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Nova Media intros Mac-ready GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 card
It's refreshing to see high tech wizardry with Apple flavor hitting the shelves; if you have a hankering for travel and need fast connectivity no matter where you go, the GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Ready has you covered. This Mac-compatible ExpressCard will bring triple band HSDPA / UMTS -- up to 7.2 Mbps -- and quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE to your Book, and thanks to the "Zero-CD" feature, drivers and software are auto-magically installed from the card's memory on first use (no worries, Windows users, you are covered here as well). The simple "launch2net" software provides instant detection and configuration of 300 network providers around the globe, meaning less time spent fiddling with APNs and passwords and more time online -- we know your provider's support team and accounting depts. will love this feature. The Nova Media site shows this as pre-order right now for roughly $400 US, but it should start shipping in early May.[Via Macworld]
Rogers Wireless offers Option's GT MAX "7.2 Ready" data card
Rogers Wireless seems to be on a bit of a binge of late with HSDPA devices, and with a fledgling 3G network in the cards, that's just fine with us. Announced today is the Option GT MAX "7.2 Ready" data card; as you may have guessed, the "7.2 Ready" refers to the card's ability to be upgraded from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps when the network supports it. The GT MAX card features quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, triple band HSDPA / UMTS, and an interesting butterfly-style fold away antenna that saves you having to pop the card out when not in use. Thanks to Option's "Advanced Radio Technology" (ART) with receive diversity and equalization to help improve both signal reception and reduce interference, the card is apparently garnering 50 percent greater throughput speeds in field trials. Pick it up for $149 CDN on a three-year contract.[Via PR Newswire]
Option GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 gets FCC love
If AT&T plans to roll deep with 7.2Mbps HSDPA this year, we reckon they need some equipment on store shelves, so FCC approval of Option's GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 certainly bodes well. Besides tri-band UMTS / HSDPA and quadband GPRS / EDGE, the card features a nifty zero-CD installation feature that copies drivers directly from the card itself. No word on release -- or whether AT&T will even carry it, for that matter -- but we're guessing we can find a few MacBook Pro users out there who are about ready to raid the FCC's offices and swipe this thing today.
Cingular adds Globetrotter GT MAX to 3.6Mbps stable
If the promise of 3.6Mbps downstream data (eventually, anyway) on the wings of Cingular's HSDPA network gets you out of bed every morning, but the AirCard 875's bulbous antenna is enough to make you want to cry, just feast your eyes on this little number. Option's Globetrotter GT MAX is the latest (and only second) data card to hit Cingular with support for the higher HSDPA data rate, while still preserving a veritable who's who of backward compatibility (GPRS, EDGE, and plain ol' UMTS) on four GSM and three WCDMA bands. Unlike the aforementioned AirCard from Sierra Wireless, the Globetrotter has a nifty little retractable antenna that'll likely be a hit with road warriors weary of removing modems from their slots when trying to pack the PC away. Look for the Globetrotter GT MAX to be available today from Cingular for a nice, round $49.99 after rebate on a two year agreement.[Via PHONE Magazine]
Option's option for ExpressCard HSDPA
Nipping at the heels of Novatel's similarly-styled XU870, Belgium's Option Wireless Technology has announced its GlobeTrotter EXPRESS 7.2. As the name implies, the ExpressCard promises 7.2Mbps downstream on the wings of your carrier's HSDPA airwaves -- if said carrier supports such blazingly fast speeds, of course, and as of right now 3.6 is as good as it gets. For what it's worth, the XU870 currently tops out at 3.6Mbps with a software upgrade to 7.2 slated for down the road, so the GlobeTrotter takes the strictly-theoretical speed crown in the meantime (and if the GlobeTrotter were actually shipping right now like the XU870 is, that'd be even cooler). Thanks to a nifty little feature Option calls "Zero CD," drivers for the card are embedded in the card itself, meaning that no separate driver installation is necessary when you shove this puppy into your lappie of choice. No word on availability yet, but with support for triband HSDPA and quadband EDGE, we wouldn't be surprised to see this one take the whole world by storm.[Via 3G.co.uk, thanks Bram]
Option completes world's first UMTS 900 call
We think 3G is great, we really do. Be it EV-DO, UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA, the long-forgotten EV-DV... it's all good in our books. But if there's one thing that we don't like, it's adding yet another band into the mix. Yes, we understand that GSM 900 is already well-established across much of the world, and it only makes sense for Belgium's Option to be working with networks to develop UMTS 900 hardware for overlays -- but still, someone has to put their foot down and stop the madness before we're all stuck waiting for phones with six-band radios. (Whew, we feel a little better now.) Anyhoo, it looks like Option has hooked up with Finland's Elisa to successfully place the world's first UMTS 900 call and demonstrate simultaneous voice / data services. The test has also caught the interest of Nokia -- possibly on account of Elisa hanging out in their backyard, which looks at UMTS 900 as a way to fast-track wireless broadband to Finland's rural areas. No word on when the requisite hardware might be in production, but between this and the newly-coined 1700 band, our heads are spinning just a bit.
