Microsoft has made an about-face on EFI support in Windows Vista. While the company had announced that the next revision of its OS would not support it, they have since announced that a prerelease support for it would be included in the next beta of its OS.
The problem is not simple for them because the development of EFI in an advanced language is simpler than that of a Bios for hardware manufacturers, and so it can strongly differ from one manufacturer to another. Which is why Microsoft wants the consortium which defines this standard to formalize it as well as possible.
Will Apple try to follow these modifications? It will be a political choice, as if they do it will be possible to legally install Vista on a MacIntel without OS X.
Following closely on NVIDIA's heals, ATI has announced it's latest line of professional video cards. There are not less than 7 cards which occupy this niche, with the top of the line aimed directly at its competitor.
However, NVIDIA is not sitting put, since they announced that the Quadro cards will support SLI, the ability to inter-connect 4 cards, in top of the line workstations.
If you are dreaming of one day being able to pair two cards on your Mac, you will be more interested in ATI's CrossFire technology. Since, if Apple does not decide to adopt NVIDIA chipsets, which is likely, then SLI will never be available on the Mac, since NVIDIA refuses to license the technology to competitors.
On the other hand, ATI has voluntarily licensed it's technology to Intel.
Apple's choice of using the GMA 950 video for the Mac mini has not been a popular one. Although it is price is low, its performance is even lower.
According to an internal document discovered by
HKEPC, its successor, the G65, could very well change that.
It will utilise standards, such as OpenGL hardware acceleration, H.264 hardware playback, and hardware post-processing effects utilising 32 bit precision and even anti-aliasing.
It is still a far cry from a true video card, but it certainly will be passable.
The next revision of the Mac mini cannot get here soon enough!
Firmtek has just announced two new products.
- The first is an ExpressCard/34 for the MacBook Pro which offers two external SATA II ports.
For those who frequently use their laptops from a desk, this will provide a huge performance gain. It will sell for $119.95
- The second product is a SATA II PCI-Express card dedicated to the latest PowerMac G5s.
It has two external ports and will cost $99.95. Although it is not known whether an external drive can boot from it.
The two products will be available in the third quarter of this year.
