Apple’s Steve Job announced a new Powerbook today. Running on an Intel chip, the MacBook Pro will supposedly be 4x’s faster than my little G4 Powerbook (yes I am jealous since you’re asking!).
The Apple Website says that the built in camera, another first for Apple, gives this new generation of Powerbook “embedded reporter” functionality. Yes, you guessed it, Apple too has jumped on the Citizen Journalist bandwagon – from the apple website:
Embedded reporter
Sit down. Click on someone’s iChat icon. And video conference from anywhere in the world. Though you can barely see it, there’s an iSight camera built into the thin bezel just above the display. So now you can conference with associates during the day and chat with the kids at night. iChat AV lets you video chat with up to three other people similtaneously. MacBook Pro also comes with Apple’s new Photo Booth application, a fun program that lets you take warped and Warholesque snapshots. With the new iLife ’06 (included, of course), you can even record movies with iSight right into iMovie, then use the new iLife’s newest application, iWeb, to create a video blog entry or podcast in just a few clicks.
OK, personally I think it’s a major stretch to construe inclusion of a camera in a laptop as a citizen journalism feature. Seems like more of a chat tool to me. I could be wrong, but this smacks of major hype.
Also, don’t miss the irony that the phrase “embedded reporter” refers to what many in journalism see as a prominent and serious trangression of journalistic ethics.
IMHO, of course
– Amy Gahran
IReporter.org
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com
Thanks for the comment Amy. I agree with you that this seems like little more than an attempt by Apple to try to capture one of the buzzwords that they didn’t create.