News for Wednesday, 14 January 2009

According to reliable source, below is the building where the first French Apple Store will be located, rune Halevy, behin the Opera Garnier.

Works already started for the Apple Store Le Louvre "Carrousel", but it will take much more time to get them completed due to the location and the envrionment to be preserved.

According to Fudzilla, Western Digital should announce in the coming days or hours new series of 3.5" HD featuring a record storage space of 2 TB.

Models will be available with different rotation speeds, 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm, and will feature 32 MB of cache. Those new products should be immediately available and prices should range from 160 to 180 Euro, a very aggressive offer for the launch of a new product.

Apple posted job opportunities relative to the HSUPA and mobile phone. This is the successor of the used HSDPA technology currently present in the iPhone. Theoretical max transfer speed should now top at 14 Mbits/s instead of 3.6 Mbits/s. In France and in most EU countries, carriers are already deploying such technology, and future iPhone should support it. Performance wise such changes should not bring a massive difference with the current iPhone.
Apple might also offer an iPhone with a 3G+ integrated technology which would then open the mobile phone to different carriers worldwide, leaving the door opened to the end of the exclusive partnership.

Despite the current economic slow down, Orange (French iPhone carrier) successfully sold the iPhone during the Christmas period, with 200,000 units shipped in December. After having lost its exclusive right on the iPhone in France, Orange is actively promoting the iPhone with new subscription plans, cheaper and/or with free functions such as unlimited SMS to all carriers.
In the meantime, the 2 other carriers who got the right to offer the iPhone in France, Bouygues and SFR, did not release their associated subscription plans yet. Either, Apple is not willing to follow the legal decision as smoothly as expected, and it might cost a lot to the company if the council considers it as such; or both carriers are facing technical issues for deploying the iPhone on their network. The latest is relatively unlikely as SFR announced to have already thousands of SIM-unlocked iPhone used on its network, and even launched subscription plans for such users ("Illimythics").

Pure Silicon, a manufacturer of highly specified components, announced the first 2.5" SSD featuring 1 TB storage space.

This drive will have performance level close to the specifications of the SATA II interface with respectively 240 MB/S and 215 MB/s in reading and writing mode. Unfortunately no price was provided, but this was expected as this company is usually offering on-demand and/or very specific products for space, plan or defense industries for which usually price is not an issue.
We just need to be patient; at the current pace, 1 TB SSD will be available on consumer electronic market in less than 2 years.

According to Le Point, Kaspery, the editor of antivirus software works on an iPhone version considering that the Apple device could be the target of attacks, especially if it is jailbroken with software of doubtful origin is installed.
According to Intego who we asked about this subject, it is most improbable that Apple will let pass this kind of software onto its AppStore. It would go against the light years of company policy that has officially stated that such precautions are useless on its products. Moreover, the licence of the SDK iPhone prohibits the development of such software.
This is why Intego circumvented this limitation by authorizing the checking of the iPhone from a Mac.
If Kaspery nevertheless decides to launch such a software, it will be only accessible to those with Jailbroken iPhones and this is precisely their target. However such a move would attract a lot of bad publicity and Apple has a memory for this kind of thing like that of an elephant.

Even though Microsoft products continue to be sold like bread rolls, accompanying the vast majority of the PCs marketed all over the world, the supremacy of the giant is now being disputed.
This is certainly this reason that pushes them to open their first shop at Redmond, their stronghold. On a surface of almost 2000 m2, they will present not only their products, but also their knowledge to make technology.
The name on the door will be "The Retail Experience Center".
Following the image of the Apple Store, it will be possible to test all products before purchasing them on the spot.

Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate since 2004 was abruptly replaced at the head of the company by Stephen Luczo who chaired the council of administration of the market leader of hard drives.
We do not know the reason of the disgrace of Bill Watkins, but we would not be surprised if it is, at least partly, related to his positions re the arrival of SSD disks.
For a long time he considered that the market of SSD disks had no chance to compete with the traditional products. He then tried to block those who manufactured some by attacking them for patent violation before finally announcing that the company would launch out in this market during 2009.
However even though the market of the SSD is still far from mature, there are those who are already on top, such as Samsung, Intel or OCZ whom are already armed with their first generations of disks, but more importantly are making their reputation.
One can suppose that the attempt to repurchase Sandisk that was the entry ticket to the world of the SSD and which has rightly fallen through forms part of the reasons of this ousting.