Google and Yahoo all over ......

Mercedes-Benz USA has an answer to complaints that car navigation
directions don't measure up to those from sites like Yahoo, Google and
Ask.

The automaker has partnered with Google and Yahoo to allow users to send customized Google Maps and Yahoo Local Maps directly from a computer or Web-enabled cell phone to their car computer.

A new "Send to Car" icon that will appear on both companies' mapping
sites will allow you to send customized directions, maps, addresses and
points of interest to your Mercedes' GPS navigation system.

Once you get in your car, pushing the "i" button in your Mercedes
will download the information directly to your car's computer for
either immediate or future use.

Better yet, other people can send directions to your car while you're driving.

The high-tech car tech is called Search & Send and will become part of the current Mercedes roadside and emergency GPS service, Tele Aide.

It will be available on the Mercedes S-class sedan and CL-class coupe as of September 5 and the entire 2008 C-class lineup.

Apple confirms "Special Event" on September 5th

Apple Inc. will use a special media event on September 5th to
introduce a new array of digital media offerings, according to digital
invitations issued to analysts and members of the media Tuesday
afternoon.



The invites, which arrived by e-mail, depict an enlarged CoverFlow
interface with the caption, "The beat goes on." The wording appears to
have been borrowed from the trailing line of The Beatles' final press
release, which was issued by Apple Records on April 10, 1970, following
the band's split.



"Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and
George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope. The world is still
spinning and so are we and so are you," read the 1970 Beatles release.
"When the spinning stops -- that'll be the time to worry, not before.
Until then, the Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on, the
beat goes on."



Apple's event is scheduled to take place at the Moscone West in San Francisco on September 5 at 10:00 a.m.



Apple is widely expected to use the gathering to usher in a new breed of Mac OS X-based iPods. Additional announcements relating to the company's iTunes software and digital media download service are also expected.

From Engadget: Google is working on a mobile OS, and it's due out shortly

Can it be true? Is the Googlephone nigh at hand? Not that we haven't been hearing this time after time (after time after time,
etc.), but we've actually got some hot news from a number of very
trustworthy sources about Google's plans for the mobile space. Namely,
Google's mobile device platform is well on its way, and will be
announced in the very near future.

We understand that the
"Gphone OS" (our name for it, not theirs) began development after
Google's very quiet 2005 acquisition of mobile software company
Android, started by Danger cofounder and former-prez / CEO Andy Rubin.
At Google, Andy's team has developed a Linux-based mobile device OS (no
surprise) which they're currently shopping around to handset makers and
carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, customizable system --
with really great Google integration, of course.

As for the
timeframe on this thing, we keep hearing Google will announce its
mobile plans some time post-Labor Day (September 3rd); from what we've
heard Google isn't necessarily working on hardware of its own, but is
definitely working with OEMs and ODMs to get them to put the Gphone OS
on upcoming devices. Think of it more in terms of Windows Mobile or
Palm OS (in the early days) -- Google wants to supply the platform, but
we don't think they want to sell hardware.
Still, don't entirely rule out the idea. Andy Rubin knows how to make a
device and put it in peoples' hands, so nothing is impossible on the
hardware side. Either way, we're totally stoked to peep the software,
we've been waiting for the Googlephone for years on years.

Still,
we can't help wondering what El Jobso thinks about all this. Apple has
been so buddy-buddy with Google lately, especially on the iPhone
-- and now Apple's mobile team is on the verge of outright competition
with one of its closest partners. We know that's how the industry
works, but it's got to sting a little, you know?

This is where I will go in January ... strange people :-)

Uitmarkt 2007

Yesterday afternoon and evening I strolled the Uitmarkt. The Uitmarkt in Amsterdam is a huge happening showing many cultural events which will happen in th next year in Amsterdam.

I went with my neighbor and visited the new library (which was opened 07-07-07 by our Queen Beatrix), Fifteen restaurant (owned byJamie Oliver) and Lloyd Hotel Amsterdam. For the rest we viewed many spectacular new buildings and one of the big happenings was also the departure of a huge boat from Genoa. There is not a lot of room to navigate so alone turning the boat is a spectacle at is own.

