Thanks to inico for this info.
According to
OSX86project, the last release of Rosetta supports Altivec instructions, allowing to emulate a G4 instead of a G3.
This is an important news, giving additional strength to the rumors of an earlier-than-expect MacIntel.
Indeed, the previous non support of Altivec by Rosetta was real brake for future MacIntel, since many PPC applications are using Altivec instructions set.
Of course one should not expect an amazing performance level while converting Altivec-SSE2 instructions, but Rosetta is currently able to make most of our current applications written for PPC to run on a future MacIntel.
Now that the Xbox 360 is available in the US, many exotic projects are started around the new MS game box. One of the firsts, named
free60, aims to port Linux and Darwin on the Xbox360. There is of course a big interest to install Darwin on the Xbox 360 since its "heart" a Tri-core PPC is quite close the to G5; Darwin being one of the key parts of OSX.
Of course, the project is just starting, and they are collecting info and technotes. There is no distributed files. To start, they will have to find a way to boot from another OS than the one installed in the Xbox 360. Then, one will have to create a kernel able to manage the basic layer of the system such as processor specificities and memory management.
Of course, making Linux running on the game box is linked to the possibility to play hacked games. Manufacturers (except SONY with the PS2) are doing their best to protect their products, and for sure are not keen on distributing information that could allow users to use the game console for something else it was designed for (such as running Linux on it). So the Free60 project will not succeed tomorrow, and it could take months or years before seeing Linux or Darwin running on a Xbox 360. For the first Xbox, it took one year, and MS did not really protect its first game console against such exploit; for sure it is a different story with the Xbox360.
If you think that you can help this project and bring your stones to build it and make it real, the mailing list is now opened :
http://lists.sourceforge.net/...devel
iTunes has proven to be a reference in terms of design, GUI and ergonomic, but it might face a serious challenger : Cover Buddy.
This application allows you to browse your music library, not only via Artists, album or songs, but also via CD covers.
This way it is even easier to locate an album; but you can also use the same search criteria than in iTunes.
In addition, this application also includes a small web server, allowing you to remotely control it. The most impressive example is a PSP used as a remote control, it displays via its web interface the CD covers in order to select the one to be played.
The PSP is a much better remote control than any other one, such as mobile phone.
This shareware costs 19,95€
http://www.coverbuddy.com/
Thanks to Jean-Francois for this info.
Microsoft is already facing problems with some Xbox 360 : the new game box freezes and the user has to reboot it.
Without being specialist, such a crash looks like a over-heating problem affecting the processor (a tri-core PPC).
On the following webpage,
http://www.flickr.com..59/) one can see which message is displayed when the Xbox 360 crashes.
It really looks like our OSX Kernel Panic :)
If Microsoft is copying crash message from our Mac, one could expect Apple to copy the best from the PC...
