On the heels of recent reports of substantial speed boosts with the new iMac refresh comes a report from Fudzilla claiming that Intel is planning on launching three Arrandale-based processors on January 3rd, 2010. Based on the advanced Nehalem architecture introduced into desktop Macs this year, the Arrandale processors mark a significant performance improvement over the current Core 2 Duo processors used in the MacBook Pro models.

Branded under the “Core i5” and “Core i7” names with processor speeds ranging from 2.4 GHz to 2.66 GHz, the processors will have a cost ranging from $225 to $332 in quantities of 1,000. While not available at launch, low-voltage variants are expected to come eventually, suitable for ultra-thin notebooks such as the MacBook Air.

Fudzilla describes the Arrandale’s TDP (thermal design power) of 35W as “not so attractive,” but MacRumors notes that they match up with the current high-end processors used in the MacBook Pro, making them an ideal candidate for a forthcoming update.

Source: TechCrunch

Was the CrunchPad yet another mythical tablet computer made of dark matter and moon dust? Perhaps it doesn’t really matter. Whatever it would have been had it ever seen the light of day, it’s (apparently) dead now.

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington announced the official end of the much publicized project on Monday. The tablet, developed by TechCrunch in partnership with Singapore-based Fusion Garage, was intended to be a thin touch-screen device priced at around $300 that people could use solely to access the internet. It was scheduled to make its debut as a prototype at the Real-Time CrunchUp event in San Francisco on November 20.

But instead, greed, dirty dealings -- or market reality -- killed the CrunchPad.

Arrington kicked off the project on July 21 2008, writing in a TechCrunch post, "We want a dead simple web tablet for $200, help us build it". The project inspired a significant amount of enthusiasm and publicity over the next year and a half.

In a poignant post by John Biggs which appeared on TechCrunch today, accompanied by a painting of a sad-faced clown, the tablet was billed as much bigger than the sum of its parts: "…the CrunchPad was a testament to the power of online media and a fascinating study in the ability of new media to enact real changes on the real world. While the product faltered, it’s fascinating that the project went as far as it did given the forces arrayed against it."

"This is a massive change in this industry," Biggs wrote. "A few years ago a blogger couldn’t get a press pass to CES let alone enough attention to build out a massive and mass-market hardware project."

While some TechCrunch posters mourned the death of the CrunchPad, others were less than supportive:

Good god. As far as the world is concerned, you had a couple of blog posts about a mythical tablet. Get over yourselves, drama queens.

Product design across oceans is nothing new and is not a function of new media.

Gawd, what a load of self-serving tripe. The product didn’t even ship and now it appears DOA. And yet this failure is somehow a shiny example of New Media’s victory…over, er, something or other.

Arrington, on Monday, wrote in the TechCrunch blog that the CrunchPad project came to an abrupt end "over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication." He claimed that he received an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, CEO of Fusion Garage, three days before launch, stating that "based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without TechCrunch’s involvement."

Arrington suggested that the whole kerfuffle might be a pressure tactic to force renegotiation of the current deal, certainly not an unheard of tactic in the less brightly lit corridors of international business.

The most puzzling part of this whole drama is whether Arrington, a former corporate lawyer with a client list that included Netscape, Pixar and Apple, would have signed off on a contract that didn’t specify precisely what would happen if such a clawback was attempted by investors or partners. No one has posted the contracts online for the general public’s perusal (although Arrington has stated the IP is shared) and, since lawsuits are apparently brewing, people are either being very careful about what they say or aren’t saying anything. Fusion Garage has removed the company blog from fusiongarage.com, and did not reply to an email requesting comment.

There had been some rumors in early November that the CrunchPad was doomed. Dan Frommer, with Silicon Alley Insider, predicted the demise of the Crunchpad a few weeks before Arlington tossed it into the Dead Pool.

But apparently the folks at Popular Science didn’t get the memo, as their November issue lists the CrunchPad as one of The 10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009. You can just hear the gnashing of editorial teeth when you read this piece now, which states that "Most breakthrough innovations make their greatest contributions when they become products people can buy. Here, Popular Mechanics awards the top 10 most brilliant gadgets, tools and toys that you can buy in 2009" and heralded the CruncPad as "the proof that today a tech fanboy can take the director’s chair and quickly prototype a smarter product."

