News for Thursday, 4 May 2006

Gelato is an application developed by nVidia to allocate not used GPU resources to boost specific applications such as Maya or RenderMan. It is a plug-in, working with nVidia graphic cards, from the GF FX5200 and beyond.
While a Pro version costs... 1,500US$, nVidia is proposing a features-limited but free version. Well, the only problem is ... there is no Mac version yet (only Win and Linux).
We should be able to get similar features and performance enhancements with Core Image and Core Video (introduced with Tiger), but such technologies are not really used by developers yet.

The MPAA claims to have carried out a reliable study aiming to evaluate movie piracy, and its corresponding lost for Hollywood Major Studio... with estimated cost US$6.1 billion for 2005.
This is quite an increase when comparing with the previous estimation: US$2.4 billion. (one of the estimation must be wrong?)
How is this US$6 billions lost allocated:
- US$2.4 billion for bootlegging
- US$1.4 billion for illegal copying
- US$2.3 billion for Internet piracy
- US$1.3 billion occurred in the U.S.
- US$4.8 billion internationally, with about 50% coming from Europe (US$2.3 billion not much surprising since there is more inhabitants in EU than in USA, with a higher access to fast internet connection).
Where are located the pirates?
China, Russia, the U.K., France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Poland and Mexico are the countries where piracy is the most prevalent. Funny enough US is not mentioned...
Well, we should ask MPAA to evaluate the value of Macbidouille/Hardmac, for sure we might be worth few millions US$... ;)

As it was already the case for G3, most of G4 and G5 processors, the Core Duo features internal probes delivering information related to the temperature of the CPU.
However, it seems that apple does not use them to optimize the cooling system of the MacIntel. OSX is using other probes located at different points in the machine, as well as the CPU usage, to evaluate the temperature of components and control fans to keep the overall hardware as cool as possible. So Apple did not develop an extension able to collect information/register from CPU probes.
Some users have decided to develop such extension, its name SpeedIt that can downloaded from http://speedit.increw.org
Once downloaded, place the extension in your user account (root level), and via the terminal enter the following command lines (validate and enter your password when required)
sudo chown -R root:wheel speedit.kext
then
sudo kextload -v speedit.kext
Then to know the temperature of the CPU simply enter the following command line:
sysctl kern.cpu_temp
Tested with a MB Pro 2.16GHz, this application reported 50°C when the MB Pro was not used, and 90C when CPU usage was 100%. When reaching 9°0C, fan starts to spin to actively cool down the dual core CPU.
If you send request rapidly to know the CPU temperature, you might experience some huge variation of the reported data, the Core Duo might have one probe per core. In addition a third probe is also there to shut down the CPU in case of fast overheating; but it does not have any register, it is a basic fuse.
PS: This extension is supposed not only temperature, but also other CPU-related information such as clock speed; but in our test, only the temperature could be retrieved.
[update] according to Core duo specifications, this CPU is designed to run at temperature up to 100°C. The safety probe/fuse shut it down if the temperature reaches 125°C.

Andrew Escobar has decided to make his famous application, FrontRow Enabler, available online again. His website is particularly slow at the moment, so be patient and do not refresh too often the page:
http://www.andrewescobar.com/frontrow

Epson has won another round against the manufacturers and distributors of print cartridges compatible with its printers.
This time, four German retailers were ordered to no longer distribute them.
Epson is of course pleased with this victory, and stated that they have no problem with competitors who want to make compatible cartridges, as long as they purchase a license so as to not violate their intellectual rights.
Although, one wonders whether a manufacturer would be able to remain competitive with the original if they agreed to pay for the license.
All of the problems in this matter originate from the skewed printer market. The products are sold in the best case at cost, and usually at a loss. The loss is then made up through the sale of consumable items at inflated prices.
To prevent the emergence of compatible cartridges, the manufactures use more and more complex system protection to lock out competitors, which in the end raises the cost for the consumer.
When will there be a law forcing the interoperability of cartridges?