GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

It might not fool the dedicated (or even slightly attentive) thief, but for keeping your new 11-inch MacBook Air safe as you dash from the coffee-shop table to grab another little sachet of sugar, it might just do the job.

“It” is a plastic skin for Apple’s new ultra-portable laptop, which turns the computer into a passable facsimile of a paper notebook. The Composition Notebook Skin, designed by Flickr user Beyond the Tech, even features a cover for the MacBook’s wrist-rests that mimics lined paper – although if somebody has gotten as far as opening the lid of you Mac, it’s unlikely that this last effort will fool them.

If you think such a disguise is either effective or just plain cool, you can grab Beyond the Tech’s image files and use them to make your own. You don’t actually have to print the PNG files onto plastic or anything messy like that. You just take the files and send them off to a custom skin-maker like Zagg, which will take care of everything for you.

My Composition Notebook Skin [Beyond the Tech / Flickr]

Beyond the Tech’s skinmods [Beyond the Tech via the Giz]

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Posted under Gadget Reviews

by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica

At long, long last, the Macbook Air has been updated. But if you were hoping for enough CPU muscle in the new models to keep a bunch of Flash-addled webpages from bringing the entire portable to its knees, then you’re going to be sorely disappointedthe Core 2 Duo is still with us in the new models. In fact, the 11″ Macbook Air actually trails its predecessor in clockspeed, while the 13″ model hasn’t changed at all.

Given that Apple really went all-out to upgrade the rest of the Air package, the choice of a geriatric CPU is a giant slap in the face to Intel’s latest portable processor options. Apple looked at Arrandale, Intel’s 32nm CPU with a northbridge/GPU combo integrated into the same package, and said, “No thanks, but do you have any more of the really old chips?” Ouch.

We hate to say we told you so, but we told you sotwice, even.

When Intel unveiled the Arrandale ULV parts for ultraportables a few months back, it was obvious that they were not destined for the Macbook Air. The problem wasn’t so much the CPU part of Arrandaleeven though the ULV variant is indeed deficient in the cache and clockspeed departments when compared to the Core 2 Duothe problem is the GPU.

The multicore GPU integrated into the NVIDIA 320M handily spanks the (admittedly improved) Intel integrated graphics glued onto the Core i-series processors. And it’s also compatible with OpenCL, something Intel has yet to support in its IGPs. Apple argued that the improved graphics power of the 320M was more important than improved CPU processing power when designing the recent 13″ MacBook Pro updatethat same logic (though you may disagree with the decision) still applies here.

That’s not the only problem. The dual-chip packages are considerably larger than the small-outline packages for the low-voltage Core 2 Duos originally introduced on the first MacBook Air. Even with the integrated northbridge and GPU, Arrandale processors still require a separate controller. The combination simply couldn’t fit on the MacBook Air’s minuscule logic board. Instead of giving up room to shoehorn in updated processors, Apple instead chose to improve the MacBook Air’s battery capacity. With seven hours of promised life without any need for an external battery, it can be argued that this is a useful trade-off.

Finally, we have to consider the 11″ MacBook Air. While its bigger brother offers a 1.86GHz or 2.13GHz CPU, the smaller sibling is left with just 1.4GHz or 1.6GHz options. The reason for the difference here is simple: thermal design. The slower processors clock in at just 10W TDP (7W less than those used in the 13″ models) making it much easier to cool the inside of the tiny 11.6″ casing.

The combination of Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA 320M graphics is more powerful than the Atom and Intel IGP combo used in notebooks of similar size. While some comparable ultraportables use newer Arrandale chips in them, most also cost significantly more than the revised MacBook Air models. Apple decided to trade maximum performance for increased battery life and portability and still offer a lower price than the previous generation. Whether that tradeoff is worth it (and we’ll be checking this as we review the new models) is up to users to decide.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

Photo by Brian X. Chen / Wired.com.

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CUPERTINO, California Apple on Wednesday releashed a major upgrade for its mini notebook, the MacBook Air, splitting it into two different-sized models.

The MacBook Air will come in two flavors: a 13.3-inch model and an 11.6-incher. They both will come thinner and lighter than their predecessor, with improved battery life that’s similar to the iPad’s, the company said.

“We asked ourselves what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said. “It’s one of the most amazing things we’ve ever created: it is our new MacBook Air, and we think it’s the future of notebooks.”

