Friday June 02, 2006

- PM Quad G5: Still So Much Power - Lionel - 14:05:50

Many readers are puzzled by the future replacement of PMG5 by Intel-based Mac (aka Mac Pro). What will happen to the current PMG5 regarding performance. To demonstrate how powerful the PMG5 Quad still is, we performed an experiment: open 3 TVHD streaming requiring on-the-fly decoding (French Tennis Open, Roland Garros).


All VLC sessions require close to 90% CPU usage, but the GUI remained perfectly fluid as well as other open applications


We couldn't add an additional video stream to our test as our ADSL 2+ connection was not fast enough... For 3 simultaneous video streams, one already needs 1.9MB/s ADSL bandwidth.
At least this experiment demonstrates how powerful the PMG5 is and how it can easily handle multiple tasks.
You can download the full size image file of the screen capture above:
3rollandbig.jpg

[translation by Eric] JCJ

- Seven steps to delete a shortcut with Vista - Lionel - 13:00:41

As everyone, you might sometime need to get rid of the odd useless alias on your OSX desktop. So you drag it in the bin and next time you empty the bin you're done with it. End of the story. It's quite another one with Vista. Go and have a look at the seven screen captures on Hardocp. They illustrate the seven steps required to delete a shortcut. It looks like the guys in Microsoft have been so anxious about security that the basic settings of the system are to refuse to run the user's requests!

[translation by Greg]

- FuelCell: Not Quite There … Yet - Lionel - 11:30:26

Source : Dailytech

Many analysts are expecting that fuel cells will be the future replacement for our current Lithium-based battery as a power source of mobile devices. It may be true, but it will still require years of development, as shown by a recent demonstration carried out by Toshiba:


It shows a prototype able to power a notebook for 10 hours.

While its shape makes it somewhat usuable, its size is currently not compatible with maintaining the mobility function of a notebook. Toshiba expects to reduce the size of components in order to transform this fuel-cell module into a flat case that would be located below the notebook.

Additionally, the fuel cell generates too much noise, at this time.


[translation by Eric] JCJ

- French ADSL Providers: Competitions Around TVHD Offers - Lionel - 11:22:48

After Free with its FreeBox HD, Neuf-Cegetel has announced its new box able to decode TVHD, featuring in addition a digital terrestrial TV decoding system, a HDMI output ...
It will cost 6 Euro/months to get access to the Neuf-TVHD service.
The historical French provider, France Telecom, is also preparing its offer.
If we report this French-specific news is to illustrate how telephone, then internet and finally TV are converging activities.


[translation by Eric]