Friday September 30, 2005

- Mac mini 1.5 GHz : update - Lionel - 22:49:05

Apple has sent to its certified Support Centers information related to the new Mac mini models.
To make it short, Apple explains that modifications are considered as minors and Apple will not communicate them to the public immediately.
Officially, the known Mac mini specifications are becoming the minimal specifications.
But we have good news, the reference numbers for Mac mini models have been changed, so if you want to play this game hereafter are the beginning of the serial numbers for each models :
YM531001TACG Best (M9971*/B) 
YM531001TAAE Better (M9687*/B) 
YM529022TA8M Good (M9686*/B)

In summary, till Apple has sold out its stocks, you will have a good surprise or a "bad" surprise when receiving your computer and checking out the serial number.


[translation by Eric]

- Hard drive market and counterfeiting - Lionel - 17:08:44

Source : PC Inpact

Though suprising as it may sound, in JapAn, conterfeiters sell faked Maxtor HDs. Though the external look is deceiving, those drive capacities of 320 Go simply do not exist by this manufacturer...
Some may think this has not big implications, yet those disks were probably released for the plant with low certifications, so their lifespan and reliability will be shortened. And there's already so much chances a good brand HD might leak...
PS: Given their capacity, these could be from Western Digital HDs that should have been dumped after the tests.

[translation by Kalomir]

- A WMA lossless available on a Music Store - Yoc - 10:39:07

Source : Presence PC

MusicGiants, an online music selling service, has made a step forward in innovation. Not only because it sells online music, or because it uses WMA format: one of the available formats is WMA lossless, a compression without quality loss as the name implies.
As a counterpart, the tune will be more expensive as it will take $ 1.29 to compensate the necessary broadband. Though this service is only for the States by now, other countries are to follow soon. Of course, as for any WMA using DRM, it's only made for PCs.
Music lovers who keep criticizing the poor quality of compressed files sold on the web will be glad to learn this is not a fatality.

Let's hope that Apple couldd get inspired for the evolution of their Music Store and could offer Apple Lossless encoded tunes... without using this pretense to increase prices, as the majors would like!

[translation by Kalomir]

- A simulation software under GPL licence for MacOS X - Lionel - 10:33:37

Thx to André for the info

The software Scilab, available under GPL licence (for the ones who know it it is equivalent to Matlab), was compiled under GTK and is now available at the following address :
http://www.lmac.utc.fr/~mottelet/Darwin/.

Using the XMLlab software, also under GPL licence (http://www.xmllab.org) it will enable you to make simulations, from simple ones to the most complex.

[translation by Kalomir]

- Flexible RAM - Lionel - 10:31:04

Source : CDR Info

Seiko Epson presented the first flexible RAM. Made out of liquid crystals, it could be used in future flexible equipments or even intelligent textiles. The current prototype only has a 2Ko capacity, but that's only the beginning, and would be enough for it to take place in an electronic book page.

[translation by Kalomir]

- Test of the ATI CrossFire - Lionel - 10:28:59

After a long delay, ATI finally released their CrossFire technology, that allows to use, as well as NVidia's SLI, the cumulate power of two PCI Express video cards.
Hardware.fr en a publié un test.
This technology seems to be reliable and functional, even it will request a specific motherboard with two PCI Express ports (and a compatible chipset) to exploit it.
It is to be hoped that Apple shall implement in their future top of the line MacIntel two PCI-Express slots.
This is all the more possible that Intel is reportedly preparing a chipset that will be able to use both NVidia's SLI and ATI's CrossFire.
Beside the gaming aspect, coupling two high end video cards would deliver Core Image a tremendous power : a good way to seduce video professionnals.

[translation by Kalomir]

- Issue with PM G5 1.8 GHz SP : temporary solution... - Lionel - 10:23:18

While we are desperately waiting for a firmware update for the PMG5 1.8GHz SP Rev 2, Apple is proposing a temporary solution :
1) in preference panel, unselect sleep mode for the computer and the screen.
2) Select highest performance mode.

In summary... nothing new. But at least this TechNote confirms that Apple is aware of the problem and acknowledges it while trying to setup a fix.


[translation by Eric]

- Apple is preparing something...but what? - Lionel - 09:03:39

It took us some times to control everything, but it seems that there are not much stocks of any Apple products in Europe!
It never happened before, networks between the European distributors for Apple and the local AppleCenters are almost empty. Beside some eMacs and PowerBooks, there is no stocks from the Powermac G5 to the Mac mini, the same for the iBook and the of course the iPod.
Knowing that the Chinese New-Year is not in September, that usually Stocks are high after an Apple Event such as the Paris AppleExpo, and that September is the end of a financial quarter, one can seriously ask what's going on...
In the past Apple has never renew its entire products portfolio at once. That will be something new.
Did they decide of such a strategy to boost sales (especially hardware) that have been strongly affected by the MacIntel announcement?
We do not know but at least in Europe the RefurbStore is supposed to be opened till October 3rd... and October 4th is next Tuesday, the usual Apple's day for new announcements...


[translation by Eric]