Coupled with mobile-inspired enhancements to the computers’ operating systems, such as a planned Mac App Store (due to launch in 90 days) and multitouch enhancements for the next version of Mac OS X, aka “Lion,” the new MacBook Air models show that Apple is trying to redefine the PC market the same way it has tackled the tablet and smartphone markets.

Instead of merely selling hardware, the company looks to be positioning itself as a vertically integrated vendor of mobile devices, selling hardware and software as well as controlling the marketplace through which customers purchase software.

“We think all notebooks are going to be like this one day,” Jobs said.

Despite its position as an underdog in the PC industry, the Mac has seen rapid growth relative to Windows-powered machines in recent years. According to an NPD retail sales report cited by Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook, Apple dominates the premium end of the PC market: For instance, 91 percent of $1,000+ computers sold in June 2009 were Macs. And in Apple’s latest Q4 earnings call, the company reported record-breaking sales of Macs and iPhones, resulting in its most successful quarter ever.

Cook claimed that 1 in 5 PCs sold in the U.S. are now made by Apple — a claim sure to be contested by other PC makers. Recent reports by IDC and Gartner show that Apple’s U.S. market share is slightly above 10%. That is higher than it’s been in years, but just half of what Apple is claiming.

NPD confirmed the 20% figure to Wired, which comes from its retail tracking service, but noted that it applied only to a single month.

The MacBook Airs will include flash storage, 802.11-N Wi-Fi and a Core 2 Duo processor. Apple increased the size of the battery to provide 5 to 7 hours of battery life when surfing the web over Wi-Fi, and 30 days on standby time like the iPad.

The models start at $1,000 and begin shipping today.

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

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If you ever wanted a backup battery that plugs straight into your MacBook, now is your last chance to get one.

HyperMac, a third-party accessory maker, announced on Monday that it’s pulling the plug on sales of its external MacBook battery chargers in response to a lawsuit filed by Apple.HyperMac’s news release doubled as a “last call” to generate sales for its MacBook accessory, which will be discontinued Nov. 2.

HyperMac’s external battery, which costs between $200 and $500 depending on the capacity, includes Apple’s original MagSafe adapter as well as a connector for iOS devices to serve as a multi-device charger. In a lawsuit filed September, Apple claimed that HyperMac’s design was a violation of its MagSafe and iPod connector patents.

Apple owns a patent on theMagSafe connector for MacBooks and has not licensed the technology to third parties, forcing vendors to hack together alternatives, as Dan Frakes mentioned in an earlier Macworld post.

While HyperMac will continue selling the battery accessories with a 30-pin connector for iOS devices, the company will no longer include the MagSafe adapter cable, meaning they will no longer be compatible with MacBooks.

Via AppleInsider

Image: HyperMac

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Perhaps the touch revolution will extend beyond tablets and smartphones and onto our traditional computers. A new patent application shows how Apple might build an iMac or a MacBook with a touchscreen.

It’s a lot more than simply slapping a multitouch screen onto an iMac. Filed earlier this year, the patent application portraysan iMac-like computer that can transition from being used as a traditional mouse- and keyboard-controlled PC into a touchscreen computer. It’s a convertible desktop tablet, so to speak.

The invention described would switch between input modes detecting the position of the screen with an accelerometer or a rotation hinge inside a flexible stand. One input mode would be a high-resolution interface controlled with a mouse and keyboard, and the other method would be a lower-resolution tablet mode for touch controls.

Moving on to notebooks, the patent application says a notebook-like device could transition into a touch-based UI by folding the display, face up, against the keyboard.

To be clear, convertible tablets are nothing new. We’ve seen a handful of convertible tablet notebooks and “kitchen” PCs equipped with touchscreens. However, I’ve had hands-on time with a bunch of them at the Consumer Electronics Show, and they’ve consistently failed to impress, because they’re just touchscreen devices running Windows a UI designed for keyboards and mice, not ideal for touch controls. Duly, these convertible computers haven’t been popular sellers.

With Apple’s patent application, it sounds like the transition method would involve switching between two operating systems: the Mac OS for PC input and iOS for tablet usage (though they’re technically one OS since they’re carved out of the same core). That important UI transition might actually make a convertible touchscreen computer make sense.