An update, posted yesterday on Popular Science's site, states: "On Nov. 30, 2009, CrunchPad’s Michael Arrington announced that the product introduction was being canceled, owing to a business dispute. By giving an award to a prototype, PM took a risk: that a promising product created by a smart group of people might fail to be realized. In this case, it seems, we were a bit too quick to act on our enthusiasm for an innovative idea. While this product is not coming to market, Popular Mechanics anticipates that tablet-style devices for consuming media will represent an important trend in the coming year."

While it now seems likely that the CrunchPad will live on in courtrooms far longer than it did as a viable tech project, it’s possible that Arrington will announce next week that everyone has kissed and made up and the project is on again.

Whatever. Here at Mac|Life, we’re eagerly anticipating an announcement from Steve Jobs proclaiming that the Apple Tablet is ready to ship, just in time for the holidays, and the first 1000 tablets sold will come complete with a special limited-edition live magic unicorn.

In the 1980s, “portable audio” took the form of comically large boom boxes with as many flashing lights and extra buttons as eight D batteries could power. The ’90s turned boom boxes into gadgets so sleek and light, they looked (and often were) incapable of pushing enough decibels to fuel a party, let alone annoy the neighbors. And today, the iPod has pretty much killed the boom box, collectors of old-school memorabilia notwithstanding.

Or has it? Big, heavy, and generous of high-volume beats, Altec Lansing’s new Mix is a throwback to the old days. And the best part is that it taps your iPod or iPhone for its source audio, so there are no more tapes to melt on your dashboard or get chewed up by janky cassette mechanisms.

Mix's side-firing subwoofer pumps pounding bass.

At 10 pounds, 1.4 ounces without batteries, the Mix is one honkin’ mother of a machine. After you add the eight D cells required to go cord-free, total weight hits around 12.5 pounds, pushing the Mix from “portable” to “luggable” territory. At 19.7 inches wide by 9.3 inches deep and 7.7 inches high, it’s not small, either. But all that bulk buys deep bass and enough sonic power to rock a good-size living room or outdoor BBQ. At first, we weren’t in love with the Mix’s black-with-gold-trim aesthetic (one of our coworkers commented, “It looks like the future--in 1985”), but it has started to grow on us. And once we started blasting The Gossip’s Music for Men, our doubts were quickly quelled.

Sound-wise, the Mix shines. Bass is heavy and tight, thanks to the side-firing 5.25-inch woofer and matching passive radiator. Mids are handled by two 3-inch, front-mounted drivers, and there is a pair of 1-inch tweeters to round out the high end. The overall tone is bass heavy (but not muddy), and there’s a seven-band graphic EQ along with Bass & Treble controls to customize the sound. For a portable device, we were pleasantly surprised by the wide soundstage and good stereo separation.

The Mix works with any dockable iPod (including the iPhone) and comes with several dock inserts for even better fits. There’s also a bar that slides over your ‘Pod, presumably to keep it from falling out, but we’d advise against running down the street with an iPod docked in the unit. The Mix also sports an FM radio, and two aux-in jacks for adding additional devices. Controls are simple and easy to understand, and the bundled remote can control most functions of the device. The remote also features a handy--though incredibly dorky--belt clip that can slide into a slot in the Mix for storage as well.

Apple and arch-rival clone maker Psystar agreed to settle a 17-month lawsuit on Monday which will effectively put an end to spunky upstart Psystar preinstalling Mac OS X on its Intel-based computers.

Details of the settlement are scarce, but Psystar indicated in a motion submitted Monday that additional details would be forthcoming today, according to Computerworld. The deal may not completely close the door on Mac clones, as Psystar hopes to continue offering a $50 utility called Rebel RFI which allows users to install Mac OS X on their own systems, rather than have Psystar bear the burden of doing it at the time of purchase.

The settlement with Apple requires that Psystar pay the Mac creator an as-yet unspecified sum for damages, although it won’t be awarded until Psystar exhausts all of its appeal options.

“Psystar has agreed on certain amounts to be awarded as statutory damages on Apple’s copyright claims in exchange for Apple’s agreement not to execute on these awards until all appeals in this matter have been concluded,” Psystar’s motion reads. “Moreover, Apple has agreed to voluntarily dismiss all its trademark, trade-dress and state-law claims. This partial settlement eliminates the need for a trial and reduces the issues before this Court to the scope of any permanent injunction on Apple’s copyright claims.”

