Apple unveils 'world's thinnest' laptop, movie rentals, and a 'time capsule’

San Francisco: Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled what termed 'the world's thinnest notebook computer', during his annual Macworld address. The laptop is called the MacBook Air.

The MacBook Air laptop is under two centimetres thick, and features a backlit 13-inch (33 cm) screen, a full-size keyboard and a pad responsive to Apple's multi-touch control gestures. It weighs in at under 1.5 kg, according to Jobs.

"We've built the world's thinnest notebook,  without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display. When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe it's a high-performance notebook; but it is,'' he said in the video of the keynote address as hosted on Apple's website.

The MacBook Air will go on sale in the US at a price point of $1,800. The laptop uses Intel's 1.6 GHZ Core 2 Duo processor as standard, with an upgrade available to 1.8 GHZ. It has 2GB of RAM, a battery life of around five hours, and an 80 GB hard drive. There is no built-in CD drive. However, an external drive is on offer for an additional $99. It has built-in 802.11n wireless connectivity and a video camera. The MacBook Air will hit the shelves in the US in two weeks.

The annual address also announced upgrades to the iPhone, iTunes movie rentals, and a wireless gadget that automatically backs up data from Mac computers and laptops.

Speaking about the movie rentals business, Jobs said "iTunes Movie Rentals instantly brings great movies from all the major studios directly to your iPod, iPhone, TV or computer, without having to drive to the video store or wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail. Movie lovers can now discover and enjoy movies as simply and easily as music lovers discover and enjoy music today on iTunes."

The iTunes Movie Rentals service will have films from all major Hollywood studios, and will enable users to watch them on PCs, Macs, iPods and iPhones. Apple is reportedly hoping that its new technology will eventually make it a dominant player in the online movie rental business, just as it came to dominate the sale of music tracks with iTunes. However, it faces well-entrenched competition from firms such as Amazon.com and Netflix. The service allows movies to begin within seconds of an order being placed.

The other new gadget announced by Jobs is called 'the Time Capsule', which combines an 802.11n base station with a server-grade hard drive to offer automatic wireless backup for every Mac in the house. "Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila - all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day," Jobs said.