These types of photos are very much a Japanese internet meme — people showing their Christmas meal and female characters with whom they are eating. They're more a gag than anything else with each photo trying to outdo the others. Not entirely serious! Though, still, slightly bitter sweet.

One of the pictures might be NSFW. Guess which one.

ゲーマー達のクリスマスお祝い画像集 [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

My personal favorite is probably still Bart's Nightmare on the Super Nintendo — because it was the only game that I could beat that my big brother couldn't. His claim to fame is still the old NES game, Bart vs. The Space Mutants. But both of us will always remember The Simpsons Arcade game from Konami as the ultimate Simpsons video game. It was the only one we could get our parents to play with us, and they only one we never ever beat because we always ran out of quarters in the dream world.

What Is It?
The Simpsons Arcade for the iPhone is a beat 'em up, much like the Simpsons Arcade of yore — but other than that, it's a totally different game. Featuring six levels with a boss and mini-boss each, the game stars Homer Simpson at the center of a plot involving Mr. Burns' sinister plan to suck Springfield's resources dry. The control scheme uses a virtual joystick and two virtual buttons that give the appearance of playing the game in an arcade cabinet.

What We Saw
I played the Krustyland level and saw sections demoed at the beginning of the game, at the end of the game and at Channel 6 News where you fight Bumblebee Man as a mini-boss.

How Far Along Is It?
Near final. EA declined to give a specific release date, but all the levels and sounds were in place and everything looked pretty finished.

What Needs Improvement?
A Little Slow On The Combos: Homer can perform punch-kick combos as well as an area-affect shoulder-check or belly flop that you can follow up with a second attack. It's great when it works, but it takes some work to master the timing needed on the virtual buttons. Worse, since you're not getting that physical feedback of pressing a real button, you're not always sure if you messed up the combo because you were late on a button press or because the touch screen didn't pick up on it.

Can't Store Family Members: Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Marge show up in gameplay whenever Homer finds a pickup with a family member's face on it. This triggers a Family Frenzy attack where said family member will show up on screen for a short time and help Homer attack enemies. For tight spot situations, it's not a bad system — but I wonder if it would be more fun to hang on to those family icon pickups until you assemble the whole Simpsons clan for some kind of super attack. It'd definitely reinforce that family feeling I remember having while playing the old arcade game with my parents and brother.

What Should Stay The Same?
Authenticity: EA got a lot of the main cast of the Simpsons (Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer) and a Simpsons writer (Michael Price) to work on the game. The result is a product that not only looks, feels and sounds authentic — but one that can take as many risks as it wants with the story and dialogue. For example, when you're playing through the Channel 6 level, you can hear Kent Brockman making snide news reports on the loud speakers and every menu selection results in Homer yelling "D'oh!" or "Whoo-hoo!" That would get old if these were knock-off voices or the writing was a hollow imitation of a real Simpsons writer — but because it's the real deal, it's actually quite pleasing.

Homages Galore: There are a couple of mini-games in Simpsons Arcade iPhone — and one of them is a direct throwback to the inflatable heads bonus level in the old arcade game. Dedicated Simpsons fans will have a lot of fun picking out all the homages to other Simpsons exploits throughout the game. Also, Binky the Rabbit of Matt Groening's classic Life in Hell comic series appears on all the loading screen. Awesome!

A Complete Gaming Experience: It's nice to have a portable game that's actually paced for portable play. I can easily imagine picking up and putting down this game while waiting in line at the movies or during a long commute. I just might have to resort to using headphones because all the "D'oh!"s are sure to piss off other commuters who easily recognize the Simpsons but can't join in on my fun.

Final Thoughts
Sorry guys, Comic Book Guy isn't in the game. You'll find plenty of other character cameos, but EA felt that Comic Book Guy was way overused.

Samsung techies linked 24 of the company's 256GB SSD drives together in a RAID with the hopes of making the fast SSD drives even faster. The system actually reaches transfer speeds of 2GBps. What's that much speed mean to you?

• All of Microsoft Office opens in .5 seconds.
• 53 programs from the test rig's Start menu open in 18 seconds.
• The complete system defrags in about 3 seconds.

