Vigile writes "With the news that Apple will be releasing new MacBook products on October 14th, speculation has begun on what exactly those new products will be. Tips of a manufacturing process involving lasers and a single 'brick' of aluminum are catching on, as is the idea of a sub-$1000 netbook-type device. More interesting might be the persistent rumors of an NVIDIA chipset adoption that would drastically increase gaming ability, allow MacBooks to improve their support for OpenCL and take advantage of the new Adobe CS4 software with GPU acceleration. Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?"
Well not too many MMOs are played on an Xbox 360 or PS3. Probably the only semi-big name game that is on a console is the Final Fantasy one. Age of Conan "Claims" they will make a game for the Xbox 360. So if you are an MMO fan and you play games like DAoC, WOW, Warhammer, EVE you are stuck with a PC/mac rather then a console.
Since you mentioned you have a PS3, why not just use a mouse and keyboard with it, the interface you prefer? Several games already support this such as UT3.
As a side note on the topic of control interfaces (though not to the parent specifically), I personally "prefer" the gamepad. It's comfy and in some titles like RTSes (!) I actually do VERY well with it (shockingly, I might add). However, both the 360 AND the PS3 support keyboards and mice, it's the games that don't. The onus is on a game company
Because you lose the ability to control your movements accurately, and you end up with a rail shooter. Aiming and shooting is all well and good, but putting the movement controls on the same gun would is a pain in the ass. The only solution would be something like the Wii nunchuk combined with a one-handed gun adapter. Which would actually be kinda cool, but it hasn't been pulled off quite right yet, and either way it limits you to Wii graphics, which are nowhere near what PS3/360/PC capabilities are rig
Keyboard AND Mouse? Duke Nukem 3D? That's not old-school! Why you young pups, I remember when mouselook was just a crazy gleam in a programmer's eye. You think aiming sucks with an analog stick? Try using the freaking number pad.
And I remember REAL old-school first person shooters, the ones where we ran around the backyard pointing sticks at each other going "pew pew" and arguing over who got hit first.
So if I develop and sell copies of a party game for Windows and Mac OS X, will I find a large market of HTPC (home theater personal computing) enthusiasts and few competitors?
Few competitors? Probably. Large market? Not from what I've seen.
So far as I can tell, HTPCs are largely of interest to us geeks—and only accessible to geeks of greater-than-average income (or debt, depending on the level of financial good sense). I think they're gaining some traction, but by and large, if your average person is going to have something connected to their television besides a DVD/VCR, cable/satellite box, or Big 3 game console, it's going to be a cable/satellite-company provided DV
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday October 10 2008, @12:15PM (#25329595)
Apple will announce that due to the financial crisis, they've been able to purcase Iceland. However, it will be rebranded as iCeland. Steve Jobs was apparently very fond of their homogeneous population.
If they sell a laptop for $800, as rumored, then who's going to buy a Mac mini for $600+?
Of course, they could probably sell the mini for $400 and still make 40% profit. It's basically a laptop with the most expensive part of a laptop (the screen) left out.
I really like having a general purpose computer hooked up to my TV.
You know you can't add codecs to an AppleTV without voiding the warranty, right? And it doesn't have the horsepower to decode anything good in software anyway. Blech.
There have been rumours of the mini getting cancelled for years. It might finally happen. The notebook market seems to be leaving the desktop market behind anyway.
Apple's laptop sales passed their desktop sales over two years ago. They cater for the 'you can't squeeze as much power as I need into a laptop' market with the Mac Pro. The Mac Mini is for the 'I can't afford a laptop' market, and this is growing steadily smaller. I wouldn't be surprised to see the AppleTV and Mac Mini product lines converge - a small box running OS X under the hood, but only exposing Safari, iPhoto and iTunes at the UI, with the ability to rip CDs, and maybe DVDs too. The only question is whether it would run x86 or ARM. The newer OMAP chips can decode H.264 in realtime, and are a lot cheaper than anything Intel has on offer.
I'll still buy mini's. I love the things. I've got 8, mostly still 1.25 and 1.42Ghz G4's that I've picked up off ebay. I have one hooked up to my 32" LCD TV as a media center (basically an Apple TV before there were apple TV's) and then use the others as a cheap rendering grid for Final Cut and Blender. Best part is they take up a shelf on my book case and don't drive up the powerbill that much nor heat the den as bad as the quadcore. (used to heat a bloody 1 bedroom apt with the thing.)
