Initiated several weeks ago, there is a conflict between Microsoft and retailers regarding the reliability of the Xbox360. According to information from retailers, as much as 33% of Xbox 360 fails some even claiming that the Xbox 360 is the least reliable gaming console in recent history. The problem is of course Microsoft, the company arguing that the failure rate is currently around ... 3%. Someone might have had a problem for locating the location of the comma in a string of number in Redmond's HQ.
Dailytech has initiated a campaign to better understand the problem and try to find the truth behind those numbers. The result confirms retailer reports with a failure rate of 33%, or 11fold higher than the rate reported by Microsoft; it is probably a new record for consumer electronics.
Microsoft already acknowledges the reliability problem affecting the first batch of Xbox 360 delivered for the launch date, and extended the warranty by one year. Currently, retailers are strongly encouraging customers to purchase an extended warranty program when acquiring a Xbox 360, as most of them will not celebrate their second anniversary...
The problem might be linked to the cooling system which would be too small to release the heat generated by the CPU. But current strategy from Microsoft based on denying the current issue might not help the Xbox 360 to preserve its leadership position against the PS3 and the Wii gaming consoles.
There is a hot on-going discussion among developers regarding the recently released
Core 2 Duo Errata document listing all known bugs affecting the desktop version of the Core 2 Duo. Some bugs can be fixed while most of them have no fix. So, how important and dangerous are those bugs?
According to Theo de Raadt, OpenBSD founder, this is a big issue:
“These processors are buggy as hell, and some of these bugs don’t just cause development/debugging problems, but will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code... Some of these are things that cannot be fixed in running code, and some are things that every operating system will do until about mid-2008, because that is how the MMU has always been managed on all generations of Intel/AMD/whoever else hardware."
According to Intel, this is of course not a major issue:
“Months ago, we addressed a processor issue by providing a BIOS update for our customers that in no way affects system performance. We publicly documented this as an erratum in April. All processors from all companies have errata, and Intel has a well-known errata communication process to inform our customers and the public. Keep in mind the probability of encountering this issue is extremely low."
Intel received support from Linus Torvalds who considers these bugs as "totally insignificant". He claims all CPUs have had bugs in the past, and the current long list for the Core 2 Duo illustrates how current CPU is being deeply tested.
In the past, famous bugs have been identified with much more critical impact than those reported for the Core 2 Duo desktop CPU. One will remember the G4 PPC7450 and its dead temperature probe, or the even more important problem of floating point computing for the first Pentium.
In most cases, one can work around the major CPU bug issue by either upgrading the motherboard firmware, or revising the compiler. The end-users almost never encounter any problem with such BPU bugs; and the current monopoly of Intel over AMD regarding CPU might also explain why this story has been over promoted by some players.
In April, Transcend was announcing its first ExpressCard-based SSD drive with a storage capacity ranging from 2 to 32GB. As a proof than the market is quickly evolving, the released models range from 8 to 32GB.
Prices quickly increase with storage capacity: US$153 for the 8B model, US$281 for the 16GB model and US$502 for the 32GB model.
One could use them in MacBook Pro, and even installed MacOS X on it, reserving the internal 2.5" HD for data storage, it should allow the HD to switch to low power mode and save battery lifetime. Unfortunately, the performance would not be very high as Transcend Express Card SSD use the USB2 interface found in the ExpressCard and not the Express port. One would need to deeply test it, but it would also imply that one would need a driver. If Transcend needs some help for testing their ExpressCard SSD we can probably help them.
One will probably remember iPod owners massively complaining against Apple about the lack of replacement battery for most early iPod models. Cupertino was forced to quickly organize a dedicated program. Apple has learned from the past and already communicates about the iPhone battery and the existing service for having it exchanged (out of warranty). It will cost US$79 + US$7 shipping cost, it is of course quite expensive but it already proves Apple will not let consumers alone in the dark when needing a new battery for an iPhone.
