Monday September 22, 2008

- Several Apple Stores to Be Opened Simultaneously in France? - Lionel - 17:52:30

If Apple officially announced in June (9 months after we unveiled it) that the company will open its first Apple Store in France at the Carroussel du Louvre in Paris, nothing really changed, and the shops where the future store is supposed to be located are still opened.

The French website Piratec surprisingly announced that Apple has found a second new location, previously rumored to be the place for the first Apple Store, in front of the Opera Garnier in Paris.
If we had to this rumor, information we obtained from different sources, indicating opening of a store in the business area "La Defense" as well as in most of the large cities in France (Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, etc...), it could confirm our previous hypothesis reported in March: Apple might have delayed the opening of its first physical Apple Store in France, in order to simultaneously open several locations and offer a larger networks to customers.

[translation by Linathael]

- Electronic Arts loosens the DRM restrictions on Spore - Lionel - 17:12:23

Source: Dailytech

Following the harsh criticism of its DRM system implemented on Spore, Electronic Arts has decided loosen its restrictions:
- It is now possible to activate the game on 5 machines (as opposed to 3).
- It will be possible to transfer rights from one computer to another.
- Each machine authenticated can create an online account, while formerly, only one per license was allowed.

It ends up being very similar - if not identical to - the policy used on the iTunes Store.

[translation by CliveAtFive]

- The end of the audio CD? - Lionel - 17:06:24

Source: Engadget

The last 26 years have been the age of the CD. During its long career, it has continued to grow in popularity, despite the arrival of the DVD format. However, an unexpected competitor now threatens to overtake it from the shadows: flash memory.

Sandisk has announced that they have signed agreements with several major record companies to sell them en masse on 1GB micro SD memory cards. They negotiated to offer music albums pre-encoded (and therefore without DRM) plus bonus content.

While audiophiles may cry fowl, this new distribution form has the merit of matching the quality of today's CDs, and green-freaks will rejoice over saving the world from a good dose of polycarbonate (used both for the CD itself, and for its packaging).

If this mode of distribution happens to prevail, Blu-ray may suddenly see its life cycle get shorter. The capacity of memory cards continues to increase, and it will be common in a few years to see USB sticks (or other flash card) with capacities over 25 GB.

[translation by CliveAtFive]

- Apple Expo 2008: Time for a Review - Lionel - 13:30:07

While we are recovering from the most work-loaded week in the year, it is time to present a review of the first Apple Expo NOT officially supported by Apple. It is only related to the lack of official support from Apple, because it was really a promoting show for Mac hardware and software, and there was nothing really different from the previous Apple Expo.

- Most of the exhibitors we met were satisfied by the event. Some admitted to fear a flop as Apple decided not to support it officially anymore, but they then agreed to have been positively surprised by the success. Exhibitors coming to demo their products or solutions, and/or to build contacts were also satisfied despite the lack of the official black-curtain Apple booth, replaced this year by the BMW Mini cooper booth (see your Apple Expo Summary for the video)

- If the organizer did not release any news yet, and we should only know the figures on Tuesday, we understood that they were satisfied by the 2008 Edition. We would not be surprise at all if they decide to plan a new Edition without Apple for September 2009, as many exhibitors expect it and already expressed their wish for an Apple Expo 2009.

- Regarding non-professional visitors, they admitted that the Apple Expo was “different” as the official Apple booth was not present; however they were happy to visit the Expo. The Apple-solution dedicated to audio/video/music solutions and entitled “Agora of talents” attracted a lot of visitors for both live demo and conferences. When talking to “Apple Genius” performing the demo of iPhoto/Aperture, video editing solutions or other software, it did not seem that they add less questions and visitors.

- For us, t was of course a great moment as it allows us to meet physically and exchange with our readers, with developers and product manufacturers. We also hope that there will be an Apple Expo in 2009, as it is for us a great moment for sharing with others outside this virtual world.

[translation by Linathael]

- A new surveillance against illegal content on Youtube - Lionel - 13:15:55

Source : Dailytech

The Nexicon company will try to control the diffusion of files that are illegal on Youtube.
The system is either educational, or vicious according to your point of view, however it will not be repressive, at least not initially. When a person will puts online a piece protected by a copyright, or when a person downloads this file, Nexicon will invite the utiliser to go to a legal platform where these can be downloaded - for a price.
The company hopes to be able to extend its system to all the pirate downloads including P2P. In future will act as intermediaries between the pirates and the right-holders.

