News for Monday, 29 September 2008

The business success of Apple in music is mainly related to the interdependence between the iPod and iTunes. It is technically impossible to use the first without passing through the second, while it is quite impossible to read the Fairplay files on other things besides the iPod.
Even though this irrefutable fact does not seem to pose a problem in the majority of the countries, Norway will not hear of it, and asked Apple to make the two entities more independent.
Apple has been dragging its feet, thus the mediator in charge of the defense of the consumers has fixed an ultimatum. If by November 3 Apple does not answer its request, Norwegian justice will be notified.

It will be very difficult for Apple to propose another way of filling an iPod (and they certainly do not want to), one can suppose that they coulld propose in this country only AAC pieces without DRM, even if it means having to make big cuts in the catalogue proposed in Norway.

The Telegraph published an interesting article one how itunes has changed the way customers consider music a,d purchase accordingly tracks or complete albums. In summary, iTunes users mostly buy single songs from temporarily popular bands than the complete album, so they should be consider more like bees moving from one track to another, rather than collectors acquiring the complete album containing the current music hit.
This is the reason why AC/DC refused to have its album available on iTunes as they did not want to give customers/fans the choice of purchasing only couple of songs... Indeed, the famous music band consider this album as an entire piece of art, so taking one song out of its entire context would be meaningless. Other majors or bands are using similar arguments to refuse offering new albums on iTunes, as it would "kill the album" by selling it into pieces...
Without considering Apple business plan, let's simply look at this story on the customer's side. If some artist have such a high consideration of their work or albums, so why would then agree to have their past hits summed up in some "Best of" compilation released by their Majors to generate cash flow for almost no investment? By definition, they also break the magic of the entire album by offering such hit selection!? So, their arguments is just meaningless, and mostly biased by a financial perspective of selling an entire album to customers who will mostly buy it for one or two songs... Is it what is called having respect for music fans? For sure, bands not having signed with a Majors, and directly dealing with iTunes might have a completely deferent point of view, but of course, they do not have the same exposure to news networks than AC/DC, unfortunate as they could also have interesting comments to deliver to their public.

If one could have thought that with its victory over the HD-DVD format, Sony's way to the HD video Eldorado was now free. Unfortunately, several key companies are questioning the financial benefit of investing in BD format. First corporate is of course Toshiba, but Samsung recently joined the group, arguing that the lifetime of BD will most likely be short due to the development of HD video online offer, not requiring support for a media, but rather to invest in online stores. If one considers that sales of BD standalone players are not really rocketing up, and even OEM and computer manufacturers are not willing to pay premium price to integrate such drive in their computer models, one could think that BD is already EOL. Of course, Sony had to react against such campaign, and Rick Clancy, Sony CEO, went on the stage to provide his point of view and how the Japanese giant is seeing the future of BD in which it has invested massive amount of money for both developing it and lobbying Hollywood majors to adopt it. Hereafter are his arguments:
- Every PS3 sold is a BD player, in other words the amount of BD players is increasing worldwide everyday. Of course, if Sony would be selling as much PS3 as Nintendo Wii game station, this would be even more impressive.
- He argues that in the coming weeks and months, the number of movies available in BD format will increase massively, as well for TV shows and series
- He postulates that linked to the expect explosion of sales of TV HD, customers will further invest in a HD media standalone player to enjoy the HD capabilities of their recently purchased HD 1080p TV.
Of course, such plan can indeed turn true if TV HD manufacturers such as Sony, but also Samsung or Toshiba, decide to massively cut the price of 1080p TV models, Christmas period approaching we will quickly know if such strategy will be applied or not.

End of last week, we posted a new about the on-going investigation related to some cases of Mac Pro emitting irritating and toxic fumes. We obtained the report of the analysis performed by the Analytika laboratory on the fumes originating from a Mac Pro own by the National Center for Research and Sciences. Hereafter are the details about the procedure and the results:
-first, and it is important, it was only a qualitative analysis, as a quantitative analysis could not be carried out. So, the goal was to identify the compound and not determine their concentration.
- They used 2 passive sensor located in the air flow of the cooling system of the Mac Pro over a period of 8 days.
- Samples have been analyzed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.
- 7 independent chemical compounds have been identified without any doubt:

Propanal (CAS123386)
Benzene, (1-methylethenyl)- (CAS98839)
Ethanone, 1-phenyl- (CAS98862)
1,3-Isobenzofurandione (CAS85449)
Benzene, 1,4-dinitro- (CAS100254) ou Benzene, 1,3-dinitro- (CAS99650)
2-Propanone (CAS67641)
Acetic acid (CAS64197)

