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News & Opinion
Tech Trends
Products & Services
Software
News & Opinion
Sony Acquiring Steve Jobs Biography for Major
Feature Film
Deadline.com's Mike Fleming reports that he's just learned that Sony
Pictures is making a hefty deal to acquire feature rights to Steve
Jobs, the upcoming authorized biography by former CNN chairman and
Time Magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson. The Isaacson book was
supposed to be published on November 21st by Simon & Schuster, but
now the release date has moved up to October 24th, according to a
spokeswoman for the publisher.
At the time of Jobs death, only one movie had ever chronicled his
rise to tech titan: Pirates of Silicon
Valley, a semi-humorous docudrama about the two
visionaries behind Microsoft and Apple based on the book Fire In The
Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger
& Michael Swaine. The movie starred Anthony Michael Hall as Bill
Gates and Noah Wyle as Jobs. Reportedly, Jobs thought the ER
actor did a fantastic job donning the turtleneck. And, during the
Macworld NY in July 1999, Jobs had Wyle come out dressed like him to
start the keynote.
Link: Sony Pictures
Acquiring New Steve Jobs Biography for Major Feature Film (preorder
Steve Jobs in hardcover from Amazon.com
for $17.88, or get the Kindle
edition for just $16.99)
Finding an Actor to Play Steve Jobs
Cnet's Edward Moyer asks:
"Who would you pick to play Steve Jobs in a feature-length fimic
biography of the tech titan?
"You can bet that question is being pondered mightily by producer
Mark Gordon and his production entity MG360, who, along with Sony
Pictures, may eventually bring such a biopic to the screen. (And you
can bet an actor or three is howling at his agent to 'Get me that
part!')
"We're wondering if Noah Wyle is possibly in the running. As you may
recall, the ER star played Jobs in the 1999 made-for-TV flick
Pirates of Silicon Valley, opposite Anthony Michael Hall's Bill
Gates."
Moyer also includes a video of Wyle's 1999 turn at the Macworld New
York keynote standing in briefly for the real Steve Jobs.
Link:
Casting About for an Actor to Play Steve Jobs
Expected Specifications for the Next Mac Pro
Hardmac's Lionel, citing information from the Chinese language
Website it.com.cn, notes that while
he has been expecting new models of Mac Pro to come out in late 2011 or
even early 2012, he's getting more and more information about the
components that will likely be inside, such as the Sandy Bridge E
processors and now their chipset X79, on which one of the Mac Pros will
be based, both for the single and dual processor models, along
with:
- Support of 4 channels of memory, up from 3 on the current
model
- 64 PCI-Express links, enough to have several 8x and 16x slots and
Thunderbolt
- 14 SATA connections, 10 of which will be SATA III with native
support of RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD
- 14 USB 2.0 connections. If Apple wants to include support for the
USB 3.0, an extra chip will have to be added, or you will have to add a
specific card for that, which at least is easy to do on the Mac
Pro.
Link: More Information
About Expected Specifications of the New Mac Pro
Could Removing DRM Decrease Music Piracy?
CDRinfo reports on new research that challenges conventional wisdom
that removal of restrictions would increase piracy levels. Contrary to
the traditional views of the music industry, removal of digital rights
management (DRM) restrictions can actually decrease piracy, according
to new research from Rice University and Duke University.
Marketing professors Dinah Vernik of Rice and Devavrat Purohit and
Preyas Desai of Duke used analytical modeling to examine how piracy is
influenced by the presence or absence of DRM restrictions, which
prevent unauthorized copies of digital data, such as music, from being
made. They found that while these restrictions make piracy more costly
and difficult, the restrictions also have a negative impact on legal
users who have no intention of doing anything illegal.
"...Steve Jobs said it best: 'Why would the big four music companies
agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM
systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't
worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy,'" Vernik
comments.
The findings will appear in the November-December issue of
Marketing Science.
Link: Removing DRM Could
Decrease Music Piracy, Researchers Say
OCZ Purchases Oxford Semiconductors
Hardmac's Lionel reports that after purchasing Indilynx, OCZ has
decided to purchase the European division of PLX, which was originally
part of Oxford Semiconductors.
This name is pretty well known since it was Oxford which made the
first controllers to make FireWire hard drive cases 10 years ago.
Lionel says he now hopes that OCZ will let Oxford continue the
development of SATA-FireWire controllers, because otherwise, the market
would use one of the most active companies in that field, with the
market shrinking every day with wider adoption of USB 3.0.