Basically, we all know that hard drives are holding other components in computers back, slowing down our day to day usage. But I'll be honest in saying that I didn't things were this bad. While almost no mortal could afford to build this amazing rig, suddenly that SATA3 technology isn't looking so impressive.

It should be noted that no Artist Lessons come free with iLife '09. So if you want Sting to teach you the way of the guitar (and I mean, who doesn't?), you'll need to purchase his lesson through the GarageBand Store. That's not actually synonymous with the iTunes Store, as it works completely through GarageBand (which redirects you to the web). iTunes never actually enters the picture.

The downloads are sizable. Sting is 600MB, which shouldn't be so surprising as multiple angles of high resolution video appear in two stitched-together 16x9 frames (32x9). (Unfortunately, there's no angle for Sting's butt.)

And my favorite part about the GarageBand store might be that it's not "Roxanne" that you are downloading. It's "Sting" that you are downloading. I've got you now, Sting!
The basic Artist Lesson comes in three parts: Learn Song, Play Song and Story. With Sting, you get two versions of Roxanne to learn (beginner and advanced levels). Through Learn Song, Sting gives you a brief rundown of each chord. Play Song is just a straight play-through of the song itself. And then the Story is just Sting talking about his inspiration behind the music, as if Sting could ever just talk.
In terms of actual time spent, that's:

Learn Song
Beginner Lesson: 8 minutes
Advanced Lesson: 4 1/2 minutes

Play Song
Beginner Song: 3 minutes
Advanced Song: 3 minutes

Story
The Story: 5 minutes

Glancing at this lesson outline, you see that it's not super long. The whole thing is about 24 minutes in all—if you go through basic and advanced levels. But what Apple did to expand this content is within GarageBand's new Learn to Play interface. Some very well-thought options really stretch the lesson's value beyond Sting's charm.

Whether you want to look at realtime frets on a virtual guitar or just follow along with various notations (simple chords, chord grid, and TAB), you can really get in there and match the lesson to your training preferences.

Then you can do some other neat things to expand the content through integrated Practice Tools, including changing the playback speed so you can take your time with the chords (this option ditches Sting's melodious vocals), work with a metronome, loop passages like the refrain or record your audio straight to the timeline to play back and remind you that, no, you are not Sting.
So is it worth $5? It depends on your perspective. A song runs $1 on iTunes (which most of us consider decent) while a 2-hour movie is $10+. Technically, this is just 24 minutes of content. But given its clean presentation and the real replay value, at your own pace, alongside a celebrity to make it all a little sexier, I'm going with yes.

I was pretty certain the Artist Lessons were just a cheap and trendy Apple gimmick when announced at the Macworld. But there's some real love in GarageBand's Learn to Play interface that is well-suited for celebrities to show up and teach you to jam. Apple hasn't committed to just how many Artist Lessons they will release moving forward, but if they can develop a reasonably sized library of musicians/music, I could see the platform growing into something very, very interesting.

[via gizmowatch]

UPDATE: According to The Telegraph, the device is called the JetLev-Flyer. It runs $227,000 and can be purchased here.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
The Rose USB Drive stores gigabytes of data
(OK, just two). - Mark Wilson

[USBGeek via 7Gadgets]

Computing
• Western Digital 500GB My Book External Hard Drive (Refurbished) for $77.99 (normally $120).
• Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick USB 2.0 TV Tuner (Refurbished) for $49.99 plus free shipping (normally $130).

Flash Memory
• OCZ 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $3 (normally $20. Use rebate form).

Gaming
• Xbox 360 20GB System with Wireless Controller and Headset (Refurbished) for $149.99 (normally $170. Use coupon code X360).

Home Accessories
• iRobot Roomba 415 with Bonus Charging Dock and Filter Pack for $139.99 (normally $200 - valid today only).

Home Entertainment
• Philips SRU9600 Universal Remote Control for $29.99 plus free shipping (normally $80).

Miscellaneous
• The Wire: The Complete Series for $81.99 plus free shipping (normally $135 - valid today only).