Indeed, Apple appears to be eyeing touchscreens for Macs. Fan blog Patently Apple recently discovered a collection of 10 patent applications covering display technologies, which also allude to a touchscreen display for notebooks. Also, a few rumors emerged earlier this year that Apple was developing a touchscreen iMac.

From Patently Apple

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

More MacBook details are dragging themselves from the fertile pond of Apple rumors, this time flapping their wet, scaly tentacles onto the desks of MacNN.

MacNN’s source confirms the dropping of FireWire in the consumer MacBooks, which makes sense. The only thing most MacBook buyers need FireWire for is to hook up an external drive, and those all come in USB flavor anyway. It will be a shame to use the rather useful FireWire Target Mode, though, and the rather less useful (and infinitely more finicky) FireWire networking.

The dual GPUs in the MacBook Pro will apparently be a mixture of a dedicated graphics processor and an integrated chip sat on the motherboard. The Pro notebook will also be getting faster RAM (DDR3/1,066GHz), a top processor speed of 2.8GHz and, best of all, a longer-life battery, perhaps a nine-cell design instead of the current six-cell (hey, if MSI’s Wind is getting one, why not the Mac?)

MacNN also claims that the the Pro will see a new video-out socket which looks something like an HDMI-out port. We’d hazard a guess that Apple has somehow shoehorned both a Mini DVI and an HDMI capable output into one socket, which means that we’ll have another couple of proprietary $30 adapters to buy.

Stay tuned. We’ll know for sure come 10AM (5PM GMT), or five hours from now.

Specs, photos of MacBook Pro up to 2.8GHz [MacNN]

Illustration: Jesus Diaz/Gizmodo

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CUPERTINO, California — Steve Jobs announced new refreshes of the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air that will feature faster processors, better graphics, and a uniform design language of aluminum and glass. Jobs also unveiled a new 24-inch cinema display made especially to accompany Mac laptops. Here are the most important gems we gleaned from the announcement:

1. New MacBook Pros

• Starts at $1999.
• 2.4 GHz processor
• 15-inch 1440 x 900 glossy display.
• 0.95 inches thick, weighs is 5.5-pounds.
• Nvidia GeForce 9400m graphics card.

2. Refreshed MacBooks

• Starts at $1299.
• 2.0 GHz processor.
• 13-inch LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display.
• 0.95 inches thick, weighs is 4.5-pounds.
• Nvidia GeForce 9400m graphics card.

3. MacBook Air

• Cheaper. (The SSD model is now $2500)
• Integration of Nvidia 9400m means 4x faster graphics.
• Faster front side bus.
• Mini-DisplayPort.
• Aluminum and glass design as seen in the MacBook and MacBook Pro

4. New Cinema Display

• 24-inches
• LED backlighting.
• Integrated iSigh.
• 1920 x 1200 resolution.
• 3-port USB hub.
• Stereo speakers.
• Mini display port.
• Out in November.

Wired Liveblogging Team: Words by Mark McClusky, Photos by Jim Merithew

9:46am: Alright. In the room classical guitar music playing….weird!

We’re in the Town Hall meeting rooms at 4 Infinite Loop, at Apple HQ in Cupertino.

More classical music, cello concertos.

9:56am:  "Please silence all your cellphones as a courtesy to the presenters onstage and your fellow attendees."

Getting ready to rock here.

Although the music is still like the most mellow music in the history of any Apple event. More string quartet stuff.

We’re going for a high end vibe today, apparently.

Lights are dimming. Here we go.

Steve Jobs takes the stage, looks teh same as he did at the last event.

"We’ve got some fun stuff to share with you. Today’s about notebooks, we’ve got some new ones to show you."

"I want to zoom out and cover the state of the Mac" Tim Cook, COO at Apple to cover it.

Cook: "Last reported quarter 2.5 million Macs sold."

Been growing 2-3x the market’s growth rate.

Why are we growing faster?

10:01am: 1) Better computers. iMac, Macbook Air.

2) Better software. Leopard. "Virtually everyone agrees that Leopard is far ahead of Vista."

3) Compatibility. Boot Camp. Parallels, VMWare.

It’s removing the fear for switchers.

4) Vista. This is something we didn’t do. You may wonder why Vista
is on the list. I think it’s fair to say that Vista hasn’t lived up to
everything MSFT hoped it would. That’s opened doors to lots of people
thinking of switching.

5) Marketing.

