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Filed under: Macworld, iPod Family, iTS, iTunes, Bad Apple  read more »

In a new twist of events, Apple has come out with a couple of new product announcements a week before Macworld 2008. The reasoning?  read more »

In a surprising move, Apple has eliminated the Xserve RAID from their product line. On their website, the Xserve RAID page has disappeared and now takes you to a new page where they offer the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID in its place. From the new Apple webpage : The Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem delivers outstanding performance, reliability, and expansion for video and server applications. Configure up to sixteen 750GB 7200-rpm SATA or 300GB 15,000-rpm SAS drives in a 3U rack-optimized enclosure for up to 12TB of raw capacity on one or more RAID sets.  read more »

Apple’s famous line of iPods has received yet another addition - and this time, it is the iPod nano family to gain from the latest of Cupertino’s think tanks. No, it isn’t a major hardware revision or anything of that sort but instead will feature a brand new color. You can put all those party hats away for now I guess with this rather deflated announcement from Apple. Still, I am sure that there is a certain segment of the population that would love pink to adorn just about any gadget and gizmo that is released today, which means the pink iPod nano will probably do pretty well in terms of sales.

How much does a color change cost? Nothing, apparently, as the pink 8GB iPod nano will still retail for $199. Everything else inside remains the same as the changes are but cosmetic, so folks who pick this model up will still get a 2″ display, 24 hours of audio playback or five hours of video playback on a single charge (of course, certain requirements must be met before this specification is fulfilled), all crammed into a beautiful all-metal design made with anodized aluminum and polished stainless steel. Should pink not tickle your fancy, you can always choose from silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition.  read more »

Intel wants to make the whole Web editable, just like a single Wikipedia page.

The chip giant on Tuesday will make a beta available of Intel Mash Maker, a free browser extension that allows users to modify Web pages and combine information from different sources. Its first beta works with Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, though at this point the features are far more mature in Firefox, Intel said.  read more »

It always breaks my heart when we get a "my iPod broke while I was on vacation" email like the one below. When you are on vacation you probably don't have a computer to help fix the iPod. And worse yet, a broken iPod means no music or movies to enjoy on the plane ride home.

"hey there, methodshop!

okay, so I'm flying into La Paz, and my iPod starts acting funny. I'd heard they don't do well at high elevations, so I go to put it to sleep and I get the - gasp - sad iPod icon, along with a url for apple. this does not look good.

I arrive in Cochabamba, 3 thousand feet closer to sea level, and look at my iPod. the menu is there, all well and good, but when I go to play a song I find that the Thing-is-empty.  read more »

Engineers at UC Berkeley yesterday announced a new solution that uses cell phones to make medical imaging available to underdeveloped parts of the world.

"Diagnosis and treatment of an estimated 20 percent of diseases would benefit from medical imaging, yet this advancement has been out of reach for millions of people in the world because the equipment is too costly to maintain," says Boris Rubinsky, UC Berkeley professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering. "Our system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible for these underserved populations."  read more »

Jason @ Hackszine is on a nav-system-lockout disabling roll, he writes -

After my post last week about disabling the navigation lockout on Lexus and Toyota nav systems, I received a request from an unhappy Ford owner with the same problem.

After a bit of searching, I unfortunately wasn't able to turn up any straightforward "secret-password" solution for this. What I did find, however, is a straightforward hardware modification that will put you back in control of your navigation technology. Assuming you don't mind rolling up your sleeves and disassembling your dash, this fix is known to work with a couple Ford truck models, and I have a feeling that the same method might be a general solution for almost all factory navigation systems that have this lockout functionality.  read more »

Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote was today, and among a bevy of new hardware announcements, Apple has pushed out two very significant updates for iPhone and iPod touch users. Apple has added multi-recipient SMS (iPhone-only), faux-GPS on Google Maps using cell tower triangulation, Web Clips (i.e., bookmarks of web sites on your home screen), and home screen icon customization via drag and drop. iPod touch users can now get the Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather apps that came standard on the iPhone for a $20 upgrade (these features will come standard in new iPod touches). Hit the jump for a closer look at the new and improved features.  read more »