News for Thursday, 5 February 2009

Last September Norway announced its intention to sue Apple and the iTunes Store because of the constraints caused by DRM at the online shop. However, the procedure launched will not go its term.
Indeed, the end of the DRM announces on the iTunes Store make these continuations null and void and the Norwegian government quite naturally decided to put an end to it.
It will be one thing of less for the Apple lawyers to manage who are overworked anyway since the company flies from success to success.

Fujitsu Siemens has revealed a new portable, the AMILO Notebook Sa 3650 equipped with an innovative function.

It is possible to connect an external box containing a video card more powerful than that the proposed internal card. This video card is not only able to support an external monitor, but also to accelerate the display on the screen of the portable itself; and this is very innovative.
This technology developed by AMD/ATI does not have equivalent at NVidia. It brings a certain elegance since the external video card can be very powerful since it has its own power and cooling whereas the machine can be satisfied with its integrated video card for nomad use.

In spite of the rapid reversal of economic outlook, the Blu-ray Disc Association remains optimistic on the development of the Blu-ray market.
They consider that the figures already obtained are promising and that the advent of the 3D could prove more decisive in the near future.
Rather than to discredit the offers of downloading, the thinkers of the association consider that these two modes of distribution can cohabit and both can blossom without obligatorily finding themselves in competition.
They intend to continue to do the utmost to promote this format. It is completely possible that the demand ends up exploding since the price of the readers continues to drop with regularity. But one will need for that they decide to fix, at least for some time, their format and especially that the price of the Blu-ray films comes down in price.
To finish it would also be necessary that the studios make an effort at the level of the encoding of their films. Some of them seem not yet able to control this stage completely and propose films where the quality is not the highest; this together with the long wait make it not worth the asking price.

Apple should update its Obsolete List next March 17th, and several G4-based models should now be part of it:
• Xserve Raid
• Xserve (Slot Load)
• Xserve (Cluster Node)
• PowerBook G4
• Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)
* Only G4-based Xserve are concerned. For PowerBooks, those are models released 7 years ago; seeing them now obsolete, while some of us unpacked them brand new, makes us realizing how time is running.

Thanks to all readers who sent us this information as soon as they got the following message from Apple:

All messages indicate that the MacBook Pro 17" should start shipping from February 19th, unlike previously stated. Several rumors during the MWSF were already indicating that Apple will not be able to deliver the freshly released MBP 17" before the end of January. Let's hope that this is just a 3 weeks delay, and not the beginning of a longer waiting period...

As reported by Benjamin from www.sevenmac.net, a new company offering Hackintosh has been launched in Germany. It offers hardware shipping with Mac OS X pre-installed (as well as Windows).
Available in three models (Starter, Advanced and Professional), each hardware can be customized including the choice of CPU (very similar to the BTO from the Apple Store). Prices range from 499 Euro till 1499 Euro for the three standard models. Unlike Apple, PearC offers a hardware powered by the new Intel desktop CPU Core i7.
After Psystar, this is a new Hackintosh provider against which apple will have to fight. However, unlike the US company, this one is located in Germany, so local regulations might change the deal.

LG brings to the market a monitor that is a bit out of the ordinary.

The W2286L is indeed able to display images coming from a computer, without wire, by using Wi-Fi. Of course, it lacks the power for gaming, but following the example of what they offer for USB monitors, to be sufficient for office use.
In addition to this function which could interest the people often moving their portable, it is not so bad in the other fields:
- 22" with a resolution of 1680x1050
- Retro lighting LED
- time responce of 2ms
- Contrast of 1000000:1.
It and of course also possible to connect it via a cable for the best in video and 3D.