We ended at one of the main stages where Wende Snijders performed.

The Uitmarkt was for the first time in "Het Oostelijk Havengebied", the completely renovated old shipping area near the central station in Amsterdam.

The harbour function of the Eastern Docklands in Amsterdam existed only for some 100 years. In the last decade of the 20th century the district became available for housing. A big portion of the architectonic talent in the Netherlands, together with renowned foreign colleagues, was mobilized to create a waterfront that is almost matchlessly.

Amsterdamdocklands.com is about this new architecture
and urban design. The area is also an excellent example of how you can
mix the past with the present time. The harbour structure with its
quays and deep basins was preserved, many old buildings got a new
function.

After the decline of the harbour many artists came to the district. This era of wild culture is already history, but from it a culture belt arose on the banks of  the IJ. Now, for music and theatre, museums and expositions, but also for going out or accommodation, you'll easily  find your way in the Eastern Docklands.

And for
walking. By its history, contemporary architecture and harbour
landscape it is a fantastic area for walks. There are always guided
tours, also by the editors of this website. See Stadswandelkantoor.

Small towns, but expensive houses .....

Once in a while I am touring to towns in the neighborhood of Amsterdam
to search for nice houses. Result is always that I will stay in
Amsterdam, at least for now :-).



Yesterday I visited, Baarn, Spakenburg/Bunschoten, Eemnes, Naarden Vesting, Weesp and Loenen aan de Vecht.

Info from Wikipedia.



Baarn

Baarn, the main town of the municipality, received city rights in 1391. The town lies about 8 km east of Hilversum.

In 2001, the town of Baarn counted 22871 inhabitants. The urban area
of the town was 4.66 km² wide, and contained 10076 residences.^[1]

The royal family owns several houses around Baarn. The Soestdijk Palace in Baarn was the home of Queen Emma, Queen Juliana and Juliana's husband prince Bernard. Crown prince Willem Alexander and his brothers attended school (Nieuwe Baarnse School and Baarnsch Lyceum) in Baarn when Queen Beatrix (then princess) and her family lived at Castle Drakesteijn in the village of Lage Vuursche, before they moved to The Hague in 1980.

Baarn has nice shopping facilities, mainly located in the
Laanstraat. Other places worth visiting include 'het Cantonspark' (a
botanic Garden) and Kasteel (=castle) Groeneveld. In the north and west
there are polders, and the river Eem.
The woodlands south-west of Baarn, connecting Baarn to Soestdijk, are
called 'Het Baarnsche Bos', have good possibilities for recreation.

To the south lay the connecting road towards the city of Amersfoort,
called 'Breemeentje'. This, approx. 10km long strecht of polder road,
connects the town of Baarn to various roads in Soest and the industrial
area of Amersfoort.

It has a railroad station, with trains going every half hour to Utrecht (38 minutes) Amersfoort (7 minutes) and Amsterdam (about 45 minutes). The A1 highway runs close to Baarn.

Spakenburg

Spakenburg is a village north of Bunschoten on the IJsselmeer
in the municipality Bunschoten, Utrecht province, the Netherlands. It
is one of the few places left in The Netherlands where some women still
wear local traditional clothes.

In the 20th century, the two villages have grown quickly, and since
about 1965 they form one single town, officially named Bunschoten.

Eemnes

Eemnes formerly consisted of two villages, Eemnes-Binnen ("Inner
Eemnes") and Eemnes-Buiten ("Outer Eemnes"). These names referred to
the location of the villages with respect to the dyke of the river Eem.

Eemnes-Buiten received city rights in 1345; Eemnes-Binnen was granted city rights in 1439.

Naarden Vesting

Naarden is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Naarden received city rights around 1300. The town is fortified with walls and a moat, which are, quite remarkably, both complete and in a very good state. More specifically, Naarden is an example of a star fort.

Weesp

Weesp lies next to the rivers de Vecht and Smal Weesp and also next to the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. The small city has a population of 17.533 inhabitants as of the year 2006. Weesp is famous for Van Houten-chocolate, windmills, the historical centre with its ditches, its Weesper porcelain and the Weesper Mop cookie. The bastion and fortifications are also famous, because they are a part of the Defense line of Amsterdam and the Dutch Water Line. They were never used, though.

