A few more interesting items are starting to leak out ahead of CES 2012.
AR Drone 2.0
Engadget publishes a press release for Parrot's new AR Drone 2.0 which sports a 720P HD Camera. The original AR Drone was shown off at CES 2010. It's an iPhone-controlled quadricoptor that uses a number of sensors, including a downward facing camera, to help stabilize its flight. You control the flying machine with the use of your iPhone.
The 2.0 upgrade now offers a 1280x720 resolution camera that can be used to record videos as well as new flight control modes to allow for easier handling. Per Gizmodo:
Perhaps best of all, it's now even easier to pilot. Before you had to rely on the camera to know which way the AR.Drone was facing, and then send commands from the drone's perspective. That option is still available for advanced users, but the AR.Drone 2 now senses where you are, so tilting your phone/tablet away from you will send the drone away, and tilting it to your right will make the drone go that way, too. It's incredibly intuitive.
The 2.0 version of the AR Drone will be $299 and available in the 2nd Quarter of 2012. This video shows the original AR Drone in action:
OCZ Thunderbolt SSD
PCPer spotted this new external SSD coming from OCZ. The company had previously offered a similar external USB 3.0 SSD, but this new model brings Thunderbolt support.
According to OCZ, the Thunderbolt-equipped SSD should have transfer rates as high as 750MB/s and "improved latency and highly accurate time synchronization" for professional audio/video work. No timeframe on release, but more details may arrive at next week.
Sunday February 23, 2025 2:23 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
The first beta of iOS 18.4 is now available, and it includes a small but useful change for CarPlay.
As we noted in our list of iOS 18.4 features, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra, which can be equipped...
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements.
While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way.
By the time the ...
Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
"APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote.
Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of shareholders voted against a proposal that asked the...
Monday February 24, 2025 6:11 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to launch a second-generation AirTag in May or June this year, according to a post today from a leaker known as Kosutami.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that a new AirTag would be released in mid-2025. May or June would align with that timeframe.
Below, we recap three new features rumored for the AirTag 2:
With a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the...
Monday February 24, 2025 2:49 am PST by Tim Hardwick
A new CAD render of all the devices in Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 lineup has been shared online by leaker Majin Bu, specifically showing the allegedly different rear camera system designs of the standard iPhone 17, all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models.
The leaker Majin Bu has had some hits in the past, but some of his information has been wrong,...
Tuesday February 25, 2025 2:58 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is making significant headway on its long-rumored foldable iPhone, with a new report suggesting the company has achieved a major breakthrough by effectively eliminating the screen crease that plagues current foldable devices.
According to Korean publication ETNews, Apple is finalizing its component suppliers for the foldable iPhone, with the selection process expected to be completed...
Tuesday February 25, 2025 1:18 pm PST by Juli Clover
Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist."
In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being ...
Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by Joe Rossignol
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year.
The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time.
Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
oh man if the thunderbolt ssd's are bootable I'm gonna be soooo happy. I bought an iMac but couldn't afford the internal ssd. So a few months down the line when money is saved an external drive would be great if its bootable since it will read faster than the 7200rpm hdd.
Having one thunderbolt port on my iMac, I will automatically pass on anything that cannot be daisy chained, as I need the terminating device to be a display port to HDMI adapter.
Sorry, it just sounded like you were trying to rally consumers into a movement akin to the "We are the 99%", but targeting instead the existence of elitist technologies that are priced higher than the masses can afford.
No, I'm not making such a statement since I'm probably closer to the 1% than the 99% anyhow. I'm saying all these products offer little value to consumers for the price they are at.
You know the saying, you can get 90% of the performance for 10% of the cost, and the other 10% of the performance for 90% of the cost. Consumers don't need the last 10% of performance.
Thunderbolt is that last 10%.
I think you're being a little narrow with your definition of "consumer." I can pick up an Apple TB display from at least 3 different stores at my local mall. And if I peruse the TV section of Best Buy I can find dozens of IPS displays that retail for more than $1k.
*sigh*. And I have a Cisco Pix 501 here in my house which I used for years as my Internet firewall. That doesn't make it a consumer product.
IPS TVs are not IPS computer monitors. There's a reason consumers want IPS in a TV, viewing angles. I don't always sit straight in front of a TV, especially if I'm having a bunch of people over to watch the game or something.
Thunderbolt looks more and more like its being aimed at the prosumer/professional market. Not the consumer. The products reflect that (SSD external enclosures, RAID arrays, 300$ port extenders, IPS monitors with some ports on it).
