When it comes to forecasting the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust . We put the question to you and let you have your go at it

When it comes to forecasting the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust . We put the question to you and let you have your go at it

Claims of redesigned MacBook Pro models continue to surface ahead of the official launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge chips, and Digitimes now reports that slimmer versions of the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro are currently in production. Notably, the report claims that the MacBook Pro line will remain distinct from the MacBook Air line, with the new MacBook Pro models losing their optical drives but retaining more advanced specs than seen in the MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro will no longer have an optical drive enabling thinner designs, the sources indicated

One of the promises of Intel's Thunderbolt technology was the possibility for fiber optic cables, offering greater cable lengths and setting the stage for faster connectivity once the standard matures. But Thunderbolt launched using only traditional copper wire cables, and there has been some dispute about just how soon fiber optic cables will become available

In an upcoming profile of AMD , Forbes reports that the company's Llano family of Fusion combination CPU-GPU systems was under consideration by Apple to be used as the brains behind the MacBook Air for its 2011 revision. AMD lost out to Intel, however, as the necessary parts were late in being delivered to Apple and had unacceptably high failure rates

Last week, a Digitimes report claimed that Intel was going to delay mass availability of its new Ivy Bridge processors until after June. Ivy Bridge represents the next generation processors from Intel and are expected to power any new Macs in the coming few months

In two report back in April and July of last year, we reported that Apple was working on an ultra-thin 15-inch Mac notebook, with the suggestion being that the existing MacBook Pro line would evolve to take design cues and many of the features from the popular MacBook Air. But whether the larger notebooks would be branded as MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs has been unclear.

Apple today released a series of three EFI firmware updates bringing Lion Internet Recovery to the company's Late 2010 MacBook Air, Mid-2010 iMac, and Early 2010 MacBook Pro. Available firmware updates include: - MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.3 (2.98 MB): This update enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection on MacBook Air (Late 2010) models and addresses an issue where the system could restart if the power button is pressed immediately after waking from deep sleep. - iMac EFI Update 1.8 (3.02 MB): This update enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection on iMac (Mid 2010) models

Patently Apple reports that Apple last week filed a curious new trademark application for the term "macroscalar". The company has typically quietly registered trademarks in countries such as Trinidad & Tobago, only to later apply for the marks in the United States and other major markets once the new products and features have been announced

While the odd "CUI Error" experienced by some users after upgrading to OS X 10.7.3 earlier this week has garnered a fair amount of attention, it appears that a security update released for Mac OS X Snow Leopard at the same time is also causing major issues for users who rely on older PowerPC applications that run under Apple's Rosetta framework. Security Update 2012-001 was released alongside OS X 10.7.3 on Wednesday in order to bring some of the security fixes found in OS X 10.7.3 to users still running Mac OS X Snow Leopard.