News for Thursday, 13 April 2006

AnandTech a well known and respected IT/PC website has extensively tested the MacBook Pro.
Many parameters have been evaluated, from the physical aspect to the performance level, including a test vs. a PowerBookG4. They, of course, have tested Boot Camp as well as Parallels Virtualization solution.
Interesting article, especially when it comes to the conclusion of buying a MB Pro as a notebook of choice.

Asustek, already one of the largest manufacturer contracted by Apple to produce Macs, is rumored to have received an order to produce 1.2 millions MacBook (aka iBookIntel) over 3 quarters with the first delivery supposed to happened within 30 to 60 days from now on.
The MacBook is expected to be launched during Q2 2006, in other words before the end of June.
Other rumors support the idea of a single MacBook model sporting a 13.3" display. Low- and high-end models for MacBook would be defined by the CPU clockspeed or other hardware components as it is the case today for the MB PRo.
Other rumors claim that the MacBook might be available in different color, than the classical "white/snow"; beside a black-colored model, we do not think that it will ever happened... customers choices for colors have most of the time not been correctly predicted by marketing teams.
Last, but not least, it is definitely the time for the MacBook to come.

Expected for months, Google Calendar is now available.

It is an online calendar application which can be accessed and shared from any computer, something similar to other services such as Plaxo.
It can also send "reminder" or alarm message to mobile phones.
Google can directly compete with iCal since as stated in the Google Calendar FAQ:

Does Google Calendar connect to other calendar applications and devices?
Yes. Google Calendar uses open calendar standards to give you more choice when it comes to accessing your calendar. You can view your schedule using any application or device that accepts iCal or XML files.

For additional information:
calendar.google.com

As it was expected, Aperture 1.1 has been released on the US AppleStore, other AppleStores should follow soon.
The price has been dramatically decreased, dropping from 499$ to 299$. Due to the new price, Apple is offering a $200 e-coupon good on the online Apple Store to licensed users of Aperture 1.0. Licensed users of Aperture 1.0 Academic will receive a $100 e-coupon.
In Europe this offer should be translated into a 200€ coupon.

We start by welcoming back the excellent reference site X86Secret.
Lately it has covered an important function which AMD is working on for it's future processors, Hardware Threading.
To explain this easier, we'll start with the reverse of it, Hyperthreading, which is used by Intel on its Pentium IV. This technology permits using a single physical processor as two logical processors in order to optimize its working time.
This technology wasn't included in the current Core Duos, but could return in future generations of the CPU.
But whether the two processors are logical or physical does not change the fact that software needs to be specifically written to utilize both processors simultaneously, otherwise it only uses one by default.
If you take the Mac, a pioneer in providing dual processor machines for the general public, as an example, there are relatively few applications, including ones from Apple, that are capable of using both processors. We're not talking about the software capable of drawing the best from the G5 Quad, as there are not many of those.
To return to Hardware Threading, it starts with this question: Why not transform multiple physical processors into one logical processor? In the case of the G5 Quad, OS X would not see four 2.5GHz processors, but the equivalent of only one processor with 10GHz.
Every applications could then use the power of all the processors without any reprogramming.
Of course, there would have to be a hardware controller capable of distributing the instructions between the 4 processors and then centralizing the results.
All of this won't be ready tomorrow, as this will be very complex. With quad core processors being introduced in 2007, Hardware Threading will become unavoidable, as programming software for multiple processors is complex and reserved for only a handful of very specialized applications.