Navigation
• Garmin StreetPilot C330 GPS Navigator 3.5" Screen (Refurbished) for $69.99 (normally $130).

Portable Devices & Accessories
• Shure SE110 Sound Isolating Earphones for $63 plus free shipping (normally $90. Use coupon code AFLSHURE for 30% off).
• Nokia N810 Internet Tablet for $219.99 plus free shipping (normally $360).

Hobomodo
• Oprah's "America's Song" MP3 Download for $0 (valid today only until 10 PM EST).
• Bee Icons Software for $0 (normally $19.95 - valid today only).

Microsoft's Photosynth is cool tech, stringing together a big bucket full of photos of a single event and arranging them in a zoomable 3D space by looking for common reference points. Here we're only working with 140 photos though, but CNN says they're going to keep working on it, adding in as many of their crowdsourced pics as possible. It's up for Silverlight zooming here where it will hopefully keep getting bigger. As you may remember, CNN set the ridiculous bar pretty high with their election night hologram, so it's going to take a little more to get a rise out of us jaded couchsurfers now.

Meanwhile, John King looks like he's still best in the business at providing the most 100% mind-numbing commentary while manipulating a touch interface of some kind on cable news.

We'll keep a look out for more CNN inaugo-tech. Grandpa Wolf has also been touting a satellite photo "specially ordered" for the occasion.

"Is that from one of those Predator drones?" asked Anderson a few minutes ago. "No, it's a satellite" replied Wolf, without a hint of amusement. Cable news tech at its finest, folks. [CNN's The Moment]

Update: We knew this wasn't the beginning of the Inaugo-tech train. SuperQuickZoom!

Update 2: It's getting bigger. Who's that in the crowd, Twittering live? @SCHWARZENEGGER!

Update 3:And behold, the promised satellite photo. Looks like...er....Google Maps! John King says this is the "fastest non-military turnaround of a satellite image." Mmmhmm.

1. Multitouch touchscreen/gesture control: All three are capacitive, only the Pre and iPhone have multitouch. The Pre's glowy little "gesture area" has dropped the touchable real estate all the way down tto the bottom of the phone, which is great for being able to navigate with one hand and not interfere with the screen at all. The wavey dock you bring up from the bottom looks awesome, but can you use it out of the box without a second thought or page through the manual? That's my question. Advantage: iPhone/Pre tossup.

2. Multitasking: One of the beefiest of our beefs with the iPhone SDK is its insistence on Apps running one at a time. The G1's notifications drawer was definitely a step in the right direction, but the Pre's interface is the first smartphone OS that was built with multitasking as a core design element. Resembling the Xbox's old Blades, or a less-jarring OS X Expose even, the Pre's "Cards" interface always places you in the context of every app running for fast switching, and notifications from other apps don't pull you away completely from the task at hand. Multitasking is hugely important on a phone, and it's a good sign that Palm recognizes. Advantage: Pre

3. Hardware: Adrian says:

While the hardware is definitely high quality, I'm not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it's a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don't like the black space on the sides of the screen.

A phone with a built-in QWERTY still hasn't touched the iPhone in terms of sleekness and pure sex. And it might still be a while. Advantage: iPhone

4. Development platform: The Pre's "Web OS" sure sounds nice—all developers need to know is JavaScript, HTML and CSS? Sounds good in theory, but building a mobile app will never be as easy as cranking out a new theme for your Tumblr. Palm's stressing ease of development, though, so it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Apple's solid, familiar-to-devs OS X-based SDK and Android's fully open source approach. Advantage: Pre? If it's straight-up JavaScript, that's a lot of programmers ready to go. Note: we had iPhone here before, but we've switched with a qualification. Developer community still goes to iPhone for volume.