At work we've bought mini's to replace all the point of sale and desktop units. Worked out well since they already had monitors/touchscreens and keyboards and mice that were all USB.
Most people are ill equipped to fill up a 40G drive, nevermind 1TB.
Those of us that can easily fill up a 1TB drive, find ourselves wanting a lot more. So the mini isn't as bad as one might think at first glance. There are far better things that Apple could do with the line besides replicate the System76 Sable.
A Quad core mini would be my personal first choice. Add a video chipset that has onboard h264 acceleration (although with the quad you might not need it).
An appletv that can go toe to toe with the popcorn h
OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99.
The purpose is to recall OpenGL and OpenAL, which are open industry standards for 3D graphics and computer audio respectively, to extend the power of the GPU beyond graphics (GPGPU).
Apple has proposed OpenCL for Khronos Group where on June 16th 2008 Compute Working Group was formed for the standardization work.
OpenCL is scheduled to be introduced in Mac OS 10.6 ('Snow Leopard').According to the press release:
Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard.
Thank you. I did a double take myself until I goggled it. It's frustrating when posters assume new technology is automatically known by everyone. Don't they know the tinfoil impedes our clairvoyance abilities?
Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?
I got my tetanus booster shot yesterday, with my usual side-effects (kind of like having the flu.) I can tell you, a "shot in the arm" for NVIDIA doesn't sound too good right now.:-)
While they do make for fun fanboy wank material, does anybody actually take the OMG PWERBOOKS WILL be carved by LASER ROBOTS!!! thing seriously? Material fabrication and shaping is an area that is steadily improving; but nothing points to Apple as having made any revolutionary advances in the area recently. And, barring such revolutionary advances, machining big chunks of material isn't exactly cheap. Cheaper than it used to be, sure, and definitely cheap enough to be cost effective for some applications; but hardly cost competitive with present techniques.
The other rumors seem markedly more plausible. 800 would be about the expected pricepoint for Apple's answer to the netbook(whether it will actually use atom and SSD or just be a low end macbook, I have no idea).
Right. Nobody makes mass-produced items by machining them out of solid metal. It's too slow, and you waste too much metal. That's what die-casting, drawing, and stamping are for. Laptop cases are thin enough that die-casting is probably overkill. Drawing or stamping is more likely, followed by a punching step.
There might be a role for a laser if very small holes have to be made or some surface
engraving is desired.
The NextCube case was a magnesium casting, which was sort of silly for a desktop device.
A cute idea for the case modding crowd would be industrial origami [industrialorigami.com]. This little-known technology works much better than you'd expect. It's a fun experience to take a flat, prepunched plate and hand-fold it into an electrical outlet box.
You can browse/., but not Wikipedia? "OpenCL [wikipedia.org] (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99."
Nvidia? That'd be just awesome. I can't think of any other way to make Apple hardware (already more prone to need warranty service than any other manufacturer's product that I can name) any less reliable.
Apple consistently has high high customer satisfaction [yahoo.com] year after year. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro I've had for almost 14 months and the only tyme I've taken it down to an Apple store, there are 4 within half hour's drive, was when I got it. Some software I ordered with it was old. I have not had a
They were forced to install those as some employees were threatening to move to Redmond where they have been providing such benefits for years. Unfortunately, when making this demand they didn't realize they would be required to be on the rotation schedule to "man" said glory holes.
Yeah, it will totally suck to have your graphics hardware properly supported under Linux. Considering you're dual booting Linux along side one of the most locked-down proprietary consumer platforms available while at the same time complaining about a binary driver on the Linux side is.... Ironic.
Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Funny)
Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:4, Insightful)
God knows that gaming graphics is the only reason left why I'm still hanging on to the PC platform...
Are first-person shooters and indie games the only reason left why you haven't already moved to the Xbox 360 or PS3 platform?
Parent
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I own a PS3 and I still prefer PCs for shooters and gaming. I just like the interface better.
Though maybe that would change if I just forced myself to play them on consoles more.
