Tuesday May 22, 2007

- IBM Unveils the Power 6: - Lionel - 18:20:27

If some analysts were predicting difficulties for IBM when Apple decided to move to Intel CPU, today's announcement proves they were wrong (deeply). IBM unveiled its new server PowerPC processor, aka Power6, clocked at 4.7GHz, a record for a commercially available CPU. When looking at the specification of "the fastest microprocessor ever built", it illustrates IBM's state of the art in designing CPU: 65nm engraving, 4.7GHz, 790 million transistors, 8MB cache. In addition, the Power6 Bandwidth scores a new record to 300GB/s...
At the time of the Power4-derived PPC970, IBM was facing major issue with power consumption and heat release, ultimately pushing Apple to use Intel processors (mostly for powering notebook models). It seems that IBM made major improvements as the Power6 clocked at 4.7GHz is reported to consume as much as a Power5 clocked at 2.2GHz...
Of course, we will not find Power6 in our Mac anytime soon, as it is designed to find its way in servers, and compete with HP, Sun or Dell solutions running on Intel Itanium or Sun Sparc CPU.


[translation by Linathael]

- Hitachi Wants to Increase Blu-ray Storage Space to 200GB - Lionel - 09:01:31

Source : CDR Info

In theory, multiplying the number of layers on a 12cm DVD brings additional storage space. However, one needs to be able to recover data precisely from each layer, so one has to solve the equation of higher energy laser focusing with writing/reading time and rotation speed.
Hitachi announced the development of a new optical system, able to amplify the read-back signal of an optical disc by ten times. with such technology, one could develop BD media composed of 4 to 8 layers, bringing storage space between 100 to 200GB. This was achieved with a purple/blue laser diode, and it is expected to be commercially available in 2009. Of course there is no information regarding the price of such burner or the estimated extra cost of multilayer media.



[translation by Linathael]

- Western Digital Scorpio: 250GB 2.5" HD - Lionel - 08:49:42

Source : Western

Following other HD manufacturers, Western Digital announced its new large storage capacity HD dedicated to the notebook market: Scorpio 250GB (WD2500BEVS).



Based on 2 plates, this HD spins at 5400rpm and features 8MB of cache. It will only be available in SATA format, and have 12 ms access time. Its 9.5mm thickness will make it compatible with all MacBook/MacBook Pro. According to WD, this new drive uses seeking algorithms able to achieve the same level of reliability and power saving than a 4200 rpm HD.
All HD manufacturers having announced their 250GB HD dedicated to the notebook, one can now expect to see competition rising up and prices going down.

[translation by Linathael]

- Fujitsu: First LSI Chip Dedicated to HD Video Is Available - Lionel - 08:39:40

Source : http://www.fujitsu.com

Already announced last December, the new large-scaled integrated (LSI) chip dedicated to HD video encoding/decoding from Fujitsu is finally available.



If this new chip, MB86H51, is the first one-chip LSI for full HD H.264 High Profile video (1080i) real time processing with embedded memory; it does not support full HD 1080p. Its low power consumption (750mW) makes it also very attractive to be integrated in all kind of mobile devices aiming to deliver high quality video (iPhone?). One should find it in many digital camcorders for powering video replay, but it could also be integrated in the future revision of the Apple TV or in an iPod to allow HD video stored on the HD to be played on an external HD TV.

[translation by Linathael]

- New ATI Drivers for Boot Camp - Lionel - 08:21:54

AMD/ATI released a "Apple Boot Camp XP Software Graphics Drivers" dedicated to Mac Intel running Boot Camp. It is composed of Catalyst Control Center and Display Driver, both in version 8.353. They are compatible with all ATI-based Mac Intel and should be installed via Windows XP.
To our knowledge, this is the first time ever that ATI or NVidia releases a driver update for Apple-branded computers directly; without being distributed by Apple via the software update panel.
For additional information: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/mac/bootcamp-xp.html

[translation by Linathael]