[01/28/2002]
Apple releases new PowerMacs
Apple Computer today released their newest line of PowerMacintosh computers. As generally expected, the machines are basically speed-bumped Quicksilvers, but with a few nice surprises: The specs are as follows: (or see them here for even more details)

Additionally there's also a version with 2x80GB HDs and 1.5GB of RAM for over 3600$
Nice that prices have dropped so much on the top model and quite a bit on the lower models.
According to Apple the L3 cache architecture is completely new, which implies at least a new CPU daughtercard revision, not necessarily a motherboard revision though.
Overall certainly very nice machines with decent specs and fairly fair prices. The graphics cards have once again taken a huge leap forward, now even sporting GeForce 4 MX cards in the upper two models. That's likely not as fast as a GeForce 3, but much faster than a GeForce 2 MX and even faster than a GeForce 2 GTS (which never came for the Mac). Expect a Radeon 8500 and GeForce 4 (non-MX) BTO option as soon as they're officially announced by nVidia on February 4th, I think.
Last but not least Apple even tested those machines out on Quake 3. See the results here, not too shabby. Graphics Specs Page.

[01/28/2002]
The tech specs you've been missing
xlr8yourmac has news and reader feedback on all the tech details you have been missing on Apple's tech spec page. These include:

[01/28/2002]
Even the PC sites report on it
Of course only because of the early start of the GeForce 4 series. Shacknews has a little snippet on it and focuses on the GeForce 4 part and the benchmarks (Quake 3, not Photoshop).
the register also has a summary of the announcement up, but their facts are far from straight, so first see the true specs over at Apple, then see what they brewed together. Some of those points they mention are not researched carefully enough.
Slashdot aparently got a great deal of e-mails on the topic, and everyone keeps babbling GeForce 4, GeForce 4, drool, drool.
MG has the announcement and s short look on the new machines from a (mac) gamer's perspective.
MacCentral reports the announcement, notes that there are discounts on the LCD screens (new ones coming soon??), that the new iMacs are shipping, that Dual 1GHz servers will be available in a month and finally has some words from Apple's product manager on the new machines here.
MacObserver has both the announcement, some syntactical sugar and the specs.

[01/28/2002]
Mac OS X great for game development
Slashdot links to an article that explains why Mac OS X is a superior development platform for making games (both on and with). The close integration of OpenGL and QuickTime and the benefits of Cocoa aparently make OS X a really tough competitor to other development platforms, such as Windows NT, 2000 and others. Read on for more details.

[01/28/2002]
MOSR
MOSR notes that the Learn & Earn rumors were spot on (what was released), and has some interesting, yet short news on Mac OS X 10.2 beta.

[01/28/2002]
PPCP, CHRP, POP?
Slashdot notes that the children of the Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) and the PPCP (PowerPC Platform) has eventually been born in form of the POP (PowerPC Open Platform). IBM's the one to have released the standard, and the first small companies have already adopted the technology and a producing the boards.
But who needs a motherboard for a PowerPC chip that doesn't come from Apple? Hard to say, but I guess these are aimed at servers, clusters, linux machines and appliances.
Don't, however, expect POP to revive Mac clones.

[01/28/2002]
Game news
IMG has the hardware announcement, and a lot of gaming news for all those who can still see straight, or those who just bought a new Mac recently and are happy with what they have.