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The Best of Macworld SF 2006 168

Posted by samzenpus from the wrap-up dept.
ptorrone writes "We podcasted live, we posted over 100 photos real time via a WiFi camera + EVDO as we walked around and now we've picked the top 5 products we liked the most at Macworld San Fran 2006. It's safe to say our picks aren't likely to be the same ones you'll see in the usual "best of" lists. We gave top marks to products, services and software that we think fit the "Maker" mindset - technology on your time and a bit of news from the future... Here they are..."
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The Best of Macworld SF 2006 More

The Best of Macworld SF 2006

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  • Wow, the Google Earth + SketchUp integration looks pretty cool. I couldn't find anywhere how much SketchUp costs but they have a free trial.

    • Re:Google Earth + SketchUp (Score:4, Informative)

      by ptorrone ( 638660 ) * <pt@adCOLAafruit.com minus caffeine> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:27PM (#14450009)
      sketchup is $495: http://www.sketchup.com/cgi-bin/store/trybuy.html [sketchup.com]
      • Ouch. I was considering purchasing it (Windows version), as something like that could be very useful to design electronic gadget enclosures, but at that price, i can stick to pencil and paper.

        • Re:Google Earth + SketchUp (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rho ( 6063 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:05PM (#14450875) Journal
          An architect friend swears by Sketchup. He's been using it for several years, and preferred it to the new Revit from Autodesk.

          I know this is Slashdot, and OSS is the best thing in the world, but programs that charge sometimes really are worth it. I used to use Strata StudioPro. The productivity increase between it and the other 3D programs at the time (mid- late-1990s) was ridiculously high. (As it happened, Strata was at least half the price of the Autodesk tools.) Based on my friend's recommendation, I'd not hesitate to at least try the software. If your business is in design mockups, it's well worth the $500.

          • Don't get me wrong, i've been checking their website [sketchup.com] and it looks like a terrfic product. It's just that $500 feels like a lot; you can get very decent CAD products from $50 up, including Audodesk's Autosketch 9 for about $150! $500 is just too much for a hobbyst like me, which i infered from the article is part of the target audience for the software.

            I'm not OSS zealot, and i pay gladly for software if i think it's worth it. I'll try the demo tormorrow, and i'm pretty sure i'll like it from
    • My cousin is an architect and the guys in his office have already started putting buildings into landscapes. Sounds like a neat idea, although until they have better background 3d models of cities it has fairly limited use (in my mind).

  • Party like its 1985 (Score:5, Funny)

    by ShamusYoung ( 528944 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:26PM (#14450003) Homepage
    The VR glasses are good for a laugh. From TFA:

    Sure, there's a little bit of a Jordie LaForge factor, but the 50 or so people we watched try these on at the booth all pretty much said "these ain't that bad, I could wear them."

    Yes, but they are all geeks. This isn't going to take off the way the iPod did. The iPod is sexy. The glasses are more like an ersatz contraceptive.

    But if nobody was looking, I would try them out for sure!

    • Re:Party like its 1985 (Score:4, Funny)

      by OldManAndTheC++ ( 723450 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @09:47PM (#14450795)
      The glasses are more like an ersatz contraceptive.

      You know that's something I've never understood: if geeks aren't able to reproduce, where do the new geeks come from??? It's not like there's ever any shortage of geeks, new ones are cropping up all the time.

      Is there some sort of recessive mutation? Some little gene with thick glasses and a lisp that randomly takes over the Y chromosome and then WHOOPS the blonde hunky adonis dad looks down and sees that (gulp) his newborn son is a geek?

    • hah. for the record, i don't disagree with you. this things are still dorky, even if they are the least dorky video goggles ever. but when i read:

      This isn't going to take off the way the iPod did.

      i thought "yeah, because /.ers were so good at predicting the success of THAT device." :-P

      heh. vr goggles. No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
    • I still think goggles will make it, simply because nothing else can do what they do. A huge 3d display in a pocketable form factor? Sorry, but there's nothing on the horizon besides goggles to do that.

      If nothing else, they should revolutionize video games. Experiencing the virtual world through a small motionless rectangle is so limiting... we only accept it because we don't know better.

