News for Wednesday, 24 May 2006

One of our team members, Gotchi, has been playing with a MacBook, submitting it to series of test and evaluation. In the following article, he gives his comments on the MacBook, not based on FPS or related benchmarks, but rather as a normal user who would like to know how this new Apple notebook perform in everyday tasks.

Samsung shall roll out in June the first laptop whose mass stockage peripheral is based on flash memory, for a 32 GB capacity.
They announce this disk will have flow rates of 53 MB/s (reading) and 28 (writing). Samsung also states that Windows boots 25 to 50% more quickly on this machine.
The drive, at a 1.8" format, only weighs 50g.
It's hard to say how much the disk alone will cost in the proposed configurations, yet given their overall high price, it surely not is cheap...

While the new Xeon will only be unveiled on June 19th, Techreport managed to grab and test a machine containing two 3 GHz Xeon Woodcrest which makes a total of 4 cores. The machine used 4 Go of FB-DIMM.
In short, the new Xeon will definitely unthrone the AMD Opteron, the star of the moment.
A test made under Cinebench 64 bits allows some comparisons with the G5.
When a G5 Quad 2.5 GHz makes a rendering multi CPU of 1179 CB-CPU, the Woodcrest reaches 1562. It would seem then than it's better than the G5 at equal frequency, in this test at least.
The same task with a single core gives 386 for the G5 and 509 for the Xeon. For the Shading test, C4D, it reaches 385 as opposed to 486 for Intel CPU.
If a single test doesn't allow drawing global conclusions, one can feel reassured about Apple high end products future.
The test:
http://techreport.com

As the rumors had it, a partnership between Apple and Nike is now official.
The Nike+iPod Sport Kit enables wireless communication between swoosh branded shoes and an iPod. This will allow the runner to collect information on his performances, calories burnt, the distance he ran...
This gadget available in two months will cost $29.
A partnership that comes at a good time for Apple while iPod sales sort of pulled down out of breath.

Miglia has released a new companion for the Mac mini.

The TVMax is a case containing an analoge Tuner and A/V inputs.
Using the Eye TV 2 software, you can view and record analog TV channels on a Mac. The A/V inputs allow one to digitalise other analog sources, such as a VCR or a cable/satellite box.
The TVMax connects to a computer using a USB2 connection.
To learn more: Miglia

Xcode 2.3 is available from the ADC site

Xcode 2.3 Summary Release Notes
Last updated on: May 22, 2006
Xcode 2.3 is the latest release of Apple Computer's integrated development environment for Mac OS X.
This release adresses many known issues and is a recommended upgrade for all Xcode users of versions
2.2.1 or earlier. Please choose Show Older Release Notes from the Help menu to see the release notes for
Xcode 2.2.1, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0 and 1.5. Additionally, the complete list of Xcode and related tools release notes
can be found from within Xcode by choosing Help -> Xcode Help from the menu bar, and selecting the
"Release Notes" bookmark item or look in the /Developer/ADC Reference Library/releasenotes folder.
The About Xcode Tools document discusses Xcode and its role in development on Mac OS X.
Changes to Xcode 2.3
New DWARF debugging format for improved debugging fidelity and efficient utilization of disk
space
New Distributed Network Build (DNB) scalable build architecture
Numerous enhancements and bug fixes

The Apple Developer Connection site is available by creating a free account at https://connect.apple.com