mac os x

To coincide with our special Future of the Environment issue, we've constructed a Google Earth layer highlighting several geographic points of environmental interest around the world. If you're already a Google Earth user, download and open the layer here to begin browsing; if not, now is a perfect time to start exploring one of the more amazing pieces of mapping software ever conceived!

Ever since I was a wee girl with a first-generation iPod, a three-megapixel digicam, a clunky cellphone and a ginormous laptop (OK, I wasn't that wee--it was like four years ago), I've lusted after a gadget that could do everything and take up next to no space. I mean, wouldn't it be amazing to be able to shoot and store photos, surf the Web, check e-mails, and listen to music files on one device small enough to slide casually into a back pocket?

As anyone reading this has probably heard already, today Apple released a beta version of Boot Camp, a software add-on for its new Intel-based Macs that allows them to run Microsoft Windows XP alongside Mac OS X. Naturally, the Internet's tech blogs have been ablaze with rampant discussion: There's the Macrumors.com forum, where the story has so far accumulated 786 comments, including exclamations describing the news as "pant-wettingly exciting," among other choice adverb/adjective phrases; the news has received 4,440 "diggs" (that's a lot) at digg.com, a clearinghouse for cool daily tech stories; and as of this afternoon, the story was the top headline on the New York Times's site.

Add to this blazing hubbub a recent column by notable tech pundit John C. Dvorak, in which he forecasts (in heavy, Kennedy-assassination-conspiracy-theory-type language) a complete Apple transition to Windows in the near future, and it's pretty safe to say that this is one of the larger tech stories of the year. The column is already being breathlessly referred to as "the Dvorak prediction" on Macrumors.com.

All of this coming less than a month after onmac.net's infamous $13,000-plus prize was awarded to two hackers called "narf" and "blanka" for being the first to successfully boot Windows on an Intel Mac. As Apple fanatics struggle to catch their breath, Apple's stock price continues to rise. Will the company start moving a lot more shiny Intel computers and up their tiny market share? Or will the new Windows-running machines become too crippled by viruses and spyware to run either OS efficiently? To the geek forums! —John Mahoney