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iLife ‘09 announced at MacWorld 2009
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Google, PC / Laptop, Software,
During his first (and only) MacWorld keynote speech, Phil Schiller announced the latest update to the iLife suite of software, iLife ‘09. Let’s take each app, one by one, and look at the changes and additions:
iPhoto ‘09: New to iPhoto is Faces. Faces uses facial recognition to organize and tag photos of people. iPhoto will find a face in a photo, and you tell it who it is. It will then find other photos that it thinks are of the same person. Easy way to grab snapshots that feature the same person. Another new organization feature is called Places. This uses the geotagging feature available on a lot of modern cameraa, and puts pins on a map showing the different places that the images were taken. If you have photos that aren’t geotagged, you simply tell iPhoto where the image (or event images) was taken, and it fills in the rest. The map feature is based on Google Maps, so you can zoom in on a location, look at satellite or street view, etc.
Apple has also added in built-in support for Facebook and Flickr to iPhoto - that means no more fumbling around with clunky plugins to get your pictures out of iPhoto and onto those services. A very welcome addition. Facebook users can add the names of people in their images, and iPhoto will retain that info as well (presumedly for the Faces feature.)
iPhoto also gets new slideshow themes. You choose a theme and photos, and iPhoto puts it all together. It uses the Faces to find the faces in images so that those are centered and zoomed. You can save slideshows to iTunes, and they can be synced to an iPhone or iPod touch. Something new for the Books too, you can now automatically get maps included, with pins that show your location. Great for making travel books.
iMovie ‘09: Apple has admitted that, since it was new, iMovie ‘08 didn’t have all the features that older customer wanted. This year, they aim to change that. iMovie ‘09 gets a new Precision Editor, Advanced drag & drop (that give you context-sensitive menus,) dynamic themes, and even animated travel maps. So, again, you can use your location data to insert 2D and 3D maps of those locations into your movies.
GarageBand ‘09: GarageBand ‘09 is being updated with a new feature called “Learn to Play,” which brings up an instructor which plays video lessons. If that’s not enough to get you excited, there are even Artist Lessons. You get people like John Fogerty, Colbie Caillat, Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones, and Patrick Stump, who will teach you how to play instruments like the guitar or piano.
iLife ‘09 also includes updated versions of iWeb and iDVD, and ships free on new Macs. You can purchase an upgrade for $79, or buy a family pack (good on up to five Macs) for $99, and it will be available in “late January.”
For those wondering, Apple has also released a new version of iWork - iWork ‘09.
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Bleeding Edge TV 280: E3 2008 Xbox Media Briefing
Posted by Nate True Categories: Full Episodes, Announcements, Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Movies, Video Games, Videocasts,
In this episode, coming to you straight from E3 2008, we chat with Xbox’s Heather Snavely about all the news that Microsoft announced during their Xbox Media Briefing. We have keynote clips here as well, in case you missed it and want to see all that went down, while Heather gives us a bit more detail and answers a few questions we had about some of the specific announcements.
Specifically, Heather tells us a bit more about the new Xbox 360 Experience dashboard, answers a few questions we had about the Lips game and the motion-based microphone controller, as well as Xbox avatars and questions we had about the future of Gamer Pictures on Xbox Live. All in all, a nice look at all the new details uncovered at E3 in relation to Xbox 360.
E3 2008: Xbox Media Briefing: Gears of War 2, Lips, Guitar Hero Tunes, Final Fantasy XIII announced
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, E3, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace,
We’ve entered the auditorium here in the West Hall, and are currently waiting for the E3 2008 Xbox Media Briefing to begin. Very nice setup in here, by the way. Bunch of stage lighting, high definition displays, and…oh, even a mock living room setup. Snazzy. Anyhow, keep it locked here, as we will be bringing you live updates from the keynote as it happens. Any predictions on what we will be seeing announced today?
Oh, as for images, we will update the post with a bunch of those after the keynote ends. We wanna focus on bringing you the text updates for now, mkay?
We start with some Xbox 360 Street Talk, where apparently Microsoft went around town and interviewed people off the streets, and asked them about what they like about Xbox 360. Obviously, all good comments here. Now we get answers for questions like “What is a noob?”, “What does it mean to be ‘pwned’?”, “What does melee mean?”, “What does RPG mean?”, etc. Basically, what do average people know about video game terms. This is kind of like sitting through the advertisement trailers in the movie theater, the ones that come before the actual trailers.
Check out the rest of the keynote after the jump:
Live blogging the WWDC 2008 Steve Jobs Keynote
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds, Internet, PC / Laptop,
In just about five minutes, Steve Jobs will be taking the stage to give his WWDC 2008 keynote. We are monitoring all the news, and will be bringing you updates on everything going on, live, as it happens on stage. In case you’ve been summering in Antarctica, we are expecting the new 3G iPhone to be launched (and not expecting it to be as radical as others think it will be - no front-facing camera, no iChat video chat - just some 3G and GPS goodness), Snow Leopard should be given out to developers to take home with them in anticipation of the launch of OS X 10.6 at MacWorld 2009, and the new .Mac replacement we’ve all been hearing about, Mobile Me, should be announced and shown off to the masses.