The Mac/PC ads have struck a chord with a lot of switchers.

10:04am: They tell a story.

6) Retail stores. Started this over 7 years ago. 250 stores now in 8 countries. 400,000 visitors a day.

10:05am: 50% of the Macs they sell are people who are new to the Mac.

These are the 6 reasons we’d attribute the momentum to.

As I said, this just didn’t begin. If you look at the history, Mac has outgrown the market 14 of the last 15 quarters.

Retail share: 17.6% market share of unit sales.

Revenue share: 31.3% of retail sales.

10:07am: One out of every three dollars spent on a computer in US retail is spent on a Mac.

Education: We’ve surpassed Dell and become the top supplier of Notebooks, 39% of all notebooks.

10:09am: Many universities now require a computer. That school selects a list of computers, and the students get to pick.

Total Mac units: 4.5M in 05, 5.3M in 06, 7.1M in 07, 7.1M in three quarters so far this year.

Jobs is back: "Let’s talk about notebooks."

We want to talk about some new ways of building notebooks.

Jony Ive coming up to talk about that.

(Not much Steve today so far)

Ive: I want to tell you about a real breakthrough we’ve had on how we can design and build our notebooks.

Currently, here’s how we build our 15 inch Macbook Pro.

10:11am: When you’re designing something that’s thin and light, the trick is making it strong and robust and rigid.

The Aluminum enclosure makes a small contribution to the structure.

It’s the internal frame that holds it together. Currently magnesium die casting.

10:12am: Series of stiffening plates and frames that are
welded to the top plate. Then we add the plastic gasket between the top
and bottom of the case.

The current version is best in class in size and weight, but we’ve been looking for a better way to build a notebook.

10:14am: We had a really significant breakthrough that culminated in the Macbook Air.
You couldn’t build a product as thin, light and strong as the Air with the old way.

Rather than start with a thin piece of aluminum, and then add
material, we started with thick piece of aluminum and then remove
material.

That’s how they do the Air’s palmrest.

(Showing the milling of the Air’s top plate.)

Constantly recycling the cuttings and waste.

Start with a slab that weighs 2.5 lbs. and end up with a .25 pound
plate that forms the structure of the Macbook Air. That unibody
construction made the Air possible.

Obviously, this has relevance beyond the Air.

We’ve been working hard to design new enclosures for new notebooks.

(Jobs back onstage.)

"We also have new graphics on Notebooks."

Nvidia came to us to talk about a new graphics part. It would
combine a chipset and graphics processors all in one part for a desktop
computer. We said we’d like to use it in a notebook.

10:18am: Nvidia GeForce 9400M

Chipset and GPU on one die. 70% is GPU. 16 parallel graphics cores. 54 Gigaflops.

5 times faster than intel integrated graphics.

Call of Duty runs 6.2 times faster, Quake 4 five times faster.

82% as fast as the nvidia chip in the MacBook Pros.

10:20am: So still not the high end option, but big upgrade.

New trackpad. Multi-touch, and glass.

39% larger area. Multi touch. Glass for smooth travel. Entire
trackpad is the button. Multi button via software. new four finger
gestures.

(No physical button!)

New gestures for expose and app switching.

10:22am: So let’s take these technologies and make notebooks.

New MacBook Pro.

Black bezel.
LED backlight.

All connectors on one side.

Aluminum unibody.

Next gen graphics.

Glass trackpad.

Mini Display Port connector. This is going on all our products.

Black keyboard.

The unibody saves us 50% of the weight on the major structural parts.

Going to pass around one of the unibodies.

10:25am: Have people on the aisle to hand them out. Nice stagecraft.

Waiting to get it…

Teams of 100s of people have worked on this for many months.

10:26am: Just handled it. Super stiff, very light. Really is cool engineering.

(Our row is holding up the process…)

Lights back down.

You’re the first to get your hands on it.

We’re got the GeForce 9600M GT.

Both chips are in the computer! the 9400M, and the 9600M GT. 5 hours
of battery with the 9400, 4 with the 9600. Can switch between them.

10:29am: Superdrive.

Magsafe, ethernet, FW 800, no FW400, 2 USB 2.0 connectors, Mini display, audio in and out (Optical and digital.)

Expresscard 34.

Mini Display Port: new industry standard. Going in everything we make.

First Pro that we offer SSD on. Can access battery and drive.

