Tech News Updates

Take heart, freshmen — six months from now, you’ll be kickin’ it on holiday break, while the rest of us working folk glare angrily and curse the wasted chances that haunt us still today. Positive thinking goes a long way, right? At any rate, Barnes & Noble has made sure that its newly announced Nook Study is live prior to the start of most fall semesters and as of today, both Windows and OS X users can head to the source link to get those bits a-flowin’. We’ll be interested to see just how many students take advantage of the portal — not everyone’s keen on digital textbooks, you know — but hopefully it’ll have a better go at things than did the Kindle DX . Barnes & Noble Nook Study now available to download, just in time for fall semester originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

So shall it be written , so shall it be done. The Mac Pro has at long last proven rumors of its impending refresh accurate, as Apple has just updated its most powerful hardware with even more grunt. As we’d heard previously, that means you can now get dual-CPU rigs that offer a full dozen cores to play with, courtesy of Intel’s Xeon server-class chips, though in order to get in on that game you’ll have to splash a cool $4,999 entry fee. The quad-core starting price is still $2,499, though the eight-core machines have jumped up to $3,499, with both variants getting mild speed bumps to 2.8GHz and 2.4GHz, respectively. Perhaps the most welcome upgrade is on the graphical front, where the Radeon HD 5770 takes up the mantle of default GPU, with additional options for a pair of such cards or a step up to a 1GB HD 5870 alternative if you’re keen on maxing out those frame rates. Memory isn’t neglected either, with choices ranging all the way up to 32GB of RAM, 4TB of conventional HDD storage, or an array of four 512GB SSDs — though you’re probably better off not asking how much that last one will set you back. The comprehensive specs can be found in the full press release after the break. Gallery: Apple Mac Pro – August 2010 Continue reading Apple Mac Pro line overhauled with 12 processing cores, arriving in August for $4,999 Apple Mac Pro line overhauled with 12 processing cores, arriving in August for $4,999 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Sure, we’ve been hearing whispers that Apple’s got a new Mac Pros and some updated iMacs waiting in the wings, but our friend John Gruber at Daring Fireball seems just a mite more confident about things — in a post trumpeting the return of his podcast The Talk Show, John coyly says tomorrow “might hypothetically” bring new Mac Pros, speedbumped iMacs (we’d guess the Core i3 will make its OS X debut), and a new 27-inch 16:9 Cinema Display will all arrive tomorrow. John also says the Magic Trackpad might also arrive tomorrow, but he’s calling that one a “double-hypothetical,” so who knows — we’d think anything more serious than hardware refreshes would warrant a Jobs introduction, but hey, maybe Steve’s all talked out for the month. We’ll see what happens — stay tuned. [Thanks, Travis] Apple launching new Mac Pros, speedbumped iMac, new Cinema Display and maybe the Magic Trackpad tomorrow? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Timely, no? In concert with its HSPA+ expansion , T-Mobile USA has decided to come clean with that webConnect Rocket 2.0 that we peeked a few weeks ago courtesy of a leaked presentation slide. Said device isn’t drastically different than the original, offering a mildly overhauled design and “a new rotating swivel USB form factor.” The bigger news is the expanded platform support, with this bugger now playing nice with Windows 7, XP, Vista and any version of OS X since 10.4. It’s up for grabs right now via the source link if you’re in the mood for those so-called ” 4G speeds ,” with an on-contract stick costing absolutely nothing and a no-strings-attached version running $199.99. T-Mobile webConnect Rocket 2.0 USB WWAN modem now on sale originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology. As TVs and Blu-ray players increasingly feature internet connections, content partnerships, and now even open operating systems, they’re turning up the pressure on of standalone devices such as Apple TV and the Roku player. Indeed, Steve Jobs has said the demanding existence between the rock of the connected television and the hard place of the closed cable system is what’s relegated Apple TV to “hobby” status . In the Windows world, several companies in the netbook space such as Asus, Acer and Lenovo have popped Atom processors into slim desktop enclosures, dubbing them nettops. Dell has gone a somewhat different route, opting for more powerful desktop components in its chunky Inspiron Zino HD desktop/home theater hybrid. And now, the Mac mini has taken a step toward this role as Apple, which has been a strong backer of DisplayPort, has adorned its only display-free Mac with an HDMI port. Continue reading Switched On: New Mac mini a mixed Apple TV alternative Switched On: New Mac mini a mixed Apple TV alternative originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