Until the early Middle Ages this region was an uninhabited peat bog. Weesp was granted city rights in 1355 and celebrated its 650th anniversary as a city in 2005.

From the late Middle Ages, the Vecht was a defensive line for the
County of Holland and it remained a military defensive line until the Second World War. Weesp was strongly fortified, more than its size would justify - for most of its history it had a few thousand inhabitants.

The defensive lines consisted of inundation zones, which would be
flooded in wartime. Behind them were fortified towns, forts, barracks
and other military structures. The most comprehensive was the Defence
Line of Amsterdam (Stelling van Amsterdam), a circular inundation zone
around Amsterdam, which belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After the Second World War, new housing was built in the west and an
industrial zone with a harbour at the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was
constructed. In the 1970's a suburb was built on the south. Since then
the town has not expanded.

Loenen aan de Vecht (Loenen with Loenerslot)

Located in Loenersloot, close to town
Loenen, on the Vecht, surrounded by lakes, woods and charming villages,
between Amsterdam and Utrecht. The castle is located on the left bank
of the river Angstel, accesible via a wooden lifting bridge.

Although the Van Loenersloot family is mentioned already in 1156, the
existence of this castle is first mentioned in 1258. The Loenersloot
family, who played a rather important part in the life of the village
in the 12th century, built the oldest parts of the castle.
In 1516
the castle was bought by Amelis van Amstel van Mijnden, who already
owned the Mijnden Castle and the Kronenburg Castle. After his death the
Loenersloot Castle was left to his second son, also named Amelis.

The castle stayed in the possession of this family until the 17th
century. That was when the last male descendant of the family died.
There were three heiresses, only one of whom married. Maria Johanna van
Amstel van Mijnded married Pieter Reinier, baron of Stepraedt. Their
son Diederik Johan inherited Loenersloot, but also the estates of
Doddeldael and Ewijk. Due to the number of castles the family owned,
they no longer lived at Loenersloot, but rented the castle out to
different people.

Finally, the castle was bought in 1766 by Hendrik Willem van Hoorn.
These were not good times for the castle, since van Hoorn began to tear
the castle down. Four years later, however, he went bankrupt and
therefore sold the castle to Andries Jan Strick van Lindschoten.
Andries Jan conserved the castle's medieval appearance. The last owner,
M.F.M. baroness van Nagell, created a Foundation for the castle.

Because every family added something to the building, the appearance of
the castle stems mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, with only the
round defence towers dating from the 13th century.

From Rediff News: Forget iPhone, the Gphone is here

Google, the nearly $13.5 billion search engine
major, is believed to be a fortnight away from the worldwide launch of
its much-awaited Google Phone (Gphone) and has started talks with
service providers in India for an exclusive launch on one of their
networks.

Talks are believed to be taking place with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, respectively India's first and third largest mobile
telephony operators, and state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam.

Sources
close to the development said a simultaneous launch across the US and
Europe is expected, and announcements would be sent to media firms in
India and other parts of the world. US regulatory approval, which is
expected soon, is the only hurdle that Google is waiting to cross, they
added. Google plans to invest $7-8 billion for its global telephony
foray.

In India, it is also believed to be in talks with Indian
providers to offer data and content and platforms including Instant
Messaging (IM) and Search functions. However, these could not be
confirmed.

A Google spokesperson said, "We don't comment on
market rumour or speculation. However, Google is committed to providing
users with access to the world's information, and mobile becomes more
important to those efforts every day. We're collaborating with partners
worldwide to bring Google search and applications to mobile users
everywhere. However, we have nothing to announce at this time."

