News for Tuesday, 20 December 2005

We already told you of the i-RAM.

It's a PCI card supporting 4 DDR slots. The whole set, of a maximal capacity of 4 GB, can be plugged on a SATA connector and is seen as aHD, yet works at the speed of RAM.
The i-RAM is not compatible with G5s though.
Things are about to change as Gigabyte is working on a version 2 with brand new features:
- the i-RAM will now be external or might be integrated at a 5.25" format
- it will feature DDR2 and SATA II
- it will hold 8 memory slots.
This will lead to, provided you have such a sum to invest, a 16 GB HD, with performances never met until now. We're quite eager to test such a product using a PCI-Express SATA2 card on a G5 Quad.

In it's latest version iChat supports the open protocol, Jabber. Although it is not very widespread yet, nor is video-conferencing open, things could change thanks to Google. They have lately worked with the Jabber foundation to bring support for audio and video to the protocol.
There are two modules, both called Jingle. One enables voice over IP, and the other enables video-conferencing. Google Talk will be adopting them soon. Since Jingle is under the BSD license, it will be easy for Apple to implement it to ensure compatibility with a potentially large number of instant messaging programs.

According to Génération NT, Apple has decided to cancel their iRingTones service, which would have sold ring-tones for cellphones online.
It should be said that this sector brought enormous amounts of money back to cellular service providers. To see a service available at a lower price, which would not rely on the GSM network, would have ruffled the feathers of these companies. Knowing SJ's aggressiveness, we wonder what he obtained in exchange for this significant concession.

Anandtech has put up the second part of its test on the Yonah. The tested version is a 2Ghz. Note that its commercial name will be Duo Core.
Just like in the first part this processor, which is intended for portables, is very competitive with desktop processors.
http://www.anandtech.com

A minor update for Final Cut Pro (5.0.4) is available for download.

The Final Cut Pro 5.0.4 provides improved reliability. It is recommended for all users of Final Cut Pro 5.

Today, Dell is experiencing the same situation as Apple a few months ago, and more recently HP.
The manufacturer is obligated to do a mass recall of portable batteries since they are able to overheat and even to catch on fire.
These products were solds between October 2004 and October 2005. Note that the date of the beginning coincides with that of Apple's recall...
To find out more:
https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com

In January 2006, Internet Explorer will no longer be officially supported my Microsoft. This decision was made shortly after the release of Safari.
Technically, this does not change much, as the only support for a long time has been solely to fix possible security problems.
On the other hand, pre OS X systems are now even more forsaken, as browser alternatives are becoming less and less numerous.