Apple's charismatic CEO won't be showing up to deliver his famous keynote speech at Macworld Expo on Tuesday, but the show must go on. Wired.com has been following the rumors and analyst reports on what to expect at the show. Here's a roundup of those tasty tidbits, along with our probability estimation for each prediction coming true.

Aluminum Mac Minis
Wired.com learned straight from an Apple corporate employee that a new Mac Mini is slated for announcement at Macworld Expo. The Mini, Apple's portable desktop, hasn't been upgraded since August 2007 — which is unusual, considering Apple typically refreshes its products every six or seven months. Other publications dug up additional details about the Mac Mini's specifications. In summary:

• The enclosure will be composed of a combination of aluminum and black plastic, matching the color scheme of the latest MacBook family and iMac.
• The system will ship with an Nvidia graphic chipset.
• The system will ship with a SATA optical drive, which can optionally be swapped for a SATA hard drive.
• The system's connectivity ports include support for Mini DisplayPort, Mini DVI, FireWire 800 and USB.

Probability: 99 percent

iPhone Nano
A third-party iPhone case manufacturer created a new category labeled "iphone Nano," igniting speculation that Apple will release a smaller version of its popular handset. A purported image of the Nano case suggests the handset is simply shorter and less wide than the original iPhone. Our problems with this gadget: It would be extremely difficult to use the touchscreen if its size is compromised. An iPhone Nano is a possibility later in the future, but the evidence for a Macworld release is thus far unsubstantiated.

Probability: 15 percent

iMac Upgrades
Economic Daily News, a Chinese publication, says component suppliers have leaked Apple's plans to upgrade its all-in-one desktop, the iMac. According to the publication, the iMac will sport a magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis. Corroborating this report, MacRumors discovered a string of code evidencing that new iMacs will carry an Nvidia chipset.

Probability: 90 percent

17-inch MacBook Pro
APC speculates Apple will refresh the 17-inch MacBook Pro at Macworld Expo with a unibody chassis and a low-cost, quad-core mobile processor. The evidence? Intel quietly added a new quad-core chip to its price list: the Core 2 Extreme Q9000 ($350), which partners four 2-GHz cores. Also, it's mysterious that Apple in October upgraded all the new MacBooks except the 17-inch MacBook Pro, and January would be a good time to announce one.

These are reasonable inferences, and AppleInsider claims it "independently confirmed" an upgrade for a 17-inch MacBook Pro would be announced. AppleInsider's report doesn't further the theory of a quad-core processor, but instead claims the notebook will include a fixed internal battery and an Nvidia chipset.

Probability: 75 percent

Thus far, it appears the "big deal" product at Macworld will be the souped-up mac mini. That's not awfully exciting to us, but we look forward to an aluminum treatment for the little guy.

A question to all the crazy Mac fanatics: Are you going to be camping out for the keynote this year, even though Phil Schiller's emceeing rather than Jobs?

Photos: adamjackson1984/Flickr, Apple, f0rcerec0n/Flickr, ~nathan/Flickr

It seems like I’ve been obsessed with owning a Beetle since birth and therefore love all things Beetle themed.  I’ve ran into several other like me and this USB hub is proof that there are plenty of us out there.  For the Beetle obsessed, this is just one more random Beetle inspired accessory to own.  Thankfully, there never seems to be a shortage of these quirky little extras.  Sadly these look more like the newer Beetles than the old.  Which even owning one of the newer Beetles, I still prefer the classic ones.  So this USB port gets a couple less points, but it’s still cute.

It’s probably going to appeal more to women than men, since it is kind of a girly car.  It comes with cute eyes painted onto its headlights that light up.  It also has a spot to insert business cards or just to hold your cellphone.  Which would make it plenty useful.  Each of the wheels is a hub to plug your USB gadgets into.  The 4-port hub comes in either white or red and can be purchased on Gadget4All for $12.50.

Source: Geeky-Gadgets

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment
• 
  

I have one of the later models of iLuv and so far have found it extremely convenient.  Especially since I tend to flake on charging my ipod.  Well now iLuv is offering a new gadget for us to drool over.  This one has found its way to this year’s CES and won’t be out for a few more months, but they at least released a  few details to draw in our interest.  The dock has all the usual convenient speccs but with one extra to sweeten the deal.  One great perk is that  iMM183 will work with both your iPhone and iPod at the same time.  That is as long as you have a 4th Gen or later iPod.

