Harman Kardon on Tuesday introduced the MS 150, a new stereo equipped with a dock suitable for iPhone or iOS, slot-loading CD player and FM radio tuner. It costs a staggering $689.95, putting it in the high end of iOS-compatible stereo gear.
The MS 150 incorporates two 30-watt bass-reflex loudspeakers and has three auxiliary audio inputs and 3.5mm headphone jacks in both the front and the back. A front-panel audio input is included, and the FM radio supports RDS, a technology that enables you to display text with artist and song information, from radio stations that broadcast the data.
The MS 150 also includes subwoofer output, so you can connect a powered subwoofer for added oomph. Also included are composite and S-Video outputs, so you can connect the MS 150 to a video source to output photos and videos from compatible iOS devices. An infrared remote control is included, and the MS 150 has a built in alarm, sleep timer and dimmer.
Harman Kardon claims the MS 150 has been developed to adhere to European energy standards, consuming less than one watt of power in standby mode.
Filmmaker Kevin Kunze is putting together a documentary exposing what he calls “the truth behind the negative health effects of cell phones.”
“Through extensive research and interviews with the world’s leading doctors, scientists, politicians, activists, and victims; DISCONNECT traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted public health.”
As part of the process, Kunze has interviewed many people including Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak and Virgin Mobile’s founder Richard Branson. Part of Woz’s interview is below.
Invitations to Apple’s iPhone event on October 4th have been sent out, and we asked famed numerology expert Helmut Weltschmertz (see photo at right) of the Koblenz Institute of Numerology and Used Car Sales to tell us exactly what the numbers and symbols on the invitation meant. Here’s what Dr. Weltschmertz was able to surmise for TUAW:
And thus begins an absolutely hilarious satire of all the bizarre Kremlinology you see pop up every time any communication comes forth from Sphinx-like Apple. We’ve had some humorous hijinx in the comment thread associated with our own coverage of the announcement, so make sure to check there too.
Electronic Arts (EA) and TransGaming on Tuesday announced the release of FIFA Soccer 12 for the Mac – the first time the popular FIFA soccer (football) game has come to the Mac platform. It’s available for online purchase and download from GameTree Mac and other sources for $39.99.
If you’re familiar with the long-running franchise from its past appearances on video game consoles, FIFA 12 is a major change. Central to this edition’s crop of improvements is the Impact Engine, which more accurate models physics like player-on-player collisions (this also affects player injuries). Also new in this release is Precision Dribbling, which lets you handle the ball with much more finesse especially in tight spaces or when you’re trying to manage the pace of the game.
Tactical Defending reworks the way the game manages defensive strategies, by distributing the relevance of field position, pass interception and tackling. And Pro Player Intelligence is the moniker used to described the game’s reworked artificial intelligence, which helps CPU players make decisions based on their real-world counterpart’s actual skills and aptitudes, and by comparing the weaknesses of opposing players – creating more realistic field conditions.
As with all of TransGaming’s Mac products, this game was developed for the platform using TransGaming’s Cider translation layer technology. Cider has been used to bring a veritable multitude of Mac games to market in recent years, ranging from The Sims 3 to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In addition, if you prefer underrated but highly enjoyable games, you may want to take a look at options such as the whispervale game.
System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later, Intel Core 2 Duo or better, 4GB RAM, ATI HD2600 or Nvidia GeForce 9400M or better graphics with at least 256MB VRAM.
Apple on Tuesday officially announced its iPhone 5 launch event. According to the invitation received by The Loop, the event will be held on October 4 at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. campus. The event will begin at 10:00 am PT.
I will be at the event, and will bring you a live update of the announcements as they happen.
If there’s one thing nobody seems to want to talk about, it’s pricing. Most designers don’t publish their rates, and good luck getting a company to tell you how much they paid for their site.The results of this situation is that it can be pretty hard to know how much to spent on design.
Great designers are worth every penny. If they understand you and what you want to accomplish, your Web site will be amazing. That’s the type of relationship I had with Phil Letourneau when he redesigned The Loop.
If you didn’t live in a world where QuickBooks already existed, if there wasn’t another universe that you could look at where there was a program that already does more than QuickBooks for Mac does, if you didn’t know how things could and should be, QuickBooks 2012 for Mac would seem like a pretty good product. Unfortunately, the knowledge that QuickBooks could be better (and isn’t) makes QuickBooks 2012 for Mac something “less.”
How long has QuickBooks and other Intuit products been “less” on the Mac now?
My sources tell me that RIM originally outsourced much of the hardware design and production of the PlayBook to mega-ODM Quanta.From there, Amazon’s team determined they could build a tablet without the help and experience of Lab 126, so they turned to Quanta, which helped them “shortcut” the development process by using the PlayBook as their hardware template. Of course, it’s never quite that simple, and as I’m told Amazon ran into trouble, and eventually sacrifices were made (like using a slower processor).
I first wrote this post on my public Facebook page in May of 2010 as a response to friend requests from readers, publicists and other people whom I hadn’t actually met. Since then, things have changed: Facebook’s privacy implications have gotten trickier, Plaxo and MySpace vanished from relevance, LinkedIn is more useful, a follower-etiquette question has come up on Twitter, and Google+ has brought its own social-networking issues.
Some people really stress out over whether to follow back or not. I don’t.
Looks like J.P. Morgan’s Gokul Hariharan made a small error in his analysis of Apple’s iPad-based fortunes when he reported a 25% drop in iPad orders among Foxconn factories in Asia. Apple (AAPL) shares took a sharp downturn after the word was out, but both Hariharan and traders forgot one thing: Foxconn has a new plant in Brazil that will be spewing out iPads like nobody’s business by December.
