Monday Madness action:

1. Do you own any box sets of your favorite shows?
Nope, but I do plan on getting 24 and Family Guy boxed sets.

2. Are you penpals with other people?
I used to be back in elementary school, but having e-mail and, you know, constant school work has negated that need to write to someone else regularly. Plus, I have this blog here.

3. Do you still send out real, paper cards in the mail?
For someone really important, yeah. Usually though, I just call people for their birthdays or send e-cards.

4. Have you ever bought or sold anything on Ebay?
We bought an Xbox when it first came out and made $100 off of eBay, and I've bought a few games and DVDs off of it.

5. Did you have to set your clocks an hour ahead this past weekend?
Oh yes, and it killed me to have to do it :(

6. How many of your blog buddies' birthdays do you know?
Hah, none. Sorry guys, but I don't know unless you tell me :) I know Robert's, but he's more of a real life buddy than a blogging buddy so he doesn't count.

7. When is your birthday (need not include year)?
October 18, and I really wish it was earlier because I'm younger than like everyone it seems (at least in my class).