Parent
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a side note on the topic of control interfaces (though not to the parent specifically), I personally "prefer" the gamepad. It's comfy and in some titles like RTSes (!) I actually do VERY well with it (shockingly, I might add). However, both the 360 AND the PS3 support keyboards and mice, it's the games that don't. The onus is on a game company
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because you lose the ability to control your movements accurately, and you end up with a rail shooter. Aiming and shooting is all well and good, but putting the movement controls on the same gun would is a pain in the ass. The only solution would be something like the Wii nunchuk combined with a one-handed gun adapter. Which would actually be kinda cool, but it hasn't been pulled off quite right yet, and either way it limits you to Wii graphics, which are nowhere near what PS3/360/PC capabilities are rig
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to worry about the trigger pull, the weight of the
gun, the length of the gun or keeping the gun steady during recoil.
Not to mention the danger of injury or loss of life...
Whippersnappers! (Score:5, Funny)
Keyboard AND Mouse? Duke Nukem 3D? That's not old-school! Why you young pups, I remember when mouselook was just a crazy gleam in a programmer's eye. You think aiming sucks with an analog stick? Try using the freaking number pad.
And I remember REAL old-school first person shooters, the ones where we ran around the backyard pointing sticks at each other going "pew pew" and arguing over who got hit first.
I guess I should add "get off my lawn."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So if I develop and sell copies of a party game for Windows and Mac OS X, will I find a large market of HTPC (home theater personal computing) enthusiasts and few competitors?
Few competitors? Probably. Large market? Not from what I've seen.
So far as I can tell, HTPCs are largely of interest to us geeks—and only accessible to geeks of greater-than-average income (or debt, depending on the level of financial good sense). I think they're gaining some traction, but by and large, if your average person is going to have something connected to their television besides a DVD/VCR, cable/satellite box, or Big 3 game console, it's going to be a cable/satellite-company provided DV
Re:Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of God, man, use a comma!
Parent
Re:Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Funny)
<shatner>"For, the, love, of, God, man, use, a, comma!"</shatner>
Parent
I'll buy apple... (Score:5, Funny)
...when leopard freezes over!
Re:I'll buy apple... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I'll buy apple... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll buy apple... ...when leopard freezes over!
SNOW Leopard comes out next year. Start saving your pennies. :-)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/ [apple.com]
Are you trying to explain the joke? Or announcing you didn't get it? ;)
Parent
LEAK! This year's "ONE MORE THING" (Score:5, Funny)
Apple will announce that due to the financial crisis, they've been able to purcase Iceland. However, it will be rebranded as iCeland. Steve Jobs was apparently very fond of their homogeneous population.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:LEAK! This year's "ONE MORE THING" (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think I've ever heard Bjork described as "homogenous" before.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Homogenic, yes.
Homogenous, no.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget Sigur Ros! I swear those guys are elves or something....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or put another way (Score:5, Funny)
Apple will soon be selling pre-bricked laptops.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apple will soon be selling pre-bricked laptops.
Ha! Dell's been doing that for years!
If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they sell a laptop for $800, as rumored, then who's going to buy a Mac mini for $600+?
Of course, they could probably sell the mini for $400 and still make 40% profit. It's basically a laptop with the most expensive part of a laptop (the screen) left out.
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want for Christmas is a Mini with a Blu-ray drive. An integrated screen is a detriment to an HTPC.
-Peter
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Makes more sense to expand the iTV to support a Blu-Ray drive and offer it in black.
Sorry, but the mini just doesn't fit for me. It looks out of place unless I hide it behind the TV
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really like having a general purpose computer hooked up to my TV.
You know you can't add codecs to an AppleTV without voiding the warranty, right? And it doesn't have the horsepower to decode anything good in software anyway. Blech.
Seems way more important than the color to me. But if you're really hung up on it, buy a skin: http://www.skinit.com/devices/miscellaneous/apple_miscellaneous [skinit.com] (You can do "custom" and select all black.)
-Peter
Parent
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:4, Informative)
There have been rumours of the mini getting cancelled for years. It might finally happen. The notebook market seems to be leaving the desktop market behind anyway.
Parent
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll still buy mini's. I love the things. I've got 8, mostly still 1.25 and 1.42Ghz G4's that I've picked up off ebay. I have one hooked up to my 32" LCD TV as a media center (basically an Apple TV before there were apple TV's) and then use the others as a cheap rendering grid for Final Cut and Blender. Best part is they take up a shelf on my book case and don't drive up the powerbill that much nor heat the den as bad as the quadcore. (used to heat a bloody 1 bedroom apt with the thing.)
