Friday May 30, 2008

- OLED Display: 0.3 mm Thickness! - Lionel - 12:16:34

While it remains impossible to offer wide OLDE display, Sony keeps working on this technology, and is trying to reduce the thickness of such panel. The last prototype to come out from Sony’s R&D features a record 0.3 mm thickness. Such achievement was made possible by eliminating the use of backlighting. However, such panel might become very fragile, and once should find ways to protect them behind a front glass.
There is no discussion that the OLED technology will allow thinner panel than the current LCD system, while offering low-power consumption.


[translation by Linathael]

- Smallest NAND Flash Engraving Process by Intel and Micron - Lionel - 12:09:05

Source : CDR Info

Intel and Micron unveiled the first flash memory chips (4 GB) produced by sub-40nm engraving process. This 34nm process was jointly developed and manufactured by both companies via their NAND flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT).

This is the smallest NAND process geometry on the market, and when applied on 300 mm wafer, one could then produce around 1.6 TB of NAND flash storage space.
Of course, such technology breakthrough will be useful for speeding mass production and adoption of SSD. One can already dream of a notebook-dedicated 512 GB SSD with a reasonable price.

[translation by Linathael]

- Incompatibly between CS3 and Mac OSX 10.5.3 - Lionel - 11:37:54

Stéphane, one of our readers working with Photoshop CS3 announced a problem described on forums Apple and which has also affected him.
An incompatibility arises (at least with certain configuration) between Photoshop CS3 and Mac OS X 10.5.3. It causes the corruption of the saved files (at least .psd and .tiff) making them impossible to reopen.
It seems that this bug causes a corruption to the header of the file. While waiting for a solution, the only work around seems to downgrade to 10.5.2.

[Update] The corruption seems to occur only if one opens a file created under a version previous to 10.5.3 and then to save it. It will be then illegible.
On the other hand, a file created under 10.5.3 and then edited will not pose a problem.

[translation by crispin]

- Apple acknowledges the G5 water cooling problem ?? - Lionel - 10:02:24

In the word of Jean Pierre.

I would like to inform you that Apple dealt with, without particular pressure applied on my side, the complete repair of my water-cooled bi-G5. The mothercard, the processors and part of the case were changed without problem.

Difficult to say if the decision was made in-house to make the repair free of charge, or if customer service had an unused quota of commercial gestures. It will be necessary to wait to know exactly what line Apple is taking.

[translation by crispin]

- Apple will flood the world with its iPhone - Lionel - 07:41:01

A day does not pass without one hearing about a new agreement between some operator and Apple for the distribution of the iPhone.
The breaking news is that while waiting for an global agreement on China, HongKong and Macao will be able to get the device via Hutchinson.
For the next release of the iPhone, it should be available in the main industrialized countries of the world contrary to its initial launch that was only in the United States.
Thus, Apple should not have any difficulties reaching its objectives, the market potential being largely more important.
All in all, and it is rare that one can see it so easily, Apple seems to have taken account of the strategic "errors" made with the first iPhone and has taken steps not to reproduce them.
It should also be noted be that the orientation of the economic model has clearly changed. The need to make money from the operators has passed to secondary importance. What is important now is to have the maximum of iPhones in circulation in order to make the AppStore rich and as strong as possible.
Apple wants to now create a virtual circle in which the large number of iPhones will ensure the success of its sale of online software, and that this success will help to promote the sales of the iPhone. Apple has now changed to an economic plan that is close that of the game consoles. It is necessary to sell consoles to encourage the developers to produce good games which then help to sell more consoles.
Of course to get there, Apple will have to get rid of its last exclusive contracts still in force, such as in France with Orange and in the United States with AT& T.

[translation by crispin]