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Filed under: Video

Filed under: Video, Cult of Mac, Apple, Found Footage

Found Footage: Woz on coloring computers


This video of Woz talking about the "revolutionary" idea of putting color into computers is amazing. It sounds like an LSD trip -- he says he was awake for four days in a row, plunged into some sort of television screenglow madness, and somehow emerged from this zeroes-and-ones induced frenzy with a cheap way to create color screens (which we presume eventually found its way in the Apple II).

This is why Woz is really the preeminent geek for our times -- he's done some brilliant things with computers, really helped revolutionize the industry, and invented from scratch some of the most amazing things in this already amazing age, and when asked how he did it, he doesn't credit his own intellect or any personal insight. He says he stayed up for four days, and "sometimes, you're not sure if it's going to work because it didn't follow all of the methodology, all of the science that's in the books... but in this case it did." That is quintessential Woz -- way before marketing types put together the "Think Different" slogan, this guy was living it.

[via Cult of Mac]

Filed under: Multimedia, Video, iPhone

Slingplayer Mobile will finally be working on the AT&T 3G network

Well, that took a while. AppleInsider is reporting that AT&T has now agreed to let SlingPlayer for iPhone [US$30, iTunes link] stream over the 3G network.

When the app was released last May, there was great moaning that the SlingPlayer Mobile app only worked on a Wi-Fi connection. That was in contrast to other versions of the Sling app running on other phones like the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and some Palm devices -- all of which were allowed on the AT&T network.

AT&T now says they have worked with the Sling Media developers, and found ways to reduce the bandwidth footprint. Getting it all up and running will require a new version of the Sling App, which should appear shortly. The app will be a free upgrade for current owners. The posted version was released in August of last year.

A source at Sling Media told me this morning they were glad AT&T "finally saw the light." We'll keep you posted on developments, and we'll test the new app when it's online.

Filed under: Video, Podcasting

TUAW TV Live: the pre-Macworld, post-iPad edition

Welcome back for another edition of TUAW TV Live with your host Steve Sande.

We'll be starting at about 5:00 PM ET today with a special guest, Aaron Vronko, service manager for Rapid Repair in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Aaron provided TUAW with some insights into possible iPad hardware options a few weeks ago. Now we're following up the discussion with Aaron, and you get to listen in on the conversation. We'll also send some of your questions along to Aaron to get his opinions and answers.

Since this is the last TUAW TV Live before Macworld Expo next week, I'll also talk about what our plans are for the show, and where you can find us. To watch the live show and join in on the chat, click the "Read more" link below.

Continue readingTUAW TV Live: the pre-Macworld, post-iPad edition

Filed under: Video, Podcasting

TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET with a special guest (no, it's not an iPad)

About three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to chat with Aaron Vronko, the service manager at RapidRepair in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The topic? What we thought would be the technical underpinnings of an Apple tablet. That chat turned into a post with a lot of prognosticating about the hardware that would make up the device.

Now that the curtain has been pulled back and we know a lot more about the Apple iPad, Aaron will be joining me this afternoon to talk about what we know about the actual iPad hardware. You can join us and ask Aaron your questions through the Ustream chat tool when we get together for another TUAW TV Live.

The fun starts just a little before 5 PM ET here at TUAW. See you then!

Filed under: Gaming, Hardware, Video

Patent hints at next generation Apple TV

The USPTO has published seven different patents from Apple today, including one that might be found in the next generation of the Apple TV. The patent allows for a "Remote Control System that can Distinguish Stray Light Sources" -- in other words, a Wii style remote that can pick out a certain type of light source from other bulbs in the house. The patent paints some pretty wild pictures of what they must be working on at Apple HQ: it describes IR emitters mounted near a television, and then describes how to keep the remote control both "measuring its own motion" from those sensors, and able to recognize differences between those sensors and other light sources, including reflections and other features of the surroundings.