5. Web Integration: The Pre subtly integrates the internet into the phone at every opportunity, and it's awesome. Contacts get pulled in from Facebook, Gmail, IM and and scanned for dupes; the messaging app shows your last several emails, IMs and SMS with that contact in a single window. Really, really smart stuff. Advantage: Pre

6. App Store/developer community: A smartphone is only as good as the software it runs. On the Pre, Palm is still keeping application delivery details like pricing behind the curtain, but they did say the app delivery will be entirely handled by the phone (without a desktop app), which is a shame. They're saying that they're not going to duplicate Apple's Hobbesian app approval black box mistake, which Android has also hasn't fallen for, but there will be an approval process based on "security and stability." But as we know with Android, a dev community needs enough devices in the hands of consumers to reach critical mass, which the Pre will have to match. Advantage: iPhone, even with the black box, but Android and Pre's more open stances are reassuring.

7. Wireless charger: We've seen wireless charger tech for years at CES, but it's taken this long for a major consumer gadget to come bundled with its own wireless charger in the box. Whoops, it's not in the box, sold separately for unknown $$. But still: Bravo. Advantage: Pre

8. The Network: Dan Hesse, Sprint's CEO, gave our coast-to-coast 3G test a shout out in his press conference. Of course he did: Sprint won (in download speeds). Sprint was the only major carrier without a powerful, hype-catching smartphone choice, and now they have one. The Pre is a data-centric phone with a network we've proven to be strong in a large swatch of the country—that's a good combo. But would you switch to Sprint for the Pre? Ugh. Advantage: Not cut and dry for everyone, but we stand by our numbers: Sprint is the best 3G network in our tests.

9. Physical keyboard: It's preference, but one held by a large swathe of the gadget buying public: physical QWERTY keypads are still the mainstream input of choice. Touch is getting better all the time, but a lot of people still want physical keyboards. But better yet is the ability to choose; unfortunately, the Pre doesn't have a soft onscreen keyboard, and its slide-out is the same meh QWERTY from the Treo Pro. Advantage: It's preference, but on me, the iPhone's soft keyboard can't be beat.

10. Camera: The Pre has an LED Flash for its 3MP camera, something both the iPhone and G1 lack. Flash cellphone photos are ugly, but for a lot of people, they're good enough. So credit for throwing it in. Advantage: Pre

11. Battery: Apple's still an outlier with their non-removable battery; like the G1's, the Pre's comes out for a spare swap too. We've heard Apple's reasons for this a million times, we know the drill, but removable batteries will never stop being handy. Advantage: Pre

12. Copy & Paste: Yep, Pre's got it. iPhone still doesn't. Advantage: Pre/G1

13. Browser: All three use a browser based on WebKit, which has become the standard for the mobile web. We couldn't put it through our Mobile Browser Battlemodo ringer obviously, but what we saw looked great, and it's the only other mobile browser besides the iPhone that supports multitouch zooming. Advantage: iPhone/Pre

So there you have it. We're excited. Are you?

Palm Pre : Number one with a bullet. If we told you three months ago that Palm would own CES, would you have believed us? But this phone is for real, and from the looks of it right now, it very well could be the morale lift Palm so badly needed.

And the rest, in no particular order:

Samsung BD-4600 Blu-ray Player: Wall-mountable, networked, 1.5-inches thick, and really, really nice looking.

Samsung Luxia LED TV Lineup: Samsung loosed a whole series of ultra-thin, LED-backlit, network-connected LCDs, winning the Battle of the TV Announcements hands down.

Vizio Connected HDTVs: These Vizios stream just about everything possible over wireless-N: Amazon, Blockbuster and Netflix VOD, Pandora, Flickr, Rhapsody, plus any other Yahoo web widget.

Sony Vaio P: Sony's Vaio P is something we haven't seen before: a 2.08:1 aspect ratio (1600x768) on a 1-inch thick portable. Something different in the very, very generic netbook field.

Casio 1,000fps Point and Shoot Cameras: Both the EX-FC100 and the EX-FS10 bring the EX-F1's slo-mo capture goodness to a point and shoot. Casio's still the only folks in the super slo-mo field, and they're continuing to kill.

LG's GD910 Watch Phone: It was a non-working, behind-the-glass prototype last year, but one of every gadget head's boyish dreams will come true later this year: A watch that's a phone.

Eee Keyboard: Asus took the crazy cake with their still-shadowy home theater keyboard. With an onboard processor (of some kind), a touchscreen and keyboard and wireless HDMI, it makes perfect sense as a unique home-theater machine.

