News for Thursday, 12 March 2009

The latest news: a cascade of new computer releases makes it possible for Apple not to feel the effects of the crisis. They have even been obliged to ask their suppliers to accelerate the production pace in order to follow the demand.
The great surprise comes from Mac mini, a badly liked offspring from Apple but has met a success beyond any hope. But this does not surprise us. This machine is certainly the most attractive Apple.

Hereafter is a report from Marc:

It seems that things are moving quickly regarding the fake iTunes Store gift cards. they have all been removed from Taobao.com during the night.
One of my chinese contacts have had his Paypal account blocked, and it might be only the beginning...
And it seems that Apple is not selling any gift card anymore (at least in USA)...

The buzz generated by this topic have certainly pushed Apple to quickly (and massively) react, as the potential financial impact was huge.

Apple started sending invitations to news networks for a special event dedicated to iphone OS 3.0. this event will take place on March 17th at 17 CET.

So far we have no real information about the new features bundled with the new iPhone OS, including the copy-paste function. The new SDK will also be released at the same time.
One can already imagine that Apple will take advantage of the new OS to strengthen its protection system and add new walls to prevent jailbreaking.

If you find that the hard drive is the bottleneck in your computer (which is almost always the case), here a video to make you drool with envy.

In this publicity, Samsung implements a RAID 0 of 24 SSD discs where the data flow reaches 2 GB/s, this is to transfer the contents of a DVD in hardly more than 2 seconds. Of course, only of people with very deep pockets will have the means of assembling such a configuration.

In order to fight against the platform Ion of NVidia for the Atom processors, Intel has launched its new chipset, the GN40. On paper it puts the NVidia chip into the shade since it can also decode videos in 1080p given that the CPU alone is unable to do this task.
But looking more closely, marketing has had a big influence. Indeed, if this chipset is able to decode HD videos, they are not those with high data flow that one finds on of Blu-ray for example, but rather those that one can find on Internet. Obviously, the chip is able to decode the WMV but would be unable with H.264 or VC1.
Indeed Intel appears to make a gift to Nvidia, which is not a big surprise. They have never had the knowledge to produce effective graphics chips, and Larrabbe is still at the project stage for some time to come.

Dell has released a new portable with a very targeted market in mind.

This computer is intended for adventurers and for those which must use machines in environments which would be fatal for other portables.
The E6400 XFR is completely sealed and manufactured in a metal which would be as hard as magnesium and even able to stop bullets.
The machine will be priced from $4299.

As foreseen (this new version is indispensable for the Shuffle announced yesterday), iTunes 8.1 is available:

iTunes 8.1 is now faster and more responsive. You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing.
In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides many other improvements and bug fixes, including:
• Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).
• Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.
• Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.
• Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.
• Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.
• Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.
• Includes many accessibility improvements.
• Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

It is accompanied by an update of Front Row:

This Front Row update provides improved iTunes 8.1 compatibility.

[Update] We dug up for you a link allowing you to listen to what the voice synthesis gives on French Shuffle:
http://www.apple.com/...#French