They have seen Apple's PowerBooks and they are good. According to benchmarks from barefeats, the new PowerBooks are beating the old ones in performance, despite the removal of the Level 3 cache. I won't go into everything, but the new video chip (ATI Radeon 9600) makes a huge difference in …

An article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution contains a variety of quotes from musicians as diverse as the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, David Draiman of Disturbed, and rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy indicating that the efforts being made "on their behalf" by the RIAA are not being appreciated by …

To a crowd of happy Apple enthusiasts in Paris, Steve Jobs announced revisions to the PowerBook line of G4 portable Macintosh computers. In addition, Apple has released a wireless keyboard and mouse using Bluetooth technology. The key changes in the PowerBook line are centered around the popular 15" model, which …

Apple announced today that it's Apple Music Service has served up its 10 millionth song, as of 11:34pm on September 3. This puts their run rate at a little over 500,000 songs per week and still going strong. Now, where did I see that graph saying that the …

Apple has announced this morning that it is moving the iMacs to 1GHz (15") and 1.25GHz (17"), that it has revamped the video processors (moving the 17" to the new GeForce FX 5200) and that it has added USB 2.0 to the cadre of features on the system …

Those of us waiting for our Dual 2GHz G5's to arrive may have Virginia Tech (and therefore my own tax dollars) to thank, at least in part. According to an article on Think Secret, a Macintosh rumor site, Virginia Tech has ordered 1100 of the monster new 64-bit computers to …

In an amusing political twist, Howard Dean (D-VT, running for President in 2004) and his supporters now have a "Switcher" website styled after Apple's popular (but questionably effective) Switch ad campaign.

In what is probably bad news for Apple (and certainly should have been obvious in the beginning), Microsoft has confirmed to MacWorld UK that the company's newly acquired PC emulation software is not compatible with Apple's new G5 computers due to a feature that doesn't exist in the CPU that …

The Dynamics section contained a number of papers on dealing with rigid and soft body dynamics. Because most of the papers deals with the math involved in simulating physics for these mechanisms, I won't provide a lot of detail, but there were a couple of talks that were particularly interesting …

I know, you're sick of hearing me complain about these guys, but here are some more choice complaints from users and musicians. A lengthy article of complaints from a Windows 2000 user who has bought tracks from BuyMusic.com enumerates the following problems: You must download each track in an …

Not that anyone familiar with running software on a Windows box would notice, but another hallmark of bad customer service has reared its ugly head at BuyMusic.com, insufficient testing. According to an article in USA Today, the company's new music system has not been appropriately interacting with digital music …

An article in the Washington Post takes on MusicMatch (one of the most popular Windows programs for managing music, and Apple's partner for their iPod device on the operating system) and BuyMusic.com as being misleading and difficult to use. In particular, her calls attention to misleading advertising on the …

The (presumably biased) Dr. Mac from the Houston Chronicle seems to think so. In this article, he smashes the advertising, ease-of-use, and licensing of the new site. However, the best line was definitely in this selection:"The site is called BuyMusic.com. At first glance it looks a lot like …

Pearl Jam has announced a contest to find the favorite versions of each of a dozen or so tunes that they have posted to iTunes after each concert on their current tour. Pearl Jam has taken the novel approach of posting an "album" after each concert so that attendees (or …

Not wanting to be left out of the online music game, buy.com will introduce today their BuyMusic.com service, intended to compete with Apple's iTunes Music Service, according to this report from the Associated Press (carried by Yahoo!). When I am able to actually access the system, I will …

According to an article from Macworld UK, analysts from Needham and Company believe Apple is poised to take 20% of the online music market. The article goes over the various numbers, including the analysts estimates of what Apple makes per song (they think it is between 5 and 10 cents …

Raindog Records (a subsidiary of Oasis CD Manufacturing) has just announced a service for independent musicians who want to get on to Apple's iTunes Music Service. The package includes everything from getting the data into the right formats to clearing albums (except for cover tunes) straight through to the service …

Wired has an interesting article describing the "guerrillas" who have invaded this week's MacWorld show in New York to taut their favorite software package (Final Cut Pro) as a mechanism for revolutionizing film. What surprised me was that there are 27,000 members of the FCPUG (Final Cut Pro User …

Don't like the way Safari looks or acts? Microsoft Internet Explorer got you down? If you're a Macintosh developer and have installed the latest SDK from Apple, you can write your own web browser with "one line of code" by following the instructions in this article from CocoaDevCentral. Admittedly, the …

Apple and Volkswagen are doing a promotion this summer wherein new Beetle owners get a new iPod with the car (along with an accessory kit to mate the two). The commercial is very cool.