News for Wednesday, 16 July 2003

We've already told you many times of an overheating problem using the Verax kit on the 1st MDD G4s.
it seems fixed as Thomas tells us:

I told you I was part to the tests Verax made to solve this overheating problem... They gave me my 867 back (with 2 HD and 2 optical bays) a few days ago and with the kit they installed I never had any problem (CPU and PSU -M10 and M11 according to their nomenclature-). The MDD is now incredibly more quiet, although the results seem even more impressive (as I saw in Verax offices) on the latest MDDs that don't get that hot... My own MDD is now completely silent on boot and then if the sound level slowly increases it's still so easier to stand it (even as compared to Apple kit)!!! The small problems they'd had with the MDDs was the thermal between CPU and radiator... see their public statement for more explanation on this issue: http://www.verax.de (rubrique "Veraxed Mac: die Lösung", in German) or http://www.g4noise.com/forum/ (in English). CPU monitor now gives me a temperature between 60.2 et 61.1° C, and an average of 60,6 (normal use, 10 to 15 hours a day use)... but according to these engineer from Verax this device gives temperatures that are 5 to 8° C higher than they measured by themselves... It's really so cool now, if only Apple could have delivered such silent machines from start...

Macbytes.com has indicated a .Mac homepage where it is possible to see or download(3.6MB) the PowerMac G5 TV Add from CNBC.
It is far from the time of theToasted Bunny Ad (video found on Gary L. Gray)'s web-site...

Apple wants to take the bread out of our mouth :)
iDVD 3.01 is just released. But now, the app can be started even if the machine does not have a superdrive. As with the previous version, for which we have developed a batch, it is still however impossible to burn a DVD with an external DVD burner. This is anyway a victory for a battle which started on November 15th 2001, with the first patch "iDVD no superdrive" to correct iDVD v2.0.

As many people told us, there a second part really interesting in the famous "AppleSystemInfo.strings" file.

// String used to format RAM description, when there is more than 1 TB of RAM. "RAMInTB" = "%.*f TB"; // String used to format RAM description, when there is more than 1 PB of RAM. "RAMInPB" = "%.*f PB"; // String used to format RAM description, when there is more than 1 EB of RAM. "RAMInEB" = "%.*f EB";

Several exa-Bytes (EB) of RAM in an Apple computer, that give us some flexibility for the future
This is maybe also the time to remind you a rumor which was mentioned last May in the Apple Roadmap :

Xstation is a high-end machine, including from 4 to 64 processors. It will have the fastest graphic card available at its release date. There will be support for massive storage and RAM capacities. The estimated price of such a monster will be between 10000 and 75000$ (maybe even more). The Xstation will be first dedicated to 3D consumers, using Maya, CAD/CAM software, and high resolution real time video

This rumor fits perfectly with the info concerning the "AppleSystemInfo.strings" file.

As usual, technology revolution starts in labs, in this case it concerns the manufacturers developing laser beam devices. Intersil just announced that the new Elantec EL6915 laser beam will be available for Q3 2003. This laser device allows DVD burning 8x for DVD-R and 4x for DVD-RW. We can be sure that Pioneer will know what to do with that new laser beam.

We have already talked about this crazy rumor : a Mac with more then 2 CPUs. We ignore if this rumor will actually materialize, but Kirk discovered something very interesting. In the panther system, there is a file named "AppleSystemInfo.strings" (in system/library/coreservice). We can find an interesting passage :

// String used to describe a dual processor configuration. // // IMPORTANT: Make sure the right hand side value contains the substring "%@". // "%@" will get replaced by the processor speed and type string // (e.g. "800 MHz PowerPC G3"). //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "2xCPUFormat" = "Dual %@"; // String used to describe a triple processor configuration. // // IMPORTANT: Make sure the right hand side value contains the substring "%@". // "%@" will get replaced by the processor speed and type string // (e.g. "800 MHz PowerPC G3"). //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "3xCPUFormat" = "3 x %@"; // String used to describe a quadruple processor configuration. // // IMPORTANT: Make sure the right hand side value contains the substring "%@". // "%@" will get replaced by the processor speed and type string // (e.g. "800 MHz PowerPC G3"). //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "4xCPUFormat" = "4 x %@"; // String used to describe a N processor configuration where N > 2. // // IMPORTANT: Make sure the right hand side value contains the substrings "%1$d" // and "%2$@". "%1$d" will get replaced by the number of processors (e.g. "4"), // and "%2$@" will get replaced by the processor speed and type string // (e.g. "800 MHz PowerPC G3"). //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "NxCPUFormat" = "%1$d x %2$@";