SoundBlaster for Macintosh
Not quite "late breaking news," but it appears that many are unaware that Creative Labs is about to release (Q2 2000) several SoundBlaster Live! audio boards for the Mac. Delivering exceptional synthesized, wavetable audio, 3D positional sound, and an ease to the load that sound output places upon the PowerPC, this is big news for any serious Mac gamer (who is not happily using the internal speaker in his/her Mac during Unreal Tournament deathmatches). One of the early summaries of this announcement can be found here, at MacCentral Online.
To get technical......the SoundBlaster Live! series of soundcards contains the EMU 10K1 synthesis engine, which has a max. of 512 programmable wave-table voices, and 48 MIDI audio channels. For MIDI playback and the like, either the somewhat small (but high quality) set of samples instruments in the board's ROM can be used, or larger (higher quality) samples can be loaded in off disk for playback--a user choice via control panel. Having used one of these boards in an Intel-based machine as a gamer, I am indeed anxious to see this level of audio quality arrive for the Mac, and to experience the increase in system performance gained by offloading the audio processing tasks from the PowerPC to the SoundBlaster.
I have heard, from more than once source, that Apple is going to offer these cards on the Apple Store as a preinstalled option when ordering a Mac system. This is great news, and makes sense as Apple would clearly like to be providing powerful audio hardware with the Mac, but is legally bound from doing so themselves. (Recall that the last synth chip Apple placed in a machine, the Ensoniq DOC in the Apple IIgs in the mid 80's, generated a lawsuit from...The Beatles...which prevented Apple from ever integrating a sound processor into a computer, as it was decided that this blurred the line between Apple Computer and Apple Records, the Beatles' record label. The Ensoniq DOC was the most powerful audio chip ever to come standard issue in a personal computer, at that point in time.)
bp
Popular Stories
A bug in WebKit's implementation of a JavaScript API called IndexedDB can reveal your recent browsing history and even your identity, according to a blog post shared on Friday by browser fingerprinting service FingerprintJS.
In a nutshell, the bug allows any website that uses IndexedDB to access the names of IndexedDB databases generated by other websites during a user's browsing session....
Continuing the tradition set with the iPhone 13 Pro, only the highest-end iPhone 14 models will feature Apple's ProMotion display technology, according to a respected display analyst.
Ross Young, who on multiple occasions has detailed accurate information about Apple's future products, said in a tweet that ProMotion will not be expanded to the entire iPhone 14 lineup and will remain...
Apple today filed unreleased iPhone and iPad models in the Eurasian Economic Commission database, as spotted by French blog Consomac.
The filings likely represent the rumored third-generation iPhone SE, fifth-generation iPad Air, and potentially more. The unreleased iPhone models have the identifiers A2595, A2783, and A2784, while the unreleased iPad models have the identifiers A2588, A2589, ...
Apple today released a new 4C170 firmware update for the AirPods 3, an update from the prior 4C165 that was made available in December.
Apple does not offer details on what's included in new firmware updates for the AirPods, so we don't know what improvements or bug fixes the new firmware brings.
There is no standard way to upgrade the AirPods software, but firmware is...
Verizon and AT&T's upcoming rollout of new C-Band 5G technology could cause chaos and lead to widespread delays of passenger and cargo flights, major U.S. airlines said on Monday in a letter sent to the White House National Economic Council, the FAA, and the FCC (via Reuters).
"Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially...
Apple is planning to release a fourth-generation iPhone SE with a larger 5.7-inch display as early as 2023, according to display industry consultant Ross Young, who has proven to be a reliable source of information for future Apple products.
The fourth-generation iPhone SE has until now been rumored to launch in 2024, but Young now says a 2023 release is looking more likely....
A Tesla Model 3 owner has resorted to a workaround to implement Apple CarPlay in his vehicle, amid no sign of official support from Tesla (via Tesla North).
Apple CarPlay and Apple Music support are among the most-requested Tesla features, but with no indication that Tesla is willing to implement Apple CarPlay in its vehicles, Polish developer Michał Gapiński took matters into his own...
Apple is planning to release a fifth-generation iPad Air with similar features as the sixth-generation iPad mini, including an A15 Bionic chip, 12-megapixel Ultra Wide front camera with Center Stage support, 5G for cellular models, and Quad-LED True Tone flash, according to Japanese blog Mac Otakara.
Citing reliables sources in China, the report claims that the new iPad Air could be...
