News for Monday, 28 June 2004

in order to accomodate so many new features, the UNIX layer in Tiger had to be seriously upgraded... here are some news:
- new 100% 64 bits kernel with better SMP support.
- the 64 bits kernel allows to use 16 exabytes of RAm (17 179 869 184 gigaoctets)
- new permission management system, allows to affiliate a number of users to the same resource, which removes the limitations of groups
- Launchd allows to centralize all network services running on Tiger
- integration of SQLite and better support of XML on the command line
- Support of file resources in standard UNIX command like tar, cp, nsync

Right now the best source of info is macrumors.com and it's quite overloaded... we're going to try and relay their news as well as those we'll gather from other sources (the list of sources will be posted after the end of the keynote).
Oops, bad start, they're asking everyone to turn off all communication means towards the outside...
Steve comes in while some Beatles music is playing.
This year saw a 17% increase in registration for the WWDC with 3500 developpers attending.
Steve talks about the iPod and the amazing success of iTunes.
Now he's talking about Airport Express. No details but he goes into full vendor mode ;)
Then it's time to talk about the BMW/iPod deal...
Then he shows a video about all that stuff.
On to the new G5 and especially the dual 2.5 and it's 1.25GHz bus.
He explains they're doing their best to pump the clock speed but that the whole industry is having problems... IBM managed to gain 25% while Intel only increased its clock speeds by 12% in the same time.
Now it's the displays... there's a new 23", it's in aluminium and has only one cable... there's also an identical 20" and they go for $1999 and $1299 respectively... available next month.
There is a THIRTY INCH display!!! it shows 4,1 megapixels (2560x1600) and works only on G5 Macs. There is no card able to display that resolution over DVI, so there are TWO DVI cables!!! The card supporting this is a Geforce 6800 Ultra DDL and retails at $599. All displays have USB and FireWire repeaters. The 30"costs $3299!!!


Time to move to OSX with a short recap:
- 12 million installed copies
- 12000 native apps
- relations with MS have never been so good
- blah blah [commercial drone mode]
- Maya unlimited announced for OSX, shipping this summer!
- blah blah [commercial drone mode]
- new Myst
- Orbit, a satellite simulator (?!), with a Freefall freeware screensaver version.
On to TIGER, available during first half of 2005, with 150 new features:
- fully 64 bits optimized
- better SMP support
- new file management technology to find more files faster: it's called Spotlight and can search in files, mail, addresses... A demo is made by Phil schiller: it works a bit like the search in iTunes, but with ALL the files on the computer and can even index the content of PDF files.
- New MPEG4 H264 version adopted for the new DVD-HD generation. It will be available with Tiger. Frank Cassanova shows a demo of this incredible codec.
- Safari now reads RSS feeds [demo running]. It will be possible to search RSS feeds like a normal google search.
- New Core Image and Core Video technology: it's no more the CPU doing the computation but the GPU. 100 professional video filters in real time!!!
- It is now possible to do with video what Core Audio did, with matching APIs and tools. All software will be able to use it. Now a demo.
- moving to .mac, with more than 500 000 subscribers. New features extending the synchronization.
- the DASHBOARD, a tool that centralizes the calculator, address book... and can be activated in a clic.
- Automater is a sort of AppleScript recorder that can be used without programming and can be used to automate tasks. It is compatible with all the iApps.
- iChat AV for Tiger will use the h264 for amazing video quality.
- developpers will receive a prerelease copy of Tiger.
The Keynote [and my translation] is over [Pƒƒƒƒƒew]... thanks for visiting us at hardmac.

According to Eweek, IBM would be about to deliver a G5 chip for laptops. Thanks to their PowerTune technology the electrical consumption of such chips would have been greatly alleviated.
Hence is Steve Jobs going to announce a Powerbook G5 soon?
Though this is something we could hope, we don't think this will prove true:
1) The Powerbook line has been renewed a (too) short time ago. Releasing much superior machines would result in many unsold units, and would make both clients and resellers angry. To announce a G5 Powerbook now, that would be available in September, would do pretty much the same.
2) IBM would claim they have a chip made for laptops. Yet is it necessarily a chip for a Powerbook ?
- One of the most important problems with the G5 currently, which is also its very strenght, is its frontbus that runs at half the speed of the CPU. On a Powerbook G5 2GHz, there would be a second, very complex chip (the chipset) whicch would work at 1 GHz. This chip dissipates heat, quite enough for having its own heat dissipator on G5 PowerMacs, using heatsinks technology. The energy used by this chip would sip a huge amount of energy from the battery.
- Other components associated to the G5 also dissipate much heat : the tension regulators, which are quite hugee. They must be cooled very efficiently, or tension would fluctuate and would involve problems for the CPU. If you take a good look on the photos of the G5 Dual 2.5 GHz Watercooling system (ICI you'll see they have their own heatsink and a HUGE radiator.
- Then you'll have to know what you call a portable computer. There indeed are portable PC which embark top of the notch CPUs, which don't work for more than 45mn and have the size and weight of two Powerbooks. Would you imagine Apple might release such a machine?
Now, it wouldn't be unbelievable that Apple great ingeniosity and skill could result into a line of portable G5s. Yet the obstacles are such, that we feel this is a prematurate hope. On the other hand, should IBM manage to master the 65nm die technology quick enough, it would be much easier to make a 1.8 or 2 GHz G5 that would require much less eenergy. The same thing would be requested for the chipset of course.

