News for Monday, 17 March 2008

The french website BHmag has tested the LiteOn-401S. This is a rather unusual device as it can play CD, DVD and BD media, but can NOt burn any of those media. Its main interest is its price, for less than 150€ it can allow you to get access to HD movies for less money than purchasing a PS3, if you have a compatible hardware (HDMI + HDCP chips).
Maybe one day Apple might add it to the BTO, even though we will primarily need Cupertino to add support for BD media in DVD player, as well as manage AACS DRM. But it will probably happen when HD video will finally be available on the iTunes Store, and it does not seem to be a priority at 1, Infinite loop...

After a brief closure, the US Store is open again.
The Airport Express mobile base station has been updated. It now supports the 802.11n.
Its price remains unchanged, $ 99. Note that it is still not available on the French Store. According to Apple's recent behaviour for minor updates, it should make its appearance in the night.
@ Airport Express at the UK Apple Store
[Update] If you go read the comments on the terminal, at the store, you will be entitled to a moment of . One person describes his disappointment that "the batteries in the base empty in 14 months and can not be changed". Of course, he spoke without knowing that the problem which has affected thousands of Express terminals now seems resolved.
At the time of this message, in 2006, validation of comments is far more flexible than it is today.

During the purchase of ATI, AMD had a stated goal to work towards a merged CPU and graphics chip. If they plan to offer their first solutions in the second half of 2009, they may face a polite grilling by Intel.
The latter should offer this type of product as of the second quarter 2009, a few months before AMD.
It is not known whether these solutions will actually perform, Intel has not excelled in integrated video chips, but it is a new battleground between the two smelters.
It seems according to initial information gleaned at Intel that this solution will have a tangible benefit. The power consumption of the merged GPU/CPU will be much lower than that of the two separate chips.
Of course, on paper there are other advantages:
-- Bandwidth between the two will be huge since no need to communicate via the central bus.
-- GPU Frequencies will have a significant increase (but it will certainly have fewer transistors that an independent GPU).
-- Economies of integration on motherboards through reduction of runs needed for manufacture.
-- The GPU will communicate with the rest of the system by the CPU connector which is the fastest, well ahead of the PCI Express solutions ...

Source: Uberpulse

With its SDK for iPhone, Apple finds itself in competition with Google and its draft Android, the operating system that the company would like to set as the standard for mobile phones.
Apple won the first round with the 100000 downloads of the SDK, in 4 days against 750000 in more than 3 months for Google.
But Google does not believe that the iPhone will upstage its project. At eComm, Rich Miner, who is in charge Android at Google, is not convinced and criticized the position of Apple and its SDK:
-- Android will be adaptable to all types of phones, not limited to high-end.
-- Unlike the SDK of the iPhone, Android can create applications running in the background, while Apple only allows single tasking.
-- Android is Open Source Apple lock its system.
He heavily emphasized the latter point, saying that Google could not control its system because of it is open as opposed to Apple.
Of course, it is still too soon to know whether there will be a war between the two systems. Currently the only battle is to attract the best developers. For the rest of us, this possible war will look like the one between Apple and Microsoft, Apple playing its role by providing equipment and system, and on the other side, Google defining the OS and letting manufacturers of mobile make it all work .
Note that Microsoft is going to have to make a major effort to make sure Windows Mobile is not forgotten with the renewed competition.

After a long period of silence, the software DVDflash has just released an update. The version 2.5 will allow the flashing under OSX of the following engravers:
DVR-111
DVR-112
DVR-115
DVR-212
DVR-215
One can download it from the following web address:
http://dvrflash.rpc1.org/
To be honest, as we have been fans of the Pioneer DVD writers over the years, today this is not the case. In effect these products have lost their lead mostly in the level of performance.
Recently we have started the writing of two DVDs filled to the maximum on a single layer with a DVR-112 in 18x and the other on Blu-ray GGW-H20L in 16x.
Ainsi, récemment, nous avons lancé simultanément la gravure de deux DVD remplis au maximum d'un côté sur un DVR-112 en 18x et de l'autre dans un graveur Blu-ray GGW-H20L en 16x.
Contrary to expectations since the Pioneer is faster than the LG, the latter took 40 seconds less to write its disk.
We have also found that the Optiarc 16x is also faster. The Pioneer DVD writers only symbolically reach their higher speeds, and this is of little interest; the time they need to change the speed and to recalibrate their laser is longer than the gain they get with the final higher speed.

A new stage has been reached by hackers of iPhone. Armed with their experience gained with the various updates of the iPhone firmware, they have managed to unblock the beta of the next big evolution of the firmware to be released in June, this is the same firmware that will allow the use of the AppStore.
However they have gone further. Rather than searching for a way to open the firmware, they have modified a large part, that poses the question of whether Apple can patch these faults. In effect, using an analogy, it is easy to change a lock or to close a hole, however it is difficult to do something against a person who is able to add their own doors or to smash down the walls.
All this is based on the Pwned project developed by the dev team. It is composed of two parts:
- iPwner allows the modification of the iPhone and to install a non Apple firmware.
- iPSW Builder allows the modification of the packets IPSW that Apple uses to apply the firmware updates. Thus one can modify the amount that iTunes will install on the iPhone.
Thus you can understand that things have gone far, maybe too far. Indeed we criticize Apple for trying to guard the control of the iPhone, but we do not wish that they lose it completely.

At the time of the announcement of the SDK iPhone, Apple had indicated that only a limited number of developers would be initially signed up.
It is already the case, and many developers wishing to pay the 99$ to test their programs have been rebuffed, however Apple does foresee a widening of this program within a time period that has not been specified.
There are certainly valid reasons for this limitation, such as the capacity of the technical support to answer all the questions of the developers, but the fact remains that these people who have already worked on code feel frustrated.
Apple have acquired big experience with management of crises in its dark period of the past and will now have to develop expertese within the framework of success. Perhaps it will not be so simple.