News for Tuesday, 18 March 2008

In a recent conference, Intel provides details about its future products:
- The Itanium, the very high end server CPU from Intel will be updated in H2 2008 and will reach 2 billions transistors, while featuring 4 cores and 30MB of cache. According to some rumours, Apple might be using it in some "high-end" Xserve models which could replace the Cluster Node models discontinued when the G5 CPU was dropped.
- Intel will release a 6 Cores-based CPU in H2 2008, named Dunnington, it will feature 1.9 billion transistors and 16MB of L3 cache.
- The Nehalem, aka the successor of the recently release Penryn, will be manufacture in Q4 2008. An 8MB shared cache will help communication between cores. Each core will sport a 64KB L1 cache as well as 256KB L2 cache. The Nehalem should be available as 2 to 8 cores-based CPU. Its cache will be faster than the current one in Penryn, and the Hyperthreading technology will enable 2 logical cores for each physical core.
- In 2009, the successor of Nehalem will feature the next generation instruction set to replace the current SSE4, known as AVX (Advanced Vector Extension). By doubling the instruction set capabilities, one should be able to perform even more simultaneous operations while further boosting multimedia applications.
Old Mac users might find this road map and its corresponding consequences on Apple revision schedule a bit crazy when considering that we have been experiencing almost years without major evolution in the past with the G4 and G5 CPUs...

Apple has posted an update to Safari to version 3.1- this can be downloaded via the usual software update

This update is recommended for all Safari users and features improvements to stability, compatibility, JavaScript performance and security.
For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307467
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798-

According to a study conducted by NPD and dealing with US PC retail sales in February, Apple represented 14% of market share in unit numbers and 25% in value. Such an impressive increase (more than 5% more over the same period last year) is really impressive.
Another good news for Cupertino is provided by the figures of MacBook Air sales, as it did not cannibalize from the MacBook and MacBook Pro sales but directly targeted a more corporate and new to Mac users. So, all notebook models from Apple seems to have found their target market without disturbing each other. This is important considering that Apple just renewed its entry level and Pro-oriented notebook models at the end of February, so sale figures for notebook in March should be excellent.

At the end of last week, we were invited to follow a demo of Toast 9, one of the historical applications for the Mac.
The new version brings several features, as well as an improved interface:
- Record high-definition content from high-definition (HD) camcorders and favorite HD programming from TiVo® DVRs and Elgato’s EyeTV devices to Blu-ray Disc (BD).
- Burn HD video and slide shows on standard DVDs
- Streamer, a new application of the suite, allows users to stream video content stored on their home Mac® to a Wi-Fi connected iPhone® or iPod® Touch or any Internet connected Mac or PC
- capture streaming audio for recording Internet radio
- captured music tracks to be automatically tagged with song titles, artist or other related information
- …
As with Toast 8 already, one can access iLife 08 and Aperture libraries directly from Toast 9's Media Browser. It also provides tools to create and edit personalized disc artwork, as well as support for LightScribe and Labelflash™ drives and media to allow users to burn artwork and labels directly to discs.
Toast 9 Titanium is available directly from Roxio at www.roxio.com for 99.99USD. The High Definition/Blu-ray Disc (HD/BD) plug-in, which is needed to author BD video is sold separately for USD19.99, BUT is available for free if you purchase Toast 9 online at http://www.roxio.com through April 13, 2008.
Additional information: www.roxio.com

For ages we have been talking about the eventual opening of Apple Stores in France.
Several different sources have told us that Apple is preparing a massive coup. They want to open simultaneously (or almost) several boutiques in France. Certainly these will be situated in the large towns, and we do not know more. They say that there will be even 3 stores in Paris.
Of course, there is much talk about the site occupied by Planet Hollywood on the Champs Elysées (number 78) which will soon be free.
There is a surface of 1000 M2 essentially underground. It has everything going for it, a shared entrance on the ground floor and all the essentials underground.
The idea to want to open several shops very quickly is not absurd. Indeed,FNAC does not look at this Apple store in a good light, the arrival of the Apple Store will lose them customers. It is said that they could reconsider whether to market Mac. To open many Apple stores at once would decrease the impact.

EMC (formerly Dantz) Retrospect is a serious, industrial-strength backup solution, that I have been using at work for quite a while, for backing up a mix of PCs and Macs.
Problem is, the Mac version has been languishing for literally years: the Mac version is 6.1 and has been in the 6.x range since at least 2005, while the PC version is up to 7.5, which brought massive changes, like proactive backups (basically, your computer gets backed up out-of-schedule, as soon as it is connected to your network, really handy for marauding laptops).
Well, now it seems EMC has decided to revive its Mac offering, and they are currently developing Retrospect X (someone tells them that the “X” suffix is soooooo Panther), which, amongst other features will bring this:

Universal Binary
Runs native on Apple’s new x86 (Intel) and PowerPC Macintosh computers for faster processing.
Desktop and notebook backup
Clients are backed up when they become available on the network, rather than on a fixed schedule.
Check-point restart
If backups or restores are interrupted, Retrospect resumes where it left off.

Well, looks like this is shaping like a solid upgrade, at least it should bring the Mac version to the level of the PC version.
Could that be a response to Apple introducing the free (as in shipping with the OS) Time Machine?