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Evolio announces the Quadra, its first quad-core Android 4.1 tablet for Romanian locals
The buy local movement has plenty of appeal, but the philosophy often extends more readily to tomatoes than tablets. Not so in Romania, where Evolio has served up its share of slates and laptops for the home crowd. Now, the company is back with its first quad-core tablet offering, the 10.1-inch Evolio Quadra. The slab of aluminum and glass weighs in at 1.18 pounds (535 grams), and is outfitted with a 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex A9 CPU and the Vivante GC1000 GPU, which sits on the lower end of Vivante's offerings. Other specs are largely standard fare, such as a 1,280 x 800 IPS LCD, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage and Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The Quadra's 5,000mAh battery is on the weaker side, and its connectivity is limited to WiFi (outside of an external 3G adapter), but that's what you'll get for 999 Romanian leu (roughly $296). This slab of Eastern European engineering is available for pre-order now on Evolio's website, and it's said to hit store shelves in mid-June.
Before there was Boot Camp, there were DOS Compatibility Cards
With our zippy Intel Macs able to eagerly boot up Windows 7 in Boot Camp, VMWare, Parallels, and VirtualBox, it's difficult to fathom that it was ever a problem to run Microsoft operating systems on our Apple boxes. The situation wasn't that good just a scant 15 or so years ago. Back in the bleak days before the triumphant return of Steve Jobs to 1 Infinite Loop, Apple had a broad and confusing product line. Since DOS and Windows 3.1 were already entrenched in business worldwide, Apple knew that they had to have a way for Macs to run Microsoft operating systems in order to gain any sort of traction in the corporate world. Edible Apple ran a wonderful retrospective yesterday that looked at Apple's DOS Compatibility Cards. These were basically PCs on a NuBus or PCI cards that were inserted into a slot in the Mac, using the Mac's power supply, floppy and hard drives, and keyboard and mouse. Sporting such amazing CPUs as the Intel 486SX running at a whopping 25 MHz clock speed, the original cards worked with the Centris 610 and Quadra 610 and were released in 1994. By the next year a second edition was released with an Intel 486DX/66, and was targeted at the PowerMac 6100 and Performa 6100. Further research shows that there were several subsequent cards that included even faster Pentium and Cyrix 6x86 processors, were called "PC Compatibility Cards," and were designed for use in other PowerMac models. I can recall acquiring one of the Pentium-based cards and using it to try to entice our one DOS holdout department to move to Macs (they didn't). Today's Windows compatibility is the best it has ever been on the Mac platform, and usually the only "hardware upgrade" required is to add some inexpensive RAM to the host Mac. Things might sometimes change slowly, but at least in the world of technology, the change is usually for the best.
LaCie debuts 8TB 4big Quadra, new RAID bundles at NAB
Not sure if you've noticed, but NAB is in full swing over in Las Vegas. Not one to let a spotlight pass it by, LaCie has today introduced a new 8TB model of its 4big Quadra alongside a trio of new storage bundles for professionals who need gobs of free space and loads of speed. The 4big Quadra is a 4-bay RAID solution that handles hot-swappable disks and seven RAID modes, and by hitting up one the outfit's new combos (8TB, 16TB and 32TB), you also get a 4-port eSATA II PCI Express Card 3Gb/s card. Check 'em this May starting at $1,999.
LaCie updates external hard drives, launches the Little Big Disk Quadra
Alright, LaCie. We understand when you namecheck the designer of your new ultra-minimalist external drives, but the d2 line has been shipping since like 2002 -- so we're not going to get excited about the look of the thing, no matter how "quintessentially Neil Poulton" the design. Additions to the lineup includes a revised d2 Quadra eSATA / FireWire 800 / FireWire 400 / USB 2.0 drive, an eSATA version of the Big Disk Extreme+, and the new Little Big Disk Quadra portable drive. The d2 Quadra gets a couple more heatsink ridges and a new lower starting price of $189, while the Big Disk Extreme+ stays pretty much the same with the addition of eSATA. The new 1.4-pound dual-disk Little Big Disk Quadra starts at $475 and features a fanless design with one eSATA port, two FireWire 800 ports, and a single USB 2.0 port for access to capacities of up to 500GB. The drive also features built-in RAID 0 capability, which boosts transfer speeds to 110MB/s over eSATA. All this stuff is available now, according to LaCie.Read - d2 QuadraRead - Big Disk Extreme+Read - Little Big Disk Quadra
Rig of the Day: Family reunion
Today's rig shot is fantastic. Flickr user and TUAW reader thenode hosted a bit of a "family reunion" for many of his Macs. Specifically, he got a Powerbook 520c, an SE-30, a Quadra 630 and a Mac mini (the youngster of the group) all networked together to play Armor Alley. The kids even got in on the fun. As thenode said, "This is a true monument to what you can do if you have enough cables." As a person who loves playing with vintage Macs, I've got to be biased and say this may be my favorite rig shot so far. "Family Reunion" posted by thenode.For the month of April, the theme for our Rig of the Day will be "Vintage Macs" in honor of Apple's anniversary. If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Let's see your vintage Macs (Apples and Newtons, too)! We'll select an image every day to highlight.
30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Has it really been 30 years since two buddies named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz's HP calculator and Jobs' VW van) to raise money and launch a company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don't believe it, just compare Jobs' hairlines from '76 and today. And while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here's to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.
