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News for Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Apple TV + YouTube: Update Available
Olivier, one of our readers, reports that Cupertino has updated the Apple TV to make it compatible with YouTube.
The firmware update is performed directly from the Apple TV GUI.
Apple has taken advantage of this update to announce the availability of YouTube on the iPhone (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
):
The firmware update is performed directly from the Apple TV GUI.
Apple has taken advantage of this update to announce the availability of YouTube on the iPhone (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
):
On June 29, iPhone customers will enjoy the best YouTube experience on a mobile device thanks to a new Apple-designed application that wirelessly streams YouTube content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks. YouTube now encodes their videos in the advanced H.264 format, and iPhone will be the first mobile device to play YouTube content encoded in the format. Apple TV customers, meanwhile, can begin enjoying that content today after installing the free software update directly from Apple TV.
HD Video: A New Victory for Blu-ray
The market for HD video seems to have evolved and matured faster than expected, driven by the success of LCD and Plasma TV as well as the quick decrease of prices for BD and HD-DVD players.
Of course both sides are pushing consumers to make the "right" choice when purchasing their first HD video player. Sony and other BD supporters announced a new partnership which could be a major victory in its war against HD-DVD. The US video renting company, Blockbuster, will offer BD-based movies in its 1450 shops as soon as next month. They will not rent HD-DVD movies.
This is not the end for the HD-DVD Alliance, but it seems to loose ground on the HD video content market while having already lost the market for blue laser-based optical drive in computers.
Other movie renting companies decided not to choose on the format, such as Cinesnap in France, and offers HD movies in both format.
Of course both sides are pushing consumers to make the "right" choice when purchasing their first HD video player. Sony and other BD supporters announced a new partnership which could be a major victory in its war against HD-DVD. The US video renting company, Blockbuster, will offer BD-based movies in its 1450 shops as soon as next month. They will not rent HD-DVD movies.
This is not the end for the HD-DVD Alliance, but it seems to loose ground on the HD video content market while having already lost the market for blue laser-based optical drive in computers.
Other movie renting companies decided not to choose on the format, such as Cinesnap in France, and offers HD movies in both format.
HD Reliability: Be SMART
Before describing the new SMARTUtility 1.0.1 application, let's first define why the SMART status is an important parameter for our HDs.
SMART stands for Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. In other words, this is a protocol developed by HD manufacturers to inform users regarding the HD health, trying to predict failure and prevent data lost. This internal protocol measures regularly different parameters and compare them with reference values. Among those parameters the most important ones are: temperature; reading-writing failures, booting time, number of boots, working time... All those values are compared to the "MTBF" (Mean Time Between Failures). If one of the recorded parameter obtains a value higher than the MTBF, the defined SMART test will not be passed and be reported. However, it only remains a warning. If you want to have the complete list of parameters being part of the SMART check up, visit the SMART Linux SourceForge project. Last but not least, to obtain the SMART status of a HD one needs to have it plug directly via SCSI, ATA or SATA. USB or FireWire converters do not let SMART status going through.
Several software or application can give you information about the SMART status of your HD:
- The first one is integrated in OS X: Disk Utility. It will indicate the SMART status of SCSI, ATA or SATA HD. It does not provide any additional information or details.
- the second one is free, and named SMARTReporter. It remains similar to Disk Utility regarding report of the SMART status, but you can set some preferences to launch regular SMART test, or send an alarm email or launch another application if the HD does not pass the SMART test.
- the third one is SMARTUtility 1.0.1. This application is feature-rich and provides many information and details concerning the SMART status (as illustrated by those screnshots).
[As illustrated here, the Hitachi 1TB HD that we are testing since 2 days had already 100 hours working time when it was purchased in its closed blister. Who said manufacturers do not test their HDs?]
The problem is the price, as SMARTUtility 1.0.1 is only available as a 10 licenses offer for US$20.
- the last one is SMART Guard, one of the component of the SpeedTools Utilities.
This is probably the most complete one, regarding both detailed information and also features, as one of them allows you to force SMART status. SMART Guard is not available alone, and is part of the US$89 SpeedTools Utilities Suite; but it is worth it.
To conclude, one should remember some results published by Google regarding HD reliability: a HD which did not pass the SMART test will have 39-fold higher risk to fail within the next 60 days than a HD with a passed SMART status. However, only 30% of HD failures can be predicted by the SMART test. So if you can check the SMART status of your HD from time to time, you should definitely dedicate more time to run regular backup of your data.
