News for Thursday, 8 February 2007

The CEO of ARM Holdings plc reported that the iPhone was powered not by one but three ARM-type CPU, and even gave the model: the PXA320. This CPU is manufactured by Marvell and feature 256KB cache L2, a 32-bits memory bus and is clocked at 800MHz, but a 1.2GHz model has been rumored too. For sure there is more than enough power to encode video.
We can now understand why Apple did not communicate further in details about the iPhone hardware. First, power consumption needs to be tightly controlled in order to save battery life. One also understand why there is also no details concerning OSX Leopard Mobile, as it requires a multi-CPU management as well as an advanced power management built in the OS. Of course giving a call will only require a small % of this available CPU raw power, and one can expect that Apple did NOT unveiled all the features of this mobile phone.
For sure we will know more when the iPhone will be launched at the WWDC 2007 in June.

LED is becoming a technology of choice for both its low power consumption and technical performance.
First application is of course for back lighting LCD display. Hardware.fr tested the first display featuring this technology (article in French).
This model is the Samsung XL20. Despite of being thicker than a standard LCD, its improved contrast, color rendering and brightness pave the way for the future success of this technology.

Its price expected to be around 1400€ will not target it for consumer electronics, but its features will strongly interest photo and video specialists.
Sony is not the only company to offer a LED-based notebook (Dailytech). Fujitsu unveiled its LifeBook P7230, an ultra portable notebook model featuring a 10.6" display. Its battery life time is around 6h despite its light weight: 1.3kg. Such performance is obtained thanks to the LED used for back lighting the LCD display, but also by the use of a 1.2GHz ULV Core Solo. The LifeBook P7230 will ship with Vista and be priced 1699$.
LED is becoming such a hot marketing point that we should expect to see Apple to quickly adopt this technology for its notebook and display models, after "Intel Inside" we should soon see "LED Inside".
Of course Apple needs get a manufacturer ready to propose high quality LED-LCD panels that could find their way in future MacBook Pro and Apple Cinema Display models. Well, Samsung just announced many LED products, among them seem to be built for Apple:
- the first one is a 30" panel featuring a resolution of 2560x1600 pixels, brightness of 300cd/m2, response time of 6ms and a contrast of 900:1.
- the second one is a 15.4" display dedicated to notebook, with a resolution of 1440x900 pixels, and a thickness of 5.8mm. Its power consumption is only 3.1W.
So, we should see those LED-LCD displays adopted by Apple, especially for the notebook dedicated panel, as Apple is the only computer manufacturer to use a resolution of 1440x900 pixels to our knowledge. It moved from 1440x960 to 1440x900 with the MacBook Pro to make some space available for the integrated iSight.
So this information could confirm a previous rumor about Apple adopting LED display in MBPro 15".
The NAB, a major electronic media technologies event, will start in a week, and could be a good occasion for Apple to announced some products. Or one will have to wait for the PMA'07, the world’s largest annual international photo imaging trade show,

As we reported earlier on January 23rd, European Consumer Organizations joined forces against DRM and targeted iTunes, the official press release was as follow:

Berlin/Paris/Oslo//Helsinki
Consumer organizations from across Europe have agreed on joint positions in a legal battle with Apple to achieve consumer friendly conditions for iTunes users throughout Europe. "We will join forces to safeguard consumer interests when purchasing digital content online", the Consumer Ombudsmen in Finland and Norway, the French Consumer Organization UFC Que Choisir and the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) declared. The four organizations agreed on a list of demands which are included in letters which all organizations wrote to iTunes today.
...
The four consumer organizations have previously initiated legal proceedings against iTunes in 2006. iTunes has been open for discussions but negotiated separately with the different national consumer organizations. The four organizations now speak with one voice and will work towards improved consumer rights and conditions for consumers throughout Europe. iTunes had also been in favor of bundling negotiations
...
Interoperability
"We believe consumers have a right to play material purchased online on a portable device of their own choice," the four organizations said. .. An interim solution could be to definitely clarify that consumers are allowed to re-rip burnt CDs to make iTunes songs playable on other devices. However this with iTunes discussed proposal will not serve as a long-term solution. "We thus urge Apple to make substantial progress towards full interoperability until the end of September 2007."
...
Change of conditions
On the issue of legal terms and conditions, consumer organizations insist that iTunes revoke their clause according to which iTunes may unilaterally change their terms and conditions without seeking their customers' consent.
Liability
The joint position also refers to potential damage claims linked to content sold by iTunes: "iTunes should change its clause limiting its liability to recover consumer damages if they are caused by content sold by iTunes."
Applicable Law
The four organizations also criticize contract clauses on the law applicable in case of legal disputes: "Consumers entering into a contract with iTunes should be able to rely on the consumer protection rules according to the law of the country in which they live."

This was the first coordinated attack of those organizations against DRMs and specifically targeting Apple, wrongly identified as the main responsible player of the current DRM issue. We were already taking position, for once supporting Apple, and explaining why those organizations did not identify the true responsible part in this fight: consumer associations should NOT forget that all online music stores offer DRM-protected music tracks because Music Majors have asked for it... We doubt that Apple would have installed it on its own.
Today UFC-Que Choisir, the French consumer organization published a press release defining clear requests, and surprisingly supporting Steve jobs' comments, and even taking all points developed by apple's CEO as the basis of their claims.
Hereafter is the translation of the original text which can be found here.

UFC-Que Choisir asks the Minister of Culture and Communication to press the four main Music Majors for removing DRM associated to music tracks available from legal online music stores.
There are too many evidences proving that DRMs kills music, prevent innovations, increase risk of monopoly and proprietary protection systems. Following European Consumer Organizations, Indies, online stores, it is now Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, who recently called for a complete removal of DRM on music tracks available from online stores.
About 80% of the music production, edition and distribution are shared by 4 Music Majors which are the only ones to support DRMs.
As written in the DADVSI act (active since August 1st), it is illegal for consumers to bypass/hack DRM, so our Minister should take position and explain clearly to Music Majors that it is time to "free the music on internet".

We are happy to see the French consumer organization to finally open its eyes and identify the right targets. Let's see how our Minister will react, as the DADVSI act was voted from his initiative following pressure by the Music Majors. He will have to explain why DRMS are not a strong limitation to all consumer rights? The law is the same for all... French presidential election being in about 5 months, this topic might be seriously discussed by candidates.
Thanks Steve.
Reacts in our forum: here

[Edited and adapted by Linathael]

This is the first time that the RefurbStore offers all Mac Pro models, from the 2.0 GHz entry level to the high-end model clocked at 3.0GHz.
Something new on the RefurbStore, some BTO are now mentioned in the product descriptions (especially 7200rpm HD for notebook models).
Be careful when choosing an offer, look carefully at the CPU, and the size of the HD as well as the amount of RAM installed.
Shortest link to the RefurbStore near you: RefurbStore

Following discussions and request with numerous readers, we have decided to offer a step-by-step procedure to help Mac mini Intel owners to upgrade the CPU of their computer with a Core 2 Duo CPU as prices are getting now down, and mac the upgrade from a Core Solo to a Core 2 Duo financially interesting.
Hereafter is the link to this article:
http://www.hardmac.com/articles/68/
In a future article we will analyze performance gains depending on Core 2 Duo models.