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TUAW's Daily Mac App: Shuttie
Ever wanted to leave your Mac running unattended at night, but don't want it running all night long? Today's Daily Mac App will help you do just that. Shuttie allows you to bind one of six actions to a countdown timer, allowing you to shutdown, restart, sleep or logout of your Mac, or fire off an AppleScript or an alert. You select the action you want, the countdown time and hit the activate button. Shuttie will provide periodic Growl notifications as it counts down to zero, as well as a timer on its dock icon, and then it will initiate whichever activity you've got selected. Loading an AppleScript is a drag-and-drop affair while your desired alert text is entered into a text box. Sure, there are other ways of doing this kind of thing, but Shuttie is a good way to set up these tasks to be performed remotely. It's US$1.99 in the Mac App Store.
Jaguar will actually build million-dollar C-X75 hybrid supercar in 2013
You know how we said that 780bhp electric pipe dream Jaguar had last year wasn't going to be anything more than a concept? Well, we were wrong. Sort of. You see, the British automaker has just announced its intention to produce a limited run of 250 C-X75 supercars in partnership with Formula 1 team Williams, however the retail model will eschew the craziest aspect of the original design -- the twin turbine engines at the back. Those will be replaced with a four-cylinder, turbocharged petrol engine, which will aid the four electric motors (one attached to each wheel). Don't worry, though, this tweak has actually made the C-X75 accelerate even faster, as it's now rated to go from 0 to 60mph in under three seconds. 2013 is when the earliest production of this road-faring beast is expected to commence, with prices starting at £700,000 ($1.15 million), and there's even a glimmer of hope that a version with the gas turbines will also be built at some point down the line. Crazy, just crazy. Check the C-X75 out on video after the break, where Jay Leno gives you a tour around its dramatic design.
Isis mobile payment system to work with Visa and MasterCard, shelving plans for its own network
When AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon came together to create the Isis mobile payment system, they touted a standalone service, powered by Discover's payment network, that would revolutionize the way we make small purchases on the move. Well, the revolution is still on schedule, apparently, but the big trio is now being said to have made a concession in reaching out to the incumbent leaders in this field, Visa and MasterCard. The Wall Street Journal cites multiple sources in reporting that Isis has turned into a less ambitious "mobile wallet" project that would seek to let you use your Visa or MasterCard account via your NFC-capable smartphone. As far as the consumer is concerned, it's still the same swipe-to-buy proposition, but the move was apparently necessary for Isis "to avoid falling further behind" in the race to corner this developing market. We'd say it's encouraging to see these guys showing a bit of swiftness -- it's about time the rest of the world caught up to Japan.
Formula 1 cars set to go all electric in the pit lane from 2013 onwards, racing purists outraged already
Formula 1, the pinnacle of gas-powered racing, is more often at odds with the eco-conscious electric car movement than in tune with it, but here's an exception to that rule. The FIA, the sport's governing body, announced back in December of last year a move to a hybrid four-cylinder turbocharged engine, which is still on track to be introduced in the 2013 season, and Williams boss Adam Parr has now enlightened us on some of the benefits of the new power setup. Noting that future cars' kinetic energy recovery system will be four times as powerful as on current models, Parr says enough electric juice will be available to power each one-seater through its journey into and out of the pit lane. That would mean that at least for the tame, speed-restricted portions of a race, the F1 gas guzzlers you know and love will be humming along in almost perfect silence while using good old electricity. Unfortunately, it's exactly that lack of vroom vroom that old timers like Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo are afraid of, describing the new hybrid stuff as sounding "terrible" and insisting on the sport sticking to its V8 roots. Then again, as Parr says, if you don't move with the times, the times leave you behind.
Nokia transfers Symbian development and 3,000 employees to Accenture, will downsize workforce by further 4,000
Nokia's already done quite a bit to cut ties with last year's big push for Symbian and Qt development, though this is perhaps the biggest step yet. The Finnish company has announced it's transferring responsibility for Symbian development to consulting and outsourcing firm Accenture, which sounds odd given the latter outfit's inexperience in delivering mobile OS updates, but the good news is that the 3,000 devs Nokia had working on Symbian will continue their jobs under the new employer. That basically means that Nokia will live up to its unhappy promise that there'll be "substantial reductions in employment" within its own ranks, while still keeping the men and women responsible for updating Symbian employed. Unfortunately, there will still be a further 4,000 job cuts in the company's global workforce, primarily in Finland, Denmark and the UK, which will "occur in phases" between the beginning and end of next year. Nokia's agreement with Accenture also involves continued collaboration on delivering mobility software and services on the Windows Phone platform. You can read more about that in the PR after the break.
Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon roadmap leaks, exhibits great expectations (updated)
Seems like we just can't get ARM's next-generation Cortex-A15 system-on-chip out of our minds. Having figured as a headline item in LG's ARM licensing deal this morning, it's now shown up on a leaked Qualcomm roadmap, landing itself a lynchpin role in that company's Snapdragon future. Alas, Qualcomm had been promising for the earliest of its MSM8930 / 60 and APQ8064 Snapdragons to be sampling in Q2 of this year, but this latest schedule shows them as sampling at the end of 2011 (see update). This isn't hugely surprising in light of ARM's recent forecast of Cortex-A15 devices in "late 2012," but it'll be disappointing to users keen to be exploiting quad-GPU and quad-CPU mobile rigs as soon as humanly possible. Guess that just leaves us waiting for the NGP or NVIDIA's quad-core SOC in August. Hit the source link for more on Qualcomm's plans for the near and distant future. [Thanks, Mike] Update: Qualcomm got in touch to correct the timing here. The company's 3G/LTE MSM8960 chipset remains on track to sample in this quarter, as promised in the company's latest earnings report. The other two parts were already expected to come later, so there's no delay to speak of. Just juicy specs.
LG licenses ARM Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 graphics, starts scheming up mobile processors of its own
Some of LG's brightest attractions at the moment are the dual-core Optimus 2X and Optimus 3D smartphones and similarly equipped Optimus Pad tablet. The only problem with them? Those multicore chips are produced by NVIDIA for the 2X and Pad and Texas Instruments for the Optimus 3D, leaving LG a clear step behind its arch-nemesis Samsung who is producing its own dual-core system-on-chip. So what else could LG possibly do but buy its own ARM license -- specifically for the Cortex-A9 design that is dominating today and the Cortex-A15 with Mali-T604 graphics that promises to rule the mobile world from 2012 onwards -- and start churning out its own processors? The Korean company certainly has the budget, if not the manufacturing facilities, to produce such chips at volume, and we're all for seeing another competitor enter the ARM arena. This licensing deal also reminds us that the last fresh licensee to ARM's blueprints was Microsoft -- so we can now look forward to two industry giants bringing their technical expertise to this rapidly growing marketplace. See LG's full press release after the break.
Nintendo confirms next Wii coming in 2012, will preview it at E3
Nintendo has just announced it plans to introduce a successor to its Wii console next year, a "playable model" of which will be shown off at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles coming up on June 7th. No details are available as to how the next Wii will improve on the first one, though we imagine Nintendo will be happy if it simply matches the success of its current-gen home entertainer -- the brief note publicizing the new roadmap also comes with a total of Wii sales accumulated between its launch in '06 and the end of last month: 86.01 million. That's said to be on a "consolidated shipment basis," so maybe Nintendo is mixing its definitions of sales and shipments the way Sony likes to, but it's a mighty big number either way. Bring on E3, we say! Update: Bloomberg has provided the first official hint about Nintendo's next console with a quote from company President Satoru Iwata. Nintendo will "propose a new approach to home video game consoles," though it won't be a simple move to 3D, as Iwata notes "it's difficult to make 3-D images a key feature, because 3-D televisions haven't obtained wide acceptance yet." Given that motion gaming is no longer new and 3D is off the table until 3DTVs go mainstream, we're now left facing only one potentiality -- Nintendo is planning on bringing genuine innovation to our living rooms. We suppose it also adds fuel to the rumor of a crazy next-gen controller to go with this next-gen console.
Nissan recovering from quake, ramps up Leaf deliveries
We have some good news from the Land of the Rising Sun -- a fresh batch of Leafs are on their way to American shores. At the New York Auto show, Nissan announced that the first shipments of post earthquake-produced EVs should be in the hands of American consumers by April 27th. The company still expects to fulfill current orders by the end of summer and on May 1st will begin accepting new reservations for vehicles in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. Buyers in the southeastern US will be able to join the plug-in parade this fall, to be followed by a nationwide launch in 2012. Now that the auto manufacturing plants are getting back to business as usual following the tsunami that ravaged Japan, we can only hope the rest of the country isn't too far behind. PR after the break.
ARM predicts dual-core Cortex-A15 devices in late 2012, quad-core variants 'later on'
Smartphones and tablets, the two hottest categories of consumer devices right now, are dominated by ARM processor designs, so when the company speaks up about its product roadmap, we're inclined to listen in close. The next generation of ARM system-on-chip has been dubbed Cortex-A15 and was expected to ship in 2013, but that's now been accelerated slightly to late 2012, which is when we're told to expect actual devices on sale with A15 silicon on board. Single- and dual-core variants will get us started, before quad-core options start filtering through in 2013. ARM promises a stunning fivefold improvement in performance over current Cortex-A9 SOCs and already has NVIDIA, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments signed up as licensees for that new hotness. So now even Samsung's "desktop-class" 2GHz dual-core chip that's slated for 2012 has a reason to look over its shoulder. Happy times!
