From the source CBC article:
They say money talks, and a new report suggests Canadian currency is indeed chatting, at least electronically, on behalf of shadowy spies. Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence.
This is one of the strangest thing I’ve ever heard…
Apple today officially announced the little box formerly known as the iTV, now dubbed the Apple TV. Nothing new has really been announced, and the honours of the day of course duly went to the quite stunning iPhone. The Apple TV price tag was confirmed, at US $299.
Pretty neat and cheap little device, but one detail to note is that it will not ship with a cable to link it to your TV (see What’s in the box), which will probably fetch another US $20 or more at purchase time.
Also, unless 3rd-party cable providers jump on the bandwagon, and/or that the device itself does not make use of Macrovision-like DRM technologies, the Apple TV will also not be compatible with analog TV sets (See the connection options), unless plugged in an intermediary solution like a cable/satellite set-top box or other. This is of course conveniently in line with the media industry’s quest to plugging the infamous analog hole (booh, there be dragons in there!).
For those just as tempted as I to press the shiny pre-order button, I’d suggest to consider the family=AppleTV in the URL at the online Apple Store. Can you see the bigger-drive-coming-soon flag too?
On another front, Sling Media announced (1, 2) the upcoming release of their very similar offering, the SlingCatcher, at the Consumer Electronics Show.
We will probably have to watch for the same limitations as the former device, but one big point is that this solution is currently said to be media agnostic.
This is an important fact in my context, since I have digital videos that go back to close to 10 years now, and some of them will not play in Quicktime without the addition of extra codecs (such as wmv, xvid, divx, etc). Apple currently only lists the iTunes compatible H.264 and MP4 (without avi encapsulations).
Other codecs enabled via plug-ins do not import into iTunes at this time (2007-01-09), but interestingly will play in Front Row. I say this is interesting because Front Row seems to use iTunes for video playback (iTunes is launched in the background). Apple probably doesn’t want to have to deal with the AVI metadata format.
But there might still be hope, if the Update Software seen in the Settings view is not just an interface to the Mac OS X Software Update utility, and allows for additional plugins to be installed. Or, like in Front Row, if it is possible to stream movies from mounted server, instead of the iTune daap Bonjour/ZeroConf-based streaming protocol (or video-enabled successor?). If I was a 3rd-party QT codec provider, I’d probably be begging them to do so right now, but as much as I enjoy their products, Apple doesn’t have the best record for letting others play with their toys.
The price tag for the SlingCatcher is currently pre-announced at around US $200, or about $100 less than the Apple TV. The better solutions for me could still be a Mac Mini using Front Row, which has its own upsides (full feldged OS, analog adapter, DVD player/burner, external expandability, etc) and problems (US $599 v. > 300, thicker, etc). Or also a PS3 running Linux.
Um, again left with decisions… Bah, I still have a few weeks to decide before my birthday anyway. 😉
Update: 2007-01-10: Apple does not actually manufacture/(re-)brand connection cables at all. The ones listed on their site are actually made by Xtreme Mac. Also, some of the same questions/concerns I had have been addressed by some of the Ars Technica editors.
Paul Davies, George Efstathiou, David Gross and Leonard Susskind, four of the world’s most renowned physicists, will debate the fundamental questions of existence at A Cosmic Coincidence: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? McGill University’s second annual Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium. The symposium will address the controversial anthropic principle: the notion that the universe is somehow specifically “tuned” to support life as we know it.
What: The 2007 Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium: A Cosmic Coincidence: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?
When: 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, January 25, 2007
Where: McGill University Main Campus, Leacock Building, Room 132
Live Webcast (on January 25)
This symposium will be presented in English with simultaneous French translation.
Read the source article on the McGill Newsroom.
Well, it’s our last vacation day in Boynton Beach, Florida, and as you can assume from the attached photo, my family and I had a blast (don’t be fooled by the body board, there are no real waves, but enough to fool around in with the kids.). Plane tomorrow, back to school for my oldest on Monday, and back to work for me on the 10th. My wife and two youngest will be staying an extra week.
And of course, back to more tech-oriented blogging for me. 🙂
Update: 2007-01-12: Link to Google Map where the photo was taken.
Each week, the Magazine chronicles interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts from the news, through its strand 10 things we didn’t know last week. Here, to round off the year, are some of the best from the past 12 months.
Yum, trivia. 🙂
We’re playing snowbirds for the holidays this year, and one of our first activities was to bring the kids to the Lion Country Safari, (map) in West Palm Beach, Florida.
I’m usually not much of a zoo-goer. I even once got my entire class kicked out of one for sneaking behind my teacher’s back and opening cages to release the animals when I was about 8, in France. On the other hand, those open air, free-roaming and conservation oriented ones are more to my liking. I’d still much rather see those animals free, in their natural habitats, but given so many of those species are now endangered, I have to take the lesser of two evils approach.
You can find a few photos below or go to the equivalent Flickr set or slideshow.
It was quite nice, but if you are in the area during the summer, I have to say that the Parc Safari, in Hemmingford, Quebec, is much larger and a lot more fun and interactive.
I’ll be on a plane early tomorrow, so I will wish you all some very happy holidays.
And if I somehow stay offline that long, may 2007 bring [more] peace on Earth.
Best regards to you and yours.
Stephane Daury
Please note: this is an early report, and more details will be posted as I have more time to dig deeper into Fusion. Loads of screenshots in the meantime.
As I mentioned earlier, VMWare Fusion for Mac has had its first beta version released publicly today. My first thought was to try the existing Fedora Core 6 x86 virtual machine I put up for download a few weeks ago, to see if it would run as is on my 2006 Core Duo Macbook.
Having experience with both VMWare on other platforms and Parallels Desktop on the Mac, I was eager to see how the two compared. Having moved VMs between OS platforms with VMWare, I really wanted to know if the Mac would indeed be treated equally.
So since I’m busy packing for a holiday trip, and only have little time for it, I thought I’d post screenshots of how it all went. Hint: it’s all good. 🙂 You can go ahead and download my VM image, and give it a shot for yourself.
I’m only going to embed a few screenshots below, so the page stays light, but here is a complete archive: FC6_in_VMWare_Fusion_Beta-SCREENSHOTS-20061222.zip (71 screenshots. SHA1SUM: 0e468e48e8727ff842258e720b323960f19b92ad)
The new VMware desktop product for the Mac, codenamed Fusion, allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X. It is built on VMware’s rock-solid and advanced desktop virtualization platform that is used by over four million users today.
The beta is now freely downloadable. Looks like Parallels is going to have some competition. Eager to see how this pans out, or if Apple builds virtualization in their next-gen OS.
I also wonder if the VMWare images I have built will work as is on my Mac. Can’t wait to try it.
Hoping Parallels and Fusion won’t somehow conflict whe installed on the same box.