What Could be in store for Macbooks?

Intel is about to roll out some pretty impressive mobile processors, finally bringing its "Nehalem" Core i architecture to the mainstream mobile space. So, what can we expect from Apple?

First, a little recent history. Apple, so far, has elected not to use the Core i7 quad-core mobile processors announced back in September in its MacBook Pro line. Which isn't that surprising. The first crop of laptop i7s barely qualify as mobile processors: they have a desktop-like TDP (thermal design power) of 45 watts that wreaks havoc on battery life.

That said, as an example of what an Apple rival has chosen to do, the Hewlett-Packard Envy 15 now offers both the i7-720QM (1.6GHz, 6MB cache) and i7-820QM (1.73GHz, 8MB Cache)--both quad-core Core i7 processors.

A big imponderable is whether Apple will adopt a future 32-nanometer version of the quad-core mobile i series for the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Presumably, this would have a lower TDP and be more amenable to Apple.

Now, for some armchair analysis. One of the burning questions (at least among some in the tech media) is whether new MacBooks will use Intel's "Arrandale" mobile Core i series of processors. Arrandale is significant for two reasons: it is part ofIntel's 32-nanometer chip roll-out and is the first instance of Intel combining the graphics function with the main "CPU" processor. This results in better overall power efficiency and integrated graphics performance that "doesn't suck" anymore, as some observers have put it.

One school of thought is that Apple will not use the processor. If there is any truth to that rumor, that makes for a head-scratching scenario since Arrandale will be the pillar of the mobile Core i3 and i5 lineups. A likely scenario is that Apple--one way or another--chooses to attach Nvidia or ATI discrete graphics processors to Arrandale, or a facsimile thereof.

And speaking of Nvidia and ATI, instead of trying to second-guess Apple on all of the possible graphics chip permutations, the easier question to ask is: which graphics chip supplier will prevail this time around? Nvidia--despite defects in some of its past offerings--has been dominant over the last year or so across the MacBook lineup. Will this continue? Or will Apple strike more of a balance between Nvidia and ATI?

Remember, that Apple is touting the general compute function of the graphics processing unit, or GPU, in OS X Snow Leopard. "Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing," according to Apple ad copy. (Translation: using the GPU more like general-purpose CPU.) Are Nvidia and ATI OpenCL equals?

And what, pray tell, will happen to the MacBook Air? Which is coming up on its second anniversary in January. I won't venture a guess (not yet at least), though I have a personal interest in this subject since I have been using an Air since February 2008.

Where to go, Google or Bing ? (New Bing maps Beta)

Microsoft is kicking Bing Maps into a higher gear, announcing a beta version of Bing Maps that uses Silverlight to display 3D images and its own version of street-level images.

The company announced the new beta Wednesday amid a discussion of other improvements to Bing Thursday at its San Francisco offices in a presentation for the media. Bing Maps Beta is rolling out Thursday along with several other new features in the main Bing search results.

Bing Maps Beta requires Microsoft Silverlight to deliver very smooth three-dimensional transitions between satellite and street-view imagery. Like Google Street View, Microsoft has driven the streets of major cities such as San Francisco and assembled its own library of map-related images.

The new beta service can also find images of items inside popular destinations, such as art exhibits inside museums and other geotagged images available on the Internet through Microsoft Photosynth. Developers can also create Web applications to run inside the Bing Maps Beta, such as an application that works with Newseum to index local papers inside maps and let Bing users see the front pages of newspapers across the country.

In addition, Bing Maps Beta users will be able to see local tweets through a partnership with Twitter demonstrated during the event. Twitter recently rolled out a geolocation service.

 Microsoft has street-level imagery for around 100 U.S. cities, it said, and is adding more imagery on a constant basis.Microsoft also talked about new enhancements to Bing called "entity cards," which are sections on the top of a search results page that contain a mix of structured and crawled data on a given topic. For example, searching on "Coldplay" will bring up an official photo of the band with a link to their Web page, tour dates, additional photos, and other information all displayed before your eyes scroll down to the search results themselves.

Similar enhancements will appear on searches for specific cities, with photos and weather information, as well as searches for companies, where financial information and news will appear. At some point in the future, Microsoft also plans to let searches hook up with their Facebook accounts to search for photos, upcoming birthdays, and status updates.

