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Thursday March 19, 1998
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News Index 1)AppleScript Advanc- ements
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Thursday March 19, 1998
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News Index 1)AppleScript Advanc- ements
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| MacOS & Rhapsody Java Advancements |
In a very brief note, the Reality team has also been informed that Apple has placed one of its premier engineers, previously from NeXT, in charge of a project that will aim to optimize JAVA for MacOS and Rhapsody. One of the main goals will be to drastically increase the speed of JAVA under the MacOS and Rhapsody. Improvements have already been made according to a source.
If you have any further information on this subject, please inform us.
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| Reality Bites - Apple : What Happened? |
This week's Reality Bites column, written by Jeff.
Back in November on 97, I took an indefinite leave of absence from my weekly editorial here at Reality, and passed the buck on to John Paff who has done a great job with Reality Bites. At that point in time, I noted that the column, in addition to the news page, was just to much of a burden to deal with each week. But what I didn't mention was the fact that I felt the column had become to difficult to write, in a positive perspective, due to the recent problems at Apple Computer. Things were really a mess, like the streets of NYC on New Years Eve; confetti spread all over the streets, intoxicated citizens wandering aimlessly down 42nd street, and policemen on horse back eagerly trying to keep some form of law and order in a crowd of millions.
I'll admit it now, I had lost a lot of faith in Apple Computer. Not in its products and what it stands for, but where it was going and who was calling the shots. Today I still have major concerns, but enough has happened in the last 30 days to set my mind at ease. So what the hell happened?
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| Seybold Special Report |
We've compiled a Seybold special report from our experiences at the Seybold Publishing Expo. Below is the introduction to our special report. Click on the link to view the whole document.
Seybold was quite refreshing for the average and professional Macintosh user. A total flip side from that of the Internet World Expo. The Macintosh platform dominated the conference.
From the beginning now.
You may have already noticed our predictions for the keynote announcements came pretty close to 'Reality'. And as we suspected, the WallStreet and MainStreet were not introduce. Not even mentioned.
Steve Jobs Keynote
Steve Jobs wandered into the backstage area of the exhibition hall 20 minutes late; the usual, if you've been following his patterns from expo to expo. The keynote kicked off with the three Apple commercials, running on the 4 large Seybold wall monitors. First, Think Different, then the Snail ad, and finally the Bunnies. The Bunnies ad brought an outpour of cheers and laughter from the crowd. Craig Kline, Seybold VP of Content, introduce Eric Hippeau, chairman of Ziff-Davis, who then introduced Jobs as a 'technologist'. Steve soaked up the hearty round of applause and immediately moved into ColorSync.
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| Reality Online Chat: Open! 3/16 |
The Reality & MacNN teams spent the better part of the weekend setting up that major interactive advancement we mentioned earlier in the week. We are very pleased to announce the availability of the Reality Online Chat.
Currently, the chat room is in a testing phase, and we urge you to try it out and give us some feedback on what you think of the idea, along with the performance of the chat. We also have some concerns as to how the server will hold up with a large demand on the client end. If all works out well, we plan to purchase the chat server in order to provide our readers with a place to hang out and chat about the latest news, rumors, and so forth. As of now, the chat will remain open for casual chat throughout the week.
Requirements To Use Chat
The chat client and server are 100% JAVA, and there for you will need a browser that supports JAVA. We recommend that you use Netscape or Internet Explorer 3.x or greater, with around 8 megs of memory allocated to the browser and Java enabled. The more memory you give your browser, the better the chat applet will perform.
Users can use the the chat room for real-time interaction, or send private instant messages back and forth to each other. Very similar to private messages on the Hotline client. You can ignore users, highlight users, create a profile, look up profiles, select custom icons and a lot more.
Load Time
The Login page may take anywhere from 60 seconds to 4 minutes to load on a 28.8 modem line. So please be patient, and do not try and reconnect. That will only start the process all over again. We promise you that the results you'll see are worth the short wait. We also are assured that we have chosen the most advanced Java chat server/client software available. So please try it out, and have fun.
Proceed to the Login Screen
Please send all feedback on the chat room to chat@chat.macnn.com
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| Jobs Keynote At Seybold 3/16 |
Since Seybold NY is right around the corner, we thought it might be nice to comment on the possible topics of Jobs' keynote; we've categorized the topics by likelihood, since his keynote is only expected to run 60 minutes--too short for all of the following scenarios.Below are a list of strong possibilities.
Likely
Unlikely
Not Gonna Happen
Finally, we suspect Jobs will put an emphasis on the fact that Apple is coming back, and very strong. He'll outline the advantages of the Macintosh Platform for High End Graphics, Publishing and Pre Press.
The Reality Staff will be at Seybold on Tuesday and Wednesday, so expect an update to Reality later in the day on Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
Update
See our transcript of the events as they actually happened, in our Seybold Special Report.
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| Artemis Images 3/16 |
Well Joe, what do ya know? We've possessed the image of the new Artemis design for some time now. We just didn't know it till now. It has now become apparent that the "rainline" casing design is now the Artemis casing as well. With some rounding here or there according to the newer rendition.
Rainline - Artemis Casing
Artemis Final Casing Rendition
The front portion of the Artemis casing will slide out like a draw, giving the user access to the internal components. It has also been confirmed that Artemis display will indeed be a 15". We still aren't quite sure when Apple plans to announce this machine. They've been very quite about the Artemis in general. It looks much better now than it originally did, thank god!
If you have any further information on this subject, please inform us.
