Thursday July 31, 2008
- New MacBook for Back to School Period? - Lionel - 11:09:16
As we previously mentioned it, the release of Intel Centrino 2 platform will push Apple to update its notebook offer soon, and especially the MacBook and MacBook Pro. According to Apple Insider, Apple is indeed preparing such release. They sent information to distributors recommending preparing stocks because production rate will be low during the summer. This warning is also targeting iPod models, but not the MacBook Air, being a quite special product by itself. So, this information confirms our previous reports, and if Apple is preparing the release of new MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPod and iMacs, the main question remaining, especially for MB and MBP: will the shape and the design be changed?
[translation by Linathael]
- iPhone 3G Shortage to End on August 21st? - Lionel - 08:52:05
We have received confirmation that the Apple Premium Resellers will be able to distribute the iPhone 3G from August 21st. This will also be true for other large consumer electronics distributors. This could also imply that Apple expect to have enough iPhone 3G stock by that date to further increase the distribution network, as it will be quite useless to claim having more shops offering the iPhone 3G if there is no units to be demo and/or sold.
[translation by Linathael]
- TurboSIM are Back - Lionel - 08:49:00
Several users probably remember TurboSIM, those cards making possible to use first generation iPhone on non exclusive carrier.
Those products are now back and fully functional for the iPhone 3G as reported by the French website FrenchiPhone according to a test performed with a Yessim. This card is commercially available and known as the Furiousim.
As there is no interest of purchasing a subscription-free iPhone 3G from USA or UK, this card will be very useful for users traveling in different countries, and not willing to pay the high cost of roaming, as this TurboSIM will allow the use of local networks.
[translation by Linathael]
- The Phone House Will Distribute the iPhone 3G, but NOT Promote It - Eric - 08:48:36
Hereafter is a mail sent to The Phone House employees indicating that the company will distribute the iPhone 3G (at least in France) from August 21st, most likely at the same time than the Apple Premium Resellers.
If one could have imagined that surfing on the wave of the shortage of iPhone, the company will deliver marketing tools to promote the iPhone to consumers. No, They designed a kind of biased table comparing the iPhone to other mobile phone available on the market and associated with different subscription plans offered by Orange and/or SFR (the two leading carrier in France): Samsung F480, Nokia N95 and HTC Diamond Touch.
Hereafter is a quote of the message:
All those products have specifications higher than those found in the Apple iPhone 3G, especially concerning communication features.They most likely refer to the lack of video in the iPhone 3G, but most of those parameters in the table are quite ridiculous, such as the lack of extension slot, not really necessary with a device featuring 8 or 16 GB of storage space, but for sure crucial for the Samsung model which only sport 236 MB... nevertheless this model gets the point for this parameter...
Those 21 parameters seem to have been selected to ensure that the iPhone will be behind competitors. We are sure that Apple will be pleased to see its iPhone 3G being so badly ranked in internal documentations, maybe The Phone House might not be interested to sell the device, considering the current shortage for this device, Cupertino might have better opportunities with other distributors for increasing accessibility for customers to the iPhone 3G. The Phone House might also have financial interest of selling the other competitor models.
- CUDA: In-depth Test - Lionel - 08:47:03
The French website Hardware.fr released an deep analysis of CUDA, the well known forthcoming parallel computing solution from NVidia, aiming to take advantage of the unused processing power of the GPU.
AS expected from the first public beta version, the technology is powerful and delivers performance gain ranging easily from 7 to 14 fold (depending on the graphic card and GPU, and on applications), when compared to the processing power of a Core 2 Duo CPU. Of course, CUDA does not speed up all applications, but software coded to benefit from this technology will have their performance level dramatically raised up leaving competitors in the dust. So, CUDA might become the new Grail for NVidia if developers are ready to invest time and resources in optimizing their codes. In 2009, Intel should release its first massively multicore solution, based on Larrabee, and we should be able to compare both technologies.
[translation by Linathael]
- Chinese HD-DVD Format Aiming to Compete with Blu-ray.. in China - Lionel - 08:46:40
During the war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, supporters of the latest format started discussing with Chinese manufacturers to convince them to join the HD-DVD side. Couple of weeks afterwards, a new high definition format was announced, the CH-DVD very similar to the HD-DVD for both media and hardware. If Toshiba dropped the HD-DVD, Chinese did not want to stop the development of their HD copy, nor pay royalties to Sony nor support the financial cost of modifying their production lines.
The CH-DVD will have a business life, dedicated to the Chinese market, large enough to be juicy for promoters. The name will also change from CH-DVD to CBHD. However, there is a major problem for manufacturers; there is currently no Hollywood majors ready to accept another HD video format adventure, considering the history of this country regarding illegal copy business and lack of action to fight against counterfeit industry.
[translation by Linathael]
