Apple Inc chief executive Steve Jobs took the wraps off a super-slim new laptop at the Macworld trade show on Tuesday, unveiling a personal computer less than 25mm thick that turns on the moment it is opened.
Jobs also confirmed the consumer electronics company's foray into online movie rentals, revealing an alliance with all six major movie studios to offer films over high-speed Internet connections within 30 days after they're released on DVD.
Always a showman, Jobs unwound the string on a standard-sized manila office envelope and slid out the ultra-thin MacBook Air notebook computer to coos and peals of laughter from fans at the conference.
PHOTO: AFP
At its beefiest, the new computer is 19mm thick; at its thinnest, it's 4mm, he said. It comes standard with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, with the option of a 64-gigabyte flash-based solid state drive as an upgrade.
The machine doesn't come with a built-in optical drive for reading CDs and DVDs, a feature Jobs says consumers won't miss because they can download movies and music over the Internet and access the optical drives on other PCs and Macs to install new software. They can buy an external drive, however, that will retail for US$99.
Trading in Apple stock was heavy on Tuesday, the first day of the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. It fell 5.52 percent to US$168.91 at midday.
The new laptop, which has a 13.3-inch screen and full-sized laptop keyboard, will be priced at US$1,799 when it goes be on sale in two weeks, though Apple is taking orders now. The company's Web site is already touting the machine. The price is competitive with other laptops in its market segment.
Other revelations during Jobs' speech reflected the Cupertino-based company's intensifying efforts to push deeper into consumers' living rooms with technologies that blend Internet technology into home entertainment devices.
The movie-rental announcement capped months of speculation that an Apple movie rental service was in the offing. The service launched on Tuesday in the US and will roll out internationally later this year.
Apple will have more than 1,000 movies for online rental through iTunes by the end of February, with prices of US$2.99 for older movies and US$3.99 for new releases. Users can watch instantly over a broadband Internet connection, or download and keep the movie for 30 days while having 24 hours to finish the movie once it's started.
Apple is partnering with 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony on the service, which will work on Macs, Windows-based machines, iPhones, iPods or Apple TV set-top boxes.
Jobs cut the price of Apple TV from US$299 to US$229 and announced new software that allows users to order movies through the device and play them directly on their TV sets, eliminating the need to route the content through a personal computer first. The software is free to existing Apple TV customers and will be included in new Apple TV devices shipping in two weeks.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
PETITIONS: A Democratic Progressive Party official quoted President William Lai as saying that civil society groups are organizing the recall drives at the grassroots level Some civil society groups yesterday announced that they have collected enough signatures to pass the first-stage threshold to initiate a recall vote against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in 18 constituencies nationwide, saying that they would submit the signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) today. They also said that they expected to pass the threshold in eight more constituencies in the coming days, meaning the number of KMT legislators facing a recall vote could reach 26. The groups set up stations to collect signatures at local marketplaces and busy commercial districts. The legislators their petition drives target include Fu