News for Tuesday, 12 August 2008

It has been a long time that AMD/ATI could not claim to have the fastest graphic card on the market, and this announcement comes as the expected conclusion of the excellent performance level reached by the RV770-based GPU. Indeed, even the new entry-level and main stream graphic cards from ATI were delivering performance levels near the current high-end models signed by NVidia. The new AMD/ATI models were easily capturing the crown for the best performance/price ratio. The new Radeon HD 4870 X2 is now putting the fastest NVidia GeForce GTX 280 in the dust, delivering higher performance level according to all tests published on the web from independent sites, and not only according to AMD Press Release claims. It seems that by installing 2 GPU on the same card, AMD/ATI car improve performance level by 60 to 90% when compared to an identical single GPU card. Of course, such card, is not cheap, 600 USD, rather noisy (this can certainly be improved), and drains 270 W. So having the current best graphic card in the world we will some sacrifices, but it would be in average 25% faster than the GeForce GTX 280. One should not forget that the difference is really noticeable on large display (30”).
As usual Mac users can only look at both cards with envy, as Apple’s policy regarding graphic cards and drivers is still keeping us away from easy GPU upgrading. For sure motion users would strongly benefit from such raw GPU crushing power.

If the price of SSD is expected to quickly decrease, it remains expensive for most users. This SATA adaptor might be the way to go for most of us, willing to embrace SSD while not killing his budget and remaining open for future upgrade and storage capacity expansion.

It can be loaded with 6 SD HD cards, defining the storage space of this 2.5" SSD SATA. If you consider that the card featuring the largest capacity in this format is 32 GB, you will end-up with a 192 GB 2.5" SDD. Tests have proven that data transfer speed is more than interesting, with 111 MB/s and 55 MB/s respectively in reading and writing mode. Such performance level are made possible as the controller located inside the adaptor manages cards similarly than with a RAID 0 volume. Of course depending on performance level of SD cards data transfer speed might vary. We would be happy to test such device if PhotoFast is willing to send us a sample.

During an interview, Steve Jobs unveiled the first results of the AppStore, the online store dedicated to iPhone and iPod Touch applications, one month after its launch. Users have downloaded more than 60 million programs, and while most of them were freeware, it generated more than 30 million USD in sales over the month. Among the 30% of the latest will be dedicated to Apple (maintenance, server, transactions costs, etc.) while 70% will go to the developers. As with the previous iPod/iTS ecosystem, the AppStore's goal is not to generate important revenues by selling applications to users, but rather to boost iPhone (current models and forthcoming ones) and iPod Touch sales. As indicated by Steve Jobs, the mobile phone of the future will be differentiated by software.
Developers were also surprised by the enthusiasm of users for the AppStore and the corresponding sales. As one could have expected it, video games were a clear winning category. Sega announced to have sold 300,000 copies of Super Monkeyball within 20 days (at 9.99 USD/copy, 3 millions USD of revenue), making the iPhone a viable and mobile gaming platform to be considered in the future according to Simon Jeffery, president of Sega's U.S. division. Steve Jobs indicated that over the 21 millions USD dedicated to developers, the top 10 ones captured 9 millions USD.
However, one should not think that everything is bright and beautiful in the AppStore kingdom. Some developers were/are complaining of having their applications removed from the AppStore without any notice or explanation. Alphabetical ranking of applications on the AppStore was also heavily criticized, some companies changing the name of their software to be the first to be displayed. Some users are also experiencing incompatibility issues with some applications, and developers have to release multiple patches to try to deal with them. However, the AppStore seems to be a success, and T-Mobile is rumored to work on a similar online shop dedicated to applications for all mobile phone models. It would not be the first time that Apple is showing the way to go to the rest of the industry.