Archive for December 7th, 2008
Filed under: Motorsports
Before we get to the results and wrap-ups, just a quick apology to all of you following at home. Thunderhill’s wifi left a lot to be desired — namely, a constant connection — and our EVDO card was constantly struggling to keep a signal, let alone allow us to upload galleries and on-the-fly standings. Thankfully, by the time the 24 Hours of LeMons rolls around in a few weeks, the track will supposedly have a T1 connection for blazing uploads and constant updates. Thanks for your patience. On to the good stuff…
After two grueling days and one sleepless and stationary night, the #19 Mazdaspeed/MER1 2006 Mazda MX-5 took the overall and ES class win at the 2008 25 Hours of Thunderhill, with a total of 477 laps. The age-old utterance of “slow and steady wins the race” couldn’t be more true, but to short-change the Mazdaspeed crew without mentioning their die-hard attitude and utter determination does a disservice to the team and the rest of the participants.
In a race that saw the destruction of one Daytona Prototype, the loss of four (five?) engines and countless competitors, it’s amazing that after 18 hours and 17 minutes of track time the first, second and third place overall finishers were seperated by less than three seconds. Team Achilles Motorsport #44 1995 BMW M3 took the number two slot (1st in the E0 class), followed by #16 Dreams Motorsports 2009 Honda Civic Si. The Cytosport-challenging #87 Green Alternative Motorsports E85-powered M20F took fourth, with the #29 Mazdaspeed/MER2 MX-5 coming in fifth. All these standings are subject to change over the next week, but the current results can be viewed here.
As impressive as the finish was, it’s the field of competitors that truly left us in awe. The endurance format and range of classes means that nearly any kind of car can campaign. The 25 Hours of Thunderhill is easily one of the most awe-inspiring motorsports events we’ve attended in recent memory and we hope to be back next year — fog or no — to bring you even more coverage from the rolling hills outside Willows.
A special thanks to our photographer Brad Wood for putting taking hundreds of jaw-dropping shots. More is on the way tonight (we’ve got a few more galleries and we’ll do a Top 10 competitors gallery soon). Also, props to NASA’s Jay Shirley who kept the servers on boil to give us up-to-the-second standings, and thanks to the timing crew on the 2nd floor for their help, patience and bad jokes.
2008 25 Hours of Thunderhill: #19 Mazdaspeed/Team MER1 2006 Mazda MX-5 WINS overall! originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: TUAW Business
 Hi all. Dan Fellini here to introduce myself as one of TUAW’s newest team members. Glad and honored to be here.
I live in sunny Portland, Oregon, and work as the executive producer for an online video network. I love my job, love my city and love technology, social media, the outdoors and, of course, my Macs and my iPhone. In previous lives I’ve been a reporter, editor, sysadmin, programmer and, way back, I was an EMT. Lights and sirens baby!
The first time I touched an Apple computer was back in elementary school, when I programmed Logo to act like Joshua from Wargames. Oh yes. My 6th grade teacher freaked. We were supposed to be making cute designs with the turtle, and there I was bringing our classroom to the brink of global thermonuclear war. How about a nice game of chess? Not so much.
Now, as an adult, I spend 8, 12, sometimes 16 hours a day in front of a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, or my iPhone. I’m not saying I couldn’t live without Apple, but my quality of life would definitely not be as good.
And that’s the point. That’s why I’m here, writing about a company I don’t get a paycheck from. Writing about a company that (let’s be honest) charges a bit too much for their products. Writing about a company that doesn’t know I exist. I’m here because Apple products contribute to my overall quality of life, in a positive way, and when a company or product does that, it’s a special relationship. There are so few companies like that these days.
I’m not a fanboy. Let’s get that cleared up straight away. I’m not of the ‘Apple can do no wrong’ mentality. What I am, though, is a big fan of products that are well designed, well built and that inspire me to do good work.
I’m thrilled to be part of this team. I’ve been reading TUAW for a long time, and have always considered it the blog of record for the word on Apple. To be a part of it now is something I’m quite proud of.
Now, on to more pressing issues…
TUAWBy way of introduction… originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted by Griffin McElroy
Filed under: PC, MMO
As the recently released expansion for World of Warcraft clearly displayed with its mind-boggling sales figures, add-ons for MMOs (particularly ones with a large player base) can be lucrative undertakings. Despite this fact, Mythic developer Mark Jacobs recently issued a surprising statement on a Warhammer Online forum thread in which commenters were discussing features they’d like to see in the title’s first expansion. According to Jacobs, Mythic won’t be developing a WAR expansion until the kinks have been worked out of the core game.
Jacobs explained Mythic’s reasoning, stating that they have no interest in “pushing an XPack out the door at the expense of WAR.” While this may have come as a disappointment to the posters on the thread in question, we’re sure the game’s player base is appreciative of Mythic’s continuing siege on gameplay snafus.
Mythic delaying work on Warhammer expansion to improve live game originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Meta BD
We are waist deep in the holiday season now but that doesn’t mean Big Download is slacking up. Far from it in fact. Here are our highlights for the first week of December:
Exclusive features
Continue reading The Best of Big Download: December 1-7
The Best of Big Download: December 1-7 originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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 Apple confirmed yesterday that over 300 million iPhone apps have been downloaded from the App Store, and also that the total number of available apps now tops 10,000. Rather than send out a press release, Apple chose to take out a pair of newspaper ads yesterday, one in the New York Times, the other in the Wall Street Journal.
