News for Saturday, 13 September 2003

Thanks to Benoit for sending us his xBench results of a brand new iMac 1.25GHz (delivered in the US)

Overall, this computer seems really fast.
However, the User Interface test remains too low. Why is Apple always releasing a powerful computer and finally decide to limit its performance by incorporating a G4 without L3 cache?? We all know since the MDD series, that 167MHw bus with a G4 processor is more impressive on the paper than once used....

Thx to Xavier for the info.
Adobe published their trimestrial results. Profits are overcoming expectations by $ 64,5 M with a 12% turnover growth.
Adobe, as one of the BSA most influent members, keeps struggling against the hydra-of-copy-that-will-ruin-software-editors
.

A new Mac magazine was published today [in France]. Its name : Mac And Co.
Though not very original, the outlook is pleasant. Its content is dense, which is reassuring for a first number. They even publish the first real time tests of a G5 in France ! Well, one could have expected some of them to be more thorough, as long as the machines were available... For instance, testing Panther on G5 would have deserved a longer statement than : "First good surprise, our applicative test software installed without any problem. But as far as performance is concerned, one shall wait to know more, as no significant gap was measured between Mac OS X 10.2.7 & Panther."
The reader will appreciate the numerous devices tested, and the general public orientation of this magazine : while some articles are made for professionnals (for example an article about WebObjects), many other ones will be appreciated by the general public (e.g. an article on sonorization with iMovie 3).

Since its partially lots trial on protected CDs, EMI set up an exchange procedure for the unreadable CDs. Hervé has more info:

Following a mail, sent at the beginning of 2003, and explaining the impossibility to read some CD on my mac and my car player, EMI-Virgin sent me this letter [recommandé and A-R -translation? it eludes me! (!) : “ Dear Sir, we acknowledge reception of your request and are sorry to learn that you encountered a problem related to the reading of one or our CDs. Copy protecton is a new technology and we are working closely with ou collaborators to improve maxiamlly the prtoection software, knowing that similar problems to the one you pointed us to are occuring occasionally. We set up a service that will be able to send you a CD without CopyControl. In order to do this, please dial the 0820 300 011 (N° Indigo : 0,099 Euro TTC/min). Bien cordialement.” It is actually the second letter I received from them, the fist one was implying they woul ddo nothign for me... I just call and here is how it works: It is almost like a police enquiry: Name, first name, address, email address, description of concerned CDs, description players with issues, even question about the car make! Then the operator (not really aware of the whole thing!) gave me n address where I could send the CD to. Next step? She could not tell me... I will go further down the process and will let you know...

Did they declare this new information file they are building to the CNIL? (CNIL is the French National Commission for IT and Liberties, to which all files that hold personal data and potentially privacy-invading files must be registered) ?

You certainly know of the never-ending war between Nvidia and ATI.
Nvidia just lost a battle.
In Half Life 2, using the Pixel Shaders 2, its cards were smited.
The 5200 Fx and 5600 cards were even unusable to play.
We're expecting press reports to explain this failure.

It seems that once more Apple will not broadcast the Keynote on the Internet. If you have a satellite dish here's what you need to know to see it:
The keynote will be broadcasted on Tc2D from 0900 to 1230.
Orbital position : 8 degrees West
Reception frequency : 11564.7 MHz
Polarisation : vertical
Symbole rate : 6.1113 MS/s
FEC : 3/4

We just gladly learned that Giga Designs, whose processor upgrades we've grown to appreciate, was about to release an accelerating card for the Cube.
We don't have the precise characteristics of this product in its final development stage, but here's what we know:
- The processor will be a 1 GHz 7455A G4, it is the coolest model of G4.
- The card will need no additional fan.
These two informations are very valuable since they counter the two biggest gripes we have about processor upgrades: that they either run too hot or are too noisy.
We will try to get more details as soon as possible.

China's consumer market is exploding, and Apple does not want to miss a thing.
Here are photos of Beijing's Apple Store.


Our correspondant in China also reports that Apple's hardware is sold in many retailers' shops in Beijing.

Macbidouille might be becoming the reference site for customised car + iPod :)
We let Jefftrep explain this one.

