Macworld Expo: Day 1
January 06, 2009 at 11:01:05 AM, by Travis Simon
Offering the latest and greatest updates from the San Fran expo for everything Mac
Keynote Address
Looks like Schiller confirmed the obvious, that there will be new version of iPhoto, iPhoto ‘09. It's showcase is adding new ways to manage photos called Faces. It also allows you to organize photos around people and uses a new user interface, cork board with snapshots with favorite people. The big thing with iLife 09 is that it also uses a face detection technology; click on photo; ID the name. Face recognition finds the same people across multiple photos
Another new sort for iPhoto: Places. Which allows organization of photos by location of the picture being taken. Once you load up your photo and select places, a pop up map with pins occurs and can access the GPS geocaching built into GPS chips that have been making way into cameras, and is also supported by iPhone (which includes geotag in photos). The iLife Software then coverts geotags with latitude and longitude into physical locations. For photos without geotags, you can still attach info; and it will assign geotags to photos in groups of events.
Also new for iPhoto: support for Facebook and Flickr. There's a easy button to easily push photos to Facebook; which includes built in tags to individuals, and the Flickr works similarly, with geo tag support.
Nothing yet on the new mac mini...but we're still keeping things updated...
New Macbook Pro 17"
There is a hardware announcement, hooray...sort of. The new 17-inch Macbook Pro. It has a matte screen with 60% greater color gamut, a 700:1 contrast ratio, and a new anti-glare $50 upgrade option. However, it still has all the usual ports. Safe connector, ethernet, mini display ports, etc. It's still keeping the glass track pad for multi-touch gestures, which is something of a 'modest' surprise. The CPu is scaled up to a beefy 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 processors and will carry both built in integrated graphics and a Nvidia discrete graphics card. The harddrive space is bumped to 320 GB and users can now configure with a 256 GB solid-state drives. Thankfully, this definately works with new Cinema Display.
The big talk and hype is the new energy efficient, UNREMOVABLE battery. It's the longest lasting battery ever in a 17' Mac to date - being just as thin and light and can hold an roughly 8 hour charge, and carry it through to over 1000 charges. The big push on this is that it is also more environmentally friendly and carries a lifespan up to 5 years.
Exhibitors and Pictures
As I scour the north hall, then the south, then back to the north, and then back to the south, it's almost ubiqutious that there is a lot of redundant feature sets within the expo. However, there are a few items that did catch the eye and I got a chance to talk to a lot of them.
AppleLocks
This little device from a small and upcoming manufacturer ads a locking mechanism to your frightened Macbook Air.
Let's face it, being so thin, so light, and so sexy has it's drawbacks as you're probably one of the easiest targets for theft. You'll notice that it actually attaches to a simple shell that surrounds your MBA and the device can only be removed with a key. You can check out their website at www.applelocks.com to see some further details, as they carry everything for the G5 and G5pro to the ipod lineup.
Zeptopad: The whiteboard in your pocket
So SMART boards too expensive? Already have an ipod touch / iphone and a projector? How about real time updating of what you are drawing and using on your iphone projected directly to your MBP or Macbook?
That's where Zeptopad comes in - it's pretty nifty, and if I had the time I would pick both of these up and just draw squiggles or business ventures all day long. www.zeptotools.com
i2i - music broadcasting system
The recievers are ultra compact, have about 7 hours of battery life, and doesn't rely on "pairing". Busy traffic channel? No prob, hit the center button and change channel to broadcast HD quality sound. We think this is a big hit and can't wait to coordinate a review on this item!
Carl Zeiss: cinemizer plus
Axiotron - the modbook
Sure this company has been around, but up till now you've been stuck with the 13.3" tablet form.
That all changed with the release of the modbook pro - taking the 15.4" lineup to a tablet form to new heights. With 512 pressure sensitive points per inch, the fluid and response you can get is pretty amazing - check out the photos, no joke, you can do a lot with these devices. Also, check out our video interview with Andreas Haas here...
The black design and the lustfull tablet form makes me want one - send in your own MBP 15.4" and they'll mod it for you too!
Well, we have a lot more people to see and snap some pictures of, I'll be updating this later tonight with more pictures, keep yourself posted! Page:1/1
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