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The Apple Store was down earlier today which means Apple is updating a product! What product was given an opportunity to “WOW” us all? This time it was an updated MacBook. Before you get too excited, the update was very minute, and in my opinion disappointing. I guess I was optimistically hoping the MacBook and MacBook Pro would both get Intel Santa Rosa processors and LED backlit LCD screens.

I am seriously considering buying a Apple laptop this summer and was hoping the MacBook would get a nice upgrade first since it has not changed in a while. With this announcement, this new MacBook maybe the only extra “bang for buck” I get. I am however notorious for buying an Apple computer and it going obsolete in a few months (iMac G4: one month later the iMac G5 came out!, iMac G5 with iSight: two months later the MacIntel came along). If I buy this, Apple will no doubt release a brand new product to replace it!. Unless Apple releases the rumored 13″ MacBook Pro with SSD and no optical bay, this will probably be the computer I end up with. Regardless, I will wait until after WWDC 2007 to see what Steve Jobs has to say about the topic.

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Looking back on the finished spring semester, I am inclined to think I deserve some kind of reward. Given my summer workout schedule, today I decided to pick up a iPod Shuffle. When Chrissy and I go to the gym, we always have to fight over who gets to use the iPod. I figured I would just solve the problem and pick up one for myself (at least it will be mine until she reads this post and finds out I have it!).

This baby can hold approximately 240 songs or 1 GB of data. It has a nice finish which seems to mimic the brushed aluminum of the iPod mini. I decided to go with the iPod Shuffle because of its size. One of the obvious downsides is the lack of a screen. This will not be a problem with me working out. Even with the iPod Nano, I rarely look at the screen to change songs. I chose the color orange; first because it is the only iPod you can get in orange and second, I like orange! Check out the photos.

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Rumors flourish about Apple adding H.264 hardware to all Macs. This makes me think that Apple is planning on adding HD content to the iTunes store. Adding a chip designed specifically to do H.264 encoding and decoding will significantly reduce the load on your multiprocessor and keep your Mac running cooler and faster. A hardware-based H.264 decoder/encoder would add about $50 to each Mac, a small price for a significant gain. Imagine playing back your iTunes videos without slowing down Photoshop.

I ran across a similar design approach last year to increase the performance of computers. Most people are hypnotized thinking that clock rate equals performance. The truth is that a 100 MHz H.264 decoder can out perform a 3.0 GHz multi purpose processor at doing video decoding. Why?, well It only makes sense. A car designed for speed does best at speed but is worthless off-road. To design something multi purpose, there has to be trade-offs. I think an even better design would be to integrate an FPGA into a computer. The OS would have several processor designs for the FPGA, e.g. H.264 decoder/encoder, MP3 encoder, Various Video Encoders, etc. Then when a user is doing a specific task (rendering a video in FCP), the OS can implement the encoder on the FPGA and then use the resulting encoder to handle the FCP process. This would reduce the time required to encode the video and also let the user continue with normal processing power while waiting on the encoding.

Anyway, I hope it happens.

Apple’s store recently went down earlier today as they uploaded a new product. Today the product was the new iPod shuffle which now comes in 5 beautiful colors: Silver, Pink, Green, Blue, and Orange.

The shuffle is pretty much the same as the old one but now with more “life”! It features a battery indicator, and shuffle/repeat switch. They come in 1GB models, cost $79 and are shipping within 24 hours. Check out the rest of the specs at Apple. Maybe your girlfriend or significant other would like one for Valentine’s Day.

Tuesday, Steve Jobs gave his annual MacWorld SF keynote satisfying our thirst for the latest and greatest Apple products (at least partially). Apple announced the release of two great products AppleTV and the iPhone. They also silently release the new AirPort Extreme, which uses the MIMO technology found in the 802.11n draft standard. Apple did not speak of iLife 07′, iWork 07′, Leopard Updates, or any new Mac/iPod products.

Steve started the keynote summarizing Apple’s 2006 results, minus the last quarter. He quickly covered iTunes Store updates including the acquisition of Paramount movies for sale. Did not say much about Macs and iPod’s other than they are great (which they are) and that updates will come later. He then started talking about the product code named iTV now AppleTV (Apple Symbol + TV). With AppleTV, Apple is hoping to jump into the market that utilizes everyones large HDTV’s. We have so much great content on our computers: music, movies, photos, websites; yet it all seems disconnected from our living rooms. Unaware of this problem until I was the owner of a 32″ HDTV earlier this year, I immediately realized how great it would be to have a Mac connected to my TV at all times. Unable to convince my wife into purchasing a low end MacMini for $500, I found out last December that Apple was already working on the product I needed.

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