Link: OCZ Purchases
Oxford Controllers
Tech Trends
Gartner: Worldwide Q3 2011 PC Shipments Up 3.2%;
Apple Up 21% in US
PR: For the first time, Lenovo is No. 2 in PC sales
worldwide, displacing Dell, according to a new report from Gartner
Inc., but domestically, Apple is leading the growth pack with a
whopping 21.5% increase in PC sales, spearheaded by the robust
popularity of the MacBook Air with US consumers.
Gartner Inc. reports that worldwide PC shipments totaled 91.8
million units in the third quarter of 2011, a 3.2% increase
year-over-year according to preliminary results, which are coming in
slightly lower than Gartner's earlier projection of 5.1% growth for the
quarter. The EMEA [Europe, Middle East, Asia] region contributed to
lower-than-expected growth led by a weak Western European market.
"The inventory buildup, which slowed growth the last four quarters,
mostly cleared out during the third quarter of this year; however, the
PC industry has been performing below normal seasonality," says Gartner
principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "As expected, back-to-school PC
sales were disappointing in mature markets, confirming that the
consumer PC market continues to be weak. The popularity of non-PC
devices, including media tablets, such as the iPad and smartphones,
took consumers' spending away from PCs.
"As the PC market faced a slowdown, vendor consolidation has become
a more apparent trend in the industry. Lenovo's recent merger with NEC,
and its acquisition of Medion, as well as HP's announcement that it may
spin off or sell its PC business, underlined this trend during the
quarter."
The report notes that HP, the No. 1 vendor based on global PC
shipments, grew faster than the industry average, its market share
reaching 17.7% in the third quarter of 2011 (see Table 1). Despite
announcing in the middle of 2Q11 the potential spinoff of its PC
business, HP experienced strong growth in the US, while outside the US,
growth was relatively weak or average.
Lenovo has become the second-largest PC vendor in the worldwide
market for the first time - the company's expansion boosted in part by
the joint vendor with NEC in Japan. However, aggressive marketing to
both the professional and consumer PC markets also accelerated Lenovo's
shipment volume.
Dell's performance was below the industry average in most regions,
as the company faced intensified competition in the professional space,
where Dell has been traditionally strong. Acer mostly cleared its
inventory buildup in the EMEA region by the third quarter of 2011.
However, channels have been adopting a conservative position in regard
to placing orders following the inventory issues. Asus widened the gap
with Toshiba, the sixth-largest vendor. Asus achieved strong growth in
China.
In the US, PC shipments totaled 17.8 million units in the third
quarter of 2011, a 1.1% increase from the third quarter of 2010. The US
PC market experienced year-over-year growth for the first time in three
quarters. While the consumer market continued to be weak with
disappointing back-to-school sales in the third quarter, the inventory
was kept mostly in check as industry expectations were relatively
low.
"The main contributor to the weak consumer PC market in the US was
intensified competition for consumers' money," Ms. Kitagawa says.
"Media tablets and smartphones took center stage in the US retail
sector, and the expectation is for continuing demand for these devices
throughout the holiday season."
HP showed strong growth in the US PC market, as shipments increased
15.1% in the third quarter, and its market share totaled 28.9% (see
Table 2). Despite the potential spinoff of its PC business, HP
executives' efforts to give the appearance of "business as usual"
seemed to work in the quarter.
Dell struggled as shipments declined 7.2% in the third quarter of
2011. "Dell's issue has been balancing profitability and market share
gain, a difficult task in a PC industry where high volumes and low
margins are the norm," Ms. Kitagawa said.
Gartner's early study shows that Apple experienced the strongest
growth among the top five vendors in the US PC market. Apple's PC
shipments increased 21.5% in the third quarter of 2011. The robust
growth of the MacBook Air
continued to lead Apple's overall growth in the US market.
PC growth in EMEA reached 26.6 million units in the third quarter of
2011, a 2.9% decline from the second quarter of 2010. It was the third
consecutive quarter that the EMEA region has experienced negative
growth. However, analysts said vendors may have seen the end of
backed-up inventory issues, which have been pulling down growth. The
consumer PC market in Western Europe remained weak, with consumer
confidence permanently shaken by the economic issues spreading across
most of the region. Furthermore, the market share of mini-notebooks
continued to decline, especially in Western Europe, which also
contributed to the weak year-over-year comparison.
In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments reached 31.8 million units in the
third quarter of 2011, a 6% increase from the same period last year.
Vendors continued to stimulate demand aggressively with promotions and
prices, benefiting buyers looking for good prices. It also provided an
opportunity for some consumers to buy their first mobile PC.
The PC market in Latin America grew 19.6% in the third quarter of
2011. Mobile PC shipments grew 31.1% year over year, and desk-based PC
shipments increased 6.5% in the third quarter of 2011.
