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Comment Dit-On "Girly"? (9/26/99)
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In other military-related news, apparently now Apple's gone and ticked off the French army. (Wow, now there's a sentence we never thought we'd have to use...) But it's not the G4 that's got the French military's hackles up; it's the cuddly consumer portable known as the iBook. No, they're not complaining that Blueberry and Tangerine clash with their uniforms, nor are they worried about what effect the "girly" laptop might have when introduced into an environment as dead butch as the French army-- such concerns are for those far less secure in their masculinity (coughDvorakcough).
No, what's got the French riled up is AirPort. According to a Nando Media article, Apple's super-cool wireless networking architecture uses "the same 2.4 gigahertz waveband reserved by the French military." The implication is that an AirPort-equipped iBook could theoretically "scramble defense force communications"-- a crime carrying a $30,000 fine and a six-month stretch in "le clinc." So you should probably forget about that peer-to-peer AirPort Quake deathmatch with your significant other when you go on your dream tour of French military bases.
As you probably know, Apple's not the first to introduce technology that uses the 2.4 GHz band, and therefore French law does allow private citizens to apply for approval to use the wavelength. But Rear Admiral Jacques Bizard of the National Military Bureau for Frequency Use (wow, it's like those French have a different bureau for everything!) states that while there's usually "no reason to turn them down," that's because previous wireless installations were used for "local, fixed networks," whereas the iBook is "light and portable." Apple's not too concerned, though, since AirPort's range is only 150 feet; Apple France's marketing director, Hugues Asseman (possibly the name most ripe for obvious comedic parody we've yet encountered) states "there should be no problem unless you are in a room next door to a military headquarters." Well, we'll be sure to keep our eyes peeled for the first instance of a French AirPort-related jailing...
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SceneLink (1805)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 9/26/99 episode: September 26, 1999: Step right up, we gotcher Kihei specs right here. Meanwhile, recent changes in government export regulations makes the G4 available to "sensitive" countries, but Apple still chooses not to sell them there, and the French army has a nit to pick with the iBook...
Other scenes from that episode: 1803: Everything You Asked For (9/26/99) You know, by all accounts, the new "Kihei" iMac is still over a month away-- yet over the weekend, specifications for Apple's revamped consumer powerhouse spread like wildfire across the entire Mac-related webscape... 1804: Tanks For The Memories (9/26/99) So you're a big fan of Apple's new "Tanks" commercial for the Power Mac G4. And really, what's not to love? It's short, sweet, funny, and to the point-- the G4 is so powerful, it's the first personal computer ever classified by the government as a supercomputer, and therefore a weapon that can't be exported to certain "sensitive" countries-- no Pentium-based PC can claim that...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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