HardMac.com

An update for Safari to version 4.0.5...

crispin@macbidouille.com (crispin) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:21:35 +0100

This update (31.8 MB) is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to performance, stability, and security including:

Performance improvements for Top Sites
Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins
Stability improvements for websites with online forms and Scalable Vector Graphics
Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from changing settings on some Linksys routers
Fixes an issue that prevented some iWork.com users from commenting on documents

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

NVIDIA Bets on Tegra

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

By refusing to license the technology required for developing controllers/chipset for its Clarkdale and Arrendale CPUs, Intel prevents NVIDIA to access the market where its last product, the GeForce 9400M has been a hit and most likely pushed Intel to react in such a way. While this story will find an end in front of the court, NVIDIA has to find a new market as its chipset can only be found on AMD CPU-based hardware.

So, NVIDIA announced the end of its R&D teams dedicated to chipset development, and the creation of new department dedicated to the design and development of Tegra chips. This is now a team composed of 650 people that will be working on such chips, consider by NVIDIA CEO as more power than the A4 developed by Apple. With such move, NVIDIA will not be in direct competition with Intel, as the founder does not really work hard on developing ARM-based CPU; for the time being...

USB3.0 becomes known without the support of Intel

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

If though we thought that the standard USB 3.0 would not manage to take off since it did not have the support of Intel and especially since it was not present in its chipsets of 2010. Today, a good number of PC manufacturers, portables and offices machines, add on the mother board of their products a controller able to add USB 3.0. The leading controller of this adaptation is manufactured by NEC.

NEC announced that they have already sold 2 million since September 2009. The demand is increasing, NEC announced that the monthly production of this chip would be pushed as of the next month to 2 million units monthly. Now when Intel decides to support this standard, there will be already many millions of computers all over the world which will support it and certainly more, since other chipmakers will not miss taking advantage of this hole.

No New MacBook/MBP: Intel Can NOT Deliver Enough Mobile Arrendale CPU!?

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:51:00 +0100

According to Digitimes, Intel is having problem to deliver enough units of mobile Arrendale Core i3/i5/i7 to computer manufacturers. The problem seems to be linked to some companies, such as Acer that placed orders for huge amount of chips, probably betting on a quick economic come-back after the gap. So, Intel would have decided to favor its main/largest customers first, answering other orders later when production would have fully ramped up. It remains unclear if this is the reason why we are still waiting for the update of Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro models based on Core ix. It is possible that Apple and Intel are not as close as it used to be 2 years ago, and the founder decided to deal first with Acer and Co than with Apple... same thing could apply for the delay of the new Mac Pro...

After the Mobile Phone and the OS, the Google TV

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:19:00 +0100

Sony announced to be working with Intel and google in order to improve internet contents on its current and futures TV models. Google would be working on a dedicated OS derived from Android, aka Google TV software. The remote control featuring a keyboard would be designed and manufactured by Logitech.

Such information could push Apple to (finally) update the Apple TV or bring a true new version in order to boost sales and turn this hobby into a success, as without a fully functional Apple TV Apple and the iTunes Store will be kick out from the emerging and juicy online video market.

Amazon releases its Kindle application for the Mac

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:00 +0100

Proof that they did not take up arms against the iPad, Amazon has just launched its Kindle application for Mac OS X.

It makes it possible to communicate with Kindle or quite simply to directly read the digital books bought on the Mac.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&ie=UTF8&docId=1000464931

A new process to fabricate processors ?

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Researchers at MIT made a breakthrough in a system which could in the future replace or rather change the manufactoring processes of processors based on lithography.

They have created molecular chains, to be precise copolymers that are capable of being arranged to form motifs. These motifs could become transistors.
Of course, one is still at light years away from being able to manufacture processors, but not so far from being able to produce simple chips, typically memories. These are indeed made up of completely repetitive patterns representing the cells of data storage. One could imagine in future that it is enough to soak plates in liquids before polymerizing them to produce memory chips whose capacity will be defined by the size of the plates and the properties of these copolymers since one can also imagine them to have 3D structures.

A problem with deep sleep mode for SandForce Controllers

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

It seems that that SSD discs using a SandForce controller have a problem that one has often met in the past with other SSD in our portables. It does not work with a system that 'sleeps' and very specifically to Mac OS X. In this case, even reclosing the portable does not put it to sleep and this causes a significant heating that can oblige one to restart by force to recover the use when it is reopened.
We had already given you a trick to circumvent this bug while waiting for an update of the drivers for the SSD. It is enough to change the the mode of hibernation of the portable. This is what causes the problem, the default mode will start by backing up the contents of the RAM onto the hard drive before putting its components to sleep. Thus, if the battery is drained, no work is lost. This is very practical, but in the event of a bug, it is simpler is to return to the previous mode which does nothing but put the components to sleep. To arrive there, one must enter the following commands in the terminal before giving your password administrator:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

You can also benefit from it by recovering some GB (size identical to the quantity of RAM that you have) immobilized unnecessarily while entering the command

sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

Of course if you fully discharge your battery, the machine will lose the memory.