No matter which three-legged sentry turret you pick, Steam games run fine if it houses a decent graphics card. That said, stick this in your breech and shoot it — the latest edition of Valve’s hardware survey shows the glossy white Apple models outgun Windows counterparts in a number of areas. Whereas the majority of Windows PCs have 2GB or 3GB of memory, 53 percent of Macs sport 4GB of RAM — though that’s likely attributable to the popularity of 32-bit OS. While 17 percent of Windows users are also stuck with a single CPU, over 90 percent of Macs running Steam have a dual-core… and internet connectivity’s biased towards Mac gamers too, with 65 percent reporting download speeds over 2Mbit compared to under half of PCs. Of course, where it truly counts for games, Macs still sorely lag behind; the top six Windows GPUs reported are all capable performers, but only 32.5 percent of Macs surveyed had anything but a bottom-barrel graphics card. Get with the times, Apple — even your mobile guys know gaming’s not a niche anymore. [Thanks, Ryan B.] Macs running Steam are more powerful than PCs, on average originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

There’s been rumors that Apple had ended its long-running of ” Get a Mac ” ad campaign ever since Justin “Mac” Long said he thought they might be done last month, and it looks like that’s now finally been confirmed by Apple — the company has pulled all the ads from its site and is instead redirecting folks to its new “Why You’ll Love a Mac” page. Of course, the move doesn’t exactly come as a huge surprise considering that Apple hasn’t produced a new one since its Windows 7-challenging ads last October , and Apple has certainly had plenty of prime material since then. Head on past the break for look at one of the more recent highlights, and hit up the more coverage links below if you feel like reminiscing a bit more. As for what’s next for Apple, we can only guess. A triumphant return of Jeff Goldblum, perhaps? Continue reading Apple pulls the plug on ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign Apple pulls the plug on ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 11:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

So there’s no question that Apple is selling a ton of iPads , but would you have guessed that it’s actually selling more iPads than all Mac sales combined? That’s the case, at least at the moment, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky, who says that Apple is currently moving about 200,000 iPads per week, compared to 110,000 Macs — though it still trails the iPhone, which is apparently racking up sales of 246,000 per week. Of course, we are just talking about analyst estimates here, and things could potentially swing back into the Mac’s favor once the quarterly totals are added up. If true, however, it’d sure be a whopper of a milestone — one that we’d no doubt be hearing plenty more about in, say, three weeks time . Analyst: Apple selling more iPads than Macs, at the moment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Valve promised that Steam on Mac would arrive in April. As you’re no doubt aware, April is nearly over. Does that make Steam… vaporware ? Not quite. Put away the Caruso sunglasses for two more weeks, because our friends at Joystiq just received a one-line email reading: “Valve today announced the public release of Steam for the Mac is May 12. Please stay tuned for more information.” Oh well — at least you’re not waiting for Steam on Linux , and you can always stock up on Razer peripherals while you endure the delay. Steam for Mac opens a portal to May 12, steps through originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Apple might not be too happy about having a fourth-gen iPhone prototype be stolen , but there’s nothing like cold, hard cash to turn a frown upside-down — and the company certainly made plenty of it in the second quarter of 2010, posting a $3.07b profit on $13.5b in revenue. That’s the Apple’s best non-holiday quarter ever — profits were up 90 percent while revenue was up 49 percent — and yet another record quarter for Steve and the gang. Mac sales were up 33 percent from a year ago with 2.94m units sold, iPhone sales were up 131 percent with 8.75m units sold, and iPod sales were down one point with 10.89m units sold. We’re just about to jump on the analyst conference call, we’ll let you know if we hear anything good — we wonder what people might be asking about? Apple has another record quarter, posts $3.07b profit originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink