text:
[This article was written by Benj Edwards, a freelance writer who specializes in computer and video game history. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Vintage Computing and Gaming, a blog devoted to vintage technology.]
Ten years ago, Apple introduced the flat-panel iMac G4, a groundbreaking consumer PC that wowed the computer industry and proved that Apple could not only meet but exceed design innovations that had given the firm a new breath of life just four years prior.
With its innovative form factor, advanced operating system, and a then-unparalleled suite of integrated software, the iMac G4 led a new generation of consumer-grade Apple desktops that brought continued financial security to Apple during a time of transition—just as its iPod line began to heat up.
At launch in January 2002, the iMac G4 came in three flavors: a low-end model for $1299 that included a 700MHz G4 PowerPC processor, 128MB RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a CD-RW drive; a mid-range model for $1499 that upped the RAM to 256 MB and included a CD-RW/DVD-ROM "Combo Drive"; and a high-end model for $1799 that included an 800MHz G4 processor, 256MB RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and a CD-RW/DVD-R "Super Drive."
The two top models also shipped with external Pro Speakers, and all models included a white keyboard and one-button optical Pro Mouse. Each model shipped with Mac OS X 10.1 and OS 9 included on the internal hard disk.
But mere specs alone can't convey what a marvel of creation the iMac G4 was at the time of its release. Let's take a look at seven reasons why the iMac G4 was an important addition to Apple's legacy.
A marvel of design and engineering
When the iMac G4 first rose up out of the stage during Steve Jobs' 2002 Macworld Keynote, one design element stood out above all others: a thin flat panel display floating upon a cantilevered, fully poseable metal arm. This arm represented both strength and grace in design—it was strong enough that Apple encouraged customers to use it as a handle to lift the 21-pound machine, yet precise enough to maintain the display at a position parallel to its original angle whether you swung the arm up or down, left or right.
The press reacted with hearty praise for the new poseable display feature, which immediately gave the iMac G4 a unique sales angle that no competitor could match. Amusingly, a few members of the press also reacted with puzzlement: some thought the protruding display might throw the machine off-balance, making it easy to tip over. Of course, Apple had designed the base to be heavy enough to prevent just such an embarrassing occurrence.
And how about that hemispherical base? It too was a feat of engineering, cramming a full computer, drives, and power supply under a 10.6-inch diameter dome. It even incorporated a small, quiet fan that sucked in cooling air from the bottom of the base and channeled it upward through vents in its top—a classic Apple touch driven by Jobs' love of silence.
The iMac made a design statement in its color as well as its function. With its soft, snowy white plastic case and matching keyboard and mouse, the iMac G4 marked an official end to Apple's love of translucent, multicolored products. It was a striking shift at the time, but it brought a badly needed design reset after the translucent candy-colored free-for-all that the original iMac had inspired in consumer design. (Think about the stark blankness of The Beatles' White Album after the colorful, eclectic, often-parodied Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and you'll see an interesting design parallel that may have influenced Apple team.)
The total package
The iMac G4 integrated hardware and software in ways never before seen, making the iMac G4 a true digital media hub. With it, you could buy a sub-$1800 PC that let you create movies, DVDs, photo slideshows, write novels, and organize a custom digital jukebox with no additional cost (well, aside from the cost of a camera). That's because the flat panel iMac shipped with a comprehensive and unprecedented suite of applications from Apple and other vendors that made it possible.
During the introduction of the new iMac in 2002, Steve Jobs also debuted iPhoto, a digital photo organizer app. It was only the latest in a line of integrated iApps that had begun with iMovie in 1999 and continued with iTunes and iDVD two years later.
The iMac G4 also shipped with AppleWorks 6 (an Office-like productivity suite), PCalc 2 (scientific calculator software), World Book Encyclopedia, and Otto Mattic (a 3D action game).
On the operating system front, the iMac G4 included Mac OS X 10.1, which critics at the time considered the first version of OS X suitable to replace OS 9 in daily use. Apple was confident enough in OS X by early 2002 that the new iMac booted to it by default, even though Apple also included OS 9 on its hard drive.
The iMac: Not a one-hit wonder
After the launch of the original iMac in 1998, no one knew that the Bondi blue machine represented only one entry in a long string of innovative, popular, and attention-getting products from Apple. Hints started to arrive with the blue and white Power Macintosh G3 in 1999 and the iBook the same year, but many critics asked: could Apple follow up the iMac G3 with a product equally as revolutionary?
The iMac G4 provided the answer: yes. The new desktop proved that, amazingly, Apple could indeed improve upon a legendary design aesthetic that had influenced everything from toasters to paper towel dispensers.
With the launch of the flat-panel iMac G4, Steve Jobs declared, "The CRT is officially dead." But the transition had already been underway: less than a year earlier, in May 2001, Apple had phased out its last modular CRT display, the 17-inch Apple Studio Display. By early 2002, the original iMac G3 remained the only CRT-bearing Mac left in Apple's inventory.
Interestingly, Apple backpedaled a bit with the release of the eMac (also launched in 2002), which relied on a CRT monitor to keep costs down for educational customers. But after that, it was flat panels or nothing for Apple.
The G4 CPU
Prior to the flat panel iMac, the G4 processor had shipped in the Power Mac G4 (first introduced in 1999) pro desktop and the PowerBook G4 (2001) pro laptop. The iMac G4 brought G4 speed to the consumer desktop for the first time, albeit with some limitations: due to a slower system bus, the G4 in the iMac did not perform as well as G4s of the same clock speed in the Power Mac line. Still, the new iMac ran circles around the older G3 model, and it provided enough horsepower to run Apple's suite of media-rich iApps.
Burn DVDs
The iMac G4 introduced DVD burning to the consumer level of Apple's product lines for the first time (note that the earlier iMac DV line had allowed DVD reading, but not writing). The SuperDrive present on the high-end iMac G4 could burn both CDs and DVDs, a capability very novel in the industry at the time, especially on a consumer product.
When combined with iMovie and iDVD, the SuperDrive could produce professional-quality DVDs at the lowest total package price ($1,799) possible at the time.
People wanted to switch
Perhaps more than any other Mac up to that point in the Neo-Jobsian era, the iMac G4 lured people away from a world of Windows complacency and into the realm of seamless Mac integration. The iMac G4's bold design, new OS, and critically-acclaimed software suite offered perks that no Windows PC could then match.
With the new iMac, one could buy a true "digital hub" (to use Apple's parlance) where software and hardware worked in concert to empower a computer user to an extent unseen since the launch of the original Mac in 1984. And you could only get that experience with a Mac.
A movable legacy
The iMac G4 sold very well, and it held the consumer desktop torch with style until the launch of the comparatively homely iMac G5 two years later. In the meantime, the G4 iMac received occasional speed and capacity boosts, as well as notable display size upgrades—first with a widescreen 17-inch model and even a 20-inch edition that landed in late 2003.
Despite the continued evolution of the iMac line in the past decade, a dedicated group of fans still swear by their iMac G4s to this day, and this author doesn't blame them. Somehow I suspect I am not the only iMac G4 owner who longs for an official, high-powered update in the shape of the iMac G4's endearing "flower pot" design. After all, it's a design that still looks amazing and completely modern ten years later.


text:
- Science
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
Genetic flip produces two plants for the price of one
On the western coast of America, a combination of cool fog and salty sea spray keeps the soil moist all year round. In these wet conditions, you'll find an unassuming plant called the yellow monkeyflower. Drive further inland, and the climate changes considerably. It's hotter and drier, and every summer brings a harsh drought. But here too, the yellow monkeyflower blooms but its lifespan is shorter and its leaves are less luscious. Despite their different habitats and lifestyles, both groups of monkeyflowers are members of the same species. But that might eventually change.
David Lowry from Duke University discovered the secret of the monkeyflower's dual identities lies in a flipped chunk of DNA. A large chunk of the plant's genome, containing around 360 genes, has been flipped upside-down, effectively giving it two genomes for the price of one.
Since their discovery in 1921, scientists have found examples of these genetic inversions all over the place. For example, around 1,500 of them separate the chimp genome from our own. These inversions are created when a part of the genome breaks in two places and the floating chunk is welded back into place in the wrong orientation. The effect is like cutting out the middle of a recipe book and gluing it back upside down – all the same information is there, but some of it is in the wrong order.
Lowry found that one version is found in the inland plant, which is threatened by a yearly drought. With its life in peril every summer, this plant is an annual; it flowers as quickly as possible, produces seeds, and then dies as soon as the drought sets in. The other flipped version is found in the coastal perennial variety, which is never threatened by drought. Taking advantage of the year-round moisture, it can afford to give equal priority to growth and reproduction. It produces luscious leaves, flowers later, and lives for many years.