  • sensors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pimpimpim ( 811140 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:27PM (#14450010)
    These environmental sensors should have some wireless functionality, it looks rather tedious to collect them all the time, by the time you put them in the reader, you stop the datamining. It would be much nicer if you could just but the reader closeby and read out the data over bluetooth or something. And who needs something like that anyway? Weather fanatics?

    • Re:sensors (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dorsey ( 119963 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:47PM (#14450151)
      You'd have to collect them periodically anyway to replace/recharge the batteries. And you'd have to collect them more frequently if the batteries also had to power a transmitter.
      • I've got a little weather station device not fantastic but it does have a little sensor which transmits the outside temperature out in the garden wirelessly continually for the last two months its powered by a slightly oversize watch battery. it shows no sign of quitting just yet.

    • Re:sensors (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Biologists use these to monitor environmental conditions at research sites. I used them 8 years ago as an undergrad, so I am rather surprised they are being treated as "new". These guys have been around forever, and their product was exceptional 8 years ago. WIFI would kick ass since you could also use it to find the sensor rather than flagging it and have to worry about somebody wandering off with your 200 dollar thermometer/humidity sensor (they do other things too like light level).
    • I have something similar (NOMAD OM-43 [omega.com]) that I use to record indoor temperature and relative humidity. It can be programmed and downloaded via an RS-232 port. It will run for a very long time on a lithium battery. If can be useful if you have stuff that is sensitive to temperature and humidity, like musical instruments, photographic film, magnetic tape, etc. It's also interesting to have a historical record of the actual conditions, as opposed to what they are supposed to be.

    • Re:sensors (Score:3, Informative)

      by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) *
      And who needs something like that anyway? Weather fanatics?

      Scientists and science students. I spent many many hours of my college life driving/walking/travelling into a field to check the rainmeter and temperature. This would have saved me a ton of time, if I could afford them.

      And to emphasize what the other poster said, wireless is very power hungry and would increase the battery requirements by quite a bit. Those little sensors wouldn't be so little anymore.
    • it looks rather tedious to collect them all the time, by the time you put them in the reader, you stop the datamining. It would be much nicer if you could just but the reader closeby and read out the data over bluetooth or something. And who needs something like that anyway?

      Any number of scientists and engineers could make use of such devices. Sure, you stop the datamining as soon as you pick up the device, but the idea ( should you want continuous data ) is that you put down a new one when you pick up th

    • Dust Networks makes just such a thing. Their wireless devices have a variety of analog and digital points (the digital points can be actuated) and a serial port. This allows anyone to attach any device they want. Although battery powered, the batteries supposedly last a long time (I've never had to replace one in the past year that I've had them), and there is a battery level sensor so your apps can monitor and automatically schedule battery replacement. This stuff is hot in building and control systems
  • I've had this thought before, but nothing crystallizes it like Google Earth for OS X. The application is ugly. The interface is cluttered and somewhat inscrutable. It looks like a direct port from the Windows version with no regard for Mac UI conventions, up-to-date widgets (the 10.0-style tabs and sliders, in particular), or even alignment (scrollbars that overlap with adjacent elements? WTF).

    This, to me, only reflects Google's broader philosophy. They don't release products that give people what they need

    • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShamusYoung ( 528944 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:36PM (#14450086) Homepage
      This, to me, only reflects Google's broader philosophy. They don't release products that give people what they need, or solve problems they didn't know they had. Google releases whatever products the technology allows them to build, without regard of how, where, or even why it fits into people's lives. Google has a "because we can" mentality rather than one of "because it would help." Hence the bare-walls interfaces and inexplicable feature spammage. In this, Google behaves remarkably like Microsoft.

      Ow. Harsh.

      I would suggest that while both are famous for numerous features covered in uglyness, the reasons differ. Microsoft looks at the market and thinks "how can we control this?" Google is more like a bunch of engineers sitting around saying "you know what would be cool to build?". In both cases the thing is ugly, but in the case of Google it's just a lack of asthetics. Everything feels sort of proto-typish.

      Now that I've said it, I admit that I don't see how it matters.

