In the news

This is Derek reporting from the lovely Rivera residence, the home of a friend of mine. I'm doing one of my favorite activities: using a Mac. It's not that great though, because this is an iMac G4, the one with the half-circle computer and the monitor that sticks out of it. It's a good computer, but old by today's standards. The screen was amazing because it can be positioned pretty much anywhere, as shown in this commercial:



So anyway, in Apple news, not much has happened since the release of the new MacBooks. Rumor has it that a new iMac is on the way, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it happened. I'm sure it will look the same but have a better hard drive, better screen, and better graphics (NVIDIA). It won't be a huge update, because really, what is there to update? It's at the top of its class.

In other news, Apple has stood up for gay rights in California. I actually didn't know it was legal for same-sex citizens to be married anywhere in the US, but apparently it's true. Apple put it this way:

"Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8."

That's from Apple Hot News. My response is: good for them. No seriously, good for them. I'm not being sarcastic. Apple has always been a symbol of "Thinking Different". I started to doubt that it still was until this Proposition 8 news. They are doing a fantastic thing putting effort towards civil rights, and I applaud them for that since I too am concerned with these kinds of issues. I think it's unacceptable that these kinds of people are treated unfairly and not offered the same basic human rights that the government has worked so hard to promote. If you're born a homosexual, then "too bad," the government says, "you don't get to marry the people you love, even though we are making it appear that marrying is mandatory for everybody." So bottom line: I'm glad that Apple is standing up for its political beliefs. The thing is, would $1 million be too much to ask for? Never mind.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal is loving the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. Calling it "a terrific choice for consumer and students," it is "solid, speedy, innovative, and comfortable to use, and with very good battery life." Maybe Steve Ballmer should think about that next time he accuses Macs of having bad battery life. It's good to see that the most respected technology analyst and expert on the planet seems to prefer Macs to PCs. By the way, if you've read Fake Steve, you'll see that he makes fun of Mossberg's constant use of "I," and "me" in his articles. This is still true in this article. I didn't count the number of times he said those words, but he kept saying stuff like “I’ve been testing the base model of the new MacBook for the past five days, and I like it a lot." Pretty funny.

And finally, Apple has released yet another new commercial: "Bake Sale".



Pretty good. Basically the same thing they were saying before. I'm guessing this one will be on TV. One problem though: he said that PC is trying to fix Vista. No! You can't let PC users hear that! The last thing Microsoft wants to do is fix Vista, because it would be expensive, and they already spent too much on the ad campaign. Oh well.

-Derek