Okay, this one’s totally out of the blue, but we’ll post it to see what you think – and because it looks kind of cool and mysterious.
Early this morning MacDailyNews received a blurry photo and a brief bit of text from an anonymous source.
The text that was included with the photo:
I was only able to snap one quick shot of this as I was only in there for about 30 seconds. I sort of stumbled upon it – can’t say more about how or why. I only got about half a sec to look around back – there are a bunch of ports (and maybe a button or two) neatly arranged on the back (?) of the cube in a line along the bottom edge. It’s about 8-inches square and 8-inches tall – a perfect cube. It seems to be made out of a similar material as a Power Mac – aluminum perforated with a round hole pattern, but they’re smaller holes than found on a Power Mac. The top is the same material as the sides with the addition of the Apple logo, even though it doesn’t look like it in the photo – I had to snap it quick, sorry.
I don’t have any real detail on exactly what it’s designed to do, but I know from other things I can’t mention that it’s media-related. Apple “Media Cube,” maybe? Anyway, thought you guys would be interested.
That’s all we know. Obviously, this could be a fake, but on the off chance that it’s not, we’ll post it for Photoshop experts to pick apart (example). Unfortunately, this is the best quality image we have of this mystery cube.
What do you think? Is Steve Jobs going to try the “cube thang” again? Is this what’s coming next at next Tuesday’s special media event (see related article)? Or it is just a fake?
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Related article:
Apple to hold special media event next Tuesday – February 21, 2006
Not even worthy of a response from me, and I like to talk.
I agree with zelfort . . . this is a sleazy MDN publicity stunt. Mac 360 may be in on it too.
They should have at least made it more monolithy.
“these damn pics get worse all the time, when are you n00bs gonna learn to actually try to make some good fake shots, and this is for sure a rendered image”
I love it when every dumbass on the planet refers to everyone else as a noob in some vain attempt at feeling superior. And what exactly are they a noob at? noob at industrial espionage? Noob at stealing coroporate secrets? Noob at eating pancakes?
Where’s the wires as well? Some people have too much time on their hands.
this looks like something out of a Sega Saturn game circa ’94.
notice how the table extends into some sort of pixelated void behind it.
Terrible work – F for failure to the artist.
I zoomed in on the image pretty far, and the Apple logo does have a stem so it’s good, you’re probably looking in the wrong direction like I was at first. It looks very yellow-greenish near the parts where the light is supposed to be, which implies that it was a light illusion, but I’m not sure.
It’s just, the timing of this is ironic with the event coming just a day more than a week from now and we’re all hyper and speculating too much for our own good.
I could be wrong, this could be Apple’s new media-heavy Mac mini that people have been predicting for next to forever, or it could be a “haha-in-your-face” fluke as I expect.
Found another picture in an online forum. Looks a little different, though, the holes are bigger:
Yes, it might be a fake…
but I hate it when people start spouting off reasons for it’s fakiness and they have no clue what they are talking about.
Just 2 examples:
The Apple logo is intact but smeared (due either to lens parallax or motion blur or because its meant to be as part of the fake).
The desktop material is actually the burled wood that you see in the Apple conference rooms (points for it being real).
Here is the image with the logo zoomed:
Also, I din’t put it in the image, but the perspective does appear to be correct. Open it in Photoshop and overlay some lines.
Hmm. Somebody just got their first 3D package. And MDN is fishing for hits.
The table appears to be floating in a gray void.
First at bat. You’re gonna get a lot of traffic on this one, I suspect. heh
Jim:
That one is fake.
The perspective and the light sources all work – any typical digital camera lens will warp the perspective of a perfect cube exactly – and I mean EXACTLY – as seen in the photo. Look at how perfect the focus is – what is clear and what it blurred.
The object has a “realness” to the surface that even Pixar would be proud to accomplish. That means only one thing: this is far too perfect an image to be a rendered fake.
This much we should all agree on: This is a photo of a real object. I’d testify and prove it with mathematics and samples in a court of law.
It may still be a fake, but that would mean that someone took the time to build it and photograph it with a digital camera. Or it could be the real deal.
The shadows are all over the place in Jim’s picture. Totally fake. Why would this be anywhere near antiquated PB12 and iBooks?
Sorry, but someone it trying too hard and not thinking things thru when making fakes.
Here’s the real answer:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
But this time they’ve captured 7 PC Tech writers. Let the game begin. Mu-ha-ha-haaaaa.
Agree with you Anim8r. Guys like “Marek” claim they’re photographers and photoshop wizards, yet only prove they know ding: “the shadows on the front don’t portray real lighting, because the light source is coming from the left, yet the object is brighter in the front.” For crying out loud, everyone can see the bottom right corner is so bright it’s burned, which indicates a strong spotlight hitting the table and reflecting from the front of whatever that is. And there’s nothing wrong with the perspective the obvious motion blur can’t explain. The pic is real, the object can well be anything but what we’re supposed to believe…
What I can’t understand is, if indeed this was rendered in P’Shop, why didn’t they use either of the background filters “Grassy Knoll” or “Area 51”.
I’m quite sure when Apple releases something, it will fit into a standard, AV modular spec, like a DVD player, receiver, tuner, whatever.
MW: KEPT, as in, you should have kept this one in Gansevoort!
Fugazi…
This looks identical to the nice silver cubed boxes they gave out T-shirts in when my local Apple store opened. I think I still have one that I was going to sell on eBay. I bet I could take a photo just like this.
Like the other guy said: if you don’t show the buttons and ports, we don’t believe you.
ha. that doesn’t look fake at all.
a cube isn’t exactly the most efficient space for the living room.
Why would Apple shrink the G4 Cube form factor down to Mac mini size, only to make it big again?
Ouch – I’d be worried about those corners. When was the last time we saw corners that sharp on any piece of Apple designed hardware?
I don’t think anyone has pointed out the sharp corners. Can you imagine Apple designing anything wiht sharp corners?
dburney:
Don’t run with it. You could put an eye out. If Clive Barker had a hand in its development, we could be in for trouble.
Guys,
get real .. the bloody thing is not even a cube … look at the right edge … this is a pile of bull.