News for Wednesday, 16 March 2005

Apple has made again available on its website the CHUD tools 4.1.1 after removing them following the discovery of references to 970MP processor.
But at the contrary to what one could have expected, the mentions to quad CPU and even 970MP processor are still present!!
So, was the previous version containing some still undiscovered information, or there is still something else...
CHUD_4.1.1.dmg.bin
PS: one needs developer tools in order to use the CHUD.

With the DVD+RW 8x specifications have been finalized in earlier than predicted, we should see soon compatible DVD burners to be available for such media. However, with the technical limitation to 16x DVD burning speed, DVD burner manufacturers are proposing devices with almost identical specs, so the difference can only be on the price of such burners. In addition DVD DL media sales are not taking up due to a huge price difference with DVD+/-R.
So in the future we might see mergers between manufacturers in order to support the competition in this field.

the Taiwanese company Antig Technology has demoed during the CEBIT a notebook prototype power via a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMCF)

The power unit is currently providing 10W from a 10-15% concentrated methanol solution. But 10W is not enough to power typical today’s notebook, an additional power source remains necessary.
In addition it is not clear that such powered-notebook can be accepted in public/mass transportation, such as airplane; even though a 10% methanol solution is not really flammable; but soon a lighter will be forbidden in internal flights in the US.

Verbatim is currently trying to manufacture DVD+R9 media compatible with 8x burning speed. Preliminary tests have proven that such media can be produced. Verbatim is already providing samples to DVD burner manufacturers in order to help them developing 8x DVD+R9 capable devices.
it is currently possible using a Pioneer DVR-109 to burn DVD+R9 2.4x certified media at 6x speed, but the problem remains anyway the same: the price of such DL media remains higher than 2 DVD 4.5GB media...

In a recent TechNote, IBM has recently confirmed that the PPC970MP was a dual core processor. The TechNote gives details regarding the thermal diodes used to control the temperature on the processor, and acknowledge that "The higher frequency grade versions of the 970MP consume higher amounts of power than earlier IBM microprocessors do"; something not really surprising anyway.
in addition reading this TechNote can really make Mac users happy:
"The PowerPC 970MP microprocessor contains dual 64-bit microprocessor cores, double L2 caches (1MB each), and a Processor Interface (PI) bus arbiter operating above the Gigahertz speed range."
this confirms also what we were expecting, as AMD, IBM will interconnect both core internally, whereas Intel will use the motherboard bus to communicate.
IBM solution will ensure a higher degree of performances, and allows dual core CPU to be compatible with the current single core motherboard. Apple should not need a lot of hardware revision on the current PMG5 and Xserve motherboards to be able to use the PPC 970MP.