News for Friday, 24 September 2004

Sony made their best to force using their Atrac format on audio players. The ones of their brand could only use this format. Yet the company had discretly been starting to change their minds by selling MP3 compatible players under their other brand, Aiwa.
An announcement from their spokesman in the US tolls the bell of their aborted attempt.
The next Flash memory players from Sony will support both Atrac and MP3. For the time being, the ones using hard drives won't be allowed this compatibility.
It seems Sony's different interests are in conflit. It is the only digital player manufacturer that is also a major, via Sony Music. This extended compatibility could make the products of the brand a bit more attractive for the general public which it seems was displeased by this proprietary format.

Immersion Inc. is specialized in developing peripherals such as joypads. In 2002, they sued Sony and Microsoft for patent violation in their creation of the PS2 and Xbox pads.
Yesterday, Sony, proved guilty, was condemned to give Immersion 82 millions $.
If you add this to the sums they had to give to have the law action on the Walkman stopped, it makes quite a huge sum for Sony.

An update for Java is available via the software update, 26.4MB...

Java 1.4.2 Update 2 provides improved behavior for applets in Safari and increased stability for desktop Java applications. Java 1.4.2 Update 2 also includes all the improvements from Java 1.4.2 Update 1.
The system will be updated to Java 1.4.2 Update 2. If the system currently has Java 1.4.1, it will be removed. Any previous Java 1.4.2 installation will be completely replaced.
For more details on this update, please visit: http://www.apple.com/java/

Certified Apple Care center have received the following mail from AppleCare HQ, where the noise problem due to a defect PSU is officially acknowledged and more info are given:

Dear Service Manager,
Please forward this info to your technicians:
subject: iMac G5 noise issue
--------------------------------
you or the end-user can organize a replacement power supply either via GSX
or calling the Contact Centre for a DIY part (previous CIP procedure). The
affected units use 'AC-Bel' branded power supplies and there is a noise only
when plugged in 220v. The other supply we use 'Delta' fix the issue and all
current stocks are 'Delta' supplies.
Greetings
AppleCare

This explain why none of the iMacG5 distributed in the US were affected.
All iMacG5 being now delivered should not have this problem anymore. So no stress and place you order for an iMacG5 (using the link to AppleStore placed on our homepage, it will help us to maintain this website :) )

Thanks to Fred for the news:

I just got an e-mail from Lego announcing (finally!) that its Robolab software is available for Mac OS X. This soft is used to program robots realized with the Lego Mondstorm kit.
It has been available on PC and OS 9 for a long time, but it was supposed to be brought on Mac OS X in June 2004, as Macslash precised it (http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/03/1618239&mode=thread), but the release was eventually delayed.
Here is the e-mail i got:
"The upgrade disk for RoboLab 2.5.4 will begin shipping by the end of the
month. The cost is $35.00 plus $6.00 shipping."
More info: http://www.legoeducationstore.com/
There are also softs for Palm to control robots :
http://www.pacificneotek.com/

VirginiaTech has posted photo of its Xseve G5 cluster which is now fully installed. They are finishing test procedures before being ready to do the actual performance evaluation.

http://www.tcf.vt.edu/

And now for today's episode...
As iMac G5s reach their new owners, we receive confirmations of what has already been reported.
Not all 17" iMac G5 are affected, but the cases are legion, nonetheless.
According to a few sources, Apple started to give the issue a closer look, and are in the process of isolating the serie(s) of defective power supplies. They should then offer a replacement program.
It might take a while though, since the iMac G5 support program hasn't been started yet in Europe.

The test method we gave yesterday seems to be running nicely. We have had a lot of positive feedback, and we are now certain that there is more to it than just putting 2 similar capacity RAM stick in the iMac G5 to run in 128bits mode.
To make things easier, we created a small utility that runs the check for you. If we find the time, we might improve it in the future.
G5 bus tests : testbusG5us.sit

We try and we try to get a clearer date for the availability of the Geforce 6800 DDL. It ain't simple to get any such info from Apple :)
However, here's proof that things are getting closer to reality:

Read Before You Install the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL
Congratulations on the purchase of the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card. The groundbreaking new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra delivers the industry's first 16-pipe superscalar architecture and support for the world's fastest DDR3 memory to raise the bar for 3D graphics performance. The specifications of the GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU, are stunning: Using over 220 million transistors it supports a 256-bit interface for an effective memory bandwidth of 35.2 GB per second which delivers 600 million vertices, 6.4 billion textured pixels per second. The GPU is built on an AGP 8X board and includes 256MB of DDR3 memory for use in the most demanding graphics applications. It is the first card available to support the DVI standard dual link digital signal specification from the two DVI ports it features. This capability is required to drive the new 30-inch LCD, high resolution Apple Cinema HD display. The combination of a GeForce 6800 Ultra with a dual processor Power Mac G5 driving two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays is the definitive tool for the creative professional.

As you correctly guessed, this is the readme file that is presented by the drivers installer of the 6800 DLL. They are ready (but we haven't got the files).
The readme contains specs of the card and more importantly, we discovered that this card requires an update (included with the drivers set) of the fan management of the Rev 1 G5. That probably means the computer fans will spin a tad faster, and that the card's fan will be quieter.