LG Optimus 2X to be upgraded to Gingerbread in summer, says Danish support site (updated)
Other than saying Gingerbread will be forthcoming for its dual-core Optimus 2X Android handset, LG has been pretty mum on the subject of software updates. It's good, therefore, to finally extract a timeframe out of the company, albeit from a somewhat obscure source. LG's Danish support site tells us that the P990 (the internal code number for the 2X) will be updated to Android 2.3 "in June-July 2011." That's a fair bit later than we might have expected or hoped for the upgrade to happen, particularly given the various software foibles that the device we reviewed suffered from, but the summer of 2011 will always be preferable to the summer of never. A final warning is perhaps merited here to say that LG has been a bit inconsistent when it comes to software roadmaps, so consider this one scribbled down in pencil until we hear more concrete confirmation from the company. [Thanks, Michael] Update: LG's marketing chief for Denmark and Iceland, Morten Aagard, has responded to this intel by saying that actually the Optimus 2X will be updated to Android 2.3 in "mid-May." Update 2: Morten's been misquoted, apparently. LG has now told us directly that it's targeting this summer.
Intel to support USB 3.0 alongside Thunderbolt, coming with Ivy Bridge in 2012
We were just pondering this very thing yesterday -- would Intel dedicate itself to Thunderbolt and give USB 3.0 the cold shoulder -- and now we have our answer from the Santa Clara crew, albeit delivered from Beijing. The Chinese capital is the site of Intel's currently ongoing developer conference, which is where Kirk Skaugen, VP of the company's Architecture Group, assured the world that the promise for native USB 3.0 support in Intel chipsets will be fulfilled. Not this year, mind you, but it'll be with us in 2012 as part of the Ivy Bridge CPU refresh. That matches AMD's plans to support USB 3.0 in Fusion APUs, and was augmented with a strong word of endorsement from Skaugen about the connector's future. He urged developers to embrace USB 3.0 on an equal footing with Intel's proprietary Thunderbolt interconnect, describing the two technologies as "complementary." If you say so, captain.
Fujitsu to build 1Gbps fiber optic broadband network in the UK, but needs BT to play fair first
Good news for anyone feeling left behind by the broadband revolution just because of their post code: Fujitsu has just announced a joint venture to deliver fiber optic connectivity to neglected rural homes in the UK. Built on hardware provided by Cisco and supported by Virgin Media and TalkTalk, this network will focus on channeling fiber directly to the home, which is said to provide symmetrical 1Gbps bandwidth with up to 10Gbps speeds considered possible down the line. Best news of all, perhaps, is that the cabling will be available on a wholesale basis to all ISPs, not just the ones involved in the project, so the UK may finally get a decent taste of what competition in the internet service space feels like. Alas, there's a key line in the press release that notes the new venture is dependent on BT providing "access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," which it apparently isn't doing at the moment. Ah well, we're sure they'll sort things out like the mature professionals that they are. Full PR after the break.
Intel Thunderbolt dev kits coming this quarter, hopefully ushering in more 10Gbps-capable devices
Intel has just announced it will soon be making development kits available for its new Thunderbolt interconnect. The cable that can carry 10Gbps (in both directions!) has so far only seen itself installed in Apple's MacBook Pro computers, but storage and other peripheral manufacturers are starting to unveil their lightning-scorched offerings this week at NAB and this announcement is sure to give Thunderbolt an extra spur of momentum. What's going to be intriguing going forward is to see whether manufacturers take it up instead of USB 3.0 or install the DisplayPort lookalike alongside the latest and greatest from the USB camp. If you ask us, we can never have enough high-speed interconnects... how does SuperSpeed Thunderbolt sound?
