Buzz Report: MacBooks, MacHeads, and non-Mac politics
Culture
Hi, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report. This week, new MacBooks, a
new Mac movie, and some other news that's totally not Mac related, I swear. But first,
it's the gadget of the week.
The Gadgets of the Week are the new MacBooks Apple finally got around to announcing
this week. The whole line got a refresh, including a new, all-metal case design, a glass,
multitouch trackpad that doesn't have any mouse button at ALL, and glossy LED
displays. The MacBook Pros get dual graphics processors, the MacBook loses FireWire
completely (awesome), and the MacBook Air stays underpowered and overpriced. Oh,
and there's an all-new display port, the Mini DisplayPort, which is sort of a
bastardization of a display port standard that no one uses and, much like when Apple
switched to DVI before anyone was ready, will require a lot of adapters and confusion
before the rest of the world catches on.
Oh, and the cheapest MacBook is now $999. And, although many analysts went crazy for
the news, that's still too expensive, people with video cameras like Macs and they also
like FireWire, and quit changing port standards, for god's sake! Commence your angry e-
mails, MacHeads.
Actually, on a related note, let's jump right in to what's Clogging the Tubes. This week,
there's a new trailer for the upcoming movie, 'MacHeads.' Let's check it out.
Yep. Yep, I think those are some of the people who just e-mailed me. That's gonna be
good.
And now for the news, news. Presidential candidates, as is to be expected, were all over
the Internet this week. Barack Obama's campaign started buying advertising in 18
Electronic Arts video games, including 'Madden NFL 09' and the car racing game
"Burnout: Paradise." Upon seeing the ads, the target demographic responded, "Uh, who's
that guy now? We don't get out that much ?"
And John McCain's campaign ran smack into the big, fat boot of DMCA takedown
notices this week. See, the McCain campaign has been putting its political ads on
YouTube. And sometimes they contain snippets of copyrighted video in them. And under
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if someone complains to YouTube that a video
violates their copyright, YouTube has to take it down, no questions asked. Even if the
copyrighted material is ok to use under fair use. And so the McCain campaign was all,
hey, this law kind of sucks. And the tech community was all, HEY! GLAD you
NOTICED. Now there's a campaign issue we can get behind."
In other news this week, Sony announced a bold new tactic to move PlayStation 3 units.
In the face of a crippling economic downturn and unrelenting pressure from Microsoft's
Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, the company said it absolutely will NOT lower prices
on the PS3 for the crucial holiday buying season. Yes. You heard that right. NOT
cheaper. At least they're going down fighting.
MySpace has launched a video-recording feature for its MySpace Karaoke page, because
it's apparently a huge success. And here I thought it existed just to torture me. No, I
KNOW it exists just to torture me--check out the MySpace Karaoke tagline: Everybody
Sings! And now?they can put on funny costumes and make their own funny music
videos?while they sing. Oh, fine. Whatever. Who cares? It's the Internet. Sing all you
want. You weirdos.
(music)
And that'll do it for this week, everyone. I'm Molly Wood and this has been the Buzz
Report. Thanks for watching.
