News for Tuesday, 16 December 2008

[insert your favorite expletive here]!
Apple just announced that 2009 will be their last participation in MacWorld Expo: no more Apple booth, no more Opening Keynote.
Oh, and also, this year's MWSF Keynote will be delivered by Phil Schiller, not Steve Jobs.
[try and find another expletive here]!

Intel proposes in its portables Centrino 2 the technology vPro that allows the machine, once activated on the network, to let the administrators take control of it in order to regulate a problem. This takeover is done on a very low level, below the operating system so that it allow control even when the OS has crashed.
Ericsson announced to be in association with Intel in order to propose 3G modules to be integrated into the laptops and compatible with the hardware specifications of vPro.
The goal is to be able to decrease the consequences of the loss of a computer. Thanks to the 3G module, it will be possible to send a SMS to the machine, which automatically will be able to encode the data of the hard drive and to even refuse to start again. All this happening on the level from the mother board, so formating the hard drive will not achieve anything.
The two companies also think of other interesting applications if the machine is also equipped with a GPS. It would be able to then communicate its position in order to facilitate a search or quite simply to refuse to function if it leaves an authorized perimeter (for example some hundred meters beyond the buildings of the company).
We need to wait until the second half-year 2009 for these solutions and it should interest the big groups and administrations which cannot permit the loss of confidential information.

According to NPD, November was marked by a significant deceleration of the sales of the office Mac that have fallen by 38% whereas portables increased by 22%.
Concerning Windows, the fall of the office machines of office was definitely lower with a fall of 15% while the market of the portables gained 7%.
One can suppose in addition to the economic crisis, many potential buyers the iMac and of the Mac Pro await an update of this range while the sales of mini Mac, having now a calamitous ratio of innovation/price were completely stagnant.
All that remains is to hope that these poor figures push Apple to renew its "desktop" range as fast as possible.

Some will regret not being student in Cologne; indeed some professors from the University proposed to equip all students with an iPhone, in other words 45,000 devices! Now, let's see if the board of the University will accept such project...
The goal is to use this platform in order to develop supposed specific applications to improve and facilitate the life of the student. All that remains is to find a rich patron to do the same in France (or wherever).
, Thanks to Bernhard for additional details

Once the original protection system AACS installed on the Blu-ray quickly showed its limitation and was finally hacked, BD promoters unveiled their new anti-pirate weapon: BD+ protection. In summary, it is a virtual machine ensuring that the media is an original one and not a copy. Unfortunately, this new protection was hacked again couple of weeks after its introduction. As in a never ending story, the BD+ system has been updated and is installed on the recently released BD movies. It seems more reliable than the previous one as it still resists to hackers for now more than one month, nevertheless, SlySoft, the editor of the famous AnyDVD software, expects to break the new protection soon.
So, the war between protection systems and hackers continues, promoted by Majors that did not understand yet that money spent on developing such temporary protection should better be invested in lowering production cost, making piracy or copying BD movies not worth it. AnyDVD is the only software allowing Mac users to play BD movies (even without HDCP) on their Mac hardware, while waiting for Apple to find an agreement with Majors and BD license owners.

Leopard is not the only OS X version to be updated; Mac OS 10.4.11 was also refreshed. In details, the following services have been modified and improved:
- Apple Type Services (PDF)
- BOM
- CoreGraphics
- CoreServices
- CoreTypes
- Flash Player Plug-in
- Kernel
- Libsystem
- Managed Client
- Network_cmds
- Podcast Producer
- UDF
Both update are available for Intel (163 MB) and PPC (71.6 MB).
For further details, please visit the dedicated webpage from Apple TechNote Support.

Despite the economic slow down, Apple executives remain positives and argue that the current product offer will allow the company to go through the storm without much problems. An analyst from Goldman Sachs downgraded Apple from "Buy" to "Neutral" based on concerns about weak consumer spending in the current quarter and potential problems for the next 2 quarters. This decision was also made based on expected lower iPhone sales in the first half of 2009, while rumors indicate that Apple might release an iPhone 4GB model in collaboration with Wall Mart to boost its sales. In summary, if you own Apple shares, keep them, if you do not have any in your share account, do not buy them.
This information comes less than 48 hours after the news related to the absence of Steve Jobs during the MWSF, and the associated "no new product introduction" linked to the lack of the usual keynote. Of course, the IT and consumer electronic industries will feel the economic slow down, and Apple will certainly be affected too. However, its broad catalog should allow the company to better balance the expected lower sales in computer by the excellent iPhone sales over the past and current quarters. Moreover, the company has enough cash to keep developing during the difficult period and come up with groundbreaking products in six months.

When the first unibody MacBook models were released, some users noticed that one could not recognize the iPhone in DFU mode which is required for SIM-unlocking or jailbreaking an iPhone. One could not decide if this was a consequence of the specific unibody OS X version, or rather a voluntary move from Apple to slow down such iPhone-related activities. Today we know.
Indeed, the 10.5.6 update extends this incompatibility with iPhone in DFU mode to all Macs. So this is a measure to prevent iPhone owners to unlock it, at least on Mac. So, one would need a Mac running with a previous version of OS X, or using Windows, to unlock an iPhone. However, it seems that one can bypass this new "protection" by copying some Framework from previous OS X version into 10.5.6. We will try to follow and validate a full procedure.

Just like in some countries, the 3G iPhone is marketed in Taiwan without being simlocked. It is possible of to use it everywhere in the world and with no restriction on the sim card.
Note: there is little interest in buying it there. The apparatus is sold with a price higher than that proposed by Orange, SIM-unlocking included.
If you wish more on the countries where the iPhone is offered without being sim locked, Apple holds an up to date list giving this information to the following web page:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937

So you've had your fun with your Dremel handy-tool (How to Adapt an iPhone 1G dock for the iPhone 3G) and desesperatly seeking for another surgical gesture on an apple thing.
Well here's a little trick that could help us, who are always on the run from one place to another, with the need to connect our mac to a DVI projector. If the old MacBook Pros had a DVI-I dual Link connector built-in, the MacBook, MacBook Air and the new MacBook Pros do need an special Apple adapter to hook to a DVI Cable. Those Adapters, could they be Mini-DVI, Micro-DVI ou Apple Dispayport to DVI, only support a DVI-D plug.
That's a real issue when a client offers you an only DVI-I cord with four extra pins to plug in: there's no way to hook it to your pricey Apple Adaptor.

Here's a little trick that can help you solve that problem. The following pictures describe how to remove a small amout of plastic on the right side of your adapters, making them all kinds of DVI pluggable, and ready to fit the DVI-I extra pins.
One must not forget this helpfull fix won't help you connect to Analog DVI devices.