Of course, Apple's not a company that tends to follow, so you have to wonder what else they're putting together if they really are planning on taking a song from Nintendo's Wii and adding it to the Apple TV's repertoire. Not that we'll ever see it for sure -- they file patents all the time, some of them already used (other patents filed today include Smart Playlists in iTunes and the "slide to unlock" feature found in the iPhone and the iPad), and some which will never see release. But it certainly sounds like something is cooking in the Apple R&D labs.

Filed under: Humor, Video, iPhone

Found Footage: Sir Patrick Stewart adores his iPhone


Don't even bother questioning why there is video of Jean-Luc Picard bashing Twitter and talking about his love for the iPhone, just watch and enjoy. Okay, okay, it's from a PBS interview designed to promote some of their Shakespeare programming, but that doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that Sir Patrick Stewart calls his "beautiful" iPhone "an extension of whom I am," in the way that only he can.

He also bashes gaming, but only because he says it's extremely addictive, so we'll let that one slide. Here's the really important question: Has anyone pointed out the Star Trek phaser [iTunes link] to him yet? What apps (besides the weather one, we guess) does he run on a daily basis?

[via iPhone Savior]

Filed under: Hardware, Video

Watching movies on an iPad: What you see is what you get


Watching a movie on the new iPad will not as pleasurable experience as you might think. The screen being 1024x768 pixels is in a 4:3 ratio which is the exactly the same as an old CRT television set. Many of us are have gone on from there and are luxuriating in the glory of our 16x9 aspect HDTVs.

It turns out that 16x9 will give you big honking black bars at the top and bottom of your screen as you can see by the green bar in the image above, and anything above or below it will be displayed as black bars.

It gets worse, lots worse. Let's say you're playing a regular, non-widescreen movie which has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. In that case anything above or below the blue area will be black bars.

Now we get to ribbon-vision. Most widescreen films, from Star Wars to the new Star Trek were filmed in 2:35:1. This and all other resolutions mentioned refer to how wide the screen is as compared to how high. So these films are 2:35 times wider than they are high, and result in a mere ribbon on the iPad screen. Without measuring, it seems to me that a full half of the screen in landscape mode will be filled with black bars.

One last kick in the pants. Having a resolution of 1024x768 pixels there is no way that you can display the gold standard of today's high-definition of 1080p. There just aren't enough pixels.

So iBooks make sense, but movie watching will be somewhat limited. People frequently say that they really can't watch movies on an iPhone or iPod touch, since the resulting display is so small. The iPad will absolutely be better, but still at a trade-off.

Thanks to Blake Walters for creating the chart and tipping us off about this.

Note: Some users have questioned the graphic, so I'm posting a revised version by Arash Ayrom which is correct. I'm not sure who is correct, but hopefully it will come out in the comments. Either way, I'm still not happy being a purist with the home theater to prove it. I have little interest watching Ghost Busters in pan and scan where Ernie Hudson is hardly even in the film. DW.
Here is Arash's graphic:


Filed under: Video, Podcasting

Join us for the iPad edition of TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET

It's gonna be all iPad, all the time on this edition of TUAW TV Live.

Join your host Steve Sande here at 5 PM ET when we'll be discussing the newest member of the Apple family, the iPad. We'll also try to link up to the TUAW Talkcast that will begin at 5:30 PM ET (with a few surprise guest developers in the mix), so we should have some fun discussions taking place.

You can use the embedded Ustream player and chat located on the next page (click the Read More link) or visit us at http://ustream.tv/tuaw.

Continue readingJoin us for the iPad edition of TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET

Filed under: Multimedia, Video, iPhone

Sling offers app update for Windows phones that includes 3G streaming on AT&T

Well, thanks AT&T. In the past I've vented my frustration that the much awaited SlingPlayer Mobile app for the iPhone was crippled by a new AT&T rule that didn't allow place shifting of TV signals on their network. The rule appeared to be specifically written to ban the SlingPlayer.

As a result, the best Sling could offer to iPhone users was a version that only worked on Wi-Fi so the fragile AT&T network didn't get dinged.