Sony Cyber-shot G3: We're all about putting web browsers on as many things as possible, and Sony's found another way to get one into our pants: A super-slim wi-fi-equipped Cyber-shot G3 that's the world's first to surf the web.

Panasonic Portable Blu-ray Player: Panasonic's DMP-B15 is the world's first portable Blu-ray deck. Your laptop probably doesn't have a BD drive, but this will ensure you can watch hi-def 1080p on a tiny, tiny screen on your next flight.

And there you have it. Good stuff you may or may not be able to afford in '09? Disappointment of disappointments? Discuss.

• Also out CES day two's Best of the Rest.
[CES 2009]

In 2008, some media outlets started publishing their "best of" lists by June. For 2009, we didn't want to come in second. So here are our predictions for the best gadgets of 2009.

Premium Netbooks
We've seen the first wave of unusable netbooks with tiny screens. Then they got an upgrade to 8.9, 10 and even 12-inch screens. Now it's time for netbooks to get WiMax and HSDPA connections as a standard. Hopefully they can still stay half-way affordable...

Wii MotionPlus
When I tested the Wii MotionPlus attachment at E3, I felt that Nintendo had fulfilled the promise of the Wii, finally offering a motion controller as accurate and responsive as we'd all hoped the Wiimote to be originally. If Nintendo can coax developers to support Wii Motion Plus, we can expect some killer Wii titles in '09 (on top of Wii Sports Resort in spring), but it might be 2010 before we see all that many compatible games.

Windows 7
Microsoft can do better than Windows Vista. And with Windows 7—expected sometime before the year is up—they will. Whether it's the new features or the less taxing system requirements, Windows 7 promises to be a vast improvement on Vista, and hopefully enough to coax most of us still clutching XP for dear life to finally upgrade.

$99 Blu-ray Player...That Does More Than Play Blu-ray
The $99 part is only slightly wishful thinking, but if LG's recent announcements are any indication, we can expect more players with expanded services like Netflix, YouTube, CinemaNow...and who knows, maybe even Amazon VOD, Hulu and Rhapsody. Let's watch as these companies compete for our digital download dollar.

A New iPhone
Whether it's the iPhone 3G Part II or the rumored iPhone nano, it's not hard to imagine Apple releasing another new iPhone this year, maintaining their trend of releasing an iPhone per year to stay competitive in the everchanging post-RAZR cellphone market. It's no secret that most of Gizmodo loves the iPhone, so we're pretty excited to see what's next. (Juicy rumors of a new Mac mini and iPod Touch XL are going strong, too.)

4G Networks
3G is alright but we're looking forward to even faster 4G wireless networks soon. Intel-backed WiMax launched in a few locales by carriers Sprint and ClearWire. The wide-area network currently promises peaks of 10 megabits per second but on paper it's capable of over 70. We will likely see slow but steady expansion of the service through 2009. Meanwhile, AT&T and Verizon (and eventually T-Mobile) are gearing up LTE technology. The Nokia-driven GSM-based "Long Term Evolution" may actually whomp WiMax with download speeds of over 300Mbps—though its presence probably won't be felt in the US before 2010.

A Decent-Sized OLED TV
The Sony XEL-1 OLED television rocked our world when it was released this year, but there was a catch. Its screen size was a measly 11 inches. And while we can't expect 50-inch Kuro killers just yet, we do anticipate a very expensive mid-sized set—27 to 32 inches—to hit the market in some form this year. (Sony actually showed off a prototype that was 27 inches at CES 2008. Stay tuned for what we see at CES this year.)

Wireless HDMI
A multitude of companies have various wireless HDMI technologies, but there's no set standard (two warring factions need to settle the fight before we can have interoperable products). The technology is there, now it's just a matter of logistics and handshaking. With luck, by next Christmas, you'll be able to add it to a sub-$2000 1080p projector for the ultimate no-mess home theater.