Reports
of the Internet major getting into handset manufacturing as an answer
to Apple's iPhone has been doing rounds in cyberspace and international
media for some time. These reports suggest that Google has developed a
prototype that will hit the markets in a year's time. The US-based
company has neither confirmed nor denied these reports. The Wall Street
Journal too had reported that Google had invested "hundreds of millions
of dollars" in the project and was involved in discussions with
US-based T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

Globally, Google is
likely to participate in the upcoming auction for 700 MHz spectrum for
which it is prepared to spend up to $4.6 billion. The firm is also
introducing ads to YouTube videos which could be replicated on mobile
phones. Ironically, Google recently partnered Apple to produce services
such as e-mail and maps for its iPhone handset. And Eric Schmidt,
Google's chief executive, said recently that more Google services for
the iPhone would be rolled out.

MacRumors: OS X Based iPods at Media Event in September?

Appleinsider claims
that Apple will be holding a media event "in mid to late September" to
unveil OS X based iPods -- bringing OS X to its entire product line.



The rumor site expects "as many as four new models" many of which will
utilize NAND flash memory, as well as the long awaited "full screen
iPod".

Sources
in the Far East -- where Apple manufacturers its digital music players
-- have recently vouched for sightings of a "full screen" iPod, which
they believe will finally make its debut ahead of this year's holiday
shopping season.

Appleinsider also confirms that the leaked interface videos
consisted of genuine material for use on a click-wheel based iPod, also
bringing in features such as iLife '08 "Events", and CoverFlow to the
iPod interface.



Also, they teasingly mention the possibility of a new family of
digitial devices due in 2008 also based on OS X. No details are
available on these upcoming devices.



The upcoming iPod revisions have been the focus of many recent rumors, with the most recent Nano images pulled from various sites at the request of Apple Legal.

Interesting Surfing in Alaska ...

Report: Apple chooses European iPhone carriers

Apple has chosen T-Mobile, O2, and Orange as its European launch partners for the iPhone after wrangling a revenue-sharing agreement, according to the Financial Times.

The four companies are set to announce their partnership by the end of the month, the report
said. The deals would require the carriers to share 10 percent of all
revenue from voice and data services over the iPhone with Apple,
according to the report. Apple has a revenue-sharing agreement in place with AT&T, the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S.

No new details surfaced in the report about the type of iPhone that
would hit Europe, but most industry observers think Apple has a 3G
model in mind for across the pond. T-Mobile provides mobile service to
Germany, Orange operates in France, and O2 is based in the U.K.

Apple has said it wants to launch the iPhone in Europe by the end of
this year. Tim Cook, the company's chief operating officer, mentioned
that Apple wants to start in Europe with "a few major countries," and
France, Germany, and the U.K. probably fall into that category.

Microsoft's new search interface: Tafiti

Graphically very nice, Tafiti, but will it get users?

Adobe Flash Player 9 with H.264

Adobe
today announced the latest version of its near ubiquitous Web video
software, Adobe Flash Player 9. It's codenamed Moviestar, because it
includes H.264 standard video support - the same standard deployed in
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players. In other words, the
quality of video has been substantially improved from the previous
version of Flash Player 9. Also added to the mix is High Efficiency AAC
(HE-AAC) audio support and "hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced
full screen video playback".

Adobe claims that these advancements will extend their leadership
position in web video "by enabling the delivery of HD television
quality and premium audio content".

The new Flash Player will be available later today as a beta at Adobe Labs
- and the final release is slated to be available in the fall
(September - November). The last big update to Flash Player was the
launch of Flash 9 in June 2006.

Mac Rumors: New iPod Nano Colors?

9to5mac.com reports further on upcoming iPod Nano case redesigns and colors.

The reinforce that the new iPod Nanos will come in shorter form factors but also reveal what they believe the final colors will be of the shipping iPod Nanos. The colors include Black, Silver, Cranberry/Wine Red, Lighter Blue, and Light Green.

The colors are even depicted by the site and reproduced below.

9to5mac is a relative newcomer but has previously had some accurate reports. Whether this can carry over to iPod related rumors will be seen in the coming months when Apple refreshes their overdue iPod lineup.

Namibia

My sister and her girlfriend just arrived this morning in Namibia for a tour.

