Geek News Roundup for 08/02/09 - Bobbing for Apple News and Frivolous Lawsuits
It should be noted that this isn't really a MacBook Touch, it is just a concept image.
One of the worst economic recessions in recent history has nearly dragged on for a year now. Even if the recession were to end tomorrow job growth and creation would still be a lagging indicator. In others words, job loss would continue for a while even as the economy steadily improved. Many college graduates across many fields have been hit hard as they've left school only to be laid off from a job or are completely unable to find work in their respective field. One New York college graduate was so upset by her jobless situation that she took matters into her own hands by suing her school to recover the $70,000 she spent obtaining her degree. Call me unsympathetic but many of us are unable to find field related work after college and we're not suing our universities-- yet.
In news of a less frivolous nature, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is resigning from Apple's board of directors as the companies increasing find themselves in competition with one another. Unfortunately Schmidt's resignation from Apple comes too late to avoid an FTC inquiry into both companies. Better late than never, FTC? If having the CEO of one major IT company sit on the board of another IT company doesn't raise a few possible anti-trust red flags I'm not sure what does. On the upside for Apple, rumor has it the upcoming Apple tablet tentatively called the "MacBook Touch" could act as a gaming console. I personally feel it's silly to call what is essentially a tablet a gaming console at heart, yet denying the possibility of it also being used for gaming would be foolish. If the upcoming "MacBook Touch" was first and foremost a gaming device rather than a personal computer/multimedia hub, a price point of $800 would be way too high. If viewed as a PC/multimedia hub that also happens to play games a mere $800 is very reasonable.
To be fair I'm certain the upcoming MacBook Touch (or whatever it'll eventually be called) will be used a fair amount of times to check up on Facebook and Twitter. Unless the said popular social networking sites are down due to distributed denial of service attacks. On Thursday that is exactly what happened to both sites to the detriment of heavy users. Unsurprisingly, security experts are not shocked about the DDoS attacks. In a brief world without Facebook and Twitter people can always find other things to do like take the time to learn to play Guitar Hero while solving not one, but two Rubik's cubes.
While I'm on the subject of games, there has been an update in the Activision lawsuit against Double Fine. The lawsuit over Brütal Legend was settled, and thankfully Activision received little to nothing in terms of compensation.
The anime distributor 4Kids Entertainment has put itself up for sale after several years of steady profit loss. Outside of the Pokemon anime the company was not very popular with anime fans, as 4Kids often lived up to its name by editing (or butchering) anime series never intended for kids. And in a case of either "too little too late," or "what the hell took so long?!" 4Kids has begun releasing subtitled episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! on Youtube. The anime distributor had originally released the first 12 uncut and subtitled episodes on DVD in 2004 and never picked up the project again until recently. Uncut and subtitled Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes are awesome (in my opinion), but having to wait five years for the project to resume is just madness.
Image courtesy of Gizmodo.
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I think my comment broke.
Madness? This is 4kids. You know you're slow when Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged has a faster release schedule than you.
I, myself, came out of college an aspiring journalist and was unemployed for six months before getting a job at a Movie Gallery. A recent report suggests only 60% of graduates with Journalism or related degrees are finding full-time work – even when given 8 months after graduation to find it in. This is the lowest level the survey has found in its 23-year history. ...which is odd as local papers really aren't feeling the decline of print (though that Connor guy is a BUTCHER with the Portland Press Herald; it was saved from death, but will never be the paper it was before.
Double Fine is the least of Activation Blizzard's worries. The company continues to raise the ire of its consumers. Ever since it's CEO mentioned he didn't want the company to waste resources on games without obvious pump-and-dump sequels every year, the company is jacking up prices everywhere. PS3 News links to the traditional poorly-written internet petition. Is this a competition to see how many times Activision Blizzard can shoot themselves in the foot, or is it to improve 2009 revenues and satisfy shareholders who dropped stock earlier this summer worried about Starcraft 2 being "bumped" to 2010 (despite never having a 2009 release date)?
Apple has always prided themselves on secrecy, but an over-active fanbase will work tirelessly to reveal your best laid plans. It's usually easy to tell the easy rumors from the fake, and my slog through Apple's rumors has helped me judge the PS3 Slim leaks as legitimate.
Technically, the iPhone is the Newton reborn with an iPod and a cell phone shoved in for good measure. I'd rather go for the iPod Toch and a dedicated cell phone, as I don't want watching Lawrence of Arabia to use the same battery life as the device I need to summon help on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
The tablet would be an effective go between the iNewton and a plain ol' Mac, but there is something potentially more interesting in the works.
Another rumor has stated an upcoming change to the iMac line. Considering that the laptops were all redone in June, the desktops are due for a revision at the next media event (usually in August to drum up last-minute back-to-school sales, but occasionally in September).
My leading guess is one of these features are BD-R drives as a built-to-order option. Blu Ray software support is already present in Final Cut, and may be coming it iTunes – and I've been waiting for iTunes to absorb the DVD Player app ever since the ITunes Video store started, so it is interesting to note said support was put into iTunes without a mention of upgrading DVD Player.
While Steve Jobs is (among other things) famous for calling Blu Ray and its licensing issues a "bag of hurt," we also know his biggest concern for designing new hardware is power and energy efficiency. If Blu Ray is coming to the Mac – and if the PS3 is any indication, the cost of Blu Ray drives and the materials therein are dropping substantially – it may be "good enough" for the more power-hungry desktop models, and cheep enough to ad without charging to much of a premium (but if you DO want to pay a premium, buy RAM from Apple).
The only problem is the Blu Ray feature fulfills both criterions: it's been a wish-list item AND makes AV pros happy. So now we have to take wild shots. Here's one I'm merely halfway-confident in:
Some people might say that a new feature in a updated iMac so close to when a Mac tablet is supposed to come out might mean there will be an iMac docking station for it. This may be the case if the tablet must be undermined by poor storage space to put it in the right price range (with the right huge margin)- more expensive than an iPhone/iPod Touch, but (presumably) less expensive and less powerful than a Mac Book. A dock in your iMac can add a lot of oomph to the oversized iPod Touch at home, and Apple can use each product to drive sales of the other.
Did it really break, or is that some clever sarcasm I missed? XD