This new milestone comes less than five months after the debut of the App Store on July 11, 2008, and less than two months after the October 21 announcement on the Q4 earnings call that 200 million apps had been downloaded. If this trend continues, we’ll likely see app downloads reaching the 400 million mark by the time Steve takes the stage for the keynote at Macworld Expo.
It’s time for a TUAW poll! When do you think Apple can hang out that “over 1 billion apps sold” sign?
TUAWApple: Over 300 million iPhone apps downloaded originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted by Jeremy Korzeniewski
Filed under: Auction Action, Ferrari, Motorcycles
Click above for more shots of the 1995 Ferrari motorcycle
Ferrari doesn’t make motorcycles. At least, not officially… but that fact hasn’t stopped a number of custom cycle makers from taking matters into their own hands. Perhaps the most famous Maranello-inspired two-wheeler was made by Arlen Ness, but that one’s not all that practical in conception. We would imagine a Ferrari motorcycle to be a truly sporting machine, equally as comfortable on the race track as the street, or, more realistically, being shown off in one’s garage. Ferrari seems to agree, as the only cycle ever created that bears an official Ferrari chassis number — SF-01M — has true sporting pretensions.
Built by David Kay Engineering and completed in 1995, this one-and-only Ferrari motorcycle sports a DOHC engine displacing 900cc and putting out 105 horsepower at 8,800rpm. The only styling choice we take exception with are the Testarossa-style strakes on either side, but nothing’s perfect, right? So, what’s the only officially official Ferrari bike worth? We’ll find out for sure when the auction ends on the 20th, but the expected price is between 325,000-375,000 Swiss francs, or around $300K in U.S. dollars.
[Source: Bonhams]
1995 Ferrari motorcycle to be auctioned originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Software, Productivity, Beta Beat
 File launchers — programs that make it easy to launch applications or utilities from a few clicks on the keyboard — are increasingly common Mac utilities. Although I don’t personally use a separate launch utility (I use OS X’s Spotlight), others here at TUAW have expressed their devotion to Quicksilver in the past. TUAW readers and bloggers have also expressed their love for Objective Development’s LaunchBar. The company is furthering development of that application, and has recently announced the release of the beta version of LaunchBar 5.
This version of LaunchBar boasts a number of improvements, including a new application icon designed by Bonsai Studio, which is known for designing themes for RealMac Software’s RapidWeaver.
Some of the featured improvements to LaunchBar 5 include:
o. Clipboard: A clipboard history has been added, as well as adding items onto the clipboard without overwriting what is already on there.
o. Quick Look and iCal support
o. An improved calculator based on the Unix ‘bc’ tool, with the ability to be assigned to a keyboard shortcut.
o. LaunchBar is now scriptable via AppleScript.
o. Firefox 3 support, German localization, automatic software, and more.
LaunchBar 5 is not available for purchase yet, but you can download and enjoy and the beta until January 15, 2009. Single seat licenses will be available for € 24 (around $30), € 39 (around $50) and upgrades from previous versions will be available starting at € 9 (around $11). A license key for those who want to try out LaunchBar 4 during this beta period is also available. You need to be running OS X 10.4 or higher to use LaunchBar 5.
[via Macworld]
TUAWLaunchBar 5 beta available now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted by Joseph L. Flatley
The kids over at Engadget Spanish ran some pics of a new Dell laptop a short while back, and now the company itself has leaked some stats and info on its support site. Apparently, the device — dubbed the Inspiron 1545 — will boast a 15.6-inch widescreen, a Core 2 Duo processor (max 2.53GHz), up to 4GB memory and will ship with either Vista or Ubuntu. There’s more to it than that, of course — hit the read link for some docs and make sure you check out the gallery for more info.
[Via Engadget Spanish; Thanks, AWWang]
Filed under: Laptops
Inspiron 1545 outed on Dell’s support site originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted by Griffin McElroy
Filed under: Business
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has had a pretty big year, all things considered. The sales success of his company’s titles helped soften (but not completely abate) the blow of the economic crisis, garnering the company a smaller stock drop than their fellow big-name developers. The merger he helped create last December drastically increased Activision’s second-quarter revenue to about twice the amount that the company earned on its own in Q2 of last year. Also, he made a bunch of comments that made gamers really angry. Oh, wait — that’s a bad thing.
For the first two achievements listed above, Kotick was recognized as a finalist in Marketwatch’s 2008 CEO of the Year award. Ultimately, he didn’t win — that honor went to Hasbro’s Brian Goldner. However, we hear he’s still in the running for Colgate’s prestigious “Most Precious Smile of 2008″ award. Best of luck, Bob-o!
[Via GamePolitics]
Activision’s Kotick a runner-up for ‘CEO of the Year award’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: News, Rumors
By now one should know that retailers’ expected release dates for upcoming games that don’t have official release dates aren’t all that reliable. But after searching the internets and coming across the way long delayed (yet rather anticipated) Splinter Cell Conviction popping up at retailers with a similar February release, well … we just had to share. Online retailers including Amazon.com and Gamestop have Splinter Cell Conviction posted with an expected release date of February 2, 2009. Though, the February release doesn’t quite gel with Ubisoft’s earlier fiscal talk that made it clear Conviction wouldn’t be available until April 2009 at the earliest. So, February 2nd doesn’t seem all that likely, unless retailers know something we don’t. And if that’s the case, we’re pointing an angry finger at Ubisoft.
[Thanks, Jason]
 Retail Rumor: Splinter Cell Conviction in February originally appeared on Xbox 360 Fanboy on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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