News for Wednesday, 19 July 2006

Sony has announced its first Blu-Ray burner, BWU-100A.
These are the specifications provided by Sony:

Gravure (BD-R 50GB***/25GB) 2X CLV max
Burning (BD-RE 50GB***/25GB) 2X CLV max
Burning (DVD-R) 4X CLV, 6X ~ 8X Z-CLV max
Burning (DVD-R DL) 4X CLV max.
Burning (DVD-RW) 6X CLV max.
Burning (DVD+R) 6X ~ 8X Z-CLV max
Burning (DVD+R DL) 4X CLV max
Burning (DVD+RW) 6X ~ 8X Z-CLV max
Burning (DVD-RAM) 5x Z-CLV max
Burning (CD-R) 12X ~ 24X Z-CLV max
Burning (CD-RW) 12X ~ 16X Z-CLV max
Reading (BD-ROM) 2X max
Reading (DVD-ROM) 8X max
Reading (CD-ROM) 32X max

This model can be considered as "universal", except for the HD-DVD format. The retail price should be US$750 and its availability is predicted for August.
This announcement from Sony could fuel the current rumour that one of the Mac Pros (probably the high-end model) could sport a BWU-100A. If this information turns out to be true, then Apple will have to include an HDCP-compatible graphic card in the Mac Pro. In addition, it will also push Cupertino to update its Cinema Display models which are NOT HDCP compliant. Currently a Mac Pro with HDCP components will not be able to play HD video at full resolution on a Apple Cinema display...
Are there plenty of hardware models to be announced by Apple in coming weeks?
JCJ

A research team, from the University of New South Wales, Australia, released a second version of the L4 Darwin micro-kernel codenamed Darbat last week. It's still in development stage and only manages disk and keyboard for the moment.
From a technical point of view, L4 does not replace Max OSX's XNU kernel. Indeed, it is used as a lower layer on top of which XNU runs without privileges so that if XNU crashes no KP occurs (although you indeed lose whatever was on the upper layers). Strictly speaking, it is virtualization we're talking about. L4 replaces some system calls required by XNU in order to make them more efficient. So far benchmarks tend to put both on an equal footing.
Recent events such as OSX architect Avie Tevanian's departure from Apple, numerous critical opinions (whether justified or not) on XNU's performances and XNU x86's switch to closed-source code have kindled the rumour of a kernel replacement for the versions of OSX to come. With this L4 Darwin kernel, the rumour drums are now beating although L4 does not seem to overtake XNU performance-wise.
It is, indeed, quite unlikely that Apple will change the OSX kernel in the coming months. No kernel out there is really better than the current one, for the moment. L4 development is at an early stage. As for the Linux kernel, it is covered by the GPL and Apple would have no handle and little leverage power on its development. Rewriting the kernel would be a huge task, especially if Power PC compatibility was to be kept. My guess is that the kernel will only be replaced when PPC support ends. Hopefully we'll know more about this by Apple Expo ;)
JCJ

It's difficult to avoid mentioning this rumour: according to Think Secret, Steve Jobs could announce, at the WWDC Keynote. the launch of a Movie Rental Service included in iTMS. Apple is rumoured to have already signed agreements with Universal, Warner, Paramount and Walt Disney.
The service should start on August 7th and will offer movies for download that will be playable for a defined period of time.
It remains unclear which video format will be used (probably H.264), as well as the price of renting. Let's hope that Apple does not screw up this opportunity with a price that would not fit with the downloading time/playable period. In addition, Apple would promote for movies what they have fought over years with iTMS: claiming customers want to own the music, while the movie service is based on renting films…

JCJ

Symantec keeps communicating more than it has in past years. After mumbling about the security of Mac OSX, they now claim that Vista might be less secure than XP! Of course, Microsoft says the opposite…
Symantec engineers have analyzed the last beta released and argue there are security threats due to the complete rewriting of some parts of Vista code.
With time Vista might become more secure than XP, but users will have to wait for security fixes that will come weeks after the initial release. Vista is expected to be available for Q1 2007.
We can also find a better explanation of Symantec's claims regarding Vista: Microsoft has released its own anti-virus solution, becoming a competitor for Symantec, after years of collaboration.
JCJ

After having lost in appeal, Apple has officially announced that they will no longer continue the case against AppleInsider and PowerPage.
To remind you, Apple had sued these sites to identify the sources of leaked information.
Only one course of action remained for Apple, to send the case to the California Supreme Court. But if they had also lost at that level, which is highly likely, the legal proceedings would have been extremely difficult if they had decided to continue.
Apple has not improved its image through this business, and was scoundrelized by a good part of the press. It should be said that this attack on the rumour sites was essential to delegate to justice the discovery of the unpopular rumourmonger among its personnel.
In the past we have posted rumours, so we know the pressure that is put on the employees to track the source of the leaks. Even those who are in no way related to the secret were pressed...

After the majority of Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers, it is now Dell's turn to announce the release of a pre-802.11n card for some of its high-end computers. This card, benefiting from MIMO, will be based on the 1.0 draft version of the standard. It will cost only $59.
The first tests have shown that it is far from the theoretical performance, in fact, even 802.11g performs better.
But it is now starting to be the time to transition to N. Will Apple soon follow? Remember that AirPort Extreme was launched before the G standard was finalized.

Thanks to everyone who sent us this info. We'll hand this over to BB.

I recently started playing the guitar, and since I enjoy the Macbidouille community so much, I wanted to share the news about the first release of Guitar Pro on the Mac (it is equivalent to version 5 on Windows).
To quote: "Guitar Pro is a multitrack tablature editor for guitar, banjo and bass. Besides writing scores, Guitar Pro is a useful resource for guitarists from beginner to experienced levels to progress, compose, or simply accompany themselves."
The price is $59. A 15 day demo version is available at the site http://www.guitar-pro.com (Downloaded 1689931 times for Windows and 70 times (+11 while I wrote this email) for the Mac, that is to say it's new).
Note that Guitar Pro uses an "internal engine" for more realistic audio effects for guitarists. This feature is not yet included in the demo version, but is announced as "coming soon" for the Mac.
Good news for switchers, the Mac version is free for owners of the Windows version.

http://www.guitar-pro.com/fr/