Thursday February 28, 2008

- The time capsule just in time - Lionel - 23:20:08

Apple had promised that the Time Capsule would leave the factory in February. They have kept their word. We (and many others) have just received the notification of its expedition.
When we receive this base station, we will do tests to judge its performance.

[translation by crispin]

- Update of iPhoto 7.1.3 - MacEnsteph - 23:10:57

Apple has just made available an update for iPhoto (version 7.1.3 16.9 MB).

This update addresses issues with wire-bound books and cards.

[translation by crispin]

- A new business strategic for the iPhone? - Lionel - 17:36:13

Source : Businessweek

During an interview, Apple's chief operational officer Tim Cook stated that the company was "not married" to an exclusive-carrier business model for the iPhone.
This is the first time that an executive does not shut the door for non-subscription models, and this single sentence makes us hope for an unlocked version of the iPhone in the future.
But, married or not, Apple is bound by contracts to the operators, and except if they have foreseen a special clause, such a development of the market would probably make these operators less willing to renew their (exclusive) contracts with Apple.

[translation by xavier]

- Overclock the GeForce 8800 GT on OS X - Lionel - 16:33:13

We all know that with a Windows machine it is easy to overclock a video card, and there even exists software solutions to help one do so. OS X, however, prevents access to such settings, making our only option a firmware flash.

We looked at the Mac firmware of the 8800 GT and have found the hexadecimal sequence as follows:
(64 69) 58 02 DC 05 84 03
It is unique and contains 3 frequencies of the video card, the figures in brackets were there only to ensure that the sequence is unique. To read them, we must reverse the pairs of values, as was the case seven years ago when we learned how to overclock the first GeForce 2 MX. Ahh, memories…

The first value, 5802 is the hexadecimal value 0258 (or 600 base ten) is the frequency of the GPU.
The second value, DC05 is the hexadecimal value 05DC (or 1500 base ten): it corresponds to the frequency of scalar processors (ROPS).
The last value, 8403 corresponds to the base ten value of 900 (0384 in hexadecimal): it corresponds to the frequency of memory (1800 MHz DDR3).

To overclock the card it is enough to simply tweak these values. We tested it by pushing the GPU to 650 MHz, the ROPS to 1650 MHz and the memory at 950 MHz (1900 MHz DDR3).

The sequence hexadecimal then becomes:
64 69 94 02 72 06 B6 03

These values were not chosen at random. We checked the stability in Windows via BootCamp. Obviously, we did not try to push the card to its limits, since it would have been very difficult to flash again blindly.

To edit the firmware, we used the good old Hexedit, and calculated the hexadecimal with the system calculator.

Once the special firmware was registered and verified in several instances (a mistake would bring heavy consequences), we used the flashing procedure described in the article on The flashing of the 8800 GT PC to update the card.

Due to time constraints, we have achieved only one bench to confirm that the overclock went well. We used GLview 3.0 to test Open GL performance of the video card. The results are shown below obtained at 2560x1600 resolution.

Top: results of the 8800 GT at base frequencies.
Bottom: Results of the same card, overclocked.

The gain in performance, as can be seen, is 6 to 8% depending on the version tested Open GL.
In the future, we will seek to push the card as far as possible.

WARNING! Do not preform this unless you are an experienced user as this operation is risky! We attempted it purely for the joy and challenge of overclocking, knowing that we had a backup card to take over in case of a serious problem, or be used to restart the flashing process.

[translation by CliveAtFive]

- an anti-iPhone/AT&T law in the US - Lionel - 13:08:46

Source: PC Inpact

In the United States, unlike Europe, an operator may well sign an exclusive long-term with a consumer and refuse to sell the basic phone desimlocked.
Of course, leaving the iPhone locked into AT & T reopens this problem, the practice seemed quite to have irritated some people and they have contacted their state representative (equivalent of our deputies) to propose a law called the "Wireless Consumer Protection and Community Broadband Empowerment Act of 2008". One of the measures recommended, which seems tailor-made for (potential) iPhone customers, would require operators to sell only the phone, without subsidies or bound to a subscription.
As in all democratic countries of the world this bill is going to have to confront the lobbyists who will try to influence it, depending on their interests, to be adopted or placed by the wayside.

[translation by jeremy]

- Le iPhone SDK on March 6. - Lionel - 12:52:00

Source : Gizmodo

Apple has just sent out the invitations for the release of the SDK for the iPhone. It will be on March 6, a week later than the date foreseen by Steve Jobs.
This meeting will take place on the Cupertino campus. We will then know more about the official distribution of software and also on the tariffs and restrictions that will be applied.

