Tech Eye: The Apple of our Techeye

This was not because our cheapo employer refused to send us this year. Nor was it because the sycophantic attendees of the conference terrify us with their kooky, unblinking eyes and generally subpar nasal hygiene.

Those are all strong grounds for staying away, but Techeye's prime motivation in not attending was that we couldn't stand to listen to Steve Jobs blather on yet again about future this and bleeding edge that. It's our job to do that, damn it, and no rich, famous, trendsetting industry guru is going to gibber-jabber about the greatness of gizmos better than us, not even Steve Jobs.

While we didn't make it to San Francisco, our spies sent us plenty of info from the conference. As we expected, the Hygienically Challenged were present in droves. The real news, however, was the unveiling of the MacBook Air, a notebook so thin that it will undoubtedly promote anorexia in other notebooks. The computer measures 0.76 inches (1.93 cm) at its thickest point and 0.16 inches (0.4 cm) at its thinnest, with a 13.3-inch (33.8 cm) LED-backlit display. Much like "salad-then-spew" runway models, however, the Air sacrifices much for its beauty - there's no CD/DVD drive included. Perhaps to compensate, the gadget comes with an oversized trackpad which accommodates multi-touch interaction, allowing users to "pinch, rotate and swipe." Apple, you had us at pinch.

Undoubtedly the most exciting feature of the Air, however, in Techeye's view, is the option for 64GB of solid state memory instead of an old-tech hard drive. True, this feature will cost you around $999 (zł.2,500) extra, but this will be offset by the priceless envy it will inspire in others. Apple's inclusion of a solid-state memory option is also a portent of things to come - much as the Cretaceous Period was for the dinosaurs, 2008 will be the beginning of the end for the hard drive.

Also on offer at MacWorld was the markedly less flashy Time Capsule, a wireless router-cum-backup device. It allows Mac users to run a 802.11n standard wireless network with a "server grade hard disk" which automatically backs up any computer hooked up to it. The Time Capsule will ship in 500GB and 1TB versions next month, though Apple was mum on whether it will offer a larger, "dirty-photo-collection-sized" version in the future. The two models will retail for $299 (zł.752) and $499 (zł.1,227), respectively.

The Air, meanwhile, should be available starting next week, with prices starting at $1,799 (zł.4,423).