1. WWDC 2004: Eye of the Tiger.
- Author
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Cochran, Shannon
- Subjects
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CONFERENCES & conventions , *COMPUTER operating systems , *DATABASE searching , *INFORMATION retrieval , *INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems , *ENGINEERING databases , *ELECTRONIC information resource searching - Abstract
This article provides information on Apple's 2004 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, where company executive Steve Jobs provided a preview of its Mac OS X version 10.4, code-named Tiger. While the operating system will not be released until 2005, Jobs is already crowing about beating Microsoft to the next generation of technologies such as file management and video manipulation. In addition, Jobs called a new search feature, Spotlight, which is allegedly the most revolutionary feature of the system. Inspired by the iTunes interface, Spotlight brings some contextual intelligence to its task. The feature knows enough to present a user searching for the word, firewire with the airport control panel, or a user searching for the word, wallpaper with the desktop preferences interface. Also, it can sort through image files and return only the portrait-formatted ones and can call up all of Pixar's movie clips, no matter what names they are saved under, by finding Pixar in the copyright metadata. Spotlight is powered by a metadata search engine, which is accessible to third party programs as well. The engine continuously indexes metadata, including author, edit history, and formatting information, for all files, so that searches can be performed with near-instant speed.
- Published
- 2004