PC shipments in Japan grew 3%, with shipments reaching 3.9 million
units. The consumer market received a boost in demand with the
introduction by vendors of new consumer models in September. There was
also a rebound in production for the professional market, after a drop
in enterprise demand because of the higher prioritization for business
continuity plans that coincided with the earthquake and tsunami in
March.
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available
soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by
Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture
of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution,
marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and
their future implications around the globe. Additional research can be
found on the Computing Hardware section on Gartner's website.
Link: Market Share
Alert: Preliminary PC Market Results, Worldwide, 3Q11
IDC: Worldwide PC Market Grapples with Slow Growth
in Third Quarter, but Apple Soars Domestically
PR: Worldwide PC shipments increased by 3.6% in the third
quarter of 2011 (3Q11) compared to the same quarter in 2010, according
to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC
Tracker. However, Apple broke from the pack with total Apple PC
shipments increasing more than 20% in 3Q11, the hot-selling MacBook Air
continuing to boost volumes.
The results are up slightly from the 2.7% growth experienced in
2Q11, and just below IDC's August projections for 4.5% growth in the
quarter. The Americas and EMEA were slightly below expectations while
the Asia/Pacific markets were slightly ahead. The market continues to
struggle as consumer discretionary income is diverted to other areas
and business spending remains depressed in light of other priorities
and a potential double-dip recession.
"For the moment, PCs have taken a back seat to a range of other
devices competing for shrinking consumer and business budgets," says
Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC
Tracker. "While growth is expected to stay in mid-single digits in the
fourth quarter, we should see faster growth in 2012 and beyond based on
easier comparisons and refreshed PC offerings as the industry better
addresses the evolving usage models by integrating more of the features
in ultra mobile devices."
"Most vendors continue to struggle with the slow market environment
and product changes," comments Loren Loverde, IDC vice president of
Worldwide Consumer Device Trackers. "Although we don't see media
tablets and other devices replacing PCs, questions on how products will
evolve, and consumer interest in these and other categories are
providing a distraction. And while price remains critical, many users
are delaying PC purchases for the moment. Still, there are
opportunities, as demonstrated by Lenovo's gains, and we expect PCs to
find stronger demand in the coming years."
"The US market came in about flat as expected, but failed to
generate positive momentum given the state of saturation and lack of
incentives for consumers to upgrade. Other inhibitors included the poor
economic environment and, to a certain extent, iPad cannibalization,"
said David Daoud, IDC's Personal Computing Research Director. "As we
approach the holiday season, the opportunity for low single-digit
growth is real, but mostly as a result of poor market conditions last
year, as opposed to a recovery in demand."
Regional Outlook
The United States market came in roughly flat with year ago
shipments as the consumer and commercial demand remained constrained.
Nevertheless, the market moved out of negative growth and HP registered
strong growth going into the holiday season.
Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) performed in line with forecast
as the PC market continued to shrink in the third quarter across both
desktop and portable form factors. The back-to-school season saw
sustained weakness in consumer demand, with spending being diverted to
media tablets and smartphones, while vendors and channel players
remained focused on clearing consumer notebook inventory before taking
new stock. Besides weak consumer trends, commercial demand has also
slowed down, indicative of the increasing caution and postponed
investments as a response to the current economic and financial turmoil
in the Euro-zone and the US
Japan continued to see growth in low single-digits. Lenovo finalized
its merger with NEC, leveraging its scale and becoming the clear market
leader. Although power rationing affected some commercial purchases,
the market by and large continued to see more adoption of both consumer
and business PCs.
Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) had a strong quarter with
double-digit growth, meeting expected volume. The region managed to
regain momentum, reversing two previous quarters of only single digit
growth due to gains in China and India, as well as good volume in
Indonesia and Thailand.
Vendor Outlook
HP grew 5.3% year on year, thanks to double-digit growth in the US
The company has been criticized for management missteps in the past few
months, and been affected by slower consumer demand in many regions,
but managed to outpace overall market growth nonetheless.
Dell continued to make gains in APeJ and CEMA, but declines in more
mature regions pulled overall growth to 1.6% year on year. Dell faced
tough competition and had sizable declines in some markets. However,
its continued expansion efforts in China continued to pay dividends,
maintaining double-digit growth in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan).
Lenovo experienced strong gains across all regions as it continues
its channel expansion and capitalizes on disarray among the other top
players. Lenovo has now outpaced the market by more than 10% for the
past 9 quarters, and by 20% or more in six of these periods. The
results moved Lenovo ahead of Dell in 3Q11 after trailing by a small
margin in the second quarter. Lenovo's partnership with NEC and the
acquisition of Medion added incremental volume and provided new access
to the Japanese and Western European markets.