      • Yeah, I agree, that's probably an accurate perspective on the difference between the two. The only reason I can see why it matters is that it gives me an excuse to respect Google a little more than Microsoft. :-)

    • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:04PM (#14450242)
      Practically all of your comments about Google would be true of Open Source Software as well, with slight alterations. Would it be fair to say that OSS doesn't "get it"? To compare them to Microsoft?

      • Some projects yes, some projects no, owing to the remarkable diversity of open source software. I've seen a lot of open-source apps and hacks that approach development and user experience with thoughtfulness and polish, and others that are more focused on doing cool stuff with the technology for its own sake. It'd be wrong to characterize OSS on the whole as one or the other--but if pressed, then yeah, I'd have to say a majority of the best-known OSS projects are of the latter variety. Apache is one excepti
        • Firefox "gets" the home market, but totally misses the corporate market. For instance, it can't be deployed with roaming profiles, because it roams the cache instead of putting it in Local Settings where it belongs.

      • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:4, Interesting)

        by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:32PM (#14450412) Homepage
        This is certainly a good summary of why I prefer the Mac to Linux. The Mac is like Linux would be if huge amounts of care were poured into its design.

        D
        • The Mac is like Linux would be if huge amounts of care were poured into its design.

          No - the Mac is a very nice Unix-like o/s with lovely eye-candy.

          It is however nothing like linux.

          Does it run in embedded environments? Can I access the source? Can I port it to sparc? If there's a bug can I fix it?

          Under linux - the answer to all of them is yes, under Apple no.
          • Sure you can access the source, to the extent you would want to for embedded environments, anyway.

            MacOS X rests above the open source Darwin project, so if you want to make Darwin embedded, go right ahead.

            D

            • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:3, Interesting)

              by tpgp ( 48001 )
              Sure you can access the source, to the extent you would want to for embedded environments, anyway.

              What? You think you don't need a gui in an embedded environment?

      • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) <.ten.yxox. .ta. .nidak.todhsals.> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:49PM (#14450495) Homepage Journal
        I think that's pretty much true; within OSS projects, there are the projects that were designed because somebody needed to "do something" in particular, and then there are those projects which were designed and built because somebody thought it would be "cool to do." The subtle difference in motivation produces very different products in the end. "Do something" products are inherently limited in scope, and tend to focus inwards after a time, refining and refining a core idea. "Cool to do" projects tend to expand outwards; once they've done one thing, they expand outwards to do more things. In a completely FOSS environment, you need both -- the former to provide little bits of well-done functionality and the latter to connect them all together into something larger.

        Overall I'm going to second others and say that I've always been impressed at the 'fit and finish' of Mac OS X. It's not perfect (in particular I wish they made it easier to run X apps on top of Aqua) but despite some people's claims to the contrary, in my experience it's far easier to configure, mostly because of its consistency. Linux will always have an Achilles' heel because its flexibility also breeds complexity. For example, configuring wireless on a Mac is a no-brainer, because there is basically only one option for the cards: Apple.
    • Indeed, it is a direct port from Windows. A real Mac developer sane in their mind would break all the OS X design conventions like Google does with Google Earth. It is not only the UI, but also everything underneath.

      The dialogs are bundled in the executable instead of being attached as Interface Builder files. There are a bunch of icons, like the "info" icon (i in a speech bubble), take right from Windows 2000. The buttons are placed at the wrong locations in dialogs and the default buttons are not always s

    • Re:Google doesn't "get it" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:15PM (#14450306)
      It's based on Qt, which doesn't use the native rendering APIs on the Mac, hence the old style and slightly odd rendering glitches.

      That said, I find it rich that Mac users whinge when getting ports of Windows apps yet when Apple ports Mac apps to Windows blatant HIG/toolkit violations are the order of the day. *cough* QuickTime *cough*

    • Um... wow. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:42PM (#14450464)
      1. Google purchases company which makes this earth-overhead-view program thing.
      2. Google, wanting to be nice, releases program as freeware.
      3. Mac users look at program, go "Wow, that's great! But why can't we use it?"
      4. Google, wanting to be nice, gets someone to do a quick dirty mac port, because they are a web technology company and don't have a team of mac engineers or anything.
      5. Guy on slashdot yells mercilessly at Google for not having gone all-out to re-engineer this free application they didn't even write to conform to the interface standards of an operating system they don't even officially support.