Now, Sling has announced a new version of the SlingPlayer Mobile version 2 for Windows phones that supports both Wi-Fi and the AT&T 3G network, and runs on the HTC Pure, Tilt II, as well as on some HTC phones on T-Mobile and Sprint.

Now this is not something the folks at Sling did, but AT&T is mighty selective about which phones can stream over its 3G network. Mind you, AT&T has no problem allowing multi-hour baseball games to be streamed using the MLB app, and Orb also allows streaming on the iPhone, even from a remote TV Tuner. Even Ustream and Qik got into the streaming video act.

If Apple ever dumps AT&T (and rumors say that at least AT&T will have competition soon) it won't be soon enough for me. For many customers, they've made a mess of the iPhone experience. I talked to a representative from Sling and he expressed frustration at the situation and added "we're working on it."

Filed under: iLife, Software, Video, Reviews

Tutorials as you like them with N.E.D. and its family


Nonlinear Educating Inc., has been selling tutorials on a wide variety of subjects for years. Their catalog of 146 video tutorials cover just about everything from all the programs in the Adobe CS4 Suite, to iLife 09 and iWork 09, or virtually anything you could want to learn about Mac software. To get a tutorial from Nonlinear in the past, you would buy it, download it, and play it on your computer.

Things have changed with the introduction of new ways to buy and watch tutorials. Nonlinear now gives you three ways to learn on any Mac or iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0, using three N.E.D. (Nonlinear Education Device) products. Now along with buying individual tutorials, you can subscribe to their streaming library, giving you access to tutorials on demand either from the web using The N.E.D web player, or N.E.D.i [Free iTunes Link], an iPhone/iPod touch app. The idea of total flexibility is wonderful, but the complexity of all the subscription and purchase options are a bit daunting.

The tutorials are excellent. The few I had a chance to go through were totally professional, complete and entertaining. The trainers are some of the best in the field, including Jim Dalrymple and Maria Langer. The tutorials are broken down into many 1-4 minute movies that progressively teach you the software. I'm not going to review the tutorials here, since I feel that they are just about perfect.

The only problem I had with the catalog is that some courses are really quite old. The Mac OS X 101: Mastering Your Mac course was released in April of 2006 and deals with OSX 10.4.5. While it's true that a good deal of the information is still valid, there have been a lot of changes in the last two years and a new course for each major OS software release would increase the value of the instruction. The description of this US$29.50 course did not tell which OS version was addressed and I had to dig into the videos to find out.

Continue readingTutorials as you like them with N.E.D. and its family

Filed under: Video, Internet Tools, Beta Beat

YouTube videos now available in HTML5: Good riddance, Flash

We haven't exactly been secretive about our distaste for Adobe's Flash Player here at TUAW. Flash on the Mac has traditionally been a terrible resource hog, and while the pre-release of Flash Player 10.1 alleviated (to an extent) Flash's inordinately high CPU usage, many of us still dreamed of a golden age when Flash would be supplanted by something else, especially if that something else was HTML5.

Dream no longer, because the first step toward realizing a Flash-free internet is here. YouTube has introduced an HTML5 beta. The formerly Flash-laden site, whose popularity most likely led to the profusion of Flash on the internet within the past few years, can now be viewed without using Flash at all if you opt into the beta.

The HTML5 option is only available for browsers that support HTML5 (obviously) and h.264. Safari (version 4 and above), Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame are a few of the qualified browsers.

There are a few caveats to the HTML5 beta. Videos with ads aren't supported (awww...) – they'll play in the standard Flash player instead. There's also no support for full screen; clicking the little expander button on the lower right corner of the video will instead expand the video within the window to about double the normal size. Honestly, YouTube's full screen video has never impressed me much anyway, so this isn't a huge loss. Macworld notes that you also lose support for annotations and closed captioning, though, which might be a deal breaker for some.

Continue readingYouTube videos now available in HTML5: Good riddance, Flash

Filed under: Video, Podcasting

TUAW TV Live for January 20, 2010

Welcome back for another episode of TUAW TV Live!