USB 3.0 Devices
Wireless HDMI may not be quite cooked yet, but the eSATA-crushing USB 3.0 standard is ready to roll. Look for a multitude of products announced within the next week with blazing transfer speeds of 4.8Gbps (moving a 25GB file in under a minute). They'll also benefit from USB 3.0's higher electrical power output. [Image]

A Great Android Phone
The T-Mobile G1 was the necessary first step, but with Google amping up their Android development staff and interest coming from other major phone makers like Motorola, we assume we'll see a truly great Android phone soon. Motorola promises that their own offering will be better and cheaper than the G1, but it's not hitting before next Christmas, so we assume HTC's own follow-ups will come first.

And Your Best Guesses
These picks for 2009 are pretty sure things, but what wilder guesses do you have for best of 2009 products? A new PSP? A BlackBerry with a touchscreen that isn't crap? Real light sabers? Ketchup and mustard in one container?? Dogs and cats living in harmony??? If you don't offer up some kind of prognostication in the comments, you can never tell everyone, "I told you so."

Developed for military and applications by Geosystems, the Situational Awareness Mast doesn't use a telescopic design to extend itself, which are very limited and can get extremely bulky and heavy in no time. In the case of the SAM—also called Zipper Mast—there are three metal rolls that assemble together in a triangle—like some kind of zipper—while going up, providing enough support and stability to lift objects up to 200 pounds. There are various models available:

• SAM 8, that goes from four inches to eight feet and can lift six pounds, enough for a video camera and other sensors.
• SAM 10, that goes up to 12 feet lifting 140 pounds, and costs $11,000.
• SAM 12/15, which raises from 15 inches to 15 feet with a 150 pounds weight limit.
• And the top-of-the-line SAM 20, that goes from 25 inches to 20 feet raising up to 200 pounds.

[Hizook via Defense Tech]

"Like grandpa has," she explains.
"Oh, an iPhone!" I realize, pulling my own iPhone out for her to confirm.
"Yes, like that one. But in white."

It was an interesting revelation, especially when I later found out that my sister actually uses a pink RAZR. Note to self: get sis a better phone next Christmas and never trust my niece again.

Blood analysis usually requires either large and expensive equipment or a trained technician to manually examine the material. Both are out of reach for many remote areas, especially in parts of Africa where HIV and malaria are rampant. UCLA researcher Dr. Aydogan Ozcan developed software that allows blood samples to be analyzed with the use of inexpensive, off-the-shelf camera sensors and a filtered light source. The key is the software's ability to analyze thousands of blood cells at once, providing an accurate result within minutes.

The photo above shows a Sony-Ericsson phone modded for this type of use. That bulge on the back is the filtered light source. It's great to see cool mods done for great social welfare rather than our gadgety amusement every once in awhile. [Wired]

There are almost no details on these pictures for the time being, but BGR does promise that they are all destined for Verizon Wireless in 2009. Pictured above, we have the codenamed Flash—what looks to be Motorola's thick response to the iPhone with some sharp HTC Diamond edging.

And here we have the Calgary, mixing RAZR buttons with a sliding touchscreen. There are more photos over at BGR, so hit them up to see what else Motorola's got in the works. [BGR]

It turns out that this is probably a leak of an official RIM project, called BlackBerry Application Suite. CrackBerry dug up a year-and-a-half-old presser from the company describing its intentions:

[RIM plans to] expand its support for Windows Mobile®-based devices with a new software application suite that will enable devices from third-party manufacturers to benefit from the popular BlackBerry® software applications and services.

Well, considering that the pictures and video resemble the aforementioned concept, and that the programs were sighted running on a phone supported by AT&T, RIM's partner in the initiative, it looks like the BlackBerry Application Suite might be coming to fruition.

If carried out correctly, the appeal could be great; the BlackBerry OS core apps offer a substantially more user-friendly experience than Windows Mobile's, which haven't managed to curry much loyalty in nearly a decade of existence and revision. The suite also appears to offer an alternative home screen, which resembles the Storm's.

