Portable Gadget

World of Warcraft subscribers on older Mac hardware will soon be left with no choice but to upgrade to a new system or give up the game for good. Blizzard announced on its official forums over the weekend that an upcoming patch will disable support for World of Warcraft on Power PC-equipped Macs.

“Apple has been focusing on Intel Macs since the end of 2005,” notes a Blizzard poster on the forums. “so since 5 years, PPC systems has received very few bug fixes. it is now too hard to deal with all the bugs and the lack of features to support the few PPC users that we have left.”

Following the pre-Cataclysm update, anyone with a Power PC machine will be greeted with an error message when attempting to run the game. Blizzard points out that StarCraft 2 also lacks Power PC support, as will Diablo III.

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World of Warcraft Patch Disabling Support for Older Macs

I think that the new iPods look great, but that the best news out of Apple today was the price reduction on the classic AppleTV devices… only $149 while supplies last…

Classic AppleTV (160GB)

The new AppleTV also looks pretty cool, and at $99 it will likely be a market success, but it does not do 1080p; and I have concerns about it picking up all the internet media that I want.

The real media center is probably a Mac Mini, but it’s a lot more expensive.

Old AppleTV: 720p, 160GB drive, Mac OS X 10.4 with some bits stripped out $149New AppleTV: 720p, no drive, iOS under the hood $99Mac Mini: 1080p, bigger drive, full Mac OS X 10.6 upgradable, can work as a DVR with EyeTV $699

Let’s be comprehensive, and compare:AppleTV (new $99) stream Netflix, iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, Internet Radio, MobileMe, etcAppleTV (old $149) stream iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, Internet Radio, MobileMe, hack to play Boxee, XBMC, etcRoku ($59, $69, or $99) stream Netflix, Amazon, Pandora…Boxee Box (coming in November), plays Boxee contentGoogleTV software coming soon, on which media boxes?Popcorn Hour ($179 – $361), plays many media formats, can even add a DVD or Blu-Ray driveSony Netbox ($130) streams Sony Bravia services (encapsulated Netflix, YouTube, etc)

Life is a State of Mind : Apple’s iPod/AppleTV/iTunes announcement

Those who already own the SONY Ericsson XPERIA X10 will soon get to taste one of Google’s new(ish) builds of Android.  SONY Ericsson UK used their Twitter account to confirm that Android 2.1 will be delivered before the end of September.   This is amazing news since when SONY Ericsson announced their initial plans for the Android 2.1 rollout; they pegged the release schedule for Q4 of 2010.

While this confirmation is great news, there’s still a lot of information that’s still unknown. SE did not specify which XPERIA X10 handsets would get the Android 2.1 upgrade before the end of September and since the announcement came from one of their UK twitter accounts, we don’t want to assume that the Android 2.1 rollout will be hitting the XPERIA X10 that launched on AT&T just a few weeks back.

In the best case scenario, SONY Ericsson will be rolling out Eclair (Android 2.1) to the entire XPERIA X10 family within the next four and a half weeks.  we hope you forgive us if we’re a little bit skeptical, but we’ve been burned by manufacturers in the past and this will be SONY Ericsson;s first major software upgrade for their Android line.   We’re keeping our fingers crossed, hoping SONY Ericsson doesn’t let us down.

Sony Ericsson confirms Android 2.1 rollout in September – Android and Me

Various sources have hinted that MS is working on a touch sensitive-model of the Arc Mouse. many have hoped for a MS-version of Apple Magic Mouse, but it would appear that might not be the case according to some leaked info from a German online store. The new input device, called Arc Touch, shares the same unconventional shape as its predecessor. There’s however one distinct difference; instead of going with a foldable design, the Arc Touch’s rear section is now rubberized and seems to be bendy. This suggests the palm rest height could be adjustable.

Details are sketchy as to what the touch actually does for this mouse. since the $69.95 Arch Touch won’t be shipping until late 2010 at the earliest, we figure there would be at least some robust multi-touch capability. You really can’t expect people to fall for a conventional mouse with a touch panel designed exclusively for vertical scrolling. Lastly, the Arch Touch features a 2.4Ghz nano wireless USB transmitter. Simple input devices that aren’t true plug-n-play likely see to more refunds. It probably makes sense to stick proprietary wireless USB connection for now.
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Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse Surfaces, Confuses…

Whether you like Star Wars or not, it would take a cold heart indeed not to crave a little astromech droid of your very own, but unless you have a little person in an R2D2 costume handy, your desire was likely to go unfulfilled… until now.

Here you go: your very own, voice-controlled R2D2, powered by a bank of batteries. Not only is it motorized, but it’s programmed for all sorts of cool functions. for example, tell your R2 to move forward and it’ll zip happily along, squawking to itself. tell it to spin and it’ll pirouette around.

And so on. this astromech recognizes over forty voice commands, and it’ll even play tag with you, thanks to a bevy of sensors installed inside the unit, shooting out infrared frequencies to bounce around the room, telling it where to go and where you are.

There’s a few caveats here, though. for one, it requires a lot of batteries to work… four AA batteries and four D-cells, in fact. for another, it’s a pricy little toy: this voice-controlled R2D2 costs $199.95, which is FAO Schwartz territory.

Finally, of all its myriad abilities, you can’t just tell this R2 unit, “Bring me a beer!” and have it courier one over to you. Heck, why even own an astromech droid if it won’t play waiter to you?

Read more at Hammacher

Voice-controlled R2D2 will perform your every command, short of bringing you a beer