Apple Unveils iPod Speaker System

Reaching further into living rooms, Apple today introduced a speaker system for its iPod music players and a revamped Mac Mini computer that will let users access music, video and photos across their home networks.

The new Mac Mini includes Apple's Front Row software, already found on the newest iMacs, so users can connect the computer to their televisions and control their music, videos, or photos with a remote control.

An added feature of the Front Row software will let users locate and share media content from other computers within a local wireless network. This means a user can play songs or stored TV shows that are pulled off a computer in another room in the house.

The new Mac Mini looks much like its previous incarnations but is the first to include Intel Corp. chips. Apple said the $599 model that has a single-core chip operates up to three times faster than its predecessor. A higher-end, $799 model that has two computing engines in one processor runs about five times faster, Apple said.

With the $349 iPod Hi-Fi system, users can dock their portable players into the speakers and use a remote control to operate it from afar. That means there's no longer a need for a cabinet full of CDs.

Farewell, Jeeves

Is it sillier that I'm kind of wistful about the retirement of Jeeves from the site formerly known as Ask Jeeves, or that the Jeeves-retirement site above lets you send a farewell card to the cartoon butler? Or that they're letting us vote on Jeeves' retirement plans? Answer: All of it is sillier. But I'll miss the dapper little guy -- one of the last holdovers from the early part of the Web boom, and a more-literate-than-the-online-norm reference to the greatest of all factotums.

Rollyo Owns Me

I don't normally sit around thinking about how much the world needs another search engine -- better searches of all the "dark Web" info that's out there and untapped, sure, but I like Google/Yahoo /Ask just fine. However, I am hereby obsessed with Rollyo's customizable "trusted search," which promises to help me contain certain overgrown sections of my 2000-entry-plus bookmark list.

It's a simple, wonderful thing: Create a list of up to 25 sites to be perused for specific searches, give it a name, and next time you have a search to do, Rollyo will check only those sites you've specified. I'm working up a search on traditional music and folklore and am quite satisfied with the results so far -- and with the chance to utilize some useful sites I'd consigned to the pit o' bookmarkery. Not so much into Little Matty Graves and Barbara Allen? They've got celeb Rollyos up , too -- Debra Messing on shopping, for instance, and Brian Greene on string theory. You'll have fun with those.

Check out the Featured Site

Check out the featured site, My Corner of the Web, located on the bottom right-hand side of my site.

Leave A Message

YackPack is a Web-based service that lets people create groups and leave audio messages for one another. Warmer than e-mail, but without the phone fuss.

Like To Move It?

Why pay for a personal trainer? Just load up your iPod with more than 40 workouts from a certified trainer. Download the free demo to get a taste.