[translation by crispin]

- Sony Strengthens its "Made for the iPod" Products - Lionel - 13:02:33

After fighting against Apple iPods and iTunes, Sony seems to have adopted a new strategy, aiming to release its own products while benefiting from the market of iPod peripherals. The new product is a perfect example as it brings new function to Apple products.



The ICF-CD3iP is an alarm-clock device with a dock to charge you iPod/iPhone, and play music tracks stored on them. In addition, the ICF-CD3iP offers a function for tagging music played on the radio and making their purchase on the iTunes Store easier by directly linking you to them.



[translation by Linathael]

- Apple Expo Summary - Eric - 12:51:30

For those of you who missed our Apple Expo reports and live coverage, we have compiled the most interesting data hereafter, to better share with you this successful event. Enjoy it as much as I did preparing those videos and photos.



We will first have a look at one of the largest booth at the AE 2008, the one dedicated to the expensive iPod/iPhone peripheral: The Mini Cooper:



We then had the chance to have Griffin showing 2 new products, not yet available but potentially very interesting for many iPhone owners:



Then I went around to different booths, mostly dedicated to iPod/iPhone: JBL, Logitech, Nike and a hit, the iMini by Ozaki:



Then 2 interesting product either by their ease of use or potential: WD MyBook RAID0/1 and the STM Solar cell bagpack:

- NVidia Fires 360 Associates - Lionel - 09:38:42

For the first time in its history, NVidia announced its plan to lay off 360 associates. This announcement confirm that the company is facing serious problems with both the technical issue affecting the lifetime of millions of its GPU, and the competition from the last graphic cards released by AMD/ATI.
If firing associates is always the sign of a failure/defeat, let's hope that NVidia can recover and keep providing competition in the filed of GPU; otherwise we would have a monopoly owned by ATI for discrete graphic cards; even though Intel should become a major player in the field in couple of months.


[translation by Linathael]

- Apple Expo Reports: Images from the Last Day - Yoc - 09:38:02

That's it, the Apple Expo 2008 closed its door on Saturday evening, and while waiting for the new Apple Expo 2009 next year, hereafter are the last photos taken from the event.
As usual, at 16h00, we performed a live demo illustrating how to change the HD of an Apple TV and a Time Capsule:



We also took time to stop by Macally booth to look at some new products: a sleeve for the new iPod Nano, a new multipurpose USB adaptor (provide additional battery lifetime for the iPhone, can replace the cable for synchronization and is a USB key), a microphone for the iPod (Touch model not supported), and a complete kit to listen to music tracks stored in an iPhone directly on your auto audio system via RDS technology (price and availability unknown):







An iPod-dedicated speaker set from Voix, including an integrated dock, if the sound quality is good, the design might not fit in all houses:



A 4 ways mixing table for DJs designed by Vixid, a small company created by 2 frenchies. While we already took photos of the system in for our first Apple Expo Report, we learned that the live audio and HD video was delivered by a Mac Pro, associated with a SAN (for the video) composed of 3 V-Track bays setup by Apple Solution Expert Opale:





[translation by Linathael]

- Mac OS X 10.5.6 to Bring Support for Blu-ray? - Lionel - 09:35:26

According to Kevin Rose, administrator of Digg, Apple could provide support for Blu-ray with the future version of Mac OS X 10.5.6. One can trust his source as he unveiled most of the details of the forthcoming iPod (nano, classic and Touch) prior to their official launch.

With Leopard, it is possible to use such media but only for reading and writing data. Playing HD movies on BD media remains impossible since Mac OS X does not manage AACS protections. However, it seems that Apple and AACS LA found an agreement to solve the issue we talked about in December 2007.

However, one should not expect to have full BD support on all computers, for new models probably but not necessarily backwards, and for sure not for free, as Apple has to pay fees to BD patent owners for providing a Blu-ray-compatible DVD player. Let's hope that Apple will indeed offer a full support for Blu-ray for all hardware models in order to offer HD video not only for new models.

[translation by Linathael]