Some very interesting rumors cropped up the past few days about a Apple-branded Plasma monitor that will serve as an entertainment hub. I doubted it at first, but the more I think about it, it seems "very Apple" and actually quite brilliant.

How about the 42" and 50" Plasma with a Mac mini built in...similar to the way a iMac looks. Built in inside of the t.v. is a DVD player, a harddrive and a wireless receiver. So, Front Row becomes the entertainment center on your t.v. with the ability to play DVD's, play movies or music wirelessly from iTunes, DVR software built in and possibly the ability to download a purchased movie to your .mac account overnight and play it back. Keep it as long as you want until your allotted space on your .mac is full...this model seem similar to Netflix. It's up to you how long you keep a movie, but you can never have too many.

Seems dreamy, but look at the individual pieces...they're all already in place to do everything above. It fits right in with Job's whole "people don't want a computer in their living room" philosophy, because this will not have an OS or a browser, but instead just be a media hub.

My fingers are crossed...and my credit card awaits if anything close to this happens this week.

Thoughts or dreams from others? :-)

Kevin

I hope it's a Blu-Ray DVD player.

Now that IS a fantasy. :-) I would love this, too, but it might be too early. Actually, I heard that they are ready to ship WITHOUT backwards compatibility with CD burning and such, so maybe you're on to something. This would be the perfect place for a player-only blue-ray DVD with no programming functionality.

Buy that Apple stock, everyone...we've got it all figured out!

Kevin

Okay...this is getting interesting:


From Apple: "Mac will be undergoing scheduled maintenance from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM PST on 1/10/06. All .Mac services will be affected. We apologize for the inconvenience."

KW

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh23984_2006-01-08_20-30-06_n08334012_newsml

This time around, analysts say their money is on a revamped line of notebook PCs that is sorely needed, more deals with media companies for a larger mix of content on the recently announced video iPod and possibly, but less likely, a new flash-memory-based iPod.

Maybe this is it?...

Said analyst Bajarin, a long-time Silicon Valley watcher: "He also has something else up his sleeve that none of us have a clue about."

With the release of the new Centrino Duo chips, I would almost garrantee a new line of powerbooks, after all that was announced like a week ago...perfect timing. I have my money in hand waiting for next week for a nice new apple powerbook

I have my money in hand waiting for next week for a nice new apple powerbook

Just remember that "announcing" and "shipping" are not necessarily the same thing. I'll be really interested to see the Intel boxes. But as one of the people who plunked down quite a bit of cash to get a Power Mac 8100 (first generation PPC), I'll be quite happy to let you and others blaze the trail this time. :-)

I would guess the rumored "thin" iBooks are going to happen. Not sure about Powerbooks with Intel yet. Most apps on the pro side aren't ready yet, from what I've heard.

I hope Apple does the tv idea, though. Remember with the very first, initial iPod announcement back in 2000ish Jobs said it was the first in a series of "lifestyle devices?" Well...it stopped at one as far as I can tell. Let's hope we get #2 soon.

KW

Maybe Jobs well announce a new GL3!!
Didn't Apple announce the DVX200 at some show?

Maybe Jobs well announce a new GL3!

Huh?...

Here's some 11th hour speculation from ThinkSecret: http://thinksecret.com/news/0601expo.html

Boyd I think when the DVX200 was announce at that big show in Vegas,,sorry I can't think of the name of it,,,,,,it was announce first at some mac thing.

So Boyd I was saying maybe they will do the same with canon's GL3. Rememeber we are in area 51!.