You know we like to watch the stated delivering delays on the [French] Apple Store, as such informations help lifting a part of the curtain that hides what's to come.
The 17" displays are still available immediately, yet the 20 and 23" are due to ship within 6 to 8 days.
Might be many reasons to this, yet as there's also a promotion on displays which has just come to an end, new displays really might be at hand.

Following Microsoft's request, the European Commission has suspended sanctions originally taken on March,24th. Suspension will be applied until the appeal is heard (it should take several years...). During that time, Microsoft will not have any restriction and can continue to abuse of its monopoly position.
This suspension due to Microsoft's appeal is a real bad thing, because in 3 or 4 years, when sanctions will be confirmed, most of Microsoft's competitors will be dead, and it will not really affect Microsoft, neither consumer's choice and protection...

Samsung has officially announced a 8GB DDR-SDRAM module. However, it is only currently available in low quantity for PC2100 type DDR module...but one can dream of a G5 with 64GB of RAM in a near future...
Of course, we do not have any information regarding the price of this rarity, but knowing that a 4GB DDR module cost 3500$US, and that price grows exponentially... so 10000$US per module seems to us a reasonable guess...
PS: the largest DDR400 modules currently available for PMG5 are of 2GB and costs around 1000$US.

Last Friday, the American Senate has voted a law against people who are trapped while recording a movie in a cinema to later on create a "screener" of this movie, and potentially share it via internet and P2P.
Faulty people will be sent for 3 years into jail, 5 years if they made business with the illegal copy of a movie, and 10 years if they are second offenders.
We do not know how important is the "screener" phenomenon in France, but it does not seem to affect Cinema industry, since there is 15% more entries recorded for the current year.

When the first cell phones came out in Europe, they were horribly expensive. In Italy, guys used to walk around with fake plastic mobiles to show off.
Amaury tells us an Italian company has specialized in the production of white headphones. You've guessed well, they wear fake iPod headphones and pretend they have one... :)

Source : http://www.tomshardware.fr (in French)

We use more and more battery powered devices in everyday's life : cell phones, music players, laptops, etc. All of those devices have one problem in common, namely a short autonomy, which goes along a rapid degradation of the battery's capacity. We are all looking forward to methanol based cells, generating power from alcohol. Toshiba has made a step in that direction.

This fuel cell on this picture mesures 22x56x4.5mm and weighs 8.5 grams. With 2cc of methanol, this battery can produce 100mW for 20 hours. Toshiba is thinking of integrating this type of batteries in laptops before 2004 ends, and in smaller devices such as telephones and music players during 2005. It is hard to say how much this announcement will change our lives. Soon we will be able to buy refuels for our laptops at the local drugstore. What's more, is that it will be possible to produce lighter devices with bigger screens.
Apple has always pioneered the laptop market. We can't think of any reason why Apple wouldn't introduce this technology in future Powerbooks.

Yesterday we showed you how to deactivate the buttons on Apple Cinema displays for computers running OSX 10.3.4 7L32, i.e. the version that ships with the new G5.
It is actually also possible on older OSX versions, and even on OS9!
To do the magic, hold COMMAND-SHIFT when clicking on the Display preferences in System Prefs.
The only difference with the 7L32 trick is that you cannot choose which button is deactivated, only turn both off.
More details at the ever so helpful kbase:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58813

On Supinfo's website, have been posted a few pics from the WWDC and shots of the new Tiger promotional posters. The tone of the slogans is without a doubt very ironic:
- Introducing Longhorn
- Redmond start your Photocopiers
- Redmond, we have a problem...

It's clearly a nice direct jab, just the way we like them