An AppleScript to enable Windows keyboards to control a Mac
Someone by the name of UNIXGEEK posted an AppleScript a while ago at Mac Geekery that changes Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's keyboard layout to play nicely with a Windows keyboard. To be specific: the Command and Option keys are switched on a Windows keyboard (as the Windows key and Alt, respectively), so this script simply changes the layout on Tiger so your non-Apple keyboard still feels like home (sorry pre-Tiger users, Apple only introduced the ability to tinker with keyboard layouts in 10.4). If you aren't a fan of Apple's stock Pro keyboard or the MacBook/Pro 'boards, this script is for you. However, the script at Mac Geekery has a few errors in it, and Engadget's Ryan Block trudged through the post's discussions to make the proper edits to the script, and posted a fixed copy for everyone's benefit (download it from us, not Ryan. We don't wanna hit him with the TUAW effect).As a side note, I think it's funny how attached people can get to one keyboard or another. I'm slowly getting used to this MacBook keyboard, though I've been a die-hard lover of the PowerBook/MacBook Pro's tight and low-travel keys since I've owned one for the last 4 years. Ultimately though, I dislike most keyboards because I used to own an ergonomic - y'know the funny looking split ones? - and that was absolutely killer for both teaching myself better typing habits and making sure I don't get carpal tunnel. The only ergonomic keyboards I can find in stores (since you gotta get your hands on those to really get a feel for 'em) these days are Microsoft's and, while I love their Intellimouse Explorers, their ergonomic keyboards' construction just doesn't feel up to par, and there's far too much needless travel in their keys.But I digress (a lot) - if you're using a non-Apple keyboard on a Mac, enjoy this script for easily swapping the keyboard layout for your Mac computing pleasure.
Option brags about successful HSUPA tests
They can't claim to be the first to rock HSUPA outright, but Belgian outfit Option appears to be the first to hit up the 3G+ tech via an honest-to-goodness data card. As a reminder, HSUPA is the de facto successor to HSDPA in the GSM family tree, leaving the plenty-fast HSDPA downlink speeds be to concentrate on boosting the uplink; it's capable of topping out at a whopping 5.7Mbps up, compared to HSDPA's measly 384kbps. Of course, those crazy upload times do us no good without somethin' we can plug into our lappies; that's where Option comes into the equation, demonstrating a prototype card using Qualcomm's MSM7200 chipset in a variety of real-life scenarios (including a car traveling at 50 km/h), managing a respectable 1.3Mbps up and 2.7Mbps down. Now that testing is in full swing, Option says we can expect commercial HSUPA products from their camp in the first half of 2007.
Apple's Special Committee Reports Findings of Stock Option Investigation
Back in August, Apple announced they had found some stock option irregularities and launched an internal investigation to get to the bottom of things. This voluntary audit netted a warning of de-listing from NASDAQ because they had to delay filing their Q3 earnings results (fortuately, NASDAQ cut Apple a break). Today, the big fruit has issued a press release with the findings of this audit, which was performed by a special committee of outside directors, independent counsel and accountants. This crack team had to shuffle through over 650,000 emails and documents (Spotlight to the rescue!), as well as conduct over 40 interviews of current and past employees.In summary, the investigation's results go a little something like this: No misconduct by current members of Apple management was found The most recent evidence of 'irregularities' points to 15 stock option grants made between 1997 and 2002. Said grants were apparently issued before their approval dates Steve Jobs knew about the grant dates, but he apparently didn't know about the slight-of-hand accounting implications, nor did he benefit from any of them The data found 'raises serious concerns' of two former officers related to the accounting, recording and reporting of these grants. Apple will provide details to the SEC Mr J is quoted apologizing to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, especially since they happened under his watch, saying "They are completely out of character for Apple." He continues saying "We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again," i.e. - somebody's in for a whole lotta iButt woopin'.In the collateral damage department, Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO from 1996 to 2004 who now serves on the company's board of directors, has decided now might be a good time to resign from said board.Finally, Apple and the audit committee agree that the company will ultimately have to restate their historical financial statements to "record non-cash charges for compensation expense relating to past stock option grants." At this time however, the company is still working to analyze their findings and determine which periods will need restating, as well as the differential amounts.
