Apple head Steve Jobs has never cut a humble swath. This was never better demonstrated than at his presentation of new Power Macs in San Francisco, when Jobs reached for the grandiloquent.
"The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again," he said. "Today we have introduced the fastest PC in the world."
Even if critics take issue with the details of the speed tests that Apple has since made available, the message is nevertheless still clear: Apple's work with new system architecture surrounding the PowerPC G5 chip from IBM represents an enormous step forward. The new chips will allow Macs to keep up with high-end PCs running on processors from Intel or AMD.
Designers and other creative types, Apple's main customer base, have increasingly had to face up to the fact that current Windows PCs are significantly faster than their Macintosh computers.
"The main argument not to buy a Power Mac was the relatively slow speed," says Charlie Wolf, an analyst from Needham & Co. "That reason is now gone."
The speed growth will really come into effect at the end of the year when Apple brings the "Panther" version of its Mac OS X operating system onto the market.
Striking even at first glance is the 600 megahertz (MHz) jump in processing speed from the previous fastest Power Mac with G4 chip to the 2 gigahertz offered by the quickest G5 computers.
This value is still significantly below the 3 gigahertz offered by the quickest Pentium chips from Intel. Yet even in the "Wintel" world, it has become common wisdom that processing speed is not the only factor when it comes to calculating "power."
The quickest Power Macs will soon hold two PowerPC chips that will each have an independent front-side bus to communicate with the rest of the computer. This means that Apple's top model offers up to 16 gigabytes of bandwidth.
Other expediters include the high storage bandwidth of 400 MHz (128 bit DDR-SDRAM) with a flow rate of up to 6.4 gigabits per second, as well as a fast 133-MHz PCI-X port to the Apple desktop.
The top model in the G5 line is being offered on Apple's site for US$2,999.
A G5 Power Mac with a 1.8 GHz chip and 900 MHz frontside bus costs US$2,399, a 1.6 GHz version with 800 MHz frontside bus is available for US$1,999. All models come with a SuperDrive that can read and write DVDs.
The new "Panther" operating system is not just intended for professionals and owners of the 64-bit Power Mac G5s.
Apple has worked more than 100 new features into the new OS, including a completely new desktop management system.
"The `finder' function has been a bit too centered on the computer in the past. Now the user is clearly in the middle," says Apple marketing head Phil Schiller.
Particularly attention-getting at the Apple developer conference in San Francisco was the windows manager Expos, which allows the user to open all windows at once and then bring the desired window forward.
An integral part of "Panther" is a new chat program that allows two Macs to easily set up a video conference over the Internet.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique