Tuesday May 27, 2008

- External video cards for laptops. - Lionel - 11:15:15

Source : http://www.tomshardware.com/fr/

Generally, the video cards of laptops are not very powerful, thus increasing battery life of the machine. In exchange, they represent in certain cases, as on MacBook, a bottle neck if one wishes to do 3D graphics or simply to play games.
AMD, almost evicted from this market by Intel and its Core processors will propose a new platform which will be innovative in term of power, will make it possible to connect an external video card to a laptop. It will connect via a PCI Express port 2.0 8x and will take over integrated video card of the machine.
It will be thus possible to use power demanding 3D software when the machine is connected to the external power source without increasing the heat load since the video card is outside the laptop.
Of course, it will be necessary to see what this solution gives us in real use, but it could find a public following.

[translation by crispin]

- Supporting SVM against the Hadopi law - Lionel - 10:58:30

We've always said that HardMac does not want to get involved in politics. Even though that principle, we have reported about some laws that we think are injustice. This is the case with the Hadopi law, which is going to ban people in France from the internet.
Here's the point: if someone gets caught downloading illegal material, he'll get a warning. If he gets caught a second time, this law will suspend his internet connection.

SVM has launched a petition against this law, and we ask you to sign it too - and here's why:
Once voted, you'll be responsable for your internet connection forever. If, for example, you have an open WiFi network, and someone downloads illegal material over your network, the authorities will not pursue this person, but instead prosecute you for downloading that illegal material.
Those who proposed this law, argument that once you get a first warning, you can still secure your network.

But there's another problem: not everyone knows how to secure a WiFi network. And, even if the network is 'secured', this 'security' is often nothing more than a WEP-encoding, with either a 64 or 128 bits key. The WEP protocol has proven countless times to be unsafe, we have a demo here that shows how this WEP-key can be found in less than 4 minutes.

Please not that we have performed this action on one of our own networks, using this method to find someone else's key is illegal.
We've used standard tools, available on the web, and a USB WiFi-stick costing less than 30 Euros, and have done this on a Mac. We're not going to give more details, we only wanted to show how quick and simple this is done.

You can download the clip here: wep2.mov.zip (7,4 Mb)

Remember that if you're using a WPA or WPA2 encryption, you are still vulnerable if your key is too short.
Better and newer security tools are still being developped, and should soon secure our networks even more, just in case you're dealing with a motivated pirate.

We're not complaining about laws against pirates in general here, but expelling people from the internet would be one step too far - not to mention all the technicians needed to verify the security of a network.

[translation by xavier]

- As Sharp as the Cybertool, the MacBook Air - Lionel - 09:44:37

One should always have a Swiss Army knife in his pocket, but a MacBook air might also replace it! As shown on those photos, the Apple light weight mobile model could be as sharp as a knife:





If we knew that this notebook was loaded with features and power, we did not it could also have such ability. Of course, this is an accident, and the MacBook air is not dangerous by itself, except maybe if you drop it, wide opened, on your naked foot... but then all devices might then be harmful.

[translation by Linathael]

- WWDC 2008 Schedule Available: Mysterious Product to Come!? - Lionel - 09:24:44

Apple has released the online WWDC 2008 schedule: http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/
The hardware remains the main topic with 51 sessions dedicated to it, but 23 sessions will be dealing with the iPhone. There will be 26 sessions on Mac and iPhone, aiming to demonstrate how one get make them better communicate. There are 14 sessions with unassigned subject or topic. In the past, Apple has been using such policy to hide upcoming and/or unannounced product to be unveiled at the WWDC. It was the case for the Powermac G5, and the unassigned sessions were then used to describe the new hardware as well as its performance and features.

The keynote will take place on Monday June 9th at 10h00 local time, so 19h00 CET, and should last for about 2 hours, enough time to launch new products.

[translation by Linathael]

- Sony to Launch the BASE Project Aiming to Promote Blu-ray in Europe - Eric - 09:24:02

As reported by CDR Info, Sony will launch the BASE project (Blu-ray Authoring and Solution Europe) in order to promote the use of Blu-ray support by European movie studios. After having convinced Hollywood's majors to adopt the new format, Sony is pushing to get the entire movie industry on-board, despite the fact that some analysts currently think that the current DVD might be replaced by the non-physical offer provided by online video store, and not by the BD media.

One will easily agree that to promote the Blu-ray, Sony should massively decrease the price of standalone BD players to increase the pool of owners while decreasing the price of royalties asked to Studios to get their movie in BD format. Indeed, the war against HD-DVD being over, Sony does not have to pay Movie studios to adopt BD as the exclusive format for their film catalog, and is probably rather trying to find a way to get cash back following years of spending for R&D and marketing campaigns against the HD-DVD.

- Apple Thinks of Adding Solar Power to its Mobile Devices - Lionel - 09:23:15

According to http://www.macworld.com/, Apple filed a patent describing the use of solar cells underneath the layers of a touch-sensitive display in its mobile devices. This project could help to increase the battery lifetime, more than immediately provide a way to refill it only from solar power.

The iPhone and the iPod Touch should be the perfect device for such system. Even though solar cell technology has been recently offering serious improvement, one will have to find he largest surface possible and one way to achieve it would then be to stack a touch-sensitive layer, a display and solar panel on top of one another.

For sure one will have to leave the iPhone or the iPod Touch on a table properly illuminated, as keeping it in your pocket or in your holder will not really refill the battery.

[translation by Linathael]

- An iPhone 2 for 50€? - Lionel - 09:22:31

According to some reports, the French exclusive carrier Orange has contacted some of its iPhone customers regarding a potential migration towards an iPhone 3G. The current offer would be based on a simple exchange completed with 50€, or on the possibility to buy the new iPhone 3G at an advantageous special price.

It will most likely include the signature of a new 24 months subscription plan, but for sure if this project is really launched, it will most likely be a success, while increasing the pool of iPhone owners.



[translation by Linathael]