All those compounds are known to be toxic, at variable dosing. MSDS sheets are available on http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/
So, what to think about? It remains difficult to provide a clear answer as the analysis was only qualitative. However, the report has been sent on January 2008, and the news only leaked 8 months later, so one can question why so late, and why now and not earlier? Without a quantitative analysis it remains impossible to define if chemical concentrations remained in the non-harmful/lethal dose interval, but it is in all cases unacceptable as the concentration was high enough to have effects of users (irritations, coughing, nausea, etc.). Of course, one would also miss a counter-analysis to demonstrate if the problem is coming from computer or if chemicals could have been introduced later on.
So, what to do? Well, it is clear there are most likely no western companies that will release consciously on the market a product hosting dangerous and toxic compounds, as the impact on its image would then be terrible and most likely bring it on its knees. Recent news have shown us that Apple called back USB power adaptors due to a manufacturing defect. Of course the recent baby milk scandal in China shows us that different country, different regulation, different behaviors, but same result, the company involved is dead. So, if Apple did not call back all Mac Pro, it probably indicates that it is not a general issue, and most likely remains isolated, however if you have a Mac Pro and have a doubt, do not hesitate to contact Apple.
However, just to demonstrate that so far identified cases are not only originating from France, hereafter is a report, posted on our forum:

Last year myself and two colleagues bought a Mac pro each. Their machines were fine. Mine was not. It heats up and begins to smell. Its a stink that resembles bad body odour mixed with melted plastics. (No it's not me, I checked.) Applecare providers have spent time on it and agree that the smell comes form the heatsinks on the motherboard. Could be also the RAM heatsinks. We tried replacing the thermal paste around the heatsinks, but the smell is still there. For the skeptics who have not experienced this problem, it must sound like oversensitivity. It isn't. This is not a "new car" or "new electronics" smell. It's an unpleasant and worrying problem. It's an issue that will come back to Apple and bite them if they continue to avoid it... and avoid it they continue to do. It's extremely unhappy news that the particulates in the vapour have been identifies as known toxins. I have spent a year in a small editing room with mine and not only is it unpleasant for me and my clients, but it could be slowly poisoning us as well.
Mac users are loyal customers. Apple should look after us a whole lot better and find a way of fixing this whole thing rather than fobbing us off. (and there are quite a few threads on this topic out there)

Drops us a line if you also own one of those strange Mac Pro, please provide as much information as possible (model, serial number, location, country).

Sometimes called "rebranding", this procedure consists of changing the name of a GPU and is quite popular among graphic card manufacturers, and some consumer groups think it is designed to foul customers. ATI was a champion to recycle previous generation of a GPU as the entry-level of the new series. NVidia is going to apply the same procedure for recycling its GeForce 9xxx engraved at 55 nm.
Those chips will be renamed and become GeForce GT1x0. Of course, performance level will remain identical but the company will be able to sell more of them due to the branding name of its flagship model GeForce GT200. Due to the manufacturing issue, the GeForce 8xxx should be discontinued as potentially cursed and because most OEM do not ant to use them anymore.

Toshiba announced the availability of the first samples of its 2.5" SSD model featuring 256 GB of storage space. This drive is based on MLC memory chips allowing data transfer speed of 120 MB/s and 70 MB/S in reading and writing modes respectively. Available with a SATA II interface, its thickness of 3 mm should also be an interesting parameter for OEM as it would make it a perfect drive to be integrated into thin ultra portable notebook. Did we say MacBook Air?
This drive should be available on Q4 2008, and the price remains unknown. Let's hope that Toshiba send us a sample prior to relase for a test.

A new version of VLC is available. It corrects many bugs related to the slow down noted on Mac PPC. To see the list of the modifications:
http://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc/NEWS
To download VLC:
http://www.videolan.org

Official figures (and validated by an external source) concerning the attendance of Apple Expo (France) show a fall. 30.000 people came to the expo, against 54.000 last year.
As expected, the absence of Apple had a heavy impact on the visits, especially (according to our information) on the foreigners and more generally the people coming from far.
Is this the last Apple Expo? Doubtless; Apple has practically no chance to authorize again with this expo bearing its name without its presence.
On the other hand, it would not be surprising if Reed decides to create a new event, in the vein of the IFA in Berlin which is directed in a more general way to consumer electronics.