15.4-inch MacBooks, review

In brief: Apple may be preparing to introduce 15.4-inch MacBooks in the second quarter of 2007, according to Taiwan sources cited by DigiTimes. The revised consumer laptop is expected to bolster the company's MacBook shipments, which could reach 700,000 units in the first quarter of 2007. Current 13.3-inch MacBooks are manufactured by Asustek Computer, but the reprty claims that the new 15.4-inch models will be produced by Quanta Computer -- the manufacturer of Apple's 15.4- and 17-inch MacBook Pro notebooks.... MacNN has reviewed the FlipSkin case for Apple's video iPod ($35, shown at right) from Speck Products, featuring a built-in stand protecting the device with a silicone cover. The case features a grey and black rubber finish making it easy to grip, and comes with a removable screen protector made from hard clear plastic.

Silo 2.0 Mac beta

Silo has released the first Mac beta of Silo 2.0 for all registered Silo users, updating the 3D modeling program that focuses on the construction and sculpting of shapes in 3D for use in design as well as animation and video game creation. The release is a Universal Binary that runs natively on Mac OS X, but is not recommended for use with critical projects.

Google Earth adds KML search support

Google today announced that its Google Earth service enables users to search through all of the world's Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files, making the millions of Google Earth layers on the Web instantly accessible for geobrowsing and exploration. Users can zoom to a location of interest and type in a search query to see the KML results below the local results in the search panel.

by MacNN Staff