Wednesday July 23, 2008

- Orange informs on the availability of the iPhone - Lionel - 14:16:33

Source : FrenchiPhone

Orange has posted a page to publicize the availability of iPhones in its shops.
http://iphone.orange.fr/#/ou_trouver_iPhone/
One might note that the stock count is only updated when the shops open; no live updates.

[translation by Cheerful]

- A Price war with Blu-ray - finally - Lionel - 08:02:16

Until now, the price and the scarcity of the components, primarily of the blue-purple lasers, made the competition between the manufacturers of Blu-ray products somewhat timid.
However this segment is now taking off and many makers want to make a strong impression quickly.
Thus BenQ has just announced a significant fall, by 33%, price of its Blu-ray readers for desktop machines and now sell it for $120. They must market it under the psychological barrier of $100 during the second quarter.
This fall is the response of this manufacturer to the announcement by Pioneer last week.
With these prices, many computers should soon integrate, or at least propose as an option, such readers. We should also get this right when Apple regulates its problems of software reading of Blu-ray with the AACS.

[translation by crispin]

- Even Sony will sell a cut price portable - Lionel - 07:48:50

Source : Digitimes

Even though EEE PC initially made certain manufacturers of laptops smile, things have since changed.
Asus sells these laptops by the shovel load so that the majority manufacturers have also entered into this battle. It is now with the turn of those famous top-of-the-range manufacturers of expensive products to get interested in this segment, Sony in the lead. The group has approached Foxconn to order the components necessary to manufacture these mini laptops.
The other Japanese manufacturers, NEC, Fujitsu and Toshiba are also on the line. These new products will arrive in time for the festivals of end of the year.
We do not know if Apple will decide to also offer a product in this range or if they prefer to be devoted to products with larger added value.

[translation by crispin]

- Supertalent has made progress with the data flow of its SSD disks - Lionel - 07:36:05

Source : Dailytech

The competition with SSD disks is currently taking place in two sectors, the price and the performances. In order to approach what its adversaries propose, Supertalent announced that its new SSD disks would see an increase with their writing speeds:

- 60 MB/s on models 15 and 30 GB
- 80 MB/s on models 60 and 120 GB.
- The disks containing Flash SLC will reach the 100 MB/s.

One is still certainly very far from the full potential of the SSD technology which in is still taking its first steps. In the future, one certainly will reach something which approaches the famous Moore's law with increase in capacity and data flow that will double regularly.

[translation by crispin]

- Mobile.me, a new demon for Apple ? - Lionel - 07:28:02

We give you this in the words of Sylvain:

A small email to keep you up-to-date with a BIG problem with me.com. Apparently many users (including me) cannot reach their emails any more (nor to send them). Some even saw their emails disappear from the email servers of me.com! (Several years of correspondence…). And it is not obvious how to locally safeguard data stored on a server (which should be backed up by Apple…). The page of support of MobileMe specifies that only 1% of the users are affected, but the complaints have started up on the forums of MobileMe support, and dumbness of Apple on this subject does not do anything to help… 4 days without email, this is much for a service paid at the full price!

It is true that this transition is turning into a nightmare for Apple, and especially for the millions of users who were misguided enough to depend too much on this service.

[translation by crispin]

- Vista does not like SSD disks - Lionel - 07:13:41

Source : CNET

Eli Harari, owner of Sandisk, in a conference gave a progress report on the SSD disks and their still very weak penetration in the market.
He pointed his finger at Windows Vista for which the architecture is completely unsuited to this type of product, which obliges them to develop new controllers specifically intended to thwart these harmful effects. These products would be ready in 2009, a date on which the company hopes for a takeoff of its sales.
Even though we are not best placed to defend Vista, we have the clear impression that Sandisk looked for and found a scapegoat to explain its weak market share with the SSD segment in order to divert onto others the dissatisfaction of their investors.
However it remains true that there is still very little optimization of the operating systems to get the best of the material on which they are installed.
Apple has understood this and wants to play a card from the bottom o the pack with Snow Leopard. By making a pause on the innovations in order to concentrate on what the users do not see, instead installing a new healthier bases on which innovations can then be grafted.

[translation by crispin]

- Updates of iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb and iLife Support - Matrix - 07:02:04

Apple has just placed 4 updates via the software updates or by direct downloading: iPhoto 7.1.4, iMovie 7.1.4, iWeb 2.0.4 et iLife Support 8.3.

New postcards and greeting cards themes have been added to the print menu for iPhoto and corrections of bugs and compatibility issues for all these applications.

[translation by crispin]

- A Macbook Touch in preparation? - Lionel - 06:56:10

Source : MacGeneration

According to Macdailynews, Apple could bring out in autumn a MacBook Touch, which, for some time, has been called the Tablet Mac.
The device would be equipped with a screen the size of the MacBook or a little smaller, and would take the essence of what one has seen with the iPhone; the tactile multipoint screen, an accelerometer, a GPS, together with a Superdrive. Interestingly, it would be able to run the applications intended for the iPhone.
This last point remains strange nevertheless; this software has been optimized for a small size screen and would return to displaying on a 13" screen with a lot more pixels.
If this announced revolution was based on this, it would disappoint many.

[translation by crispin]

- Yahoo makes peace Carl Icahn - Lionel - 06:44:41

Carl Icahn is a rich man who holds 4,98% of the Yahoo stock. At the time of the crisis between Yahoo and Microsoft, this shareholder put all his weight on the side of a takeover by Microsoft so that he could make a lot of money.
Faced by the refusal of the Yahoo management o yield, he deposited a motion aiming at replacing all the board of directors.
Now a compromise has been found, taking out a thorn from the foot of the management and Icahn has withdrawn his motion. In exchange, he obtained a widening of the board on which two additional people will sit, who have been proposed by him.
Microsoft has now lost one of its heavy weight supporters.

[translation by crispin]