News for Friday, 12 September 2008

I got puzzled by the addition of Genius playlists on-the-fly on the iPod/iPhone. Let's see, we don't even get "smart playlists" on these devices, so how could they be able to do the heavy computing I thought the Genius feature requires?
Well, pretty easy.
I went and had a look around my HD since I was wondering how the iPod/iPhone could handle Genius playlists without doing some heavy computing... turns out iTunes 8 creates an
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
database file in the Music>iTunes folder on your HD, then it gets copied over to your iDevices... This DB must contain lots of metadata about your songs, and when you hit the GENIUS icon on you iThing, it just shuffles amongst songs with related metadata to the on you are listening to...
In my case, the file is 120MB, for a 160GB music library...

Well, it seems that Apple has been rather prompt at fixing (again) the flaw that allowed someone to access lots of private data on a locked iPhone by double-tapping the Home button while on the "emergency call" screen.
The iPhone OS 2.1 update that has been just released fixes it: now when you double-tap the home button, it simply brings you back to the "Unlock" screen.
More 2.1 goodness as we explore the update.

The update weighs 237MB, which is the whole OS as usual, and is here on time, as Jobs announced it would be available sometime on Friday.
Get it now through iTunes...
or from the following addresses:
For an iPhone 3G:
iPhone1,2_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw
For an iPhone 1G:
iPhone1,1_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw

The semiconductor industry must unceasingly improve its manufacturing techniques for chips, unceasingly seeking to engrave finer. But each new stage has a high price in R& D as well as the tooling cost of the factories, thus each new threshold is increasingly difficult to cross. If Intel or some specialists such as TSMC manage to cross a new threshold, it behoves the others to combine.
This is why IBM, who are at the cutting edge in this field has created an alliance in which one finds already great names like Toshiba, Infineon, STMicro…
NEC has announced that it joined this group and will put funds into the common pot in order to implement and to profit from engraving at 32 nm before taking part in the development of the following generations.
The first developments of 32nm technology, in comparison to the 45 nm, has the hope of increasing the frequencies by upto 35% with identical voltage or of economies of 50% in the energy for the same frequency.

Several users have reported issues or difficulties in using Airtunes with the last version of iTunes. The most frequently quoted errors are:
- Error -15000: due to an old firmware on the Airport station, updating it to the last version (with Airport utility) should fix the issue.
- Error 3256: pop up when Mac OS X Firewall is activated (Preferences/Security). You simply need to add iTunes to the list to authorized applications.
A reader reported to have problem with saturation of his Wi-Fi network following the installation of iTunes 8 (when used with Airtunes). Last but not least, it seems that similar issues are also present for the Windows version of iTunes, sometimes leading to the famous "screen of death". It is unclear if it is a coding mistake or a new way for Apple to push PC users to switch to Mac ;)

Surfing on its success with the current Radeon 48xx, AMD/ATI unveils a new series of graphic cards, targeting entry-level to main stream market, and branded Radeon 46xx.

When compared to the high-end models of Radeon 48xx featuring 800 processing cores, the 46xx models have "only" 320 cores, providing a performance level equivalent to the previous high-end models Radeon 38xx. However, the price will now be below 100 USD. In addition, the power consumption of the Radeon 46xx has been improved, especially for 2D display, an important point as today our GC have a tendency to drain massive amount of energy even when they are idle!

Apple started to fire back at iPhones jailbroken with Pwnage Tools. iTunes 8 is now able to detect a modified firmware, and then refuses to install it on the device.
So, it is currently impossible to jailbreak or SIM-unlock an iPhone with the current version of this software. However, the DevTeam already announced to have found a bypass and should release series of patches next week.
The question now is: how long will the new iPhone firmware 2.1 resist?

By attacking Psystar Apple announced that it is out of the question for them of leave the field free for the Hackitosh phenomenon, and especially for the companies which would like to make mone by this means.
However the war has only started and others continue to arrive at the front.
Thus, EFI-X has started to deliver its products. This is a large USB key that once connected to a PC allow it to install the whole Mac OS X as simply as with a true Apple machine, by putting a DVD in and then following the instructions of Apple.
The first reports show that this product functions, at least on a relatively short list of mother boards. This new face is more pernicious than that opened with Psystar. If dongle EFI-X contains code pertaining to Apple, they will be able to file a suit against the company.
If they exploit a fault in Apple protections, they will have much more difficulty to act by the legal channel and will have to start a battle of filling of these faults just like with the iPhone, which is definitely easier to say than to do. The iPhone is a concrete example.