They will be traveling to:

• Windhoek
• Tsumeb
• Etosha Nationalpark
• Four O Region
• Opuwo
• Damaraland
• Swakopmund
• Solitaire
• Namib Naukluft Park
• Aus
• Fish River Canyon
• Marienthal
• Kalahari

I think it will be a very special holiday.

Pictures added

Click on below picture from Preikestolen to go to the added pictures.

Movable Type 4

I now use Movable Type 4. Below is what they write about the new version 4.0. 

This
is the biggest release of MT ever, a complete redesign of both the
front end information architecture and the back end scaling
infrastructure. The dozens of new features have been inspired by the
outpouring of community support have helped inform our efforts: MT4
reflects what all of us have learned about how blogs work and where
blogs are going.

Movable Type 4 has an incredibly broad set of new capabilities, but here's an overview to whet your appetite:

• A completely redesigned user interface. The first
  time you log in to MT4, you'll be greeted with a graphical display of
  blog activity, a customizable dashboard, and even more powerful ways to
  manage an unlimited number of blogs all in one place.
• Vastly more powerful publishing abilities. There's
  new support for standalone pages in addition to your blog entries, much
  more robust templating including warning messages if your templates
  contain errors, and smarter archiving with the ability to create
  archives per-author or category archives paged by month.
• Better plugins, with many built in. Many of the
  most popular plugins from our community have been folded into the MT4
  core, and dozens more plugins are either upgraded for or brand-new to
  MT4. The things you want to do with your site, from tagging to
  podcasting to managing your media and files doesn't require you to
  install or configure any complicated plugins.
• Even more MT-only innovations. Cutting-edge
  identity technologies like OpenID are built right in, and nicely
  complement MT's built-in user registration. And MT's powerful
  permissions system is complemented by a robust set of
  fully-customizable permissions, so you can choose exactly what each
  member is allowed to do.
• Unique features. MT4 keeps the tradition of doing things that you can only
  find in Movable Type: powerful support for an unlimited number of
  blogs, with the ability to aggregate content from one, some, or all of
  your blogs in a single page. And the ability to add on solutions to
  your core MT install to enable Enterprise integration or advanced
  Community features.
• The best documentation in the business. MT4's
  documentation has been rewritten from the ground up to focus on the
  tasks you have at hand. And the Six Apart Guide to Business Blogging is
  over 75 printed pages of information on how to help your company make the most of blogging.
• Dozens more features. We've got an exhaustive list
  of just some of the exciting new improvements in MT4. From better
  typography to the upcoming Open Source release of MT, there's something
  for everyone.
• A reinvigorated community. Hundreds of thousands
  of you have joined us on the journey through the beta versions of
  Movable Type, by submitting bugs, downloading test versions of the
  software, reading up on the new features and documentation or by trying
  out demos. And the community has helped create the fundamental
  resources for this new version: movabletype.org, the home for the MT community, the new Movable Type Plugins Directory, and all of the exciting new plugins made specifically for this new version.

Floor Planner helps to plan your pad

Whether you custom order a sleek, suede couch or drag in a ratty plaid one found on Craigslist, planning where to put it can be a pain. Floor Planner can help. This site from Dutch designers enables you to arrange stuff in your own flat or dream up a dream home.

Add your home's measurements, maybe a background picture and topic tags to help other users find your plan (or keep it to yourself), and you're ready to drag and drop sofas, plants, tables, and countertops and so on into your rooms. You get one plan for free, just enough to mock up an apartment. Should you become addicted, or need this tool for work, pricing ranges from $29 per year for five projects with a Plus account, up to $1140 for an enterprise business. The animated how-to was pretty helpful for getting started, but I wish it had audio narration. Luckily, the site worked the same in both IE and Firefox.

You can add textures, such as hardwood floor grain and red velvet couch upholstery. You can even drop in a pinball machine, if it fits (you had to visit the basement of my childhood home to play). In addition to figuring out how to squeeze in our furniture, we need tools to help maximize the energy efficiency, available natural light, and indoor air quality where we live--such as a MyAbodo for grownups mixed with power sensors and software, like Agile Waves or the Lucid Group's Building Dashboard.

