News for Monday, 20 October 2008

According to The Mac Observer quoting a "an attorney close to the case", Apple and Psystar will negotiate amicably in order to regulate their differences
We do not know where this will end, anything is possible: a withdrawal of Psystar from the OS X market to an agreement allowing them to continue to propose OS X on their machines in exchanges of royalties (this last possibility remains quite improbable).
We will know more in a few months, but while waiting, Psystar on its site continuous to propose a configurations with OS X pre-installed.

First a report from Pierre:

When I use my MacBook Pro over couple of hours, it suddenly refuses to launch any new application, mentioning an Error 10810.
This is a quite well described error code in numerous forum, but many users can not find a fix, despite rebooting the notebook.
some users have identified Airport as being the potential factor leading to this problem. By entering ps -ef into the Terminal, it shows that multiple processes are launched and saturate the CPU, putting the CPU on its knees by reaching the maximal process allowed.

501 486 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 493 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 498 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 505 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 510 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 517 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 522 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 529 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 534 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 541 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 546 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 553 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 558 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 565 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 570 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 577 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 582 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 595 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 600 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 607 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 612 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 619 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 624 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.00 (airport)
501 751 183 0 0:00.00 ?? 0:00.01 /System/Library/PrivateFrame
0 141 140 0 0:00.01 ttys000 0:00.02
501 142 141 0 0:00.03 ttys000 0:00.04 -bash
0 752 142 0 0:00.00 ttys000 0:00.00 ps -ef
Macintosh:~

Up now I could not figure out how this multiple process were generated. Today, I identified the source for my notebook This is CoconutWifi 3.0 beta 1. After deleting it, it did not had any problem anymore. Let's hope it can help other users.

We recommend users to pay attention to all application developed to filter or screen internet data, especially those dedicated to wireless connection. In many cases, they screen frequencies and decrease the overall performance of the wireless network.

According to some sources, Intel seems to be ahead on its roadmap, and the iCore7, aka Nehalem, might come out on November 3rd (end of NDA) instead of November 17th. This could be linked to PC manufacturers and/or resellers, already having iCore7 in stocks and not willing to wait 2 additional weeks before making them available.
First iCore7 models will feature 4 cores, 8 MB of cache and clock frequencies ranging from 2.66 to 3.2 GHz. Those models will be dedicated to desktop computer only. The Nehalem Xeon, which will most likely be used by Apple in the next Mac Pro revision, should be released during this quarter, but there is no defined date yet. According to sources, a Nehalem-based Mac Pro should feature 12 memory slots, and modules should be added in triplicate for each CPU.

As expected following the introduction of new MacBook models, Apple should release new iMac models as reported by Apple Insider. It should not feature big surprises but rather unify the architecture between iMac and MacBook Pro. So, we should have Centrino 2 Core 2 Duo, running on a 1066 MHz bus, coupled to DDR3 memory, and most likely to a NVidia chipset for entry level model, and a dual GPUs for the high end model, even though its current interest to save battery life time is useless on such desktop models.
It will be interesting to see how CPU frequency will evolve, will Apple maintain current clock frequency or use higher clocked model? Will the video of new iMac models be only from NVidia, or can be expect the current powerful ATI Radeon to be available too?

As usual, Primate Labs run a synthetic benchmarking (Geekbench 2) of the previous and new MacBook and MacBook Pro models. As expected the benchmark test, measuring only the processor and memory performance, did not reveal any real difference between the previous and the new models. If DDR3 modules are supposed to offer a widers bandwidth, the slower latency does not make it a faster alternative than the current low latency DDR2 modules.
One should keep in mind that this architecture is a transition one towards Nehalem, and this is most likely the reason why Apple introduced this new design to justify a revision as the hardware differences were not providing any true memory and CPU performance gains. Nehalem-based Macbook will be the true evolution.
However, when running "everyday tests", MacWorld demonstrated that the new architecture, especially associated with more powerful GPUs could deliver higher performance levels than the previous models. The new entry level MacBook clocked at 2.0 GHz is faster than the previous one sporting a Core 2 Duo at 2.1 GHz, and even came close to the previous model clocked at 2.5 GHz!
For MacBook Pro models, this is slightly different, as only GPU-demanding test demonstrate the gain of performance provided by the new architecture. New models seem to hold faster HDs too. These specific differences demonstrate how benchmarking tests on Mac are still not properly design to indicate the true overall performance of a Mac model in real conditions.
According to several reports, playing HD H.264 video on the new MacBook is less CPU-demanding than with the previous model. Indeed, it now only requires 30 % CPU power vs. 100 % full CPU usage before. Several possible explanations, both Apple and NVidia have optimized GPU drivers to make it possible to better benefit from GPU power for playing HD video, or the new architecture is making better use of the integrated SSE4 of the Core 2 Duo.
Let's hope that improved drivers will be made available for previous NVidia-based Mac, as NVidia GPUs were supporting HD video decoding from a long time. This is important as it will further increase battery life time of NVidia-based MacBook/MacBook Pro.

Since its discovery or more precisely its construction, the carbon nanotube does not cease to surprise the scientists, for its exceptional electrical properties as much as its mechanical properties. One should, in future, see some in use everywhere, in electronics and in mechanics.
Samsung has just found a new application by presenting a 14.3" color screen that uses them. Called the EPD, this screen has the basis to make an excellent iPaper, a low power consumption, flexibility, and a very good legibility…
To pass to industrial use, it will still be necessary to lower the manufacturing costs of these products, which will still take a little time.

Even if the newest version of Adobe, the CS4 is not yet compatible with CUDA, it already starts to use part of the graphics card to accelerate the treatment of certain functions and increase the speed of, for example, the zoom, rotations, the panoramics…
NVidia has now released a dedicated card, the Quadro CX.
We are unaware of if Apple will propose OS X drivers for this product, but it would be a good thing, this card having a Displayport and able (via an adapter) to manage the new 24" LED monitors and their next variations.