We’ve steered away from posting on Apple releases over the past few years, but right now, there is an Apple Keynote going on and I’m super excited about it. They have just started and so far, they have just focused on the Apple TV and new updates for the iPod touch and some iPhone apps… There is a lot of buzz about new monitors, macbooks and macbook pros, but they haven’t got that far yet. The new macbooks are supposed to be super thin and we might see the first face lift on the macbook pro/ powermac in years. I could ramble on, but there is no need to speculate when we can just chill and find everything out in a few hours. I can’t wait till all my shit is obsolete…

If you are a nerd like me you can check up to the minute updates from the Keynote on the Gizmodo site here.

*EDIT - MacBook Air WTF!!!

*EDIT - I was hoping for more… No new monitors, no new MacBook Pro, but iPhone updates, Time Capsule, iTunes movie rentals and the MacBook Air… Not bad. At least I have a few more months before every apple product I own is out of date… YES!!!

There’s a dope article on the Plenty Mag website about this amazing home that was built out of recycled wreckage from the “Big Dig” in Boston. Basically, after 22 years of digging out underneath Boston to create an underground transportation system, the city is left with 100,000 tons of waste that will either end up in landfills or dumped into the water. Now some of the wreckage is being turned into this.

I read an article in my favorite magazine recently which talked about Mercedes as a brand, pointing out their long-standing success across the board: killing it in the ultra-high performance category with the
SLR Mclaren, the luxury market with the Maybach, and the green market with the Smart. It also made reference to the company’s commitment to (or at least awareness of) the environment, even years ago when they were the first to introduce diesel-engined passenger cars.

Now they are taking it to the next level with the S400 Bluetec Hybrid. Normally I’m the first to point out that the S-Class is a barge, but with 265 horsepower and 465 ft-lb of torque, this car gets 40 mpg and has enough power to tow a cement truck.

Mercedes first introduced Bluetec in California with a lease-only (apparently California law prohibits sales of diesel passenger cars, but not leases) E-Class a while ago, but now with the hybrid feature on top of that already-green engine (the E-Class Bluetec won the World Green Car award this year) we’re getting closer to having the best of both worlds. If the S400 Bluetec were available right now, it could really bang Toyota over the head… but it’s not coming out until 2010, and by that time Toyota will probably have a Prius doing 400 mph and running on urine.

Read all about the S400 at the World Car Fans website.

The new black search engine, powered by Google and designed to save energy by cutting out the majority of the light behind the screen. It’s interesting that it was inspired by a random blogger who proposed the theory back in January of this year.

So far it seems that if you want to search images, or if you’re in the middle of a search and decide you want to switch over to regular-ass Google for any reason without losing your search, then you’re out of luck and you’ll have to just go to Google and start over. But for straight text searches, the all-black is nice and the text is surprisingly easy to read.

When you consider how many people use Google, and how many of those users have Google set as their home page, you can imagine how much energy can be saved by going Black. In fact, every time Blackle loads, you’re notified of exactly how much energy has been saved since its inception.

Read more about it here.

I went on a trip with Rich and Andrew a few days after they both got their iPhones and I couldn’t resist doing a review with them. It’s funny because by the time I got around to shooting some photos, we were on our last day of the trip and neither of them had charged their iPhones the whole weekend and they were dead as can be… hahaha…

Check out our official Defgrip iPhone review here.

Sometimes it’s the little things that really get me psyched. Apple just dropped some new stuff yesterday, new iMac, iWork 08, and the new keyboard. It’s been a bit since we posted on apple releases on Defgrip. I think none of us really feel like Apple needs juice when it comes to a new iPod or the iPhone… everyone knows about it, it’s all over the internet, the tv, newspaper etc, but when a product comes around like the new keyboard, it’s not so publicized, but equally as dope I have no problem giving it some juice. It’s been a while since a new keyboard has dropped and if you are like me, a new keyboard would never hurt. I can’t wait to pick one up! Just look at the design, so sleek and solid and you can finally say good by to all the dirt and food crumbs building up in your keyboard. There are some new, apple specific keys, such as brightness, play/pause, Exposé, and Dashboard that have been added to the keyboard and there is a, from what I can tell, laptop specific wireless version with out a number pad. I have yet to use one of these, but from the look of them, they are going to be dope. I just wonder how the F# keys are going to work with the feature buttons like volume etc… are you going to cancel all the feature stuff out to properly use the F# keys in dreamweaver and flash?… Oh yah, the new iMac is also dope!

Check out the new Apple Keyboard here.