Mac

Autodesk announced an agreement to acquire Alias on October 4, 2005. If approved, the cash deal will cost Autodesk US$182 million. Alias is the 3D special effects software company best know for its Maya and MotionBuilder tools that are used in major motion pictures. Alias representatives have told The Mac Observer that the Mac version…

Google recently began notifying various companies advertising Apple related products and services that specific ads are being blocked because of trademark violations. The notices have left many bewildered, considering that some of the ads have been online for months. TidBITS editor, Adam Engst, reported on his problems, which are only partially resolved. Last week, Mr.…

Show notes for TMO To Go: Mac Geek Gab For September 26th, 2005 Direct Links: Enhanced/AAC Podcast or MP3 Version Travel-related Gadgets are the topic of this weeks’ Gab between John and Dave. These two self-professed geeks talk through their favorite toys to use when traveling. They also talk through some news items from the…

Fujitsu on Monday took the wraps off its first Mac-compatible scanner. ScanSnap is a double-sided color PDF scanner with a 50-page automatic document feeder and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 software included. It was designed to quickly convert paper documents into PDF files at the touch of a button, scanning at speeds up to 15 pages per…

Iomega announced Thursday the Iomega MiniMax, a hard drive aimed at Mac mini owners, but available only for the European market. The device sports up to a 250 gigabyte hard drive, along with three USB 2.0 and three FireWire ports that act as a hub for the mini. As of this writing, the device is…

Show notes for TMO To Go: Mac Geek Gab For August 15th, 2005 Podcast Link: TMO To Go: Mac Geek Gab, August 15th, 2005 Due to a broadband outage, John and Dave go low(er) tech this week, at least in terms of the recording methods. That said, the show is still a geek gab, and…

Feral Interactive on Friday announced that it will bring the epic strategy game Imperial Glory to the Mac during the fourth quarter. Set during the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Imperial Glory lets players control one of five nations — France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia or Austria — and decide…

Apple Computer has introduced a new upgrade option to .Mac subscribers giving them the option of upgrading their bandwidth as well as storage space. Users can now bump up from the standard 250 megabytes (MB) of storage and 3 gigabytes (GB) monthly data transfer maximum to 1,024MB of storage and a 10GB monthly data transfer…

Feral Interactive on Thursday announced that later this year it will publish Lionhead Studios’ Fable: The Lost Chapters for the Mac. The role-playing game was released for Xbox last year and is also currently in development for the Windows XP operating system. Feral said in a statement that the title represents “a significant strengthening” of…

Apple Computer’s Mac mini and the iPod shuffle told first place gold in this year’s Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEAS), with the Airport Express receiving a second place silver recognition. The competition, sponsored by Business Week magazine and the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), gave a total of three awards to Apple and its…

CodeWeavers on Wednesday announced that its CrossOver technology, which enables Linux users to run Windows applications on their computers, will support Macs once Apple makes the move to Intel processors next year. CrossOver was built on UNIX, as was Mac OS X, but the technology wasn’t previously available in the Mac world because it requires…

The performance gap between PowerPC and x86 is "not a myth," according to Mac and Windows gaming developer John Carmack, cofounder of id Software. Mr. Carmack made the comment at Slashdot in response to a discussion there about Friday’s Devil’s Advocate column by John Kheit at The Mac Observer. According to Mr. Carmack, the compilers…

I wonder if the Atlantic ocean has as vast a collection of spineless jellyfish as seemingly comprises significant portions of the Macintosh user base and its ass-kissing punditry.  With far too few exceptions, this is a group that just days ago was smugly debunking, dismantling, and railing against the notion of Intel processors in their Macs, only…

Macintosh developers at this weeks Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco have mixed feelings on whether the switch to Intel processors by Apple Computer will ultimately be a win for the company and software companies, two published reports said Tuesday. “It’s certainly the right decision in the long run. In the short term, there’s the…

Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich issued a research note Monday reiterating his ‘Buy’ rating on Apple Computer (AAPL), saying Mac sales are “accelerating” and that the iPod maker would probably start a subscription music service like Yahoo’s within a year. Having recently met with Apple management in Cupertino, Calif., Mr. Milunovich said Apple’s PC differentiation…

As first reported by MacDailyNews, an Associated Press article published on Wednesday revealed that former Cobb County commissioner Butch Thompson has filed suit to stop the roll-out of iBook computers to teachers and students at pilot schools in the Georgia district. Even though voters in 2003 approved a 1% sales tax to fund the program,…

Home builder Lennar Corp. has announced a unique amenity for the houses it’s building in six of the neighborhoods in the Bressi Ranch community located in Carlsbad, Calif. Every dwelling comes with a 14-inch iBook, an AirPort Base Station, AirPort Express, a three-year AppleCare support package and a 5.1 surround sound stereo tuner with speakers…

The Cobb County, Ga. School District’s US$70 million laptop program is scheduled to start this week with teachers in four pilot schools receiving their computers and training, according to Atlanta TV station WXIA-TV. Being called by Apple “one of the largest ever one-to-one computer learning initiatives” in the U.S., the contract calls for the initial…

During a Q&A with Feral Interactive president David Stephen, MacGamer.com owner Corey Tamas received an intriguing scoop: the publisher will bring Colin McRae Rally 2005 to the Mac sometime during the next six months. Mr. Stephen told Mr. Tamas: “While rally driving is a sport that’s probably better known in Europe and Asia than it…