Floor Planner is fun and easy overall, despite minor irritations, like the inability to use shortcut keys, such as CTRL-Z to undo, or the delete button. Unfortunately, this service sent my username and pasword in a clear text e-mail.

My entomologist grandfather would use insect pins to map out his next furniture arrangement before moving. I prefer that concrete approach, having a model in hand, to the flat design enabled by a Web page. I'll probably be able to print a model of my home from some tool like Floor Planner someday, once 3D printers become common appliances. For now, it would be cool if Floor Planner let you print and bend the plans into diorama-ready models, sort of like Paper Critters (also built using Papervision 3D open source software) boxy toys.

With Floor Planner, you can design a cozy, cool abode that fits your furniture.

Blogged with Flock

I just finished installing Movable Type 4.0!

Welcome to my new blog powered by Movable Type. This is the first post on my blog and was created for me automatically when I finished the installation process. I afterwards uploaded content from my other sites.

Great footage: Battle at Kruger

Interesting concept, Zoho Viewer

Zoho today released Zoho Viewer, an application that allows users to view, share, and embed important documents. Users can upload a Microsoft Office, PDF, or other document to Zoho Viewer and receive a link to that document. Users can share the link with others, who can view the document from their Web browsers. The software also allows users to embed documents into any other Web page, and the company has promised to provide API access to Zoho Viewer for application providers who need convenient document viewing capability. The service is available for free, and is designed to eliminate the need for email attachments by allowing users to upload documents directly to share with intended recipients.

A link: Click to View

Ambedded document:

Interesting info from a non Mac direction, PC Mag

An industry commentator is arguing that sales of Apple's Mac computers are on the verge of a dramatic increase, moving past the 10 percent mark to 15 percent, 20 percent or even more of the market. A confluence of factors is cited: at a basic level, Macs are said to be easier to recommend in the current era, because they require far less technical support compared to machines running Windows; beyond issues with spyware and malware, the Mac OS interface is generally easier to use. There are three other major factors though, such as the lukewarm success of Windows Vista, an operating system designed to be closer to par with Mac OS X and which in fact emulates several features (such as widgets). Its ease-of-use is said to fall apart upon inspection however, whereas modern Macs are described as a "self-contained ecosystem" comprised of the hardware, OS and applications.

The transition to Intel CPUs has also gone smoother than expected, since it has brought performance and compatibility benefits, including dual-booting, without attendant viruses or homogenization with the PC world.

Lastly, the price disparity between Macs and PCs is decreasing, such that the perceived advantages of a Mac may be worth a little extra, such as the bundling of the iLife suite with every system. Eventually, it is claimed, the cost difference may become non-existent. The PC Magazine commentator suggests that Apple will break 12 percent market share by 2012, and much more by 2025.

My iTunes widget

Winetasting

This weekend I wil be in Germany for a winetasting at:

Weingut Bender in Kallstadt

and dinner at:

Traditionsgasthaus Henninger in Kallstadt

Short but enjoyable trip, I hope :-).

iLife

Bought the new iLife 08 2 days ago, delivered today, installed half an hour ago and uploaded my first Webgallery made with the new iPhoto.

Great stuff I have to say ....

Check out resizing, skimming (move your mousepointer over the albumcover), seems almost a normal desktop app. 

 

 

 

New iWeb

Apple's iWeb,one part of the iLife consumer apps suite, has received an interestingupdate this morning. iWeb is Apple's consumer-level Web site creationtool, and it gives users a simple way to drag and drop various Web siteelements as well as fill in the included templates. The latest versionis getting integration with two of Google's services: AdSense and Google Maps.iWeb users can now sign up for AdSense right inside the application,and pick how they want it to show up on their site. From the looks ofthe screenshots, it's much easier than having to copy and paste codeinto HTML pages. The Google Maps feature is also prettystraightforward, letting you drop in a draggable map anywhere on thepage.

The best new feature, however, is the addition of Web snippets. Thislets you drop in any old chunk of embed code to add various widgets,from YouTubevideos to some of the more advanced ones we typically cover here onWebware. This opens up your iWeb-made page to a bundle of third-partyservices you wouldn't otherwise get in the somewhat limited creationtool.

