Apple Introduces New Connection Port for Faster Transfers

snipped from wired.com

Apple on Thursday refreshed the MacBook family with faster processors, more-powerful graphic cards and, most notably, a new connection port called Thunderbolt.

Ranging from 13 to 17 inches in screen size, the notebooks ship with the brand-new Thunderbolt connectivity standard that Apple co-developed with Intel.

Thunderbolt can transfer up to 10 Gbps, which is theoretically 12 times faster than the previous FireWire 800 connectivity standard. This is usually where you’d connect an external accessory such as a hard drive.

Apple has historically been nimble with pushing new connectivity standards. Apple created the FireWire connectivity standard before it became widely adopted in the PC industry.

Read the full article at wired.com or get technical with Intel's description Thunderbolt.

Image courtesy of Intel.

News Corp. launches app-only newspaper

snipped from Wired.com

"In its first editorial, The Daily bills itself as “the newspaper of the 21st Century.” In truth, News Corp.’s stab at a daily news publication produced solely for tablets looks a lot like a re-imagined digital magazine that is updated every day.

Wednesday’s launch event announced that The Daily will be free for the first two weeks, thanks to a sponsorship from Verizon, making it well worth a peek. Thereafter it’s $1 for a week, or $40 for a year — and it’s the first publication Apple will permit to sell subscriptions within the app, not through the iTunes store.

Time will tell if that’s a good model for newspapers, magazines and readers. But at first blush, The Daily looks like it may be onto something editorially, even if the economics are a challenge.

After a splash screen — accompanied by unnecessary audio — the reader is taken to a starting window that is both a dashboard and a home page. Right away, The Daily seems to have solved a Big Problem faced by publishers in print, on the web and in apps: How do you convey the totality of your content without overwhelming the reader and blurring everything?

The Daily uses the cover-flow paradigm popularized by Apple in iTunes. Lateral swipes move you swiftly through the page thumbnails, all rendered large enough for you to quickly glean what they contain. They are always in view."

Read the full article.

Image courtesy of Wired.