At work we've bought mini's to replace all the point of sale and desktop units. Worked out well since they already had monitors/touchscreens and keyboards and mice that were all USB.
Parent
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:4, Informative)
how do you get the minis to work together as a grid?
With this [apple.com]
-jcr
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I wish I had your discretionary toy budget.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people are ill equipped to fill up a 40G drive, nevermind 1TB.
Those of us that can easily fill up a 1TB drive, find ourselves
wanting a lot more. So the mini isn't as bad as one might think
at first glance. There are far better things that Apple could do
with the line besides replicate the System76 Sable.
A Quad core mini would be my personal first choice. Add a video
chipset that has onboard h264 acceleration (although with the
quad you might not need it).
An appletv that can go toe to toe with the popcorn h
FYI (Score:5, Informative)
OpenCL is NOT a typo.
See HERE [wikipedia.org]:
OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99.
The purpose is to recall OpenGL and OpenAL, which are open industry standards for 3D graphics and computer audio respectively, to extend the power of the GPU beyond graphics (GPGPU).
Apple has proposed OpenCL for Khronos Group where on June 16th 2008 Compute Working Group was formed for the standardization work.
OpenCL is scheduled to be introduced in Mac OS 10.6 ('Snow Leopard').According to the press release:
Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you. I did a double take myself until I goggled it. It's frustrating when posters assume new technology is automatically known by everyone. Don't they know the tinfoil impedes our clairvoyance abilities?
Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)
OpenCL is NOT a typo.
See HERE [wikipedia.org]
Please update the fine summary to include the above informative link.
Parent
Shot in the arm (Score:2)
Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?
I got my tetanus booster shot yesterday, with my usual side-effects (kind of like having the flu.) I can tell you, a "shot in the arm" for NVIDIA doesn't sound too good right now. :-)
"Brick"? ORLY? (Score:2)
Shot in the arm? (Score:5, Insightful)
" Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?"
They'll need it since they just got a swift kick in the a@@ [apple.com]
Plausibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
The other rumors seem markedly more plausible. 800 would be about the expected pricepoint for Apple's answer to the netbook(whether it will actually use atom and SSD or just be a low end macbook, I have no idea).
Stamping, drawing, etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Nobody makes mass-produced items by machining them out of solid metal. It's too slow, and you waste too much metal. That's what die-casting, drawing, and stamping are for. Laptop cases are thin enough that die-casting is probably overkill. Drawing or stamping is more likely, followed by a punching step. There might be a role for a laser if very small holes have to be made or some surface engraving is desired.
The NextCube case was a magnesium casting, which was sort of silly for a desktop device.
A cute idea for the case modding crowd would be industrial origami [industrialorigami.com]. This little-known technology works much better than you'd expect. It's a fun experience to take a flat, prepunched plate and hand-fold it into an electrical outlet box.
Parent
Re:OpenCL? (Score:4, Informative)
You can browse /., but not Wikipedia? "OpenCL [wikipedia.org] (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99."
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No more prone to warranty service than every Dell I've ever had the displeasure of being asked to look at.
But people like to look closely at Apple for failure so they can bash them. More so than even Microsoft it seems.
To paraphrase Jon Stewart (Score:3, Funny)
If you're defending Apple's hardware reliability by comparing it to Dell's...
"We're in bad shape, fellas."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nvidia? That'd be just awesome. I can't think of any other way to make Apple hardware (already more prone to need warranty service than any other manufacturer's product that I can name) any less reliable.
Apple consistently has high high customer satisfaction [yahoo.com] year after year. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro I've had for almost 14 months and the only tyme I've taken it down to an Apple store, there are 4 within half hour's drive, was when I got it. Some software I ordered with it was old. I have not had a
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ick... BLOB (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I love how people throw this sort of thing out when they must know it's just not true.
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html [apple.com]
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ [apple.com]
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/internet/webkit.html [apple.com]
Apple use and contribute to open source, and OS X is largely an open source OS with a proprietary front-end.
Criticise Apple for real stuff, you've got plenty of choice. Don't make stuff up and preten