Desktops

Troll Touch your iMac screen

I occasionally work with clients who need to have Macs set up as kiosks. That means that anyone can walk up and use the Mac to watch a video or access information, but they usually can’t update anything on the Mac. Kiosks are especially useful when the user interface consists of a finger touching the screen. In my experience, touch screens are generally expensive and require that you send a Mac off to a vendor for installation.

Troll Touch now has user-installable touch screens for the 20″ and 24″ aluminum iMacs called SlipCOVERs. Priced at $699 (20″) and $899 (24″), the SlipCOVERs come with touch screen drivers and calibration software. The video above shows a touch-enabled iMac in action — I especially liked watching the demo dude playing Bejeweled using his finger instead of a mouse. Pull off the aluminum stand, lay that SlipCOVER iMac down on its back, and you’ve got a 24″ iPod touch! Read

Popularity: 12% [?]

Snow Leopard to drop PowerPC support?

PowerPC users, your days could be numbered. According to an alleged screenshot of Snow Leopard’s system requirements, only Intel CPUs will get to take a ride on the 10.6 train as of now. The grab comes from an early version of the OS seeded to developers at WWDC this week, though given that Jobsy said we’re a year out from an actual release, these things could change. Still, it’s not looking promising for those of you who’ve stood by your older models — but Apple shutting out legacy users doesn’t come as a real shock, does it?

[Via Mac Rumors; Thanks, Kiwi616]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Apple previews OS X Snow Leopard: scheduled to ship “in about a year”

The next iteration of OS X was mentioned early on during today’s WWDC 2008 keynote, but little was said afterwards. Thankfully, Apple hasn’t left us completely out to dry, as a recent release gives a few clues as to what Snow Leopard has in store. First and foremost, the OS isn’t expected to ship until about this time next year, and just as predicted, it will be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Specifically, it will “enhance the performance of OS X and set a new standard for quality… rather than focusing primarily on new features.” Still, we do know that it’ll play nice with Microsoft Exchange 2007 from the get-go, provide “unrivaled support for multi-core processors” with a new technology dubbed Grand Central, extend support “for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL),” and raise the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM. Heck, you’ll even find QuickTime X in there. Yeah, we love those new features, but we can honestly say we’re looking forward to a nice round of polishing.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Apple shuffles execs, Scott Forstall now head of iPhone Software

Looks like El Steve’s getting the house in order before all the guests roll in for WWDC — AppleInsider says there’s been some exec reshuffling at the top. Most prominently, Scott Forstall has been bumped up to Senior Vice President of iPhone Software, which means he now reports directly to Jobs. Given Apple’s big push into the mobile devices space, that’s a big responsibility, but Forstall’s got the chops — he’s been working on the core of OS X since the NeXT days, and he was responsible for the release of OS X Leopard. Also getting a fatter paycheck is Bob Mansfield, who’s the new SVP of Mac Hardware Engineering and will report to COO Tim Cook. MHE hasn’t had a leader since 2004, when a committee of Mansfield, Jonathan Ive, and Dan Riccio was put in place to lead development. Of course, all these guys are merely puppets in the grand schemes of Dear Leader anyhow, but hey, someone’s got to do the paperwork, right?

[Thanks, Mark]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Corkboard Mac gives push-pins new purpose

Best we can tell, the Corkboard Mac was constructed from critical parts of an older PowerBook and gets held up by a series of colorful push-pins. Legend has it that the actual casing was destroyed in an unfortunate cooking accident, but thankfully, all of the vitals — LCD included — were left intact. Peep one more shot in the read link, and pay your respects as you enter.

[Thanks, Steven]

Popularity: 22% [?]