      YAY!
      • Yes Google Earth is free. But if you look the reason is that Google would very much like me to purchase Google Earth + for $20 (or a pro version for $400).

        If it looks bad it's a damn poor enticement for me to spend more money. Not to mention that parts do not even work, like To and From hardly ever working with addresses that are valid for "Fly To".
    • I'll point out that occasionally "because we can" coincides with "what they need". Just based on luck & volume.

      A huge number of ph.d.s doing whatever "because we can" is kindof elegant. imo.

    • Don't get me wrong, I love Google for what it is, but not what it ain't: particularly tasteful or particularly elegant.

      have you forgotten google search, which embodies elegant, simple, usable interface design? or gmail?

    • You don't "get it". This is a beta release. I think they will eventually port over to nib files. Give then some time. I'm happy that it is now available on OSX.
    • I don't know, imo whatever google does, it does pretty good, .

      I'm totally into design, GUI's and yes, the mac. But when accessing a service, I don't care how pretty it is, as long as it's easy and gives me useful results. Did I mention fast there? Any online service should be fast before anything else. If not, don't bother, I'm sure I won't.

      Fast, easy, useful.

      Apart from that, I try to judge free stuff differently from stuff I pay for.

      So, let's see, free, fast, useful, and um, not so pretty.

      In short, I don't

  • So... only 2 of the 5 things are Mac specific. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spoco2 ( 322835 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:28PM (#14450022)
    Erm... how was this list a super Mac related list? Only the first and last items (the Sketch thing and the iPod dock) are specifically for Apple products, the other three are general use USB and video items that have to alegence to Mac or PC specifically...

    Pretty darn lacking I think.
    • Erm... how was this list a super Mac related list? Only the first and last items (the Sketch thing and the iPod dock) are specifically for Apple products, the other three are general use USB and video items that have to alegence to Mac or PC specifically...

      And Sketchup has been a cross platform app for several years. It might have been Windows first, but I can't remember. Oh, and the Google Earth plugin for Sketchup has been available for the Windows version since mid-November.
    • Erm... how was this list a super Mac related list?

      only in that they're items shown at MacWorld Expo, actually. That's it. It's pretty typical that most things shown at MacWorld also support other computers or operating systems.

    • Erm... how was this list a super Mac related list? Only the first and last items (the Sketch thing and the iPod dock) are specifically for Apple products, the other three are general use USB and video items that have to alegence to Mac or PC specifically...

      Couldn't you find anything else to complain about? Who ever said this was a super Mac related list? It's a blog by some nerds about the 5 coolest products they saw at Macworld and therefore presumably will now support OS.X. If AutoCad announced that it ha
      • Couldn't you find anything else to complain about?

        No, not really. :)

        Who ever said this was a super Mac related list?

        Well, see, I figured, that being a Macworld event... and being that Apple zealo... enthusiasts... go on and on how much better the Mac is because it has much better hardware, apps etc. I just figured that the best of Macworld might, you know, consist of things that are truly Mac specific and cool... not just some little usb/video gadgets that don't really have much to do with a 'Mac' as such..

  • My favorite (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DurendalMac ( 736637 )
    Is that Powerlogix came out as the first to announce that they have everything in place for 7448 based CPU upgrades (the latest revision of the G4) and will start selling them once Motorola gets their head out of their ass and starts putting them out in volume. Funny, that was supposed to happen in October. Moto hit the usual goddamn production issues. I guess spinning off into Freescale did nothing for their chip production. Anyway, I'm drooling over the prospect of a 2+ghz dual G4 upgrade...
    • once Motorola gets their head out of their ass and starts putting them out in volume. Funny, that was supposed to happen in October.

      That's not funny. That's sad. I'm not in the market for a computer any time soon, but stuff like that makes me very happy for Apple that they made the Intel decision.

      I'm drooling over the prospect of a 2+ghz dual G4 upgrade

      That's a more than $500 upgrade... I guess it *might* make sense, as long as you don't want a faster FSB and graphics card as well...

