New Apple MacBooks Released

New Apple MacBooks ReleasedThe adage “Everything comes to those who wait” will ring true for punters who have been umming and ahhing about getting a new MacBook.

Apple have announced the rumoured update for the MacBook range, giving them faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in every model.

Those of us still languishing with iBooks, will have even more reason to finally get around to upgrading to the 1 inch high beauties, especially as the new range now covers the sleek white 2.0 GHz and 2.16 GHz MacBook models, and a mysterious black 2.16 GHz MacBook model. All of them have a 13-inch glossy widescreen display that Apple non-modestly describe as “gorgeous.”

New Apple MacBooks ReleasedThe breakdown on the UK prices are 2.0 GHz (80Gb H/D and slot-load Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) optical drive – £699; 2.16 GHz White (120GB H/D and slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive) – £829; 2.16 GHz Black (160GB H/D and same SuperDrive) – £949.

All come with iLife ’06 (until the new version comes out, we guess) and are available NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!

Apple

Warner Brothers TV: Joost Gets Exclusive Content

Warner Brothers TV: Joost Gets Exclusive ContentJoost is continuing to pick up content partners with the most recent being Warner Bros. Television (WBTV). This time Joost is getting the content on an exclusive basis.

One of the common complaints of the TV service, has been that there isn’t anything to watch on it, as was brought up in a recent BBC trial. Having seen what the content of this deal is, we’re not sure that the step towards desirable programming has moved forward.
Continue reading Warner Brothers TV: Joost Gets Exclusive Content

Skype-Out Gets Caller-ID – In Some Countries

Skype-Out Gets Caller-ID - In Some CountriesIf you’re a user of Skype-Out, the service that lets you call landlines from Skype, you may have come across a peculiar reaction when you’ve dialed people abroad. Our experience has ranged from puzzlement to down-right bewildered, “Where’s dialing code 0000 from?”

This should change for some lucky Skype-out customers, now they’ve released Caller ID on it.

Once you’ve changed you configuration, the Skype-out number will be set to show your Skype-In number – hurrah.

Not all countries are covered, but the lucky ones are currently the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Hong Kong, Estonia and Poland. Countries that aren’t covered _may_ come on soon, after Skype’s “legal people continue to be busy working with our partners and governments.”

BlackBerry Curve On Vodafone UK Soon

BlackBerry Curve On Vodafone UK SoonFollowing the announcement yesterday of the BlackBerry Curve joining the now apparently ever expanding range of BlackBerry devices, Vodafone have been in touch to let us know that they’ll have it in the UK from 21 May.

The BlackBerry Curve looks pretty good from the shots we’ve seen. It’s finished in what they describe as a liquid silver colour with chrome highlights, smooth edges and soft curves – a guide to where they got the name from?

BlackBerry are also pitching it as “the perfect balance between work and play.”

New features are showing how the BlackBerry is becoming much more a consumer device, rather than just for business stiffs who feel it reflects they’re important, how often they can check worthless emails being pushed at them by The Man.

One such is that the 2Mpx camera with 5x digital zoom, built-in flash and night mode, can share its pics with just one click using either email, MMS, or Bluetooth.

BlackBerry Curve
Vodafone UK

Boo.com Reborn To Travel

Boo.com Reborn To TravelYou can just imagine the cries of What!!! when we heard that boo.com was relaunching.

The first time around boo.com was at the peek of stupid behaviours in the UK Internet scene in the pre-bust days and its excesses are well documented. As we’re sure you all know, they burnt through close to $160m in 18 months, trying to create a portal (as they were called back in the day) to sell clothes through. They went bust in 2000.

Well the FT covers the story (by someone with an infeasibly long name, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson) that someone has bought the domain and has launched a travel site using it – this time with the golden charms of Web 2.0. Does this harken the cry that Web 2.0 is just about to bubble burst?

Ray Nolan, the founder of Web Reservations International, who currently appear to be doing OK with €19m of earnings last year, pointed out to the FT that “It’s catchy, and it works across languages.” True enough – and the tarnish on the name might just have faded far enough to not be negative. Well, it got them in the FT and us writing about it, didn’t it?