Well, it’s just about time. Let’s get started…
Click to continue reading Live blogging the WWDC 2008 Steve Jobs Keynote
MacWorld 2008: Apple announces iTunes movie rentals, including HD rentals
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, HDTV, Movies, Portable Audio / Video, Software,
Apple has finally made iTunes movie rentals official, as Steve Jobs made the announcement in his MacWorld 2008 keynote address. The studios taking part in the festivities include Disney, MGM, Touchstone, Miramax, Lions Gate, Warner Brothers, Fox, Paramount, Universal, and Sony. Rentals will be available starting today alongside an iTunes 7.6 update, and you can expect 1,000 movies to be available be the end of February. Rentals will cost $2.99 USD for a standard movie, $3.99 for new releases. If you want the HD version, it will cost you $1.00 more. You have 30 days to begin watching the movie, and once you’ve started, you get 24 hours to watch it as many times as you like. Rented movies can be transferred to a video-capable iPod or iPhone, and can also be viewed on Apple TV.
Read More 
| iTunes Movies
MacWorld 2008: Apple MacBook Air Notebook Announced
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Wireless / WiFi,
During this morning’s MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs announced the new MacBook Air notebook. We’ve all been expecting some sort of Apple sub-notebook, and this one looks amazing. Apple it touting this as the “world’s thinnest notebook”. The MacBook Air is 0.16-inches to 0.76-inches. The thickest part of the Air is thinner than the thinnest part of a Sony TZ series notebook. That is impressive. The device features an 80 GB 1.8-inch hard drive, with a 64 GB SSD drive as an option. It ships standard with 2 GB of RAM and a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, with the option to switch to 1.8 GHz. Other features include a 45-watt MagSafe, 1 USB 2.0 port, a Micro-DVI port, and audio out. There is no Ethernet port (otherwise they couldn’t have gotten it this thin) so you will have to rely on the built-in 802.11n WiFI and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. The MacBook Air also leaves out the optical drive, but you can purchase an external SuperDrive accessory for $99 USD. It also ships with software that allows it to “borrow” the optical drive of another Mac or PC. Expect 5 hours of battery life out of this one - or more if you opt for the SSD drive. The MacBook Air will hit retail in about two weeks, and will cost $1799. Pre-orders start today.
Read More | MacBook Air Product Page
MacWorld 2008: iPhone 1.1.3 update is real
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Software,
This morning, Steve Jobs demoed the iPhone 1.1.3 firmware, which looked strangely similar to the one we showed you guys a few weeks back that many were calling fake. Well as it turns out, the leak was real, but we did miss a few things, such as chapter options and language compatibility in iPod mode. The 1.1.3 firmware also features lyrics support for music. Rounding out the features are all the things we showed you in our iPhone 1.1.3 video - Web clips (web bookmarks on home screen), Maps with location finder, Home Screen customization, and SMS multiple people.
By the way, if you are looking for an excellent program to create custom ringtones for your iPhone, check out iPhone RingToneMaker.
Read More | iPhone 1.1.3 Video Walkthrough
MacWorld 2008: Apple announces TIme Capsule Airport Extreme with built-in hard drive
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Storage, Wireless / WiFi,
During this morning’s MacWorld keynote, Apple announced a brand new router specifically meant for those of us running Leopard on Apple notebooks, called Time Capsule. Basically an Airport Extreme NAS, the Time Capsule router allows those running Leopard while connected over WiFi to run Time Machine. Currently, unless you use a back-end hack to enable WiFi backups, you have to plug and unplug your laptop to an external drive to run Time Machine backups. Time Capsule removes that requirement, thus making WiFi Time Machine backups simple. Of course, it comes at a price. A 500 GB Time Capsule retails for $299 USD, which a 1 TB version costs $499.
Read More | Time Capsule Product Page
Liveblogging the 2008 CES Bill Gates keynote
Posted by Sparky Categories: Announcements, CES, CES 2008, Smart Home, Internet, Microsoft,
Gear Live’s live coverage of the 2008 CES keynote! Refresh this page to keep track of the announcements!
6:39 The lights are up, and Bill has walked on stage!
6:40 Bill is talking about the last decade. Photos and music have made a huge transformation from analog to digital. “Information anywhere” seems to be a major theme.
6:42 Lots of partners have contributed to this digital decade - While this is Bill’s last CES keynote he thinks technology is just getting rolling
6:44 Video spoof of Bill Gates last day at Microsoft - Bill driving a Chevy Malibu to work and cleaning out his desk. Very funny stuff!
Check out the rest of the coverage after the jump
Click to continue reading Liveblogging the 2008 CES Bill Gates keynote
Apple Announced 3rd Gen. iPod nano - Plays Video, Cover Flow
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Design, Portable Audio / Video,
Continuing with all of today’s iPod announcements, Apple has announced the new third generation iPod nano. This time it gets a complete redesign, starting with the size - just 6.5mm thin. It also sports a new 2-inch QVGA 320x240 screen that is 65% brighter than the second generation nano, and is 204 dpi - the highest pixel density screen that Apple has ever shipped. The new iPod nano also has a new UI which includes Cover Flow, has support for playing videos, and ships with three games as well (Vortex, iQuiz, and Klondike.) Battery life has been extended as well, as Apple says the nano will play music for 24 hours, and video for 5 hours. It will be available in five colors: (PRODUCT) RED, light blue, black, pastel green, and silver. As far as price goes, the 4GB model (only available in silver) will retail for $149 USD, while the 8GB version will sell for $199. Both will be in stores by this weekend.
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