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Half Off for WWDC Week, Just in Time for Summer.

Wired to Bring Exclusive Short Films to the iPad

I’ve been thinking about what types of media people would rather consume lately. Though I’m not quite ready to propose my position, Wired clearly sees the potential for video on the iPad. I too think the iPad is a fascinating device to watch video on (as the device seemingly melts away during those Keanu Reeves action sequences), and I’m glad to hear Wired will be bringing us a few engrossing short films in a future issue or two.

With its August issue, it’s going one step further, producing original short films that are available exclusively on the iPad.

For the films—there are four—Wired got comic Will Ferrell to spoof once-anticipated inventions for the 21st century, like ray guns and jet packs. The films are tied to the August cover subject, “The Future That Never Happened.”

Mediaweek says that Condé Nast’s Scott Dadich is behind the genius of these featured films, and that a sample will be available on Wired’s website so iPad naysayer’s can see what the hype is about. Though you may want to buy an iPad with bigger storage space anyway if these interactive magazines start becoming storage hogs.

[via Mediaweek]

OWC Can Transform your 27” iMac into an eSATA Connecting Beast

eSATA on an iMac? Please. Steve Jobs would never allow something so awesome on his precious machine. Although, OWC might have something to say about such a proposition. For $169, OWC will slice a hole in the bottom of your of iMac to make room for an eSATA connection that’s bound to give your trust worthy companion the power it needs to speedily edit video of an external HDD. OWC’s TurnKey Upgrades and Installation also covers memory upgrades and an SSD boost or two, but only if you’re the most daring of upgrade types.

OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program for: 2010 Apple iMac 27”

[OWC Blog via Engadget]

Valve to Furnish Mac Gaming Community with GL Code

As Mac gaming took a turn for the better with the introduction of Steam and their fantastic offering of games such as Half Life 2, Counter Strike: Source, and Team Fortress, Valve’s feeling the love for our underrated gaming machines. As PC gamers sporting only the coolest of liquid-fueled rigs shake their heads in disbelief, Valve developers are having some heart for us aluminum junkies by sharing their developments with the rest of the gaming community. Joystiq writes,

Business development director Jason Holtman told GamesIndustry.biz that Valve will release some code to developers signed on with the company’s Steamworks infrastructure, in order to expedite the development of Mac games (and thus speed up the population of Steam). “So our Steamworks partners will have access to some of the hard work that we do to get our games up on Mac,” Holtman said, “and they’ll be able to incorporate that into their games – and our hope is it gets them there faster.”

Though now that we have Starcraft II, I can’t see anyone wishing for anything more mind numbing than blowing up Zerg scourge anytime soon.

[Joystiq via TUAW]

FaceTime Over 3G Is Now Possible

For jailbreakers, at least. My3G, the tweak that makes iOS believe it’s on Wifi when it’s actually using 3G, has been updated to version 4.1 to include support for FaceTime. Simple as that, you just have to check an option.

My3G is available on Rock ($3.99) or through ModMyi’s repo in Cydia at $2.79. I haven’t tested the app yet, but I’ll keep you posted about my results. It’ll also be interesting to hear from American users whether AT&T’s network will be able to undergo the traffic of jailbreakers or not. Please let us know in the comments below.

This is huge, anyway.

UPDATE: ModMyi’s repo seems to be down at the moment. It should be back online in a hour or so.

UPDATE #2: Check out the video of FaceTime with My3G below, courtesy of 9to5mac.

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Safari Extensions Monday: Sessions, KeySearch, Instapaper in Google Reader

I spent a week using the latest Firefox 4 Beta and now I’m back to Safari. I can’t help it, but Safari has the best support for 1Password out there and that, combined with amazing tools such as ClickToFlash, is too valuable to me. If you add stability, speed and elegance to the mix - I guess you know what I mean.

So, Apple launched the official Safari Extensions Gallery last week, and there are more than 100 “officially approved” extensions in there. It’s a good place to discover new stuff, but I’m wondering how often Apple will update it. Anyway, I’ve just installed three new extensions to start the week, and they’re pretty great.

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