News for Tuesday, 27 February 2007

Report from Cesar:

As usual the South by SouthWest offers to download selection of musics selected from performances at the SWSX.
This year, the first torrent of 2007 showcasing band mp3s includes 739 files, or 3.05GB of music.
Official website : http://2007.sxsw.com/toolbox/
Direct link to the torrent file : http://player.sxsw.com/torrents/SXSW_2007_Showcasing_Artists-Release_1.torrent

So, do not hesitate.

Thanks to Robin and MacMerc.com to report that Apple has sent internally a note regarding our recent article describing how to upgrade a Core Duo-based MB or MB Pro to support WiFi 802.11n.
Hereafter is part of the internal note:

The AirPort Extreme Card sold for use in Mac Pro and some iMac computers is not supported in any other products and could cause damage if installed in them. Because of this possibility, the AirPort Extreme Card is not a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) part and requires installation by Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs).

Of course, it is not really surprising as Apple is probably not able to supply all requests for the Airport card model necessary for this upgrade. We strongly doubt that this card exchange might be dangerous, except if Apple did modify the PCI Express slot...
Instead of spending time and energy for preventing users to upgrade their machine to a new wireless technology, Apple should better fix the current issue affecting MacPro and iMac Core 2 Duo and limiting wireless data transfer speed to 512KB/s instead of the 8 to 9MB/s expected...

Last year a study published by MetaFacts was claiming that almost half of American Mac users were at least 55 years or older. Such statement, biased by the way it was presented by MetaFacts and news websites made quite some noise. C/Net was event publishing a news, entitled: Cool enough for your granny. Surprisingly enough nobody note that the same study reported: "Newer computer models are now in almost half of homes, with 49.3% purchased since 2004. More than two-thirds of Apple and half of Dell and HP/Compaq primary home computers are less than 2 ½ years old".
We decided to investigate on the age of the readers for our French website www.macbidouille.com. Results obtained from more than 10,000 records are as follow:

- 10% are less than 20 years-old.
- 35% are between 20 and 30 years-old.
- 29% are between 31 and 40 years-old.
- 14% are between 41 and 50 years-old.
- 7% are between 51 and 60 years-old.
- 5% are more than 60 years-old.

Of course French Mac users might not represent the Mac community, but at least 74% of them are less than 41 years-old... so one could seriously question the way MetaFacts selected its computer users panel. Of course, not all readers are Mac users, but the opposite is true too for PC-dedicated websites.
So as French might not be fully representative of the world Mac community, we decided to set a new poll to collect similar information from www.hardmac.com.
So take couple of seconds and vote by indicating your age in our new poll (in the column on the right)

Dell does not own the leadership position anymore, as HP is now the first "computer-manufacturing company".
It is also known that financial results are not as bright as expected, Dell CEO resigned, and Michael Dell was called back to lead the company. Among first actions taken couple of month ago to circumvent loosing market share, Dell stopped its "Intel-only Inside" policy by offering AMD processor-powered desktop and notebook models.
End of last week, Dell went even further, by announcing future availability of Windows-free models shipping pre-loaded with Linux OS.
It remains currently unclear if recent decision taken by Redmond’s giant to force all EOM to offer only Vista-bundled hardware in March (no more WinXP-based desktop or notebook) would have helped Dell to think differently its Microsoft-only policy.

While EMI was considered as the Music Majors "Thinking Different", talks initiated with online music sellers to set the conditions for a DRM-free music offer were stopped couple of days ago.
There was no official reason, but it seems that EMI was expecting a higher margin or a higher sale price for DRM-free tracks. Rumors also claim that the British music major was expecting an upfront payment to compensate for its risk in releasing music tracks on online store without any anti-copy protection.
Last but not least, the on-going discussion between Warner and EMI concerning a merger or a take-over probably pushed EMI to put current DRM-free music discussions on hold.

A Texas-based patent licensing agency, Texas MP3 Technologies, alleges that Apple, as well as Samsung and SanDisk, are infringing on U.S. patent 7,065,417. This patent was originally awarded to SigmaTel, the former iPod chipmaker, in June 2006. Claims in this patent would cover "an MPEG portable sound reproducing system and a method for reproducing sound data compressed using the MPEG method". A really general claim, which could be considered by some courts as too broad to be granted.
It currently remains also unclear how this patent originally owned by SigmaTel arrived in Texas MP3 Technologies hands. Maybe Thomson and the Fraunhofer Institute, owners of MP3 rights, could also sue this Texas-agency for having MP3 in its business name; or for claiming right on MPEG while they could probably only be granted for a specific hardware allowing to play MPEG layer.