New Imacs Dominating with their visuals

The available quad-core Intel Core i5 or Core i7 “Nehalem” processor in the 27-inch iMac puts four processing cores on one die, so data doesn’t have to travel far to get from core to core. This boosts application performance up to 2x over the previous-generation iMac. And unlike systems that connect memory to the processor through a separate controller, these quad-core processors connect memory directly to the processor, improving memory bandwidth up to 2.5x. A quad-core iMac also benefits from Turbo Boost. If you’re using an application that doesn’t need every core, Turbo Boost shuts off the idle cores while simultaneously increasing the speed of the active ones.Mac OS X Snow Leopard is designed to take advantage of this advanced processor architecture, so every Intel processor reaches its full potential on iMac. The new iMac offers graphics options designed to make the most of every pixel. Whether you’re an amateur filmmaker or an avid gamer, iMac gives you faster, smoother, clearer graphics across the board. The 21.5-inch iMac offers great graphics performance with the integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor or the ATI Radeon HD 4670. The 27-inch iMac comes with dedicated high-performance ATI graphics across the line. The ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor delivers up to 4x faster performance than the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M — ideal for 3D games and graphics-intensive applications.³ For the ultimate in graphics performance, choose a 27-inch iMac with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor.

COD: MW2 Map pack and it's not even out yet

Information about the first of Modern Warfare 2's planned post-launch map packs were made public yesterday after select gaming press outlets received complimentary packs of Monster energy drinks prominently branded with promotional materials for the game.

GameSpot posted the first images yesterday confirming the first maps are expected to go on sale in spring of 2010, hot on the heels of Modern Warfare 2's winter release this year. Activision has not commented on whether or not the additional maps are the first DLC players can expect after purchase, nor have they announced a price range for post-release downloadable content.

What we do know is that 5,000 lucky consumers of Monster Assault (an ungodly cola/energy drink combo) will score a free code to grab the new maps when the promo cans hit store shelves. Eager players also have a chance to win a copy of Modern Warfare 2, a custom dashboard theme or a free can of Monster.

Google vs. Bing fight for the market

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Microsoft's Bing has lost market share to Google over the past month, prompting some to start digging the decision engine's grave. But with Bing just a few months into real competition with Google, that evaluation might be a bit premature.

The drop in Bing's search engine market share doesn't mean that Microsoft should close up shop and throw in the towel, of course. Google, after all, didn't become the ubiquitous entity that it has become in just a few short months. Microsoft, somewhat ironically, is in as good a position as anyone to understand this.

Microsoft Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web browser since driving out Netscape over 10 years ago. But for several years now, Internet Explorer has been competing against Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Firefox currently has the second biggest share of the Web browser market with about 22 percent, according to September numbers from Net Applications' Market Share report. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, claims slightly more than 60 percent of the Web browser market.

Version 1.0 of the Firefox Web browser was rolled out in November 2004 and has been competing against Internet Explorer for almost five years. The fact that the open-source browser has even 22 percent of the market is seen as somewhat of a victory.

Spyware gets past facebooks safe guard

Hackers have found a way to create automated Facebook pages and are using them to spread spyware to unsuspecting users, says antivirus and Internet security firm AVG Technologies.

In a blog entry posted last week, Research Chief Roger Thompson said that AVG's LinkScanner users had started detecting some "rogue spyware attacks" that were coming from Facebook pages. When AVG started looking at the pages, it noticed that the Facebook profiles featured pictures of the same woman and merely had different names to differentiate them. Each page had a link to a supposed video that would infect user computers with spyware if clicked.

Thompson says that there are likely untold numbers of such rogue Facebook profiles on the Web right now, meaning that the hackers have somehow found a way to bypass Facebook's CAPTCHA system that requires users to retype a series of letters to activate an account. Thompson said that while Facebook will certainly delete any rogue accounts it finds, the accounts "can't be an easy thing for them to find" and will thus be difficult to eliminate.

Android NDK 1.6 RELEASE

Today Android 1.6 NDK, release 1 is available for download from the Android developer site.

To recap, the NDK is a companion to the SDK that provides tools to generate and embed native ARM machine code within your application packages. This native code has the same restrictions as the VM code, but can execute certain operations much more rapidly. This is useful if you're doing heavy computations, digital processing, or even porting existing code bases written in C or C++.

If you already use the Android 1.5 NDK, upgrading to this release is highly recommended. It provides the following improvements:

• The ability to use OpenGL ES 1.1 headers and libraries If your application targets Android 1.6, your native code can now directly call OpenGL ES 1.1 functions to perform graphics rendering. This will help those programs that need to send large amounts of vertex data to the GPU. Note, however, that activity lifecycle and surface creation must still be performed from the VM. This NDK contains a new sample ("san-angeles") that shows exactly how to do that with a GLSurfaceView object.
• The ability to target either Android 1.5 or 1.6 devices The NDK parses your project's properties to know which platform release it is targeting. It will then automatically use the proper headers and libraries to generate your native code. Any application that targets 1.5 will run on Android 1.5, Android 1.6 and any future official system release. Targeting 1.6 should, thus, only be done if your application requires new 1.6 features / APIs, like the ability to call OpenGL ES 1.x headers from native code.
• The ability to put your native sources under your application's project tree You can now conveniently place all your sources (C, C++ and Java) under the same tree, for editing or version control purposes.
• Many fixes to the NDK's build scripts The changes to the build scripts fix some annoying bugs and also increase host system compatibility