Thursday December 01, 2005

- Is Hollywood allergic to H.264? - Lionel - 23:55:32

Source : CDR Info

Some Hollywood studios appear to be allergic to the MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) video format. They refuse to provide their films in this format for use in high-definition DVDs. They prefer to continue utilising the good ole MPEG-2 format which is used in current DVDs. However, to have an equivalent video quality, MPEG-2 creates films twice as large as MPEG-4 and requires the use of more expensive double layer media. The sole advantage of MPEG-2 over H.264 is the ability to play it on computers with average power. High-definition DVDs are going to be used as a transitional product while waiting for the emergence of products based off of the blue laser.

[translation by jwa]

- Aperture is shipping - Lionel - 22:18:07

Aperture, the professional application dedicated to photography is now shipping.
Gildas who has just started using this application is reporting that there is a DVD tutorial that can be watched in HD or SD format.


[translation by Eric]

- The GF7800 GT finally arrives in Europe - Lionel - 22:14:49

After Canada, it is now in Europe that the first PMG5 Quad ordered with a GF 7800GT BTO start being shipped.
To prove it , hereafter are 2 captures of a shipping tracker window:
Guillaume will send us benchmarks as soon as he get his computer


Another GF7800GT-equipped PMG5 Quad for pierre :)



[translation by Eric]

- How could Apple fight against OSX x86 hacking? - Lionel - 19:33:28

While the launch date of the first MacIntel is getting everyday closer, we keep asking ourselves how Apple will manage to protect its OSX system from hackers who will look for solutions to install OSX x86 on non-Mac certified PC.
If you look at It history, it is quite clear that fighting against the wind does not help much, whatever protections Apple will install, there will always be a solution to run OSX x86 on a standard PC; it is only a matter of time, and motivation (meaning that the price difference between MacIntel and similarly equipped PC will be big)

So how to prevent such a move?
- Apple can sell its OSX x86 to PC users, but if this possibility can indeed become true in the future, for a short-term period it remains unlikely. Indeed, it would imply a direct fight with the dominating PC OS: Windows, in other word, a direct fight with Microsoft, a company with a financial strength leaving competitors in the dust.
- Apple could release a time- or features-limited, or even demo version of OSX x86 to PC users in order to convince them to migrate to MacIntel; but it would also make hackers’ work easier in their goal to turn such limited version into a full features version.

So despite of using a brand new and robust protection system ready to resist for months and requiring weeks of work for hackers to crack it again for every system update; Apple has to find other ways to make OSX x86 more attractive when used on a MacIntel than when used on a PC; without starting an opened competition with Microsoft… not an easy task for sure.
But there is a solution. And one has to go back in Apple’s history, and more precisely at the time when Apple bought NeXT. To build MacOSX, Apple has been using OpenStep that was then renamed the « Yellow Box » and further evolved to become Cocoa as we know it today. At that time, the Yellow Box was compatible with Windows.
Now if you consider that Apple has been developing OSX x86 in parallel to all OSX PPC versions, one could easily think that the same thing could have been done with the Yellow Box. If one keeps going with this hypothesis, it could imagine Apple to deliver a developing environment compatible with Windows, and able to run Cocoa-based application.
This solution would have many advantages:
- It would give a « taste » of OSX to PC users, without providing the entire foundation parts of OSX.
- It would make installation of a cracked version of OSX x86 useless, and potentially instable, at least as unstable as XP in some cases.
- It could attract Windows developers who could really make Mac AND PC software easily.
- And finally it could convert PC users after being using OSX applications via the Yellow Box to migrate to MacIntel. It could be even more efficient than an opened fight against Microsoft.

Of course such hypothesis remains purely speculative, but it is part of our current though with the future MacIntel planned for 2006, and potentially early 2006.
TO learn more about the Yellow Box: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CocoaOverview/Articles/CocoaHistory.html

[translation by Eric]

- Yonah being unveiled - Lionel - 16:07:03

Anandtech has put its hand on a Yonah sample, the successor of the current Pentium-m. The reason that we are mentioning it, is simple, it could simply be the first x86 processor sporting the first MacIntel.
This processor is engraved with a 65nm process and feature 2 cores (single core version will exist for entry-level) It also sports 2Mb of cache shared by both core and it supports SSE3 instruction sets.
Without rewriting Anandtech's article, the Yonah seems to perform well, and in many test can directly compete with an Athlon X2.
In addition its power-consumption is really well managed, and it does drain that much power; making its ratio performance/power very promising for a notebook processor.
It is not clear at all if this processor will be installed in a future Mac mini x86 in early 2006, it might be too expensive for that purpose.
To read the article, follow the link: http://www.anandtech.com


[translation by Eric]

- Apple security updates 2005 - 009 - Pattt - 15:58:00

An Apple Security Update is available. It applies for both Panther and Tiger, for both Server and Client version, and will require a reboot.

The Security Update 2005-009 adds improvements for security issues, and is recommended for all Macintosh users.
It modifies the following components:

• apache_mod_ssl
• CoreFoundation
• CoreTypes
• curl
• iodbcadmin
• OpenSSL
• Safari
• sudo
• syslog

For additional info visit the following webpage:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798-fr.


[translation by Eric]

- iPod Updater 2005-11-17 - MacEnsteph - 15:53:14

Thanks to micjac for this info.

A minor firmware update has been posted for he iPod (37 Mo).

Includes new iPod Software 1.1.3 for iPod shuffle. iPod Updater 2005-11-17 contains the same software versions as iPod Updater 2005-10-12 for all other iPod models.

Features of iPod Software 1.1.3 for iPod shuffle:
-Bug fixes

For additional info visit the following AppleSupport webpage here.


[translation by Eric]