Other Expo announcements: Kick-Off!, SoundJam; XLR8; PowerLogix

We continue to receive press releases of new products etc. announced at Macworld Expo. Here is the latest crop: Sophisticated Circuits is shipping the newest entry in the PowerKey product line: Kick-Off!. Basically a USB version of Rebound!, the device automatically restarts unattended Macs that have crashed, maintains activity logs, and notifies remote users of problems. Casady & Greene announced that SoundJam MP Plus 2.1.1 already supports the new multi-processor Macs. XLR8 announced several updates. They are demonstrating two new CPU upgrade cards that support future multi-processor configurations. The MACh Carrier G4 MPe and CarrierZIF MPe (formerly announced as the CarrierZIF 2.0, the CarrierZIF MPe) can be used with a forthcoming dual processor card to enable multiple processors in pre-G3 Macintoshes. In addition, they have replaced the existing G4 series with MACh Speed G4 ZIF MPe cards, which are available now with speeds of 400, 450, and 500 MHz. XLR8 also announced Mac OS X compatibility with their Carrier ZIF, MACh Carrier and MACh Speed G3 & G4z product lines. PowerLogix has new processor upgrades for both the iMac and PowerBook. The iForce for iMac is available on the show floor and comes in two flavors, 400 MHz w/512K backside cache which lists for $299 and 500/1MB for $499. BlueChip G3 processor upgrades for the Wallstreet and Mainstreet PowerBooks will be available by the end of July, in either 466MHz or 500MHz (each sport 1MB of backside cache) for $599 and $699, respectively.