To keep on alimentaing your topic "iPod and Cars", here is my contribution. I have a 3G 15Go iPod, and I set it up in hte cup holder of my Volkswagen Jetta. I used the normal AUX input of the Alpine car radio, through the new dock (that is held sitffly in place by velcro scratch -nice and discreet). Why the dock? It avoids having to plug-unplug the 1/8jack on the iPod and use it prematurely. I locked the mechanism that hold the coffe cup in the cup holder with a piece of plastic, in order to avoid forcing the connection of the iPod on the Dock. The sound quality is amazing in AAC and the iPod NEVER stuttled (even if the Quebec roads are quite bad!). The iPod is perfectly held and at the perfect heigth for seeing it (without stopping to look at the road ) and at a perfect distance to handle it. The screen lighting at dusk or night is not disturbing at all and so gorgeous that passengers ask me to leave it on all the time! After a total disappointment with the FM transmitter from BELKIN, I can eventually enjoy to the max the 15Go of music in my little iPod... well, at least until the battery dwindles away... Until I buy a car charger for the iPod.

Many thanks to those who shared with us these informations.
Pascal Cagni was the guest on TF1 in the show "Les Coulisses de l' Economie" tonight.
We saw during this show a G5 plugged to a 23" LCD.
Here are some reports:
By François:

The show treated these topics: i-tunes music store (which is a great success), presentation of the G5 as the fastest personal computer in the world with great design (the display model was a monoprocessor G5 with its side opened, running along an apple display 23") the journalist remarked that it was very quiet ! They also mentioned the dates of the Apple Expo (with Jean-Louis Aubert in concert...) The journalists seemed impressed by Apple even though they apparently did not use a Mac themselves, saying that these machines were aimed at multimedia professionals :-( Jean-Marc Sylvestre, the show's animator, has clearly said that computer science as of today was still experimental because machines crashed at least twice a day, Pascal Cagni told him it was time to switch :-)). Elie Cohen, famous economist from the CNRS who participate in many TV shows, came to speak about another subject, but seemed like an experimented Macintosh user.

By wykazox:

In a few words, Apple Europe's CEO presenting the G5, reminding everyone of the Cube, saying that heavily tuned PCs are still not Macs (they really are ugly, these computers shaped as kegs or... cubes...), mentionning iTunes and the iTMS, announcing the Apple Expo dates (in case you don't know it already, that's from the 16th to the 20th of Sept.), talking about the excellent growth of the online Apple store (over 100% in aone year), and even advising Jean-Marc Sylvestre that it's time to switch because his computer crashes twice a day (apparently it is not a Mac...)

It is running right now on France Info. The show is talking about digital piracy.
According to Apple's relations department here are the next public appearances of Apple in the media:
Radio Classique - Friday 09/12 - about 20 years of Apple Expo with
Pascal Cagni - 8H35
Stratégies - two pages...
NRJ will cover the events of the 20th of sept.
Radio Nova will cover the entire Apple Expo
BFM - 12-14's show Friday (live)
RFI - economic news next Monday at 20H00
France Info - Jérôme Colombain - nouveau monde - on the 18th or the 19th of sept.
France Info - A la une de l'économie - Jean Leymarie
La Tribune, on the "medias" page

Macworld Magazine just put online a test of the three G5 models made in their labs. They've been compared to dual 1.42 GHz and single 1 GHz G4s in such areas as videos, gaming, 3D etc.
As a final result the dual 1.42 GHz G4 performs quite much as the 1.8 G5 and is superior i every field to the 1.6 GHz. This is not suprising though as many of the tested softwares will make use of dual-processing.
And without surprise, the 2 GHz G5 is more powerful than any other configurations. A pity it has still not shipped to resellers'...

Apple.fr has put online the story of Titouan Lamazou telling of his leap in the digital age.
http://www.apple.com/fr/hotnews/articles/titouan_lamazou.
He has many Macs:
- A Powerbook G4
- A dual G4 1,25 GHz
and... a Dual PowerMac G5 !!
He probably was the first to order it on the AppleStore in the whole Europe !!