10:30 802.11 N BT 2.1

.95 inches thick. Thinnest pro ever.

2 models.

$1999, 15.4 LED backlit, 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 3 MB, L2 2 GB memory, both graphics chips, 250 GB HD.

Shipping today. Should hit stores starting tomorrow.

Lots of new tech, but we’re just as proud of all the things we left out. We’re working on leaving out toxic chemicals.

First time we’ve earned an EPEAT gold environmental rating.

Now, we want to talk about the Air.

10:34am: Update with some new technologies.

Putting the 9400M in the Air, get 4x faster graphics for the air.

120GB HD instead of the 80.

And have 128 SSD as option.

Mini-display port.

799: 13.3 LED display, new graphics chip, 2 GB ram, 1.6GHZ Core 2 Duo.

10:35 2499 1.86GHZ proc, SSD drive.

New Air: early November.

Also, new 24-inch LED backlight cinema display.

Corner to corner glass.

10:36am: Cable from back — power cord, USB, mini display. Just plug the three things into your computer, and you’re set to go.

1920 x 1200 pixel, iSight and mic. Stereo speakers.

$899

10:37am: available in November.

A great companion to the MacBook Pro.

There’s one more thing. Of course, that’s the Macbook.

This is an amazing product. The best-selling Mac ever.

Entry price right now is $1099. Now, entry price is 999. We’ll just keep on selling these for a long time.

We’re heard from a lot of macbook customers. They want a metal enclosure, faster graphics, and they want LED backlit display.

These are the top three things we’ve heard, and we’re bringing them to the Macbook line.

New generation on top of the white plastic notebook.

It’s all new. Corner to corner glass, LED backlit display.

Unibody aluminum enclosure. Next gen graphics. Glass trackpad, Mini display port connector.

GeForce 9400M, 5x the performance of the old integrated graphics.

New trackpad with gestures.

New display connector.

5 hour battery life.

New display connector.

5 hour battery life.

10:41am: Also EPEAT Gold rated.

2 models.

$1299 entry level.

$1299: 13.3. display, 2.0GHZ core 2 duo, 3 MB cache. 2GB memory. 160GB HD. GeForece 9400M

$1599: 2.4 GHZ proc, 250GB HD, and backlit keyboard.

10:43am: Shipping today, should hit the stores tomorrow.
This is the sweet spot of our market. We’re going to give it to them at $1299.

Two new notebook families.

New way to build them, new graphics, new trackpad, and LED backlit displays,

Playing video, a little documentary.

Jony Ive talking…."We just decided to start over."

10:44am: (Battery display is now on the side of the computer)

Showing the manufacturing on the unibody.

13 milling operations from solid block to the finished part.

(Video is really rehashing much of what we’ve already heard.)

Oh, on the video, we just found out that the trackpad *is* a button. You press down on it to click.

So there still is a physical button — the trackpad itself.

10:50am: They’re really hitting the environmental message hard.

Ive: "I love how we don’t reserve our best ideas for our high end products."

Mark McClusky: "I haven’t said it yet, but they really are beautiful computers. Hope to get hands on with them."

But first, Q & A.

10:52am: Jobs: A few caveats: no questions about earnings, which are coming a week from today.

My blood pressure: 110/70. This is all I’m going to talk about on my health today.

Third, we’re not economists. So we’re not going to talk about the global financial meltdown.

Phil Schiller and Tim Cook up there with Steve.

Relationship with Nvidia: We’re the first to take this new chip to market. I know we’re going to be using lots of them.

10:54am: Blu-ray? Display Port?

As you know, HDMI is limited in resolution, so you can’t do our big 30-inch display.

Schiller: You can get to HDMI with connectors, we think display port is the connector of the future.

Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It’s great from consumers, but the
licening of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting until it takes off.

Schiller: we also think we have a great HD solution in iTunes.

17-inch pro?

It will still be available, being refreshed.

Stealing demand from high-end to mid-end with the MacBook?

10:57am:

We might, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll see a refresh cycle triggered in both spaces, I think.

Size and weight difference on MacBook:

1.08 to .95 inches thick.

Weight 4.5 pounds on the MacBook.

Matte screen in the future:

We’re going straight glass screens. The vast majority prefer the glass screen. Image is crisper, colors are brighter.

You offset it by pushing a lot of light through it.

Netbook from Apple?