It seemed like the inversion was acting as a supergene, which allows the plant to survive in two very different habitats. But such claims have been made before and Lowry has provided more evidence for this than ever before. He has actually managed to swap the two versions of the supergene, putting the annual version into a perennial plant and the inverted perennial version into an annual plant, before testing the effects in the field.
Lowry was inspired by another monkeyflower experiment, which converted a hummingbird-pollinated plant into a bee-pollinated one through careful breeding. He wanted to see if he could do the same, transforming a late-flowering perennial into an early-flowering annual. That was not easy. Without any idea about which genes are involved, the only option is to carefully cross-breef plants from the two populations.
"I started breeding soon after I started grad school in 2005, and after ten generations of breeding and countless hours in the lab I finally had the plants I needed in 2009," he says. "It was not until 2007 that I realized I was actually dealing with a chromosomal inversion. That's when things got interesting."
Eventually, it became clear that the inversion plays a large role in the monkeyflower's double life. Annual plants with the perennial inversion flowered later than they normally would, while perennial plants with the annual genes flowered much earlier.
To see how these changes affected the plants in the wild, Lowry planted his edited individuals, together with their normal parents, in both coastal and inland sites. A year later, it was clear that in both locations, the native parent plants did far better than their cross-bred edited offspring. They were more likely to survive long enough to produce flowers, and they produced more of them.
But it was also clear that the inversions were also adapted to the different habitats. Lowry says, "The inland annual orientation of the inversion outperforms the coastal perennial orientation in inland habitat. The opposite pattern occurs at the coast." Lowry also found that some inland plants carry the inversion that's usually found in their coastal kin, but only if they grow in areas with lots of moisture, like riverbanks or high mountains. It's yet more confirmation that the inverted genes have adapted to different local conditions.
But the inversion does more than that – it also prevents the two types of monkeyflower from mating with one another. For a start, the coastal plants flower much later than their inland cousins, so there are few occasions where pollen from one group can reach the blossoms of the other.
More importantly, as Lowry showed, immigrants from one habitat do very badly in the other. Annual plants do poorly in the coast where their flower-early-die-young lifestyle can't beat perennial plants that take their time to grow and exploit the plentiful moisture. Meanwhile, the perennial plants are ill-suited to an inland life because their relaxed flowering schedule sees them succumbing to the summer drought before they seed the next generation.
This means that even though both types of yellow monkeyflower are found along the same stretch of the American coast, they are effectively isolated from one another. Neither type does well in the conditions that the other thrives in and, as a result, their genes don't have a chance to mingle. In time, the two varieties could split into separate species.
This is one of the clearest examples yet that genetic inversions can contribute to the origin of species. Without the inversion, it's possible that the monkeyflower would eventually have adapted to the two different habitats and split into different species (and indeed, other genetic differences separate the annual and perennial varieties). But inversions can greatly accelerate that process.
During sex, chromosomes from both parents are united in an embryo and shuffled together, in a process called recombination. But to do this, they first need to align with one another and they can't do that if one of them has a massive flipped segment. That's exactly what Lowry found in the monkeyflower. When he cross-bred the inland and coastal plants, he found that one specific part of their genome refused to recombine, even though it had no problem doing so when plants from the same area were crossed.
Without the ability to recombine, the inverted genes are free to evolve on their own terms. If these genes allow species to adapt to their local environment, then individuals that carry the inversion will start to dominate a specific habitat, becoming separated from their cousins with the normal version.
Reference: PLoS Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000500
PS: David Lowry is married to Sheril Kirshenbaum, one of my excellent fellow Discover bloggers. You can read her writing at The Intersection if you don't already.
More on the origin of species:
- Spots plus spots equals maze: how animals create living patterns
- Holy hybrids Batman! Caribbean fruit bat is a mash-up of three species
- British birdfeeders split blackcaps into two genetically distinct groups
- Discriminating butterflies show how one species could split into two
- Giant insect splits cavefish into distinct populations
- How diversity creates itself – cascades of new species among flies and parasitic wasps

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Arrow 5×04 Sneak Peek "Penance"
Arrow 5×04 "Penance" Sneak Peek – Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson) team up on a secret mission for Diggle (David Ramsey). Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) finds out and disapproves of the plan and opts to stay behind. When Tobias Church (guest star Chad L. Coleman) launches a deadly assault against the city, Felicity must decide if she wants to send the recruits out sans the Green Arrow. Dermott Downs directed the episode written by Brian Ford Sullivan & Oscar Balderrama (#504). Original airdate 10/26/2016.