My theory on why Apple isn't including Blu-ray drives in Macs
Engadget HD linked a theory from Robert X. Cringely as to why Apple hasn't included Blu-ray drives in any of their Macs yet (it isn't even an option in the Mac Pro), despite being on the board of the Blu-ray Disc Association. Mr. Cringely more or less links the lack of Blu-ray in Macs to movies and Apple's strategy with downloadable iTS content and the upcoming iTV. The thinking goes: if Apple can sell you a downloadable movie through the iTS and an iTV on which to watch it - why undercut that model with a Blu-ray drive built right into the machine?I disagree. There's plenty of other uses and potential (heck, they can hold up to 50GB) in these warring next generation optical formats (Blu-ray and their mortal enemy, HD-DVD), and that's exactly the point: these formats are in the middle of an industry polarizing war, and I think Apple hasn't committed to including either in their machines because they don't want risk leaving their customers high and dry once the dust settles and (dear lord, finally) one format wins out. The iTS/movie downloads/iTV theory doesn't hold water in my book also because that would mean they should eliminate CD and DVD drives from their machines - after all, those drives can undercut their iTunes Store music and movie purchases, right? These discs can hold a lot more than simple movies.This ridiculous Blu-ray/HD-DVD situation is Betamax vs. VHS all over again, and while Apple is known for pushing the envelope on which technologies they adopt, I believe they're simply waiting for an actual standard to emerge. The only question is when these camps are going to get over themselves and stop forcing consumers to stock up on Advil for every trip to the electronics store.
iChat Extender - tweak iTunes status message, chat bubbles
iChat Extender is a little app that lets you tweak various settings of iChat that unfortunately don't have a pref pane of their own. Features such as the format of the 'iTunes now playing' status message and the style of chat bubbles can easily be adjusted with this handy and free app.For more fun with little apps, check out the developer's other utilities such as illis, an iTunes controller and Growl notifier, as well as Star, a menubar utility for rating your iTunes tracks and notifying you when a track is un-rated.All of these utilities are free and Universal Binaries.
Preview of new Guitar Hero II co-op mode
In case you missed it on Friday, IGN posted a pre-E3 hands-on preview of Guitar Hero II's new co-op mode. It's a departure from the first game's multiplayer mode in that the two players have to depend on each other a lot more to pass each song and thereby make beautiful music together.While the old multiplayer option will still be around in the sequel, the new mode mixes distinct lead guitar and bass or rhythm parts where each player affects the other in various ways, whether by failing if either performance slips (as in DDR), sharing the same Rock Meter (with mistakes from either player resetting the score multiplier), and needing to both go vertical at the same time to activate the shared Star Power. Thankfully, different difficulty levels can be assigned to each player.The Joystiq team out in L.A. will probably find something to do until they get their sweaty paws on a guitar controller or two on the E3 show floor (maybe one of those wacky press conferences will help pass the time), but we're sure the wait to try the latest build of this rockin' series will be worth it. The seven songs available at E3 are listed below.[Thanks, murph]
TUAW Tip: keep a Mail.app message open when replying
Today's tip involves a Mail.app hint I found that I thought was just too handy not to mention. If you use Mail.app and you open some messages in their own window, you might have noticed that if you hit reply, the original message disappears in favor of your new message composition window. Understandably, this is a source of frustration for many a user.Fortunately, Rob Griffiths over at Macworld has discovered a simple way around this: hold the option key when hitting Reply, Reply All or Forward, and the original message will stay put while a new, separate composition window opens. This makes it a little easier to refer back to the original message, especially if it's lengthy.This works on Tiger's Mail.app, but I don't have any older versions of Mac OS X to verify this on. Feel free to sound off in the comments if you've tested this on Panther or even Jaguar. My one complaint about this trick: it doesn't seem to work if you use the keyboard shortcut for Reply. Holding option when hitting cmd - r results in that Funk/hault sound, informing me that the shortcut is a no-go. Either way, this should still be a handy trick for you chronic Repliers using Mail.app.[via Hawk Wings]
