News for Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Apple has posted Safari 4.1.1 and 5.0.1 to software update. Here are the details of the latest version:

New in this update:

• Safari Extensions
  
  • Customize Safari with features created by third-party developers
  • Find extensions in the Safari Extensions Gallery, accessible from the Safari menu and extensions.apple.com

This update also contains improvements to stability, accessibility and security, including the following:

• More accurate Top Hit results in the Address Field
• More accurate timing for CSS animations
• Better stability when using the Safari Reader keyboard shortcut
• Better stability when scrolling through MobileMe Mail
• Fixes display of multipage articles from www.rollingstone.com in Safari Reader
• Fixes an issue that prevented Google Wave and other websites using JavaScript encryption libraries from working correctly on 32-bit systems
• Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from launching on Leopard systems with network home directories
• Fixes an issue that could cause borders on YouTube thumbnails to disappear when hovering over the thumbnail image
• Fixes an issue that could cause Flash content to overlap with other content on www.facebook.com, www.crateandbarrel.com, and other sites when using Flash 10.1
• àFixes an issue that prevented boarding passes from www.aa.com from printing correctly
• Fixes an issue that could cause DNS prefetching requests to overburden certain routers
• Fixes an issue that could cause VoiceOver to misidentify elements of webpages

For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Toshiba unveiled 2 new series of notebook-dedicated 2.5" HD (9.5mm thickness):

• First series will offer up to 640 GB of storage space at 7,200 rpm with 16 MB of cache. Silence and performance.
• Second series will offer up to 500 GB, but the remaining storage space not available will be used for an on-the-fly encrypting system that could be very useful for corporate.

All those new 2.5" HD will only be available on Q4 2010. In the past Toshiba was known for offering reliable, but low performance notebook HD, with the recent acquisition of Fujitsu HD devision, we could maybe get an excellenet mix, giving birth to standard HD offering silence, performance and reliability.

Yesterday, Apple created a surprise by announcing new iMac and Mac Pro models. But when looking at them in details, those models do not look so new:

1) Mac Pro have been updated with the minimal new features available: Hexa Core Xeon already available from Intel for months, and only HD tray have been refreshed for being able to hold a 2.5" DS (such as SSD. Of course, graphic cards have been updated, but the Radeon HD 5xxx are getting close to EOL. We were strongly expecting USB3.0 and faster FireWire from our sources, as well as a revision of the enclosure, but Apple decided to maintain production lines unchanged.

2) iMac 27" received exactly the same update program: a bit faster CPU, with the Quad Core Core i5 and new GPU. The only interesting feature is the BTO for adding a SSD in addition to the default HD WITHOUT removing the optical drive.

The real good surprise is for the iMac 21.5" that are now featuring a true GPU and a Core i3. As a reminder, the Core i3 is identical to the Core i5 or i7, but lacks the hyperthreading function. This lack could lead to 20 to 50% decrease in performance if you are using applications making massive call to hyperthreading. The upgrade from Core i3 to Core i5 would cost around 180 €.

We currently think that Apple has been refreshing those models to create buzz around new machines to counter the on-going campaigns about the antenna gate. This announcement come quickly and the new Mac Pro as well as the new Appel Cinema Display 27" are not immediately available for shipping.

NVidia and Rambus have been in court against each other for years now, Rambus claiming an infringement of one of their thousand patents. Until now, NVidia had successfully gotten the court invalidating the procedures and even some patents, but this time, they lost.

The court considered that they infringe on 3 patents and condemned them. NVidia announced they they will form an appeal against the court decision.

This decision is good news for Rambus that announced a negative quarter and can now be a little more confident about the future. We remind you that this company keeps up almost only by filing patents in a more or less elegant manner, and then by getting money in the complains they file against all the companies making or using computer memory.

As a lot of mobile device manufacturers, not including Apple, HTC used AMOLED screen on some of its new smartphones. Those screens have a very good brightness, viewing angles, and consume very little power.

However, they have one big flaw, they are very scarce. There is too much demand for too little offer. Instead of suspending their production for a while, HTC has decided to go back to LCD screens, using a Sony Super LCD screen that is more power efficient and has better viewing angles than other LCD screens.

This is not the first time that a new electronic component becomes scarce. To avoid that, Apple tends more and more to secure their buyings before the device comes out, sometimes y investing in other companies as they did with LG. Unfortunately, it is not always enough as we can see with the iPhone and the iPad.

As you may have noticed, Apple only provides with black cases all iPhone users who want to participate to their free case program. Yet, there are lots of colorful cases. One of our correspondent gave us a strange explanation. When taking a picture with the flash, the light is being refleted on the the case and the picture gets a shade of the color of the case. 
Apple's Bumper, since it is far way from the flash, is not concerned by that problem, at least we can suppose it, since only black and white models have been sold, and the colorful ones have since been removed, while they are not included in the free case program, but that's probably so they can concentrate on making black and white ones.
Keep this in mind if you want to get a colorful case.