Oh come on, seriously? J.P. Morgan analyst Gokul Hariharan said this morning that Apple had slashed manufacturing for the iPad by 25 percent. Turns out he was wrong.
“Facebook does not track users across the web,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “Instead, we use cookies on social plugins to personalize content (e.g. Show you what your friends liked), to help maintain and improve what we do (e.g. Measure click-through rate), or for safety and security (e.g. Keeping underage kids from trying to signup with a different age). No information we receive when you see a social plugins is used to target ads, we delete or anonymize this information within 90 days, and we never sell your information.
Nik Cubrilovic claimed last week that Facebook was tracking its users even after they log out of the social networking service.
Shoppers are starting the holidays earlier this year. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have become the norm in retail today, PayPal’s data indicates that another spike in holiday shopping is emerging. Right after dinner on Thanksgiving Day, shoppers are getting a head start on their holiday shopping right from the couch on their smartphones and tablets.
PayPal is predicting that couch commerce will really affect retailers for the first time this year.
I was having a beer and talking to someone at WWDC (I can’t remember who — probably the beer’s fault) and he pointed out something that is true for me too. I follow people, not companies.
That holds true for RSS feeds and Twitter. I’m not so much interested what news a Web site has, but I’m really very interested in what some writers have to say about the news.
I have a folder in my RSS application that is specifically for those people. I’m sure you can guess most of the names in there, but that is the folder that I pay the most attention to during the day.
When companies post news, they go into a Tech or Mac folder and I’ll skim the headlines to see if there’s anything earth shattering. Most of the time, there’s not.
I understand that many people like to follow companies on Twitter because they don’t like all of the chatter of the individuals. That’s certainly true in some cases too.
However, as I look through Twitter and my RSS, I see an increasing trend to follow and engage individual writers, musicians and other people that I find interesting.
I’m not sure if it’s the same for everyone, but thought it was a worthwhile trend to mention.
Apple (AAPL) shares fell sharply in early trading Monday following a widely reported note to clients from J.P. Morgan’s Gokul Hariharan to the effect that multiple supply chain vendors in Asia have registered a 25% cut in fourth-quarter iPad 2 orders from Apple…What Hariharan — and the traders who dumped Apple shares on the news — seem to have missed were the reports out of South American that Foxconn, in partnership with the Brazilian government, has built an iPad plant in Brazil that is ready to start churning out product by December.
Oops.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt cites analysts Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster and Bullish Cross’ Andy Zaky as doubting Gokul Hariharan’s report.
One thing I knew for sure was that I’d never trick readers, or lie to them, or otherwise be shady. It’s not me. And even if it was me, it’s too easy to get caught. The easy path was the one where transparency was shining brightly.
meta.DJ is targeted at modern DJ-style performances and lets you blend your iTunes music tracks with drum machine beats, sound fx, synthesized instrument parts, mix effects like delays, stutters, filters and more.
I don’t usually link to articles written about me, but this one is different. Chris Martucci emailed me a few questions on how I choose what to post on The Loop. I looked at his site and like it, so instead of emailing him a two-line response and the obligatory “Good luck,” I decided to call him so he could ask whatever he wanted.
It’s interesting to see what someone takes away from listening to your advice.
On 24 September 1980, Bonham was picked up by Led Zeppelin assistant Rex King to attend rehearsals at Bray Studios for an upcoming tour of the United States—the band’s first since 1977. During the journey, Bonham asked to stop for breakfast, where he drank four quadruple vodkas (sixteen shots, between 400–560 ml). He then continued to drink heavily after arriving at the rehearsals. A halt was called to the rehearsals late in the evening and the band retired to Page’s house, the Old Mill House in Clewer, Windsor. After midnight on the 25th, Bonham fell asleep and was taken to bed and placed on his side. Benji LeFevre (who had replaced Richard Cole as Led Zeppelin’s tour manager) and John Paul Jones found him dead the next afternoon.[17] Bonham was 32 years old.
I’ve been fairly critical of Apple’s recent patent bullying — what I call innovation through intimidation/litigation. The Apple Fanclub of bloggers and journalists defend the company’s patent and other intellectual property claims as protecting its innovations from copying, particularly by Samsung. But who’s copying whom?
I don’t know if I’m part of a fan club, but I do know that none of the companies that have come out with similar products to the iPhone and iPad have added anything significant to the design. These companies radically changed their designs after the iPhone was released to make their products look just like Apple’s products.
There are only two reasons to do that — capitalize on Apple’s success and confuse consumers.
Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, implores the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to deny Apple’s request for a US-wide preliminary injunction against four Samsung products (the Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G and Droid Charge smartphones, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer), arguing that such a decision would run counter to the public interest as it “would hinder Verizon Wireless in developing and deploying its next generation high-speed LTE [fourth-generation] network, the job growth dependant on that network, and will undercut key public policy goals, including expansion of American’s [sic] access to broadband networks and faster communication with emergency personnel.”This attempt by Verizon to interfere with Apple’s enforcement of intellectual property rights against Android in general and Samsung in particular is a declaration of war that may have far-reaching consequences in the U.S. market. I’m sure that Apple will view this move as a self-serving attempt to game the system in Android’s and Samsung’s favor.
Amazon.com Inc, which revolutionized reading with its Kindle e-reader, is expected to unveil a tablet computer next week that analysts say will seriously challenge Apple’s market dominating iPad.
Okay, they are having a press event, but I doubt it will “seriously challenge” the iPad.