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| Further G4 Information 3/16 |
An anonymous source passed on some information he obtained from a tech report authored by Motorola and IBM.
There will be 2 versions of the G4, currently referred to as
98 and 99. The 98 version is to be a suped up 64 bit version of the G3.
This will have the expected 64 bit data path and 64 bit registers etc.
Most of the exciting news is about the 99 version. That is supposed to
contain 2-4 G3 chips sharing a unified cache of up to 2 meg on board the
chip. No mention of backside was referred to in the info. The problems
that were being faced involved protecting data in the unified cache from
being overwritten or being used by another processor before the data was
finished its processing. They were looking for a way to flag the data as
in use or unfinished. A hefty task with so much branch prediction going
on.
In the upcoming merced processor from Intel, they are planning to
incorporate a flag bit to indicate when parallel processing can take
place. This flag bit will be set by the compiler at the time the source
code is compiled. I suspect that the same basic concept will be
available to the G4 so that the chip will know when it can safely split
the processing between the processors without data/instruction
corruption.Earlier this week, we published a few tidbits and notes on the G4 processor.
If you have any further information on this subject, please inform us.
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| Apple Media Player Prototype? 3/16 |
Recently, a source who shall remain anonymous passed on a tip about Apple Media Player. Actually, more of a Rumor. The image you see below is a rendition of an early prototype contained within the Apples hardware labs in Cupertino. Though this images may have been described elsewhere as a desktop, our sources have given us information that may prove otherwise. Supposedly when commenting to an Apple Engineer on the design resembling that of a 6100, he was told that it was nothing of the sort. Instead he was informed that the prototype was a "set-top thin client". A description resembling that of the AMP.
Right now, we can not explain the floppy drive entrance (or is it?). However, it is odd that the volume knob and the headphone jack appear on the front of a desktop. Right now take it as a rumor until we receive further info later this week. We are also slightly tangled in the web of public confusion surround the details of this project. Right now there are three different stories. One calling the AMP a hand held portable with a small screen. A second calling it a set top box as shown above, and a third touting a portable set top box with a form of display. I don't think anyone has solved the riddle yet.
In a related subject, we have received reports that none of the members from the Newton group were laid off. Instead they were moved over to the Columbus project (the Apple Media Player). If true, this would put the AMP effort in full force.If you have any further information on this subject, please inform us.
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| The Apple Media Player 3/163/12 |
We're sure many of you have heard of the AMP, or Apple Media Player, code named Columbus (exploring new worlds). Many of you are eager to learn more, or to just understand exactly what this piece of hardware makes itself out to be. The truth is, it's all one big sloppy mess right now. The information, not the product. The AMP is, or 'was', one of Apple's top secret developments, until someone at Disney tipped off news.com. Apple had initially hoped to keep this project under wraps.
The AMP is a set top box, that will be portable, and according to unconfirmed reports (and CNBC) will contain a color screen, which we are assuming may be a touch-control screen (for portability reason as well). The box will hook up to the TV, of course. The player will support enhanced CD's - a format that combines audio and multimedia content, making this a huge focal point for Disney, as this would partially explain the takeover rumors. In addition to the enhanced CDs, the player will initially support audio CDs, and then possibly DVD video CDs.
Since the people in Hollywood will not only be the ones to benefit from the technology the AMP will bring to users homes, but the ones to push the format forward, Apple needs to provide these people with a clear white paper, per-say. They need to assure developers that this technology will be top notch on Apple's list. Otherwise Apple may fall short of another opportunity, as another alternative may be chosen to be embraced by the developers. Below are a short list of rumors features/components of the Apple Media Player. Take them, and the rest of this report with a grain of salt.
| -Plays Enhanced CDs -Enhanced CD Technology, which enables a single audio cd
to contain both audio and multimedia content. -Plays Audio CDs. -Plays DVD Movies. (*Later Version?*) -8-9 inch color screen, *color touch-control screen?* -Provides a form of Internet Access. -Price Range around $650 |
Web TV like Internet access, and the whole environment of the AMP will obviously be based on a system, possibly a low resource, scaled down, slightly altered version of the MacOS; also being referred to as "Allegro Lite". Although again, no one can confirm this totally, at this time. As of now, there is no scheduled, release/announcement date for this product. And a lot of information/details need to be made clear. We welcome any further information on this product.
Also, contrary to reports around the web, we seriously aren't betting on a mention of the AMP at next week's Seybold Conference in New York City. This would also be a violation of Apple's new release date/announcement policy. However, most of the Reality Staff will be hanging out at Seybold next week to keep you updated on any late breaking news on the AMP or anything else. Stay tuned for future reports on the AMP.If you have any further information on this subject, please inform us.
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| This Week's Apple News 3/16 |
Apple and Fry's
-Apple and Fry's electronics have come to an agreement to open Apple Stores within Fry's.
PWBK Line Shattered
-The PowerBook 2400c/180, 3400/240 and G3/250 have been deleted from Apple's pricing list.
-WallStreet And MainStreet are expected to fill the gaps.Rhapsody DR2
-Rhapsody DR2 has undergone some form of delay. No reports of developers receiving their CDs have been received.
Apple Scoops Up Compaq Exec
-Timothy D. Cook has joined Apple as its senior vice president of Worldwide Operations (part of Apple's executive team). Cook joins Apple from Compaq where he was formerly vice president of corporate materials.
Why was it difficult for President Clinton to fire Monica Lewinsky?
-"He couldn't give her a pink slip without asking her to try it on first."
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