Andrew Machado

Intel yesterday announced a new cheaper quad core processor for laptops. This chip along with a more expensive version round out a their quad core offerings for notebooks. Oddly the rumor mill is starting to hint that the MacBook Pro is going to adopt a quad core processor. Personally I think this is wrong…even with Snow Leopard coming soon.

Currently Quad Core Processors for laptops are topping out at 2.53 ghz, which is really hard to communicate to a professional that hey we took away MHZ, but we are giving you two extra processors that probably wont be used unless you have your laptop plugged into a wall.

The power drain is also greater on the Quad Core by quite a hefty margin. I believe its nearly 100% more of a power drain than the 35 mw power burn of the current chips in the MacBook Pro. The Quad cores that are currently available will most likely be used in the iMac because it can afford to use a higher wattage chip since it does not run on a battery or is enclosed in such a small space.

There has been lot of dicussion today about the possibility of Apple building its own media server software and hardware. I think people need to slow down a little bit with thoughts that this is close to launching. First off at this point Apple has the software pieces in place with Front Row coming on every mac and Time Machine allowing users to back up their valuable music, media and other files. However in terms of allowing users to remotely access this content they are not there except when it comes to media streaming and right now that is limited to you being on the same network.

Some initial technical issues I see. The XML file on my iTunes library currently is over 15 megabytes in size. This file keeps track of all my songs and movies, their preferences and meta data information. How in the heck is Apple going to make that file small enough to be able to be transferred over wireless devices like a 3G iPhone?

My prediction here is that Front Row will continue to expand into more of a media hub adding the ability to be controlled from your iPhone, supporting more formats, etc. Apple likes to be able to control what goes on the iPhone and by having it link only to iTunes they are doing that. Opening up wireless streaming of files to the iPhone puts a real hit on the 3G network as well as presents a whole wealth of new problems.

In a press release today Apple Computer denied that their founder and acting CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack. Today’s false news about Steve Jobs made me think should the healthy of executives in publicly traded companies be made public? If I am going to invest in a company I want to know as much as possible about the management and the business, but at what point do you draw the line and say that every human being has a right to privacy.

Can you imagine being a CEO, going to the doctor to find out you have diabetes then having your PR department issue a press release about it? I personally on some level think this is absurd, but if I am investing my own hard earned money I want to know that the company wont go belly up cause the CEO is sick and keeping it private. Anyone else have an opinion?