News for Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Before the explosion of power of modern video cards, manufacturers of graphics chips were thinking about using them for something else, to make specific and repetitive calculations in place of the central processor.
At NVidia, this technology is called CUDA.
The builder has just put a beta SDK and compilation tools online (for OS X 10.5.2).
To learn more about the CUDA, we recommend an article by Hardware.fr:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/ 659-1/nvidia-cuda-apercu.html
Note that many experts in cryptography do not think favourably about these developments, the GPU seems particularly well suited to breaking codes in a time that is acceptable to hackers.
To download the tools:
http://www.nvidia.com

The cheaper iPod Shuffle's are available in Europe too now.
As expected, it now sells for €49 (of which €5 is for the private-copy tax)
iPod Shuffle at Apple Store.
Even more good news: it still ships for free!

Many MacBook and iMac models are for sale in the Refurbstore today. MacBook Pro stock seems to be sold out. For those interested: there's also an Xserve Raid available, but these are officialy retired...
The Refurb Store

Unsurprisingly, Universal announced that instead of exclusively supporting HD-DVD they'll switch to Blu-Ray now.
They're gonna have to start producing Blu-Ray movies very soon, and will definitely have to take back many HD-DVD products (these media have nothing but a symbolic value anymore).
Note that some good deals will be possible in the coming weeks, for those who already had HD-DVD players.

Today it is practically impossible to put a hand on an Airport Express base station, whether at retailers, or online at the Apple Store where delivery times of one week are quoted.
This rupture of stock seems to coincide with the update of the Apple TV that brought the Airtunes function.
Apple may have created this shortage so that alternative products get pushed, or perhaps is preparing to update the Airport Express to support of 802.11n.

Officially, the theoretical maximum limit of a DVD engraver was 16x and this was reached long ago.
The war over the HD formats that has just come to an end did not make the emergence of an HD engraver easy. However the constructors have, with a series of small touches, made the engravers faster and faster.
Samsung announces what is likely to remain the fastest ever DVD engraver. The SH-S223 will be able to burn DVD /-R in 22x.
It will be also able to engrave double layer DVDs at 16x and the DVD-RAM at 12x.
It will only be available with a SATA interface. Thus this engraver can only be installed in a Mac Pro.
Note that in this case it will not be available to WINDOWS running via Bootcamp. In effect, rather than provide AHCI drivers Apple has made an emulation of ATA. This explains the poor performance of SATA disks, and also that the two SATA connectors on the mother board are not recognized.

Apple has just posted an update (available via the Software Update) concerning the keyboard of the MacBook and MacBook Pros (needs Mac OSX 10.5.2 minimum)

This MacBook and MacBook Pro firmware update addresses an issue where the first key press may be ignored if the computer has been sitting idle. It also addresses some other issues.
The update package will install an updater application into the Applications/Utilities folder and will launch it automatically. Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the update process.

The machines affected are the following:
- MacBook (Late 2006)
- MacBook (Mid 2007)
- MacBook (Late 2007)
- MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo)
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2007, 2.4/2.2GHz)
- MacBook Pro (Late 2007, 2.4/2.2GHz)

Fresh from its victory in the HD format war that will bring years of royalties, Sony has decided that its next battle ground would be flatscreen displays.
The electronics giant plans to invest more than $200 million to improve the production technology of OLED (Organic light-emitting diode) displays with the aim of producing competitively priced slabs of all sizes, including large televisions.
It must be said that the market for flat screens, which is growing at an impressive rate, is currently monopolized by LCD and to a lesser extent Plasma screens. OLED technology makes screens combining all the advantages: low power consumption, very thin , excellent contrast and viewing angle ...

Source: PC Inpact

An unprecedented crisis has blocked the Albis commission charged with putting in place the much decried charges on private copying.
Enough representatives to block the operation have decided not to sit and refused to return unless certain conditions are met:
-- End of the inclusion of injury-related piracy for the calculation of royalties;
-- Conducting studies on the uses and prejudices;
-- Return to a democratic balance (currently only the claimants have any possibility of an award).
Since it should make decisions, the commission finds itself in an awkward situation which will further weigh on its already seriously jeopardised legitimacy .
Good news in the meantime, the tax on iPhone and similar products which was to have passed today is adjourned sine die.