It features dual docks to help those of you that have both or a significant other with one as well.  The dock has the regular features like a built-in alarm clock and is able to play your iPod/iphone through the built-in speakers.  It also has an FM radio and of course a way to plug in any other audio devices you have around.  It also has an extra feature to do with the weather this time around.  It has support for weather text alerts from NOAA and SAME that will automatically come through on the preset radio channels.  It allows you to archive as many as 10 notices for ongoing situations as well as has an LED warning to show when there is a new alert.  So far there is no price released, but it will be available in March.

Source: iPodnn

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment
• 
  

If you're part of the working class who grind out a living each day, do you ever stop and wonder whether the super rich celebrities and personalities of the world live on a totally different planet, economic recession or not? Soccer supperstar David Beckham's love for collecting exotic cars is no secret, and it seems as though his son Brooklyn is a chip off the old block. After all, how many kids in this world are able to boast that they have a £50,000 Porsche to drive around? This handcrafted toy is powered by a diesel engine (wonder what the mileage is like) and has been customized to fit just a single person - guess Brooklyn can't go picking up a Spice Girl anytime soon as she won't have a place to sit (other than on his lap).

Just before Macworld kicks off tomorrow, there are still some last minute rumors going around including a 7" unibody MacBook Pro that will be introduced tomorrow. The latest rumor concerning this 17" monster include an extremely slim battery which cannot be removed, although the battery is touted to last much longer compared to the five hours offered on the current model. There is no word on whether silver-zinc batteries will be used, but as with all other rumors, we'll just need to wait for the actual event to unfold before official news makes the headlines. Are you looking forward to the Macworld Expo? Do you think the releases at CES will overshadow what is available at Macworld by a large margin?

This extraordinary bike-hack allows a takeaway driver to speed helter-skelter through the mean Japanese streets without spilling a drop of miso. The rather precarious looking appendage on the rear is a counter-weighted, hanging shelf onto which the bento boxes and bowls can be placed.

As the bike tips upon cornering, the platform stays level and keeps the food where it's supposed to be and not on the tarmac. Of course, if you drive like the typical pizza delivery boy you'll still end up with sloshing soup, but keep it steady and this swinging shelf should work fine. An elegant and simple hack.

Dangerously delivered dinner [Tokyo Times]

The Sharp SH810C offers - dare we say it, a razor sharp (pardon the pun) 8 megapixel CCD camera module to go along its 3" LCD display that boasts a resolution of 854 x 480. It seems as though the SH810C is currently available in China, and there is no word on whether this rectangular clamshell handset will ever make its way to Europe or North America. What do you think? Is an 8 megapixel camera really that essential in phones these days? Until flash technology catches up with the lens, the number of extremely high megapixels don't really matter in our book.

The advent of LED technology means mirrors no longer have to look boring, as with the Damask Mirror courtesy of Blowzone. This engraved mirror comes with integrated LED lights, and when it is switched on, the mirror will illuminate to bring life to the engraved design in full color and detail. Whenever you turn off the LED, the engraving can still be seen, but otherwise it works as an ordinary mirror to show you whether your hair is in place or not. There is no word on pricing as at press time.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y550 and Y450 are smaller siblings of the Lenovo Y650: they are smaller (15.6 and 14") but share many elements of the same hardware platform. Among the differences: their CPU has less cache memory (that sometimes helps with performance) and it is fair to believe that clock frequencies will be lower too. However, they can as much as one full hour of additional battery life compared to the Y650, from 3.5hrs (discrete graphics) to 4.5hrs (integrated graphics). Overall, they share the same design than the Y650, I have a particular interest in the 14" version. Starting from $829.

• 15.6" 1366x768
• 14 " 1366x768
• 4GB DDR3
• 3.5-4.5 hrs of battery
• 4.6Lbs (Y450)
• NVIDIA NB10P-GE1 GPU (GeForce 9600?)
• 5400rpn, 500GB