  • Let me just start off by saying that I'm relieved that my 6 month old Powerbook G4 is now the base for their benchmarks for the "4x faster" MacBook Pro. The funniest thing is that I finally broke down and bought it 3 weeks before they announced a complete switch to Intel chips because I was getting sick of the slow 800MHz G3 iBook I was using. Hahahaha. I wonder how much my $2500 Powerbook G4 is worth in trade-in value towards a MacBook Pro... $2000? $1500? It's only 6 months new! *sob*

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:41PM (#14450115)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • All the Powerbook webpages proudly display the battery life. They're not lieing, either; when I use my laptop for note taking at school, I get 5 hours from it with wireless on and the screen dimmed a bit.

        MacBook Pro's website makes no mention of battery life.

    • Re:New Laptop (Score:2, Informative)

      by Feelgood ( 59095 )
      So far, I've got 6 beefs with the new laptops:
      1) MacBook Pro? That's what you're calling it?
      2) Remote - cool (if of limited use); no cleverly designed place to stow it on/in the laptop - not cool (it will get quickly misplaced)
      3) No FW800? I thought this was the pro model?
      4) No PC card slot, just ExpressCard? (see #6)
      5) No S-Vid out? I have to buy an additional adapter?
      6) No modem?? I have to buy the external USB modem. I can't even use a PC card.

  • Live Podcast (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jazzer_Techie ( 800432 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:30PM (#14450042)
    Maybe it's just me, but doesn't the phrase "live podcast" contradict itself? The files are recorded, posted online, linked to by an RSS feed, and then downloaded by the listener. Some podcasts could certainly be posted quickly, but they can't be live. (Just another case of buzzword hype, IMHO.)
    • Maybe a new acronym is needed....

      Buzzword-free, Real-time, pODCAST

      Yup, brodcasting is where the future is at. People in the future will say things like, "Don't you remember when brodcast had an 'a'?"

    • Re:Live Podcast (Score:5, Funny)

      by wadetemp ( 217315 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:22PM (#14450980)
      Well live TV isn't live either, but they still call it live TV. It's got to pass through nipple filters, and then it has to do that electromatic waves transmission thing.

      Hell, given the speed of light being as slow as it is, life isn't live either.

  • Rumor Sites Are Bogus (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:32PM (#14450058)
    My favorite part about MacWorld 2006 is that ThinkSecret didn't get anything right.

    They spent weeks talking about 13.3" widescreen iBooks and Mac minis with DVR capabilities, and high-def streaming from .Mac, and Final Cut Pro 6, and this and that. Other rumor sites hyped plasma TVs and spreadsheet applications and updated iPod shuffles.

    And none of them got anything right.

    Maybe now people will realize that rumor sites make everything up.

    • Re:Rumor Sites Are Bogus (Score:5, Funny)

      by hyfe ( 641811 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:04PM (#14450237)
      Maybe now people will realize that rumor sites make everything up.

      Yes, it is amazing how rumour sites seem to consist of rumours. Mind-boggling it is!

    • They've been right in the past.

      They predicted the G5s when they came out. The lid was just tighter this time around.

    • Re:Rumor Sites Are Bogus (Score:4, Interesting)

      by geniusj ( 140174 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:24PM (#14450362) Homepage
      Kevin Rose (of TechTV fame) got everything right [macrumors.com] . . .
    • Maybe now people will realize that rumor sites make everything up.

      Well, they don't make everything up. They report stories that "sources" give to them. Maybe now they ( and some of their readers ) will realize that Apple feeds them BS before big announcements.

      They kept talking about iBooks and Mac minis, and I kept thinking "what low-end chips will they put in the mini? Boy, those Powerbooks haven't seen any real upgrade in ages, I thought the Intel switch was all about getting better portable options, an

    • Nothing says that these are not planned products, just that they didn't come out at Macworld.

      If we see new iBooks and they are the same form factor as the old iBooks, then I'd say you have a point.

      If the next revision of a Mac Mini has no PVR, then again you are right.

      But we don't know since we have not encountered the next revision of either product. It will come up soon enough, I'm sure. It does seem logical to conclude that since the iMacs have dual core processors, the Mac Mini certainly might have th
    • It doesn't make sense to introduce Final Cut 6 at a consumer show, though MacBook Pro doesn't make sense in that light. I don't really think MacBook Pro is a pro media unit though except for use by early adopters and developers, because running pro apps under emulation is stupid, those apps need to be updated first.