While Psystar is conceding defeat on its preinstalled Mac OS X clones, they don’t plan to go down without a fight where its Rebel RFI utility is concerned. “Rebel EFI is entirely a software product,” they claim. “It does not involve the assembly by Psystar of any computers. Nor does Rebel EFI contain or include Mac OS X. Rebel EFI consists solely of Psystar software available for sale and download through Psystar’s website.”

It remains to be seen how this ancillary legal tussle will play out, but one thing’s for sure: The fat lady hasn’t quite sang her last note in this case just yet.

Even before the launch of the original iPhone in 2007, rumors swirled in blogs and message boards that Apple might integrate a front-facing camera for video conferencing into the unit. It has yet to happen more than two years later, but that hasn’t stopped Israel-based fring from making at least one part of the puzzle a reality today.

Of course, the iPhone 3GS camera (the only one officially capable of video recording) is on the back of the unit, making it difficult to use for video conferencing. Besides the fact that you won’t be able to properly frame yourself, you also won’t be able to see the other party you’re talking to.

Hailed as a “world’s first,” fring’s solution (for now) is to stick with only incoming video streams — you can see the party you’re calling, but they can’t see you. This limitation doesn’t exist for many Nokia users, however, whose Symbian S60-based handsets commonly feature a front-facing camera as well as one on the back for pictures and video.

The good news, however, is that the incoming video works both with fring-to-fring calls as well as fring-to-Skype calls, making it infinitely more useful. The feature also works with all iPhone and iPod touch models running OS 3.0 or later.

“Leveraging excellent video capabilities on the iPhone and iPod touch together with our open Internet and social environment, we’re bringing together families and friends these holidays, wherever they are,” explains fring co-founder and CEO Avi Shechter. “We were the first to bring iPhone/iPod touch users the choice to make free Internet calls…now we’re proud to continue leading the field of rich mobile-internet communication by bringing users the world’s first fring video calls over internet for the iPhone and iPod touch.”

The new version of fring is ready to download from the App Store, and as always, it’s free.

Gizmodo found out that Apple recently rejected an app named iDroid, which is really just an app that features the "eye", and nothing more.  It does not replicate any features of the Droid platform.  

PocketGamer in the UK also brought up that touching the "eye" in the app would have brought up a list of bullet points stating things that Droid could do that the iPhone currently doesn't, such as a physical keyboard.

Two weeks ago, clever thieves in Belgium made off with nearly 4,000 iPhone 3GS units from a warehouse belonging to carrier Mobistar. Now the stolen phones are starting to appear in Russia, of all places.

The black market iPhones are valued at $3 million US and are currently being offered in Russia in batches of 100 at bargain prices, according to Russian website iPhones.ru. And needless to say, the transaction is cash only.

“Today, several vendors with a forum reported that they call the unknown people and offer at knockdown prices to buy officially unlocked ‘Europeans’,” a Google translation of the report reads. (“Europeans” refers to the stolen iPhones.) “The minimum party is from 100 units in one-time payment without there installments or implementations. The owner of a shop at Gorbushka, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the windows of the market has already started to appear Belgian phones.”

Russia’s carrier MTS got the exclusive on the iPhone 3G last year, but sales were lackluster compared to other countries, especially considering the carrier’s 84 million subscribers. The biggest problem stems from the official iPhone’s hefty price, especially when compared to the healthy trade in unlocked iPhones from other countries — even President Dmitry Medvedev is rumored to own one!

International police agency Interpol is already on the case of the stolen iPhones, with serial numbers on hand so they can confiscate them if found. But it seems that Russian vendors are already wary of the units anyway, especially since Interpol has the ability to have local wireless carriers block the units’ IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) numbers, rendering the phones useless.

iPhones.ru is also advising Russian customers with new iPhones to check their devices to make sure they’re not one of the stolen ones.

However it may not necessarily mean a whole lot in terms of the tablet's actual release.  More or less, Apple prefers to keep a close lid on their trademarks.  They previously had developer iPodRip change its name to iRip as apparently Apple owns the "Pod" name.

More than likely the tablet software will be based on that of the iPod's OS software.  So, for now, it's being assumed that Apple wanted to protect the TabletMac name to clear up any confusion over their Mac brand.