News for Tuesday, 10 March 2009

In order not to have to pay royalties, China has creates its own format for readers and media using the blue laser, the CBHD. This is very close to the HD-DVD, accepting even the protections AACS. Since there is a market potential of hundreds of million customers, it could have a large success, that is a daunting thought to the Majors of Hollywood who have had for a long time sensitivity to those who want to propose films in this format. However, Warner Bros announced its intention to support this format in addition to Blu-ray.
The first films proposed in first six-month period of 2009 will be Harry Potter, Blood Diamond, Golden Compass and Racer Speed.
Proof that we overpay for our films in Europe, there they will be sold at between 50 and 70 Yuan, that is approximately 5 to 7 Euros. By comparison, Blu-ray Harry Potter is sold in France at over 30€. Even if the media are different and that the film proposed for us are better encoded perhaps have better bonuses; such a difference is unjustifiable.

According to Macrumors and confirming an information released one month ago), the last build of Snow Leopard will bring support for 4 fingers gesture on the first MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Penryn. Indeed, the trackpad on those models were already ready to support such technology.
For those of you who would like to make use of it without having to wait still Snow Leopard is released, the procedure are described hereafter for the first MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Penryn.

If you are looking for the cheapest Apple hardware, then you have to look at the Apple Refurb Store.

There are both models of the previous generation of Mac mini available, the entry level unit costs 410€. For 50€ more, you can get a faster CPU and a larger HD. Last but not least, those Mac mini can have their CPU replaced too, unlike the new models where the CPU is directly soldered to the motherboard. For information related to the procedure to upgrade previous model of Mac mini: Installing a Core 2 Duo in a Mac mini
Apple is also offering iPod Shuffle 1 GB for 29€, shipping cost included, an unbeatable deal.
Direct link to the Apple Refurb Store.

During a press conference, AMD and Seagate made the demonstration of the first fully functional interfaces of a bus SATA III able to convey data at 6 Gbits/s, i.e. a good 600 MB/s. This new standard thus doubles the data flow of the preceding standard while preserving total compatibility with the products of the old generation. The cables, the connectors will remain identical and thus will avoid any technological rupture.
It is amusing to see that Seagate is in such a hurry to promote this standard that should be the biggest help to the SSD market, a market in which they are still absent. Indeed, there are already SSD disks able to transfer data at nearly 250 MB/s and the evolution goes very quickly. No SATA hard drive is able to approach these flows and will be certainly only able to do it between the SATA interface and the cache.
This standard should be installed on the first computers at the end of the year. Its use by the general public will mainly depend on goodwill manufacturers of the Chipsets, Intel, NVidia and AMD.

As many among us have noted. Apple modified the specifications of the connector of its latest iPhones and iPods making them incompatible with a number of accessories planned for the old models. Even though this is not serious with cheaper accessories, it is a different matter with more expensive.
In order to regulate the problem, Scosche offer the passport.

Available in white and black for 29,99 GB pounds, it fits between the dock of the accessories and the ipod/iphone. Although the price is rather high, nearly 40 Euros, it will interest certainly those who, for example, have invested in the SoundDock of Bose.