SMART stands for Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. In other words, this is a protocol developed by HD manufacturers to inform users regarding the HD health, trying to predict failure and prevent data lost. This internal protocol measures regularly different parameters and compare them with reference values. Among those parameters the most important ones are: temperature; reading-writing failures, booting time, number of boots, working time... All those values are compared to the "MTBF" (Mean Time Between Failures). If one of the recorded parameter obtains a value higher than the MTBF, the defined SMART test will not be passed and be reported. However, it only remains a warning. If you want to have the complete list of parameters being part of the SMART check up, visit the SMART Linux SourceForge project. Last but not least, to obtain the SMART status of a HD one needs to have it plug directly via SCSI, ATA or SATA. USB or FireWire converters do not let SMART status going through.
Several software or application can give you information about the SMART status of your HD:
- The first one is integrated in OS X: Disk Utility. It will indicate the SMART status of SCSI, ATA or SATA HD. It does not provide any additional information or details.
- the second one is free, and named SMARTReporter. It remains similar to Disk Utility regarding report of the SMART status, but you can set some preferences to launch regular SMART test, or send an alarm email or launch another application if the HD does not pass the SMART test.
- the third one is SMARTUtility 1.0.1. This application is feature-rich and provides many information and details concerning the SMART status (as illustrated by those screnshots).
[As illustrated here, the Hitachi 1TB HD that we are testing since 2 days had already 100 hours working time when it was purchased in its closed blister. Who said manufacturers do not test their HDs?]
The problem is the price, as SMARTUtility 1.0.1 is only available as a 10 licenses offer for US$20.
- the last one is SMART Guard, one of the component of the SpeedTools Utilities.
This is probably the most complete one, regarding both detailed information and also features, as one of them allows you to force SMART status. SMART Guard is not available alone, and is part of the US$89 SpeedTools Utilities Suite; but it is worth it.
To conclude, one should remember some results published by Google regarding HD reliability: a HD which did not pass the SMART test will have 39-fold higher risk to fail within the next 60 days than a HD with a passed SMART status. However, only 30% of HD failures can be predicted by the SMART test. So if you can check the SMART status of your HD from time to time, you should definitely dedicate more time to run regular backup of your data.
An iPhone in Paris
Yesterday, the entire Google executive management was in Paris to both celebrate the launch of YouTube in French, but also to initiae discussions with representatives from the "Bibliothèque de France" (French National Library), probably concerning copyrights and option for releasing part of those literature gems online.
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and new member of Apple's Board, could not resist to unveil his iPhone. This was probably the only Apple-branded mobile phone unit available in France before we can test it during the Apple Expo.
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and new member of Apple's Board, could not resist to unveil his iPhone. This was probably the only Apple-branded mobile phone unit available in France before we can test it during the Apple Expo.
Add 802.11n in PowerBook
Quickertekannounced the future availability of a PCMCIA 802.11 n draft card to be compatible with PowerPC-based PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. Named nQuicky, this card is claimed to bring high speed yield of 300Mbit/second, while being able to take advantage of MIMO technology. The card will cost US$149.
One will have to test such card to ensure that it really brings faster wireless internet connection to PowerBook users, as those notebooks were not having more than 1 antenna, and it remains unclear if one will need specific drivers, or if it will use some components found in Mac OS X 10.4.8.
Other manufacturers such as Belkin, Netgear and Linksys offer such upgrading card, but they are reported to be not compatible with OS X.
One will have to test such card to ensure that it really brings faster wireless internet connection to PowerBook users, as those notebooks were not having more than 1 antenna, and it remains unclear if one will need specific drivers, or if it will use some components found in Mac OS X 10.4.8.
Other manufacturers such as Belkin, Netgear and Linksys offer such upgrading card, but they are reported to be not compatible with OS X.
Hitachi LG Blu-ray Burner GGW-H20N
Hitachi LG released additional information about its new Blu-ray burner announced during the last Computex.
This is the first optical drive able to burn single layer BD media at 6x, while overall performance are also interesting:
- 4x double layer BD media
- 16x for DVD +/-R
- 40x for CD-R.
In addition, this drive will be able to play HD-DVD-based video content. It should arrive this summer in both ATA and SATA format, and is the price remains unknown it is claimed to be competitive.
As we did it with the previous model, GGW-H10N, this optical drive should easily find its way in a Mac Pro, as described in one of our previous article.
This is the first optical drive able to burn single layer BD media at 6x, while overall performance are also interesting:
- 4x double layer BD media
- 16x for DVD +/-R
- 40x for CD-R.
In addition, this drive will be able to play HD-DVD-based video content. It should arrive this summer in both ATA and SATA format, and is the price remains unknown it is claimed to be competitive.
As we did it with the previous model, GGW-H10N, this optical drive should easily find its way in a Mac Pro, as described in one of our previous article.
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