      Anyway, usually the pro stuff is announced at pro events, such as Final Cut 5 being announced at NAB 2005, Aperture and dual core Powermacs were announced at a major pro photography convention i
      • "... but I wonder if they would shirk from the idea to appease their iTunes video partners."

        Why would their video partners give a shit? You still have to pay for the video first. My Mac still comes standard with a CD burner, and they still sell well over a million songs a day via iTunes. iTunes lets you burn personal copies for backup purposes *cough* with ease, and I'm not sure how this would be any different. If being able to burn them helps them sell, then I promise you, you won't see any video partner
      • With a remote control and a webcam, it's probably not totally correct to call these "Pro" models -- there's going to be a lot of rich yuppie home buyers as well.

        --Potential Rich Yuppie

    • New site in town (Score:4, Funny)

      by smurfsurf ( 892933 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @09:05PM (#14450588)
      > Maybe now people will realize that rumor sites make everything up.

      Yeah. But I heard there is a new site up that is supposed to be better than the rest. Even with a podcast. "Super Secret Apple Rumours" or such some.
    • If you can't fight such sites legally, would it not be so much sweeter to feed them bogus intelligence from the inside? If you increase the noise enough no-one can see the signal.

      Yeah I know it's overly paranoid. Just something to think about. :-)

  • ..."The Best Macworld Evar! 2006"

  • My favourite (Score:5, Informative)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @07:58PM (#14450215) Homepage
    I think the best part of Macworld so far, for me, we hearing that Apple's stock closed at $80.86 [com.com] on the day they unveiled Intel Macs.

  • what (Score:2, Interesting)

    by schroet ( 244506 )
    Podcasted? lol.

  • Windows Media Plugin for Quicktime (Score:5, Informative)

    by NutscrapeSucks ( 446616 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:31PM (#14450404)
    Microsoft seems to have given up on Windows Media Player for Mac, and instead released a free plugin for QuickTime. Unlike WMP/Mac, this supports WM9 and the latest stuff.

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/play er/flip4mac.mspx [microsoft.com]

    Supposedly some incompatibilities with QuickTime 7.04 (released yesterday).
    • Microsoft seems to have given up on Windows Media Player for Mac, and instead released a free plugin for QuickTime.

      Now, with the exception of the MacBook Pro itself, that may be the best news out of MacWorld yet!

      Supposedly some incompatibilities with QuickTime 7.04 (released yesterday).

      How very... typical. Any details as to the problems? Should we hold off on installing it? Does it work with 7.04 at all?

      • Flip4Mac 2.0 & QT 7.0.4 work fine... BUT the QuickTime application crashes whenever you close a QuickTime window that was playing a WMV. I experienced this myself and every Mac forum I read had users saying the same thing.

        I never tried it with anything before 7.0.4, so I don't know if this is caused by 7.0.4 or it's just inherent to Flip4Mac 2.0.

        • Yep, I just tried it and it behaves as you said. Plays the wmv file just fine, but when you close the window when its finished Quicktime crashes and you get the crash report dialogue box up. I filled it in and sent if off to Apple.

  • Did anyone else look at that integrated iSight and think about the part in Cryptonomicon where the guy scripts his built in laptop camera to make a capture every 15 seconds or so? I'm curious as to how accessible that little camera will be.

  • My favorite thing at Macworld so far... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aarku ( 151823 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @08:50PM (#14450506) Journal
    Is a little company hidden away in the ATI rooms demoing a wicked game engine called Unity [unity3d.com]. I can't begin to say how great this thing looks. They'll be demoing on Thursday and Friday, too.
    • Looks a bit like a Blender (& Nemo & Qoobee & Virtools) rippoff to me. And considering that Blender Real Time runs on Linux and even some more OSes and Blender Logic Bricks are even easyer to programm with than JavaScript I'd recommend you check it out.
      And since Blender is open source you'll be paying 0$ rather than 999$ :-) . And the Blender Real Time Engine uses Python, which I think is pretty neat aswell.
      Check out Blender.org [blender.org] and also check out the Blender Game Kit Book [blender3d.org]. Not for the newest Ve
  • anybody manage to hear an intel mac startup sound?? just curious if it's something new or if they use the same one as previous macs.

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