News for Friday, 15 September 2006

At the end of his Keynote, Steve Jobs has unveiled a media-center-like product, its code name iTV.
MacWorld has been invited to a short demo of this new product.
It is using a FrontRow-like interface which can be controlled thanks to the current Apple Remote. The "iTV" box includes a wifi connection, as well as all expectable multimedia ports: USB, ethernet, HDMI, composite, RCA, optical.
This "made by Apple" media center should be available in Q1 2007 for US$299. Apple with this product wants to develop its video-on-demand offer freshly introduced. The real interest of iTV might be limited in some European countries, such as in France, where Internet providers are already proposing a "Triple Play" device with their ADSL offer. Most of those providers have already an VOD offer, much cheaper than the USA only offer from Apple
Photos from MacWorld concerning iTV demo
In addition, one should not forget that ElGato CEO has recently joined AppleEurope, so is it the sign of a future collaboration between ElGato and Apple (or even more...). Indeed, iTV as a code name resembles strongly a well-know product from ElGato and named EyeTV. Hereafter is the official comment from ElGato concerning this point, published on iProng

Intel has already planned to release before the end of the year a 4 Cores CPU based on current Xeon core architecture. In reality it "only" requires to put 2 DualCore chips together on the same die. Anandtech has been able to test such 4 cores CPU, aka Clovertown, and has installed them in a Mac Pro.
As shown above, both the Mac Pro and OSX are ready to support and work with such CPUs.
We will see more and more multi-core CPU in the future, but it does not mean that we can really benefit from such processing power. Indeed software will have to be written in a special way to get the most of those future massively parallel architecture.

Thanks to Vincent for this report:

iPod games purchased from the iTunes Stores are located in Music->iTunes->iPod games. They come as normal folder with a .ipg extension.
Once purchase, using StuffIt, one can unzip the folder and get a Tetris 1.0.ipg Folder for example (do not forget to make a back up copy before).
In the folder, there are different files: audio in .wav (sound effects), a file Mu.m4a (music). So one can recover them, and use them for other purpose, or do the opposite ;)
One will also find .pix files (probably corresponding to texture or graphical elements of the game)
There are 4 executable files: iTunesArtwork, iTunesMetaData, Strings.dta and tetris.raw.lcd5, and 2 .plist files.
To conclude, there are 2 additional folders: "Executables" (containing probably the graphical engine) and "Resource" corresponding to the geolocalizing information (.fr for France) including a Description.xml file and a .jpg file corresponding to the game user manual and description found in iPo games library.
To my point of view, some files can be modified without much problems, and I expect some "HomeBrew" games to appear for the iPod in a couple of weeks, as it already happens with the PSP and the Nintendo DS. Except if Apple has locked the system by using certificates or DRM inside iTunes.

Several readers have reported that they can't use their 23" Apple Cinema Display under Windows XP running through Bootcamp on a MacPro equipped with a Radeon X1900 XT.
When booting in XP, the display is seldom detected and only for short periods of time, stopping working as soon as you reboot. 20" Cinema Displays do not -erh- display the same problem.
It seems like the problems comes from Apple's custom Radeon X1900 XT, or rather to the drivers, which are quite flaky under XP.
Let's hope Apple get to work and fix the problems quickly.

Apple just released a new version of their Bootcamp software, which goes to Beta 1.1.1

This release of Boot Camp Beta v1.1.1 contains support for the latest Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers and improved support for Bluetooth wireless devices.
Features include:
• Support for the latest Intel-based Macintosh computers
• Ability to install Windows XP on any internal disk
• Preset sizes for partitioning a disk for Windows
• Support for iSight cameras
• Apple Keyboard Support
• Improved 802.11 wireless for Mac mini
• Support for 802.11 wireless connectivity in Japan and Korea
Bug fixes include:
• Optical LED for audio out no longer stays on when not in use
• Audio no longer plays on internal speakers when headphones or external speakers are plugged in
• Notebook Macintosh computers running Windows XP now go to sleep when idle
• Internal microphone now works on MacBook computers using Windows XP
• Date and time stay in sync when running Windows

The new version weighs in at 186MB (!) and you can download it here.