The success of this will come down to two factors: price and code. If the apps are free and native, then it'd be hard to justify not leaving WinMo's humdrum messaging, browsing and organizational apps behind. If the suite is either paid, exclusively bundled with select handsets or virtualized, it might be a non-starter. This leak is as vague as it is early, so expect a good deal more information to surface before too long. Warning: comically lazy gadget video below. [BerryReview via CrackBerry]

Apple Announces Last Year of Christmas

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this is the last year for Christmas. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, spoke at a joint press conference held with Santa Claus at the North Pole this morning. He announced: "Apple has been honored to work with the North Pole the last several years to make Christmas possible, however, we have decided together that this is the last year for Christmas."

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, Christmas has become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways, throughout the year.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on holidays in recent years, including Valentine's Day, Columbus Day, President's Day and Grandparents Day in Japan.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Press Contacts:
Buddy Elf
Apple
elf@apple.com

Papa Elf
North Pole
elf@santasworkshop.np

[Apple Canceled Christmas—thanks Jacqui and Mona]

To recap: the latest MacBook Air has the same display as before (one step up from the standard MacBook displays since the Air is somewhat of a "Pro" machine), the same form factor and the same exact feel as the one released in early 2008. On the inside, however, Apple increased both the solid state hard drive and the standard SATA hard drive storage to 128GB and 120GB, respectively. There's also a Mini DisplayPort port connection for the revamped 24-inch Cinema Display, a faster CPU and faster front side bus, plus that Nvidia 9400 graphics chipset that's in the MacBook and MacBook Pros. Here's how the machine stacks up.

Benchmark: The most important thing to measure in this incremental upgrade is the performance comparison vs. other MacBooks. I've updated the chart from the MacBook and MacBook Pro graphics deathmatch (performed with 3DMark 06 under Windows XP) to include the MacBook Air, and it performs about as well as you'd expect in most departments. Since the MacBook Air and the Macbook now have the same GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chip, it makes sense that they're fairly close in score, with the Air falling behind due to the wimpier processor. It is quite a surprise that the CPU test has the Air so far below the MacBook, scoring at only 56% of its cheaper, but fatter, brother. It's still the slowest MacBook you can currently buy.

Battery: In regular blogging use (Wi-Fi on, screen 3/4 brightness, music on, lots of web browsing and webapps), we got a respectable 2.5 hours with the Air. That's about what we got with the MacBook and MacBook Pro when they were playing back movies, something that's more taxing on the system. But on the other hand, when you compare this version to the original MBA when rendering movies, the updated 9400M GeForce graphics actually lowers CPU usage, which helps to extend battery a bit.

Screen: Since it has the same screen as the old MacBook Air, it's going to be just as good—which is to say, better than the MacBook's screen. You get clearer blacks and no color distortion with wider viewing angles off to the side. It's LED-backed and glossy, so those of you who work outside (a light laptop would mean more of you do) may have difficulty finding a good angle to sit at to not get an annoying glare.

Monitor: One very interesting use case with the MacBook Air is to drive the newly released 24-inch Cinema Display. Apple's 24-inch monitor is very much made with the Air in mind, with its USB, Mini DisplayPort and MacBook Air-style slim MagSafe adapter. The good news is that the Air drives this display very well in either mirror mode (lid closed is optional) or as a separate display, proving that the GeForce 9400M is more than enough to run 1920x1200 sans slowdowns. The bad news is that the the laptop's USB and Mini DisplayPort is on the right, but the power is on the left, meaning that the three built-in connectors from the monitor are able to connect, but you get a weird forking thing going on behind the display. Not as elegant as when you plug in the display to a MacBook or a MacBook Pro where all the ports are on one side. But, it's a minor quibble.

General Usage: It's essentially the same laptop but improved, so all of our caveats from our first review apply now. You still need to either use the external USB optical drive or "borrow" one from another machine. It's not a fast laptop when compared to its bigger brothers, but it's not a slug either. People who just want a thin, portable and light machine—mainstream folks—are the primary target. But, at $1799 and $2499 for the 1.6GHz and 1.86GHz versions, the Air still lands somewhere, in both price and features, between the pro user and the casual user, meaning that you should think twice and see if either the MacBook or the Pro would be better suited for you. [Apple]