News for Wednesday, 25 August 2004

Federico has bought a movie on a DVD-D media. This media is supposed to "self-destroy" 8 hours after opening the protection case and should not be playable anymore. But 5 days after having opened the protection case and played this DVD for the first time, the DVD was still working perfectly. Every morning, he is testing this DVD till half way of the movie, and so far, everything is fine. So 2 solutions:
- either there was a mistake during packaging, and the DVD is not a DVD-D, but a normal DVD media.
- or, this self-destruction process is not working properly.
In any case, enjoying a movie on a standard DVD for the price of a DVD-D is rather a very good deal...

IPod 3G could can be found on the Refurb Store with 35 to 37 discount.
Remember that iPod 3G 20GB have a Remote and Carrying Case, which are absent with iPod 4G, but those ones have an improved battery life time.

Altec Lansing has launched 2 new products dedicated to iPod, following the success met by Inmotion.

Inmotion iM3 is compatible with iPod 4G. Its batteries will ensure 24h of operation. There is also a remote control which will allow you to pilot your iPod. In addition, when plugged to a Mac, Inmotion iM3 can work as a dock for the iPod.

Inmotion iMmini is specific to iPod mini. As for Inmotion iM3, it can work as a dock.

The FNAC [trans.: One of the main music/books/hi tech devices shop in France] and EMI have just been sued for selling copy-protected CDs. The qualification of the malpractice is " deceit on the substantial qualities of the CD ". The outcome of the trial might have an important impact on the attempt of the Majors to ban private copy. Most of the time, such protections just bother people who paid for the product, considering the fact that no protection has prevented any song to be shared sooner or later on P2P networks.

A t-shirt online store* offers this beauty.

A beautifully rendered trompe l'oeil of the famous iPod earbuds...
[translator's note: the site is actually la fraise]

The official Firewire 400 tech specs are fairly flexible, especially regarding voltage, taht can vary between 8 and 30V. It seems that on some G5, Apple, while remaining within those limits, has pushed the voltage above the usual values.
This causing some firewire hub some trouble.
MacAlly and DLink have posted warnings on their websites that pluging some of their hubs on some G5 machines can definetely destroy them (the hubs, not hte G5 ;)
If you encounter this problem, please let us know... Personally, I'm using two chained FW400 hubs on my G5 with no problems. One is bus powered, the other on external power supply.

Clubic has thoroughly tested the Pioneer DVR 108 burner. Although the lack of certified 16x medias didn't allow them to test the burner at full speed, the burner did allow them to burn a 2.4x media at 4x. And just for that, it's worth the price tag. only 26 minutes are required to burn 8.5GB, compared to 45mins at 2.4x.
Clubic

Our partner Macway has received the Gigadesigns 1.5 GHz upgrade cards (PPC 7457) for the Cube.
Vince got hold of one and installed it :




The Cube got a real kick in the butt, with that kind of upgrade :)
We'll get benchmarks a little later.

Frédéric is rather enthused about the latest build of Missing Sync:

Things are simply great. Highly recommended to Palm owners. Full sync of iCal and Address Book, now with WiFi, which was until now reserved to the PC realm... all the capabilities are described on Markspace's website.

http://www.markspace.com/