Of course you could always get most of these features and more on the Web with services such as TypePad, WordPress, and Blogger--but Apple's approach is good for people who like to work with pages visually in a WYSIWYG environment.

iWeb users can now drop in a Google map or AdSense ads onto their Web site without knowing or using any HTML.

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Video from last Sunday

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The worst rally corner ever

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Singapore 42

I have been invited to take part in a party today for the 42nd Birthday of Singapore. One of my colleagues is Singaporean . The official date (see below) was August 9 1965.

From Wikipedia:

Singapore (Malay: Singapura; Chinese: 新加坡; Pinyin: Xīnjiāpō; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர், Ciŋkappūr), officially the Republic of Singapore (Malay: Republik Singapura; Chinese: 新加坡共和国; Pinyin: Xīnjiāpō Gònghéguó; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர் குடியரசு, Ciŋkappūr Kudiyarasu), is an island nation located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometers (85 miles) north of the Equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At 704.0 km² (272 square miles), it is one of the few city-states in the world and the smallest country in Southeast Asia.

The main island contained a fishing village sparsely populated by indigenous Malays and Orang Lauts at the mouth of the Singapore River when it was colonized by the British East India Company in 1819. The British used the position as a tactical trading outpost along the spice route.^[1] Occupied by the Japanese Empire during World War II, it reverted to British rule in 1945 and was later part of the merger which established Malaysia in 1963. Two years later, it left the federation and became an independent republic on August 9, 1965. The new republic was admitted to the United Nations on September 21 of the same year.

Since gaining independence, Singapore has seen its standard of living rise dramatically. Foreign investment and government-led island-wide industrialization have created a modern economy based on electronics and manufacturing, featuring entrepôt and financial trade centering around the country's strategic location. In terms of GDP per capita, Singapore is the 18th wealthiest country in the world.^[2] The geographically small nation has a foreign reserve of S$212 billion (US$139 billion).^[3]

The Constitution of the Republic of Singapore established the city-state's political system as a representative democracy while the country has official United Nations' recognition as a parliamentary republic. The People's Action Party, however, dominates the political process and has won control of Parliament in every election since self-government in 1959.^[4]

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From MacRumors: First Intel Penryn Chips Due in 2007?

Despite original plans for a Q1 2008 launch, Xbitlabs claims that Intel is anticipating an early launch for a least some of their next generation Penryn processors.

Initiallyit was projected that Intel’s new quad-core processors based onimproved micro-architecture that is usually referred to as “Penryn”will be launched in the first quarter of 2008, but the company haschanged its plans and now such chips will be available already in thefourth quarter of 2007, in time to compete against AMD Phenomprocessors based on the K10 micro-architecture.

Specifically, Xbitlabsbelieves that a 45nm Quad-Core processor topping out at 3.33GHz with a1333MHz bus will be released in the 2007 timeframe, with the bulk ofthe Penryn chips still waiting until 2008.

Whether or not this will affect Apple's lineup remains to be seen.Apple currently uses Intel's Server class (Xeon) processors in the MacPro, while it uses Mobile class (Core 2 Duo) processors in the bulk ofthe remainder of its line (iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook). The Mac minicontinues to use the earlier Core Duo processor.

Apple does not yet use any of Intel's Desktop class processors (Core 2Duo / Conroe) in any of their shipping models. Of note, Apple is widelyexpected to release new iMacs at next week's media event. The eventwill take place on August 7th, 2007 at 10AM Pacific. According to our Buyer's Guide the iMac was last updated 331 days ago.

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New iMacs To Debut Next Tuesday

 

It looks like the new 20- and 24-inch iMacs will be making their debut next Tuesday at an exclusive press event at Apple HQ in Cupertino. Unlike past events where e-mails were sent out it seems phone calls from Apple’s marketing department were informing the press of the Mac exclusive event. The new slimmed down keyboard should also be making its debut along with demonstrations of iLife ’08 and iWork ’08. The event begins at 10 am PDT.

Apple to host Mac event next Tuesday [Apple Insider]Blogged with Flock