You can join in on the fun by clicking the "read more" link listed below, and then watching the live stream in the Ustream window. If you'd like to participate in the live chat, just use the chat window below the video to enter your thoughts, comments, and snarky backtalk.

The show goes on for about an hour, and we have plenty to talk about this week. Topics include:
  • When an app shouldn't be an app
  • Original Mac marketing videos
  • A quick app review or two
  • Michael Grothaus' second article on what you want in iPhone OS 4.0
  • Upcoming announcements on Monday (financial) and Wednesday
We use Ustream to do our live broadcast, and you can watch existing episodes of the show at http://ustream.tv/TUAW/.

Continue readingTUAW TV Live for January 20, 2010

Filed under: Software, Video, Beta Beat

Beta beat: Backup your Blu-ray discs with MakeMKV

You know that it's possible to backup your CDs with iTunes and your DVDs with Handbrake, but what about that new Blu-ray disc (BD) you just received during the holidays? Macworld has a good write-up of a beta utility called MakeMKV that will rip both DVDs and BDs to perfect quality MKV format.

Bare in mind that this will require having a connected or internal Blu-ray drive that can read said discs. This is currently a bit of a novelty in most Macs being that Steve Jobs considers the whole thing a "bag of hurt." However, if your system meets the hardware requirements, you're ready to go off on your first Blu-ray ripping journey without the typical mess involved.

Macworld's test resulted in a file nearly 32 GB in size as compared to the original 35 GB on the physical BD. While this is useful for those of you with a farm of terabyte-sized drives at your disposal, for others, a lower quality backup is acceptable. If space is a concern, or you want to put a copy on your Apple TV, it's possible to use previously-mentioned Handbrake or Video Monkey to transcode into a lower quality (but still excellent) file.

MakeMKV is available now for free while in beta. The Blu-ray ripping functionality is only free while the software is in beta so grab it while you can. Once the beta period ends, only the DVD-ripping will be free.

[via Macworld]

Filed under: Video, Podcasting

It's Wednesday, time for another TUAW TV Live broadcast at 5 PM ET

Not only is it Wednesday, but it's just one week -- seven short days -- until Apple announces something. We don't know what the announcement is all about, but we know where and when it will happen.

So, while we bounce off the walls in fanboy anticipation, you can burn off some of that excess energy by joining your host Steve Sande for what is becoming a Wednesday tradition: TUAW TV Live.

It's free, it's fun, and it's live! All you need to do is come back here to TUAW at about 5 PM ET (2 PM PT) and there will be a special post with information about watching or participating in the show. We use Ustream to do our live broadcast, and you can watch existing episodes of the show at http://ustream.tv/TUAW/.

Some of today's scheduled topics:
  • When an app shouldn't be an app
  • Original Mac marketing videos
  • A quick app review or two
  • Michael Grothaus' second article on what you want in iPhone OS 4.0
  • Upcoming announcements on Monday (financial) and Wednesday
And of course, any topic you bring up in the live chat is fair game as well. See you this afternoon!

Filed under: Video, Found Footage, Apple History

Found Footage: The Story of Macintosh


Denver-area Mac consultant Mike Kimble is no stranger to Apple; he worked at an Apple reseller prior to the introduction of the Mac in 1984, and he's been involved with Macs and other Apple products ever since. Mike recently found several old Apple tapes that were sent to his business back around the Mac intro, and his description of one of them says it all:

"I found this VHS cassette while cleaning my office this week. This "Found Footage" comes from a video tape I received from Apple back in 1984 when the original 128K Mac was introduced. It was part of the authorized dealer training videos given to each store to help them become familiar with the Macintosh. You will see a very young Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, Phil Gibbons, Mitch Kapor, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. You really get a good feel for how proud and excited these people were for the creation of something special. Little did they know how much they were about to change the world..."

My personal favorite scene is the one where Bill Gates is sitting with a 128K Mac on his desk. The video is divided into two parts; the second can be viewed by clicking the "read more" link below. Enjoy this trip down memory lane!

Continue readingFound Footage: The Story of Macintosh

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