Wednesday May 21, 2008

- Apple sued over the Mighty Mouse - Lionel - 20:51:34

Source : Apple Insider

A small firm, Landover-based Man & Machine, has just deposited a claim against Apple concerting abusive use of one of its trade marks, " Mighty Mouse". It has had for a long time a mouse with this name in its catalogue.
The discussion will be interesting, since Mighty Mouse in the United States is the name of a cartoon hero, known in France under the name of Super Mouse, thus it is rather a generic name.

[translation by crispin]

- All Apple portables will use LED back lighting in 2009 - Lionel - 20:45:45

Today, the systems of LED retro-lighting is still too expensive to be proposed for the MacBook. However if one believes Digitimes, the transition will happen during the coming year.
Thus, in 2009, Apple will be able satisfy Greenpeace having given up the systems containing cold cathode tubes that contain a significant amounts of pollutants.

[translation by crispin]

- Google Tackles Health - Lionel - 16:27:56

Source: Generation NT

Google has launched a new service that will donate grain to grind with those who see this company a "big brother." Google Health is an emerging online service, complete with medical records in which the subscriber may not only submit his or her medical data, but also share it with others as well as doctors. It will also be possible to interact with pharmacies and hospitals.

Of course, one's health is often a very sensitive subject and Google will proceed with great caution so as not to frighten people potentially interested. But the risk of spillover in both the healthcare market and industrialized countries has become enormous. It is tempting where it is not forbidden to offer targeted advertising for medicines, medical services or even doctors...

[translation by CliveAtFive]

- An alternative DVD Burner for the MacBook Air - Lionel - 16:22:11

Our partner, Macway, now offers an external DVD burner which could be an alternative to the MacBook Air, which, unlike Apple's offering, works on all Macs with USB 2.0 ports.

The unit is based on the Panasonic UJ-870, and is capable of burning DVD 8x and 24x CD, not to mention Dual-Layer disks. The device costs 74 € (~$115, £60).

Macway USB 2.0 External Slim DVD Drive (Google Translation)


[translation by CliveAtFive]

- Roku: A Serious Competitor for the Apple TV? - Lionel - 09:45:40

Source : TGdaily

Netflix introduced a streaming box, aka Roku, which will allow you to get access to Netflix "all-you-can-eat movie downloads" download service. The 100 USD Roku box lets you connect and browse through available Netflix content, which currently consists of about 10,000 titles, then you can download movies and TV series directly to your television set. The price of such offer? The Roku box sells for $100 and all-you-can-eat download subscription plans start at 9 USD per month.

Of course such streaming offer will heavily depend on your ADSL connection, with VHS quality for 1.5Mbit/s speed, while DVD quality will require sustainable 4Mbit/s... and HD be even more when it will be available...
If one can think such offer might be the expected answer by customers to be attracted by online video store, it remains to be proven, even though, one easily listen to a music track several times, you hardly watch the same movie 5 times a week, or even in your entire life. So the business plan does not have to be the same for the online video offer as for online music.

[translation by Linathael]

- iMagneto 2.0 - Lionel - 09:44:34

Sébastien Zwickert, developer of iMagneto, presents his application

iMagneto is a multimedia application dedicated to Mac OSX users for playing and recording audio and video streams on internet. iMagneto project was initiated after the French IPS Free launched its HD TV online service. Now, the version 2 of iMagneto allows you to play and record any audio and video stream available on internet so far you have the DRM right to play it. Distributed under GPL licensing, the application is written in universal binary and compatible with Tiger and Leopard, and available in French and in English.
Features:
- playing: audio/video stream via internet: ADSL TV, Web TV, Web Radio, Web Cam, Podcast.
- recording: on the fly recording of streams, ability to re-encode into several video format: MPEG2, MP4, Format IPOD, etc.
- Podcast: a podcast managing utility allows you to keep track of your podcast
- Audio/video stream: you can create/edit/delete recorded audio/video stream, or simply watch them and manage them thanks to management tools including filters and smart folders.
- Wake up module: the Mac can start up automatically when a programmed recording is launched.
- Apple remote: iMagneto can be controlled vie the Apple remote.

iMagneto 2.0 home page:
http://imagneto.sourceforge.net/

Direct link to download iMagneto 2.0:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/imagneto/iMagneto-2.0.dmg

About iMagneto developer :
http://dilaroga.free.fr

[translation by Linathael]

- Napster has 6 million of titles without DRM - Lionel - 07:30:29

Napster always remains in the search of market share, dominated by the Apple Store, and even exceeded, according to some, by Amazon who are new in this segment.
The site has just announced that it has the largest catalogue of DRM-free music in the world with 6 million titles proposed.
Potentially, all the sites which propose DRM-free music can fight against the iTunes Store on equal footing, pieces sold being compatible with the immense reservoir of iPods. However Apple keeps an enormous advantage with iTunes which gives access to its Store directly. We would not be so surprised if someone one ends up attacking them for this very close integration of the iPod management software with the online shop.

[translation by crispin]

- A phishing network has been dismantled - Lionel - 07:03:47

Source : http://techno.branchez-vous.com

Regularly we warn to you against the phishing, or as they say in French-Canadian, l' hameçonnage.
This in-vogue swindle consists of massively sending emails aimed at leading the Net surfers to fake sites of banks, d' Ebay, of Paypal….
An important network has just been dismantled. Based in Romania, it had ramifications in many countries such as the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan.
Even though this group has been dismantled, this extremely remunerative technique for the cyber-thieves will continue to develop and become increasingly difficult to detect.

It is thus necessary to be increasingly more vigilant and to be ultra wary of any email leading you towards a web page on which you will have to enter the identifiers and passwords.

[translation by crispin]