Remember a few months ago when Tim Cook announced during an Apple keynote that the company would have something in stock for Mac Pro users in 2013? Well, today Mr. Cook announced in an interview that Apple is planning to produce an entire line of Mac computers in the USA. You can watch the video here (link courtesy of Dave Caolo).

When asked how much a product like this would cost, Cook said that the price wasn't going to be an issue when producing over here, which is curious. He also said that it wasn't so much about bringing high tech manufacturing back to the U.S., but bringing it to the U.S. in the first place.

There are two things that came to mind when he said this:

1.
Cook is an operations mastermind and if anybody can make this happen in a way that is viable for Apple, I believe it's him.

2.
The computer I could see being manufactured in the U.S.A. is an updated Mac Pro line. The reasons are the following:
Firstly, with these machines price really isn't much of an issue; the Mac Pro has been the most expensive product in Apple's line up for a long time. A price bump due to the higher production costs in the U.S. should be accepted more readily by customers who are willing to spend upwards of $ 3000,– for a PC anyway.
Secondly—and more importantly—Apple doesn't have to churn out huge quantities of the Mac Pro in a short time. They can give workers in the U.S. the time to do their job in order to guarantee the quality customers expect from Apple.

The last thing that I think is not to be misunderstood is Apple's reasoning for doing this: This is not a political move. From my understanding of the company, it's another attempt by Apple to exert more control over the manufacturing process of their devices. This is something they have to sacrifice when producing in China.

Keeping my fingers crossed for this to become a reality soon. Imagine how cool it would be to send a few more rovers to Mars in shorter intervals.

This is a really good attempt by some artists to showcase the sexist manner in which many female characters are portrayed in comics.

Check out the slideshow, it's really worth it.

I was a huge comic fan when I was in my teens and got into comics again last year, when DC revealed their 'New 52' campaign. I like the female body as much as the next guy, but I have problems with the fact that some people are trying to sell some of the sexist stuff in comics as something that empowers women.

Simply beautiful.

via Mike Mitchell

Now that I'll be reviving my early 2008 MacBook Pro, I remembered that the small detachable plug  of the power supply broke a few weeks before I stopped using the machine. I didn't really matter so I didn't replace it. Now that I'll be using the machine again—I actually believe that it's going to become my main machine again while writing my thesis—having a small plug and thus a compact power supply seems useful.

I called-up the local Apple Premium reseller to enquire about that availability of this small piece of plastic and metal and was told that they have them in stock. When I asked about the price my jaw dropped: € 19,–
A second call to another reseller yielded the same result. I kid you not, this small thing costs exactly as much as a brand new 12 W iPad power supply.

You see, I have nothing against premium pricing, but this just seems stupid, not greedy but stupid. Putting a prohibitive price on a spare part for something that can break so easily (mind you, in the European version, the contacts aren't retractable) simply makes no sense to me.

What am I going to do? Simple, I'll get the 12 W power supply and use the 10 W one as a spare. Faster charging times for my iPad 2 and iPhone 4S and a new plug are a much better deal than the alternative.

Seriously, just do it.

Anybody who has opened an electronic device once in their life has seen a chip cooler/fan combination that keeps the silicon chips cool.
This way of controlling the temperature of electronics is pretty old, fairly inefficient and tends to be pretty noisy. The innovations made in the last few years in the field of computer hardware and consumer electronics are mostly concerned with reducing the noise that is emitted by the fan. In their latest flagship laptop, Apple has introduced a fan with asymmetrically spaced impeller blades that leads to a lower operating volume by spreading the sound produced across a broader range of the frequency spectrum.

In the future cooling might work a bit differently, at least if the researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have anything to say about this. They have developed a cooling unit that works without a fan or any kind of thermal compounds that are usually put between the cooler and the chip.

All of this is still in prototype stage, but it looks extremely promising. You can find out more about this technology by following the link below or watching the embedded video.

This is something I didn't know. It should come in handy when sending sensitive documents like a résumé.

Found on Macworld

I know this has been around for more than a week, but it is too good not to repost.
If you're at all excited about the Curiosity mission, tap the link in the quoted tweet on an iOS device.

Here it is: http://t.co/5rupu21Y

Go to that link on an iPhone or iPad. Open in Safari.

Be amazed.

NASA is fucking awesome.

— Joel Housman (@joelhousman) August 15, 2012

John C. Welch of angrymacbastards.com got the chance to interview David Oh, the Lead Flight Director of NASA's Curiosity mission. Some of the topics discussed are:

• Engineering and construction of the Curiosity Rover
• Living on Mars time
• Media and social media response to Curiosity
• IT used at NASA in general and by the Curiosity staff in particular
• Preparing the mission and the technology used
• Relevance of space programs and continued funding
• Star Trek, astronomy and NASA

Definitely worth a listen.

Oh and if you think you might enjoy a couple of intelligent people call out Apple-related stupidity in the tech press once a week, you should subscribe to the Angry Mac Bastards podcast. It's one of my two favourite shows but not for the faint of heart; the guys and gals don't mince words, so consider yourselves warned.