Macbooks Archive

  • Apple Patents The Invisible Button

    Apple Patents The Invisible Button

    Posted on April 29, 2010 | No Comments
    One of Apple's famous minimalist design principles is to get rid of buttons whenever possible. With touchscreen devices like the iPhone and iPad, almost all of the buttons appear when needed on the screen. But what about Macbooks with aluminum casings? A new patent application titled "Disappearing Button or Slider" shows that Apple is at least thinking about how to bring elements of touch computing to all devices by replacing buttons and other controls with capacitive controls which appear only when needed. The patent describes a way to create backlit micro-perforated holes on the aluminum casing of a MacBook or other device which could be used for buttons on the lid when the laptop is closed or below the keyboard when it is open. The buttons could serve as simple displays for WiFi signal or battery strength, control playlists and volume for iTunes songs or movies, or even replace the trackpad.

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  • Use your laptop to detect the next big earthquake before it happens

    Use your laptop to detect the next big earthquake before it happens

    Posted on April 20, 2010 | No Comments
    It's pretty great that people are just now realizing that Planet Earth isn't some sort of static strip mall. There are volcanoes, and earthquakes, and hurricanes, and tornadoes, and tsunamis—objects from outer space regularly invade the atmosphere. This planet is alive, brother! So, idea: you know how certain laptop models, like ThinkPads and MacBooks, come with built-in accelerometers? They're there in order to protect the hard drive from a devastating fall, but what it you could use said accelerometer to detect an earthquake before it happens?

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  • MacBook Pro GPU is always on in Windows 7

    MacBook Pro GPU is always on in Windows 7

    Posted on April 16, 2010 | No Comments
    MacBooks have great battery life for a few reasons, including, but not limited to, GPU switching. However, as Ubergizmo discovered, when you run Windows 7 in Bootcamp the GPU stays on all the time, essentially sucking down battery like a fiend. The 2009 MBP also had issues - the screen was too bright and the keyboard backlight was always on - but otherwise there wasn't much of a problem.

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  • Forerunner: The secret Apple code for “This man will rob us”

    Forerunner: The secret Apple code for “This man will rob us”

    Posted on April 6, 2010 | No Comments
    So what the heck is going on here? A young man named Owen JJ Stone went into an Apple store to buy a Macbook at the Santa Monica Apple store and requested a MacBook Pro. He was in a hurry and said so and suddenly one of the people helping him touched her ear and said "Forerunner." Bingo. That was the signal for a security lockdown. The Apple folks then proceded to bring over a black man to complete his purchase - Owen is also black - and security essentially surrounded him until he picked up his item and left.

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  • Apple’s latest patent: Macbooks with built-in projector

    Apple’s latest patent: Macbooks with built-in projector

    Posted on April 5, 2010 | No Comments
    Apple recently filed patent for a pico projector to be integrated into their notebooks. Like the sun-lit display we wrote about a few days ago, it's probably too early to expect much. Nonetheless, this is an interesting idea and I can see it being useful for projecting presentations or pictures when you don't have access to an external projector.

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  • On Mr. Sizzly Pants, terrorism, and airline safety

    On Mr. Sizzly Pants, terrorism, and airline safety

    Posted on December 27, 2009 | No Comments
    I’m safely ensconced in a ski hut in Austria but I’ll be traveling back to the US of A shortly and I look forward to not being able to use electronic items in the last hour of my nine hour flight. After all, that is the magic hour, the hour during which most intercontinental planes [...]

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  • Review: Viliv S7 Premium

    Review: Viliv S7 Premium

    Posted on December 15, 2009 | No Comments
    True story: About two months back I was walking through my house with the then-new Viliv S7 convertible netbook. I started babbling to my wife while she was tending to the kids about how much I loved this little netbook. Even though she clearly couldn’t care less, I went on to proclaim that if Apple would have gotten in [...]

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  • iFixIt Announces Answers: Do Not Return Product to Store

    iFixIt Announces Answers: Do Not Return Product to Store

    Posted on November 24, 2009 | No Comments
    Our buddy Kyle at iFixIt.com has just announced a beta version of iFixIt Answers, a collaborative repair community for gadgets. It might be a great resource for friends and family who can’t figure out how to work the TV remote. How does it work? You ask a question on Answers and then can follow as folks [...]

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  • Bass in your face with the BassJump for MacBooks

    Bass in your face with the BassJump for MacBooks

    Posted on November 24, 2009 | No Comments
    If there’s one thing I’ve always missed about MacBooks it’s the lack of gut-thumping bass. I mean the kind of bass that curdles your insides and causes them to blow out in a wet, pink slurry. I’m talking about bass that will make your parents come down into the basement and ask just what do [...]

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  • Mac Mini and iMacs to be in short supply, update coming soon?

    Mac Mini and iMacs to be in short supply, update coming soon?

    Posted on September 29, 2009 | No Comments
    Apple has apparently told its direct-sales partners like the Apple Stores not to order new iMacs or Mac Minis and don't expect any more shipments either. This can mean only one of two things: Apple is going bankrupt or there are new models coming real soon.

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  • Apple tablet rumor gets screen size, price, and release date

    Apple tablet rumor gets screen size, price, and release date

    Posted on July 13, 2009 | No Comments
    Look, we already know a lot about the so-called Apple Tablet. We know the project is real and a lot of man power has been dedicated to the project. A China Times article might have answered a few of our questions though.  That is, if the translated article can be trusted. The Chinese trade publication is [...]

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  • IPhone 3GS Handsets Overheat, Turn Brown

    IPhone 3GS Handsets Overheat, Turn Brown

    Posted on June 29, 2009 | No Comments
    The iPhone 3G may, at least for some users, have an additional, undocumented feature: It can be used to toast bread. Reports are coming in that the new, million-selling iPhone is suffering from overheating issues. The handsets are getting so warm, in fact, that the plastic cases of the white models are discoloring to pink. The [...]

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  • ExpressCard 2.0 Will Be Ten Times Faster

    ExpressCard 2.0 Will Be Ten Times Faster

    Posted on June 9, 2009 | No Comments
    No sooner does Apple drop the MacBook Pro’s ExpressCard slot than the ExpressCard organization itself announces a big upgrade to version 2. The ExpressCard Standard 2.0 has one key difference: speed. How much faster? Ten times faster, according to the specifications. Transfer tops out at 5Gbps, meaning that anything that needs to shift lots of data will benefit, [...]

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  • Apple Debuts Aggressively Priced iPhone 3GS, MacBooks

    Apple Debuts Aggressively Priced iPhone 3GS, MacBooks

    Posted on June 8, 2009 | No Comments
    By Brian X. Chen and Priya Ganapati Apple delivered several major announcements in rapid fire Monday, including iPhone and MacBook upgrades, significant price cuts and an in-depth look at its next-generation operating system. The most anticipated announcement was the iPhone 3GS smartphone, successor to Apple’s popular iPhone 3G. The “S” stands for speed, referring to the performance [...]

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  • Updated white MacBooks outpreforming unibody models

    Updated white MacBooks outpreforming unibody models

    Posted on June 4, 2009 | No Comments
    When Apple updated the white, plastic MacBook a couple weeks back, we noticed that it was now more powerful than its unibody, and more expensive, counterpart. The benchmarks are now in, and it seems that it is indeed a better deal as it outperforms the $299 more expensive model almost across the board.

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