Boo.com

Skype: SMS Half Price Offer

Skype: SMS Half Price OfferThose clever-types at Skype are trying to hook you into the habit of using Skype, not just for your spoken comms and IM, but for SMS to mobiles too.

The feature’s been there for quite a while in the PC version and for slightly less on the Mac, but we guess they think that not enough people know about it yet.

They’re using that old ‘make it cheaper’ ploy to attract your attention.

Until the 8th May, you (any Skype user, anywhere in the world) will be able to send SMSs via Skype for half their normal price to mobile owners in United States, Australia, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Belgium, Thailand, Ireland, Austria and Italy.

How do you SMS in Skype?
Sending an SMS in Skype is a doddle, simply select a contact that has a mobile number stored in it and select the Send an SMS option.

It couldn’t be easier really, could it? … and it gives the advantage of having a full-sized keyboard.

Skype SMS

£25,000 Winnings For Getting To 100

£25,000 Winnings For Getting To 100In this decimal-obsessed society that we live in, there is a general amazement when someone reaches 100 years old.

Mr Alec Holden from Epsom, Surrey clearly understood this when he placed a £10 bet ten years ago with UK bookie William Hill that he would survive a century.

Today he’s celebrating his 100th birthday, a letter from the Queen and his £25,000 winnings.

His view on the recipe for success? Porridge for breakfast, don’t worry about anything, do as little work as possible and keep breathing!

Alec keeps his mind active by playing chess against his computer everyday and also runs a chess club.

Listening to him on Today on Radio 4 this morning he sounded bright and sprightly taking a very positive view of his age saying that he’s looking forward to “starting off again at 100.”

Although William Hill is down £25,000, they’ll be making saving all of the advertising that they’ll be getting from this story.

Interesting to hear from them that they are no longer take bets of getting to 100, but are pushing out the year out to 110.

MySpace News Now Live: Very Quiet

MySpace News Now Live: Very QuietFollowing the anticipation of the Beta launch of MySpace News, we thought we’d pop over and have a look at what the service is like and how well it’s doing.

It’s obviously early days, but wow is it quiet over there … you can almost hear the tumble-weed running through it.

It may pickup at the weekend when MySpace fans/fanatics spend their whole weekend bashing messages to their ‘friends’, or then again they may be mixing with real people and getting their bodies into the sun.

Maybe we’re on to something that the MySpace crowd just isn’t interested in news.

MySpace News

MySpace News Take On Google News and Digg

MySpace News To Rival Google News and DiggIt is perfectly logical that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp that owns MySpace would use it to trial new features and services that will be of use across their vast empire of media companies.

To this end, MySpace will be launching MySpace News, expected to launch into Beta later today.

They will be scraping news site across the world and presenting them in the same way that Google News does so successfully.

Once the stories are presented to the MySpace users, they’ll be able vote on the quality and content of the stories, in much the same way as Digg users currently do.

So it looks like they’ve taken Google News and Digg and glued the two together.

We’re not sure if Rupe has this one right, as it’s widely known that the younger end of the population doesn’t really care that much about news.

Time will tell if they choose to spend their leisure time (as that’s what MySpace is) reading news stories and voting on them.

Myspace News (still currently private)

DeskStar 7K1000: Hitachi 1Tb Hard Drive Reviewed

DeskStar 7K1000: Hitachi 1Tb Hard Drive ReviewedThere’s a common thought that Moore’s Law in relation to processing power has now become irrelevant, due to the now-attained high processing speeds. In it’s place is a form of Moore’s Law for storage and how important it’s rapid growth is.

In proof of this new Law, Hitachi have released the first 1Tb (1,000 Gb) hard drive named the DeskStar 7K1000. Tom’s Hardware have been running tests on the new drive and have recently reported on it.

There’s 9 pages of the review which reach the conclusion that in terms of the cost per gigabyte it’s not the best value hitting around £230 / €330, which clearly doesn’t compare well with £100 / €150 that 500Gb drives now give.

The reviewers, Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos, feel that having a single 1Gb drive will be easier to handle, but as a data drive rather than one to run the operating system from.

Their view is to hold on for a little while until other manufacturers get their 1Gb drives out, such as Seagate, which will come with a five year warranty, that is lacking in the Hitachi.

DeskStar 7K1000
Tom’s Hardware review