Acer continued to struggle with inventory clearing and adjusting its
strategy following declines in mini notebooks and its management
shakeup. Total shipments were down 20.6% from a year ago the fourth
consecutive quarterly decline but easier comparisons may help the
company turn a corner in coming quarters.
ASUS had a strong quarter, boosting growth to over 30%. Strong gains
in Asia/Pacific, along with improvements in EMEA, helped ASUS overtake
Toshiba for the number 5 spot in worldwide shipments. While the vendor
has had some difficulties adjusting for the decline in mini notebook
PCs, its mainstream notebooks have done well, especially in emerging
markets.
Apple Total shipments increased more than 20% in 3Q11, recovering
from a dip to 15% growth in the second quarter but otherwise continuing
a trend of more than 2 years with over 20% growth. The MacBook Air
continues to boost volumes, and Apple's position in driving changes in
consumer expectations for devices also positions it favorably relative
to other players and tight consumer spending.
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker gathers PC market data in over
80 countries by vendor, form factor, brand, processor brand and speed,
sales channel and user segment. The research includes historical and
forecast trend analysis as well as price band and installed base
data.
Link: IDC
Products & Services
Free Digitized Copy of Guy Kawasaki's The
Macintosh Way Available from OfficeDrop and Pixability
PR: A newly digitized version of Guy Kawasaki's
groundbreaking technology marketing book, The Macintosh Way, is
now available for free download.
OfficeDrop, a document
scanning and digital filing system startup, provided the scanning
services that turned an old copy of the book that was sitting on Guy's
bookshelf into a text-searchable PDF. Pixability, a video marketing service,
filmed the rebirth of the book surrounded by well-known Apple products
since the book was written, including the original Macintosh 512K, a working
Newton, and the original
Bondi iMac. See the video at http://pixability.com/kawasaki
In The Macintosh Way, Guy Kawasaki outlines the principles of
technology evangelism. Although the work remains a highly topical
guerilla marketing book, the publisher let it go out of print. Guy
recently regained the rights to his book, and wanted to digitally
distribute it as a PDF for free to his Twitter followers.
"Information wants to be free, and now I can provide my very first
book to everyone for free. OfficeDrop and Pixability were indispensable
parts of this liberation effort," says Guy.
"We were happy to take on such an exciting project, and working with
Guy was a lot of fun," said Healy Jones, VP of Marketing at OfficeDrop.
"The Macintosh Way is an important book for many technology startups,
and we were honored to turn it into a great ebook. People can also get
the book for free on their iPad with OfficeDrop's new iPad Paper-to-Go
app."
To document the entire destruction and resurrection of the book,
Pixability took footage of the scanning process and edited a video to
tell the story of The Macintosh Way. The finished video follows
Kawasaki's work throughout the conversion process and cleverly features
the progression of Apple products over more than 20 years. The Vintage Mac Museum supplied most
of the working Mac computers.
Pixability's CEO Bettina Hein comments, "We jumped at the
opportunity to tell the story of rebirth in The Macintosh Way on
video. It's a great story, and we think viewers will enjoy seeing the
progression of Kawasaki's work from printed copy to an ebook."
Visit freemacway.com to get your free copy of the book or OfficeDrop
to get it on your iPad.
Link: freemacway.com
Software
Raven, a New Site-specific and Social Networking
Browser for OS X
PR: Raven is a new Web browser for Mac OS X. At first glance,
Raven resembles an iPad app, but its main innovation is in how it
handles Web apps. When you install an app, it shows up in the sidebar
from which you can access site-specific commands with a click. When the
content in any of your apps is updated, a subtle blue reminder light
next to its icon in the browser sidebar will appear.
Raven uses a
technique called "site specific browsing" to create a dedicated browser
and debuts with the most widely-used social networking websites
including Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Quora. Within each app, Raven
provides yet another instance for key features. This provides a whole
new level of multitasking within a single window. The Raven Smart Bar
unifies navigation across many different websites, allowing access to
features quickly, without effort and with little instruction.
The developers say they created Raven with the belief that if a
browser provided a more helpful hand, Web apps would not have to work
as hard to mimic their desktop counterparts. The only barrier between
the web app and the device you are using is the browser, so it needs to
be more than just a browser, but also a partner in providing a platform
for software development, similar to the way an operating system does.
Like the phone, the browser can become smarter.
