mac

For years now, Samsung has made laptops for pretty much every market except the US, and generally, we've been pretty fine with that arrangement (the Q1 Ultra UMPCis as close as they've gotten here).

But now, we're eager to get our hands on the just-announced Samsung X360. This 13-incher apes the super-slim look and feel of the MacBook Air, but adds a lot of the ports and connections missing from Apple's system. The X360 has a multi-card reader, three USB ports, an ExpressCard/34 slot, Ethernet jack, and HDMI and VGA outputs. And it still manages … Read more

I've noted before that we use the Mac because we want to, but are resigned to using Windows because we have to. Well, now there's some data to back up that assertion.

The Faces?rch blog did a quick review of when people search for the terms "Microsoft" (Blue), "Linux" (Red), and "Apple" (Orange), and found two interesting trends in the data, more easily viewed over the last 90 days:

First, Linux and Windows have declined as a trend since 2004, while Apple has boomed. Second, and more interestingly, Windows and Linux … Read more

We recently took a look at two new wireless headsets available on the market and pitted them against one another. The Creative Digital Wireless Gaming headset HS-1200 and the Logitech ClearChat PC Wireless headset both offer similar functionality, but only one can be worth your hard-earned cash.

Both the Creative and Logitech are rechargeable units that use USB dongles to transmit audio to their respective headset. However, we were much happier with the transmission radius of the Creative. The Logitech gave us up to 20 feet of freedom, but the Creative was able to let us travel up to 60 feet away from our PC. This was especially nice while using the VoIP chatting program Skype.

Speaking of Skype,… Read more

Rumors of Apple working on a touch-screen Mac have been circulating for years, and will only grow with the revelation that the company is hoping to patent similar technology.

A number of Mac sites on Thursday are pointing to a U.S. patent application granted for what would appear to be the mythical Mac tablet. AppleInsider has a description of the device discussed in the application, which appears to bring a lot of the iPhone's multitouch functionality to a slate-like tablet computer.

Given Apple' focus on multitouch user interfaces over the past year, there has been a fair amount … Read more

My MacBook and I are at a difficult stage in our relationship.

We've traveled the world together. We've written heinous insults together. And we have refused to countenance entreaties from sites of ill-repute together.

But something is now coming between us.

It's that little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy. You know, the one that tells you, well, what is it supposed to tell you exactly?

The first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going on. It whirled away on my desktop just like a dog that is trying to communicate with you and, in … Read more

As promised in May, Google has brought the open-source Gears technology to Apple's Safari, augmenting some browser abilities such as using Gears-tailored Web sites while offline.

The company announced a beta version of Gears for Safari (DMG file download link) on the Gears users mailing list Monday.

"We would love for you to install it and test it and file bug reports so we can polish it and find all the corner cases," said Google's Jeremy Moskovich.

Gears extends a browser so, for example, some Google Docs can be edited or viewed while the user isn'… Read more

Solid-state drives, if not yet ubiquitous, have arrived. You can find them in laptops big and small and as a high-octane storage option for gaming PCs.

SSDs made their mark by appearing in the trendiest ultraportables like the Apple MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC--typically as stratospherically priced options, fashion statements rarely seen in the real world.

These drives are now coming off their rarefied shelf space and appearing across a wider range of laptops and ultraportable computers.

Any new, lightweight enterprise laptop worth its salt comes with a large-capacity solid-state drive option now. Hewlett-Packard recently introduced the 3-pound EliteBook … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Mac clone maker Psystar plans to file its answer to Apple's copyright infringement lawsuit Tuesday as well as a countersuit of its own, alleging that Apple engages in anticompetitive business practices.

Miami-based Psystar, owned by Rudy Pedraza, will sue Apple under two federal laws designed to discourage monopolies and cartels, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, saying Apple's tying of the Mac OS to Apple-labeled hardware is "an anticompetitive restrain of trade," according to attorney Colby Springer of antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell. Psystar is requesting that the court find … Read more

Apple is one of the major leaders in the multitouch space and yet, the company's desire to bring a full-fledged touch-screen device to store shelves has stopped with the iPhone. In fact, the most it has done in bringing multitouch to its computers is offering the functionality in the track pad on its MacBook Air.

But simply offering multitouch on a trackpad isn't enough to make consumers want to flock to Apple products instead of HP or Dell machines. Instead, Apple needs to embrace the fact that many people prefer touch-screen technology and create a Mac that offers the same basic functionality found in the iPhone.

Innovation has been a key to Apple's success over the past decade and without it, the company would be nothing more than another computer vendor. But by releasing a Mac that eclipses the functionality of the tablet PC and fully harnesses the power of multitouch in a way that no one has seen before, Apple can create the computing world's first iPhone-like success.

And in the process, Apple could single-handedly propel the computing market forward into a new era where vanilla products are the exception and establish itself as the de facto leader in innovation.… Read more