[translation by crispin]

- iTunes number 2 vendor of music in the USA - Lionel - 12:47:08

Source : Apple

Apple is happy. The iTunes Store is the second biggest vendor of music in the USA. Only Wal-Mart still resists and keeps its first place position. If this figure charms Apple, it disturbs the usual channels of distribution and the majors music producers. The former will have to think how to fight this trend and also about diversification. This kickback is almost amusing to see since these distributers destroyed all the small record dealers in the past - and now they are being threatened.
The Major producers must be very annoyed to see the rise in power of Apple since they spend their time trying to break the hold of Apple and to support the competition.
They can no longer threaten to pull their catalogue in their negociations without taking the risk of an enormous loss of money.

[translation by crispin]

- A couple of words on the Penryn in the portables - Lionel - 12:31:28

After questions from many readers, we will recall some details on the processors equipping our new portables.
Here are the principle new features:
- fabricated in 45 nm process: this along with other optimizations allows the reduction of power used by the processor. Note that Apple has revued its method for calculating the time to discharge the battery; this gives the impression that the new portables have a shorter time on battery power - however the numbers now are really just more realistic. The old figures were never really attainable except by switching off wifi and turning down the brightness of the display... ie doing nothing with the computer.
- Increase of L2 cache that is now 3 MB (compared to 2 MB previously) on the base model MBP and the MacBooks, and 6 MB (compared to 4 MB) on the high range MBP: this increased cache will improve the performance in certain conditions.
- Addition of SSE4. This new instruction set is expected to have a big performance enhancement for multimedia applications. However currently this enhancement is not seen. It will be necessary to recompile the programs with new specially written code to take full advantage of the SSE4 instruction set.
- an overdrive function that allows the processor to automatically overclock in certain cases. For this, it is strongly suggested that one run monothreaded applications. In this case, one core is disactivated while the other runs at a higher frequency. Tests have shown that this can be done only for short periods of time, the system will disactivate this feature quickly due to risk of overheating the core.

Here is the list of Penryn used by Apple:

T8100: 2,1 GHz 3 MB of cache with 800 MHz bus (MacBook entry level)
T8300: 2,4 GHz 3 MB of cache with 800 MHz bus (MacBook et Macbook pro entry level)
T9300: 2,5 GHz 6 MB of cachewith 800 MHz bus (MacBook Pro)
T9500: 2,6 GHz 6 MB of cache with 800 MHz bus (MacBook Pro BTO)

[translation by crispin]

- Comparatif des 4 disques durs de 1 To - Lionel - 12:23:19

Hardware.fr released a test comparing 4 3.5 " 1TB commercially available hard drives.
As always in this kind of testing, there is no clear winner, each disc has its strengths and weaknesses in relation to others. Overall, the Spinpoint F1 and transfer rate came out well, while Hitachi, the oldest, shows its age in an industry where releases of new hardware are more and more frequent..

Hardware.fr

[translation by jeremy]

- The 8800 GT are being delivered - Lionel - 09:54:15

Good news for those who ordered the Geforce 8800 GT from the Apple Store. Several readers have just informed us that they have left the factory and will be delivered in three days.
It is time that Apple makes it compatible with the Mac Pro 1!
For that they have the choice of proposing a firmware EFI 32 for these cards, or a more elegant solution of an EFI 64 update for the first generation Mac Pros.

[translation by crispin]

- ABC propose VOD films for free - Lionel - 09:30:50

The US chain ABC has decided to propose for free VOD of many series, such as "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost", to people with cable or satellite connections.
However it will be impossible for viewers to skip the advertisements that will be built into the files since the fast forward function will be disabled.
We will see in the future if this initiative is viable, with TV channels investigating all options to stop the pirating of their products. The search is for new economic models that match the Internet generation that wants to consume at their chosen moment without the constrains of a broadcast timetable.

[translation by crispin]

- 16'' full HD screens - Lionel - 09:17:42

Now that the future of HD media has been clarified with the retirement of HD-DVD, electronic manufacturers hope that this technology and all that accompanies it will have a strong growth.
Samsung prepares to produce in quantity in the third quarter 16" LCD screens that support full HD; these are foreseen for portable computers. This screen with a format of 16:9 will have a resolution of 1920x1080.
Other constructors also work on HD screens, but with a 15.6" size. In either case high range portables fitted with readers/engravers Blu-ray will be a little bit bigger.

[translation by crispin]