Year: 2001

A Russian Web site has leaked details of Creative’s forthcoming SoundBlaster Audigy. While it’s unlikely that Creative, which recently began shpping its first sound card for Macs, will include Mac support (at least initially) for the Audigy, the product offers a glimpse of what’s to come, including a FireWire connector for transferring files faster to MP3 devices, a sign that Creative will soon be adding FireWire connectivity to its Nomad MP3 players.

Demand for DRAM will be the lowest ever this year, according to a report from memory maker Nikkei Microdevices. Despite rock bottom prices, the sagging economy and sluggish PC sales are to blame for this decline.

Mac dealers in the U.S. have begun to receive initial shipments of Apple’s new 17-inch Studio Displays. A number of independent dealers told MacMinute they started receiving anywhere between two and five of the mid-range, US$999 displays either last Friday or on Monday. All-important demonstration units were not part of those first shipments, they said. “We were pleasantly surprised when they came through the door,” one dealer told us.

A new patch is available for the Mac OS X version of id Software’s popular game, Quake III Arena. Quake III Arena 1.29f Beta contains a whole host of changes including new pro maps; new network code; a new auto-update system; new rail, rocket, plasma and lightning effects; and new cheating counter measures. A Mac OS Classic version is not yet available. [25.2MB]

Extensis has released an update to Preflight Pro. Version 2.2 has updated Illustrator support to accurately inspect version 8 and 9 .ai and EPS files and modified PDF support to essentially match Preflight Online. Preflight is designed to save prepress professionals time, money and materials by inspecting documents and correcting problems to ensure they are error-free prior to printing.