That’s a nascent market that’s just getting started, and we’ll see how it goes.

11:02am: Did Apple design the motherboards?

We design them all in house. (Says Steve, laughing)

Touchscreens?

We’ve experimented with it, but it hasn’t made a lot of sense to us.

Hands on area in the other room.

Posted under Gadget Reviews

It tallies pretty much completely with the previous shots we’ve seen of the upper case, with the recessed, chiclet keyboard, magnetic latch and in/out ports arrayed along the left side (see picture below for the side view). In the picture we see.

Apple’s one button mouse obsession? Over. Look at the trackpad and you’ll see no buttons at all. The pad is apparently made from glass, just like the screen of the iPhone, and can be pressed to get a physical click, similar to that of the new Blackberry Storm. The pad doesn’t look like glass in the picture, but hey, John Gruber over at Daring Fireball, who reports on the trackpad, has seen the picture too — and and he’s not usually given to discussing rumors without clearly stating so.

The other internal oddity is that Apple is putting not one, but two NVIDIA graphics chips inside, both of which will be real, full on GPUs, with their own discrete RAM. These wil be the 9400M and the 9600M GT. If GPUs are the new MHz, this makes a lot of sense, although it is certainly a rather new way of shoehorning extra power into a computer.

Further: The 17″ MacBook Pro may be on its way out. It’ll get a speed and storage bump today, but when they’re gone, they’re gone. It might be a discontinuation of the line, or maybe Apple is just concentrating on making enough of the 15″ model for now.

The speculation over an $800 MacBook is also, apparently, crap, although the Boy Genius says it has confirmed a $900 item in the lineup. Gruber thinks that the regular, low-end white MacBook, will remain on sale, dropped from its current $1100 to $1000. The new metal MacBook will also reportedly gain a proper GPU and lose its FireWire port.

The prices, cribbed from Daring Fireball:

MacBook Pro

$1099: 2.1 GHz, white, 1 GB memory, 120 GB disk

$1299: 2.4 GHz, white, 2 GB memory, 160 GB disk

$1499: 2.4 GHz, black, 2 GB memory, 250 GB disk

MacBook

$1299: 2.0 GHz, 2 GB memory, 160 GB disk

$1499: 2.4 GHz, 2 GB memory, 250 GB disk

The real test of these pictures, though, is whether or not they make the current models look immediately dated. The answer is a big “yes”. Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo has mocked up a picture based on these new shots and it is gorgeous. That black (still too-big) bezel, the squared-off (and rather brick-like) base and the optically thin curved lid all make me want one. Anybody want to buy a slightly used, 2.4GHz MacBook Pro?

Contains Spoilers [★]

Mr. Blurrycam reveals the updated MacBook Pro [Engadget]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

It’s no surprise that Voodoo founder Rahul Sood is talking up the company’s newest 13.3-inch laptop,  Voodoo Envy.

But he’s making some really bold bets. Sood draws interesting comparisons with Apple’s Macbook Air.

The Envy, he says, is thinner, has better display and uses a richer material than Macbook Air. And features such as a presentation adapter and the E-SATA
optical drive should help it score with potential buyers.

That’s interesting. What do you prefer? A Macbook Air or the Voodoo Envy? Tell us in the comments.

Also Sood in an interview with Laptop Magazine doesn’t think that the current state of the economy will affect high-end consumer spending.  People always need to buy computers, he believes, and buying a Voodoo machine is a lifestyle choice they will make.

It’s a pretty bold bet to make considering that the Voodoo Envy starts at $2100. Will consumers really shell out that much for an ultraportable laptop when the economy is on the rocks? 

Interview with Rahul Sood

Photo: Voodoo   

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If all of today’s MSI Wind news wasn’t enough for you, here’s a MacBook Mini, fashioned by German hacker Florian. All it took was a Dremel, six white LEDs and a very steady hand. Inside is a little less tidy, with tape and aluminum foil holding things in place and bouncing back a little extra light.

Florian even took the time to make a spoof ad in the style of the MacBook Air spot (below), featuring his diminutive machine emerging from a tiny envelope. The irony hits double for me, as I keep my HackBook in a Jiffy Bag. Note the Aldi logo at the end — that’s the low-rent supermarket where Florian bought his Akoya Wind clone.

Shining apple – MacBookMini [MSI Wind – Das Forum]

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