Raven is based on WebKit, the Open Source rendering engine Apple
created that powers Safari and Chrome as well as most any Mac app that
leverages HTML to display content, like Mail. At its core Raven is just
as good a browser as those mentioned. However, the developers have
created their own user interface from scratch. Many other products
simply leverage what WebKit provides, but they decided to forego that
in order to create their own unique UI framework. That means they
didn't need to compete on rendering HTML and instead put their efforts
into creating innovative features that are not dependent on what WebKit
provides. While they will take a hit on performance in the beta phases,
later they'll be able to accomplish tasks that other browsers won't be
able to match.
Raven is still in those beta stages, so it's for users who can
stomach the changes and problems that will persist in early versions.
If Raven stalls, crashes, or feels like it is running slow, simply
force quit by typing Option-Command-Esc at the same time on your
keyboard. Restart the app and see if the issue still persists. If so,
you may want to file a bug request so the developers are aware of the
issue. Check back periodically by launching Raven and selecting "Check
for update" from the Raven App Menu. For example, there are currently
many known issues with Adobe Flash Player and various JavaScript
incompatibilities being worked on.
Browsing history is usually relegated to a simple list of links
or a menu in most browsers. Raven's history browser provides an
organized list of pages you've visited with a preview pane, allowing
you to preview the page before you visit it again. The search box above
your history list lets you find that page you have trouble remembering.
History will forever be altered thanks to Raven.
Raven's developers believe people have two types of bookmarks - ones
you use everyday which they call favorites, and pages you find that you
want to read later but don't necessarily want to keep cluttering you
bookmarks menu in perpetuity. With Raven you can simply tap the "add"
icon in the menu bar, decide if it is to be a favorite or a bookmark.
Raven can also automatically send your bookmarks to Instapaper or you
can read them in text only mode. Favorites will be added to the menu
for quick access.
Raven's new suggestion feature scours both your favorites and your
history to provide a number of links to sites you commonly visit or
have visited before. No need for a bookmarks bar, simply type the first
view characters and "boom!": - a list of pages that match what you're
looking for will appear. Raven also combines the address bar with the
search box. Simply enter a keyword instead of an address and Raven will
search Google for you and provide you more results to find what you are
looking for.
Raven debuts with a handful of menu items which include the ability
to add a new favorite, access your favorites list or create new tabs.
Single column mode will make Raven pretend it's a mobile web browser.
This allows you to reduce the width of the window to experience the
site just as you would on a smartphone.
System requirements:
- You must have at least Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in order to
install Raven.
- At least 1 GB of memory recommended,
- A 1 GHz Intel processor or better
- 1024 x 768 display resolution
Link: Raven
Adobe Offers 20% Off When Upgrading from CS2, CS3,
and CS4 to CS 5.5
PR: Adobe Systems Incorporated is offering a promotion giving
Creative Suite users on older versions of the design software a special
opportunity to upgrade from their individual or suite product to the
latest version including Creative Suite 5.5, Photoshop CS5, or
Illustrator CS5 at a 20% discount.
The offer runs through December 31, 2011 giving creative
professionals a chance to upgrade to the latest in design software
capabilities and performance.
This limited offer will be honored by all Adobe Resellers and
adobe.com for customers with a valid license to one of the qualifying
CS2, CS3, or CS4 products below:
- Design Premium; Design Standard; Web Premium; Web Standard;
Production Premium; or Master Collection
- Production Studio Premium or Standard; Design Bundle, Web Bundle;
Video Bundle; or Macromedia Studio 8
- Adobe After Effects; Adobe Flash Professional; Adobe Illustrator;
Adobe Audition; Adobe Dreamweaver; Adobe Fireworks; Adobe InDesign;
Adobe Photoshop; Adobe Photoshop Extended; Adobe Premiere Pro
The Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product line enables designers and
developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet
platforms, as the revolution in mobile communications fundamentally
changes the way content is distributed and consumed. Substantive
advances to HTML5, Flash authoring, digital publishing and video tools
as well as new capabilities that kick-start the integration of tablets
into creative workflows, anchor the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5
product family.
Additional information about the promotion can be found in the Terms
and Conditions online.
Link: 20% Off Upgrade Offer on
CS 5.5 (offer ends Dec. 31, 2011)
Desktop Mac
Deals
Low End Mac updates the following price trackers monthly:
For deals on current and discontinued 'Books, see our 13" MacBook and MacBook Pro,
MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, 15" MacBook Pro, 17" MacBook Pro, 12" PowerBook G4, 15" PowerBook G4, 17" PowerBook G4, titanium PowerBook G4,
iBook G4, PowerBook G3, and iBook G3 deals.
We also track iPad,
iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle deals.