Samsung refutes talk of Galaxy S II delays, promises April launch in at least some places
So yesterday we learned that Samsung's planning to speed up the dual-core Exynos processor inside its Galaxy S II to 1.2GHz, but there was also word that the handset may suffer a setback in terms of release date. Today, the company has tweeted out a two-part notice assuring us that that will not be the case and things are proceeding "as planned." April will see the first retail appearance of the 8.5mm-thick Android phone, though Samsung does advise that "it will be gradually rolled out in each market according to the local launch timetable." That sounds to us like whatever April availability we get will be in the highest priority markets and / or limited in quantity, but we'll take whatever we can get. [Thanks, Erik]
Gingerbread update for Samsung Galaxy S to start rolling out in mid-April
Official word from Samsung's Finnish site informs us that local owners of its Galaxy S smartphone will be receiving their Gingerbread fix around the middle of this month. Less direct, but still pretty reliable, confirmation of this comes from UK carrier Three, who promises the same OS version will be arriving to its users of the handset "in a couple of weeks." Considering an Android 2.3.2 build for the Galaxy S already leaked out way back in February, few should be surprised at the timing of this release, but prior experience still urges us to be wary when it comes to Samsung and its software update schedules. [Thanks, Juho]
Dell Streak 10 to launch mid-June with Honeycomb, possible name change in the works
Dell's Windows 7 Rosemount tablet may not make it to the beach with you this summer, but that doesn't mean the company won't have an Android alternative when it's time to start applying sunblock. According to Forbes, the 10-inch Android-powered slate we got an oh-so-quick glimpse of at CES should be ready to hit the market somewhere around mid-June, just a little bit later than we'd previously heard. The publication also hints that the tablet heretofore referred to as the Streak 10 may not retain that moniker when it's time to launch, but it will most definitely be running Honeycomb, though we're not sure if it'll keep the Stage UI. Either way, summer 2011 is shaping up to be the season of Honeycomb, and we're excited to see just what each manufacturer will do to differentiate themselves in the increasingly-crowded space.
Isis NFC payment system gets its first market in Salt Lake City, Utah, launches in 2012
Like 3D on high-end HDTVs, NFC-based payment systems seem set to invade our mobile lives whether we like them or not. Isis, a collaborative venture between AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and a bunch of banking big timers, has today announced the first market for its rollout of a contactless payment scheme, and it's none other than Salt Lake City, Utah. That'll surely raise eyebrows in locales that may consider themselves more tech-savvy, but we reckon starting off with a city of a smaller scale might be good for getting this "mobile wallet" system off the ground. And then there's the added benefit of Isis snagging a deal to enable compatibility with the entire Utah Transit Authority footprint. If all plans are executed properly, that should mean that by summer 2012 the good people of SLC will be able to NFC their way around town with just their smartphone in hand, while also swiping it through checkouts like some form of highly advanced techno-humans.
Dell's 10-inch Windows 7 tablet staying hidden until fall
Dell's Rosemount tablet is similar to the HP Slate in that it's a 10-inch, business-centric Windows 7 tablet whose launch has been bumped back further than originally expected. To be clear, this isn't an explicit delay, since Dell has never given official indication for when in 2011 it'll launch the slate device, but a leaked tablet roadmap back in February suggested it would be with us in the warm and breezy days of June. Now, Forbes is reporting insider info that states the Rosemount won't be hitting shops until fall, September at the earliest, meaning it'll miss the back-to-school sales period but arrive with plenty of time for the holiday shopping rush. Let's hope all this time taken leads to a finger-friendly software overlay for Windows 7 -- we love the OS' multivariate functionality but it was never designed for control with the imprecision of fleshy digits.
SOE layoffs affect timetable for PlanetSide Next [Updated]
Last week we got the bad news that Sony Online Entertainment laid off 205 employees and shuttered the Denver, Seattle, and Tucson studios. The announcement was coupled with the news that that The Agency, the long-anticipated "spy-fi" MMO, was also being canceled. The intent, SOE said, was to focus on its upcoming MMOs based on its extant IPs: PlanetSide Next and EverQuest Next. However, in the wake of all the layoffs, there will also apparently be a delay in the development time-frame for PlanetSide Next. According to a statement by John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, the game "will be out a little later in the year" but the team is focused on "pulling out all the stops to make it great." It's sad news, but we're certain that a lot of PlanetSide fans would rather have a great, polished game over a game pushed out quickly to meet a now-unrealistic development schedule. Update: SOE's John Smedley has posted several reassuring comments to the PlanetSide Universe forums: Recently (a few weeks ago actually) we made the call to update the game to a new internally developed engine. Doing that meant delaying the game, but we thought it was in the best interests of PlanetSide Next. It also means delaying releasing further info for a little while. I will let you all know more when we firm up the schedule. The likely next step is a larger scale release of information and the beta signups going up. As I've said previously current Planetside subs will be included automatically. Normally when we do game announcements we do a much bigger concerted information push all at once and these kind of one off posts don't happen. In this case I feel like the PlanetSide audience has hung in with us for a long time and I really want to involve you all more in advance of the official info. However what happens is everything gets carried across the net and the actual info gets changed. I'm sorry for that happening. We will do our best to keep you informed early. But that necessarily means that sometimes when things change you have to be ready for that too. (Thanks to Matt for the tip!)