Apple will no longer sell screen protectors for the iPhone

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:18:00 +0100

Which are the accessories most sold to the owners of the iPhone? They are certainly screen protectors that a good number of people stick onto the glass screen of their precious in order to protect them from scratches. This does not seem to stop Apple deciding from one day to the next to withdraw them from its online Apple Store as well as their physical shops.
This decision was a great surprise to the providers of Apple. Two reasons are advanced to explain this decision:

The difficulty of putting them in position would cause large number of returns (and Apple would refund these case)
Apple wants nothing that gives any impression that the screen of the iPhone is fragile. And yet…

In any case it will be a godsend for the other retailers of iPhone accessories that will recover back this market which has little chance of extinguishing from one day to the next.

A Blu-ray reader under $70

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Engadget has found what is certainly the cheapest current Blu-ray reader.

This Philips full HD reader is sold for less than $70. At this rate one should go down soon to under the $50 that will make these readers the natural alternatives to the readers of DVD. Keep in mind nevertheless that the first 3D models soon will arrive. Even though they will be more expensive, you will be certainly feel some frustrations in the near future. This is however not certain. This standard already has had an hallucinating number of updates (DB Profiles, standard HDMI, network…). This lack of stability does not help at all with decision to purchase.

40% of BlackBerry Owners Would Exchange their Mobile Phone for an iPhone

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

A recent study might give RIM some real stress despite its growth. IT indicates that 40% of current BlackBerry owners would exchange their mobile phone for an iPhone, or an Android-based model. The same study indicates that 90% of owners of Google OS-based phone would take another model based on the same system. This study challenging the fidelity of mobile phone users indicate that the growth of RIM might be more fragile than for Apple or Google. The reason might be linked to the fact that most BlackBerry are devices provided by corporates, so end users did not have the choice of their Pro mobile phone. This could also explain why Apple is pushing so strongly to make the iPhone as compatible and native as possible for Windows-based corporate IT services.

NVidia will be open to all types of 3D glasses

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

It is several years that NVidia, ahead of its time, tried to impose its 3D display system on computers. Up to now, they did not have much success until the advent of 3D television gave it a new kick of life.
For this purpose, they decided an important thing, to modify their software " 3DTV Play software" to be compatible with other glasses that theirs. After all, this is good sense, it is hard to imagine the people wanting to see in 3D on their television set and their computer needing to provide a different pair of glasses for each product, especially as these glasses have a considerable cost, since that the standard selected implies that they have two LCD screens being used to alternatively hide the vision in each eye, the whole being connected, without wires, to the television set to ensure perfect synchronization.
This raises elsewhere another aspect of the arrival of 3D television, the war of the glasses, because there will be one of them. Many manufacturers are waiting to produce them, knowing that their number will be X time higher than that of the television set, since each televiewer is obliged to have a pair, and this market could well be profitable. If one takes, for example, the first 3D television sets from Samsung that must arrive soon, they should be sold without these famous glasses which will cost between 100 and 150€ according to their size and of the fact that it have batteries. Sony will also make this choice to sell these glasses separately and this will inflate in an impressive way the profits…
A last thing worries us on their subject. We do not know if there exists a standard of communication between the television sets and the glasses or if each manufacturer will have his own standard. If this is the case, the customers will be caught and will not be able to use generic products that would not hesitate to be offered at lower tariffs.

Apple Delays the Release of some Peripherals for the iPad

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:29:00 +0100

Without much noise, Apple quietly postponed the launch of peripherals dedicated to its forthcoming iPad on its Store.

The protection enclosure originally planned on April 3rd is postponed to mid-April.
The keyboard is postponed to May.
More alarming, the USB charger, a rather must have peripheral is ALSO postponed till May...

So, currently there are several explanation: problem in production, all customers who pre-order the iPad also purchased those peripherals, and all stocks are now empty, there is some last minutes issues, or the first sign of a serious delay for the real launch of the iPad. This is particularly true for the keyboard, a basic peripheral for all customers willing to use the iPad as their main terminal.

Apple: First Victim of its Amazing Growth?

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:17:00 +0100

Many of our readers also noticed it: Apple seems to have entered into a sleeping mode-like phase:

We are waiting for the update of all MacBook and MacBook Pro models for now 2 months according to the usual schedule of updates.
While it seems to be finished and validated by beta tester, the update 10.6.3 is still not released.
We are still waiting for an update of the Airport firmware to fix remaining issues.
Alors qu'Apple prenait un malin plaisir à lancer ses Mac Pro Xeon avant les annonces Intel, ces derniers sont arrivés, mais point de Mac Pro.

We could have added other examples to the list. They all have in common to require engineer and system supports. We are currently thinking that the iPad, as the iPhone few months ago, completely drained all engineer resources, and could delay all other products as they are mainly working on fixing the issue of the iPad OS.
You should know that Apple does not have endless engineer resources as Microsoft or other software companies. They are composed of restricted teams moving from one project to another one depending on needs and emergency. We know that Apple is working on strengthening those teams, but it is difficult to add need members in strongly unified teams, especially we also consider that there is no real IT course or training leading to Apple engineers, as it exists for Microsoft Windows...

So, we currently think that Apple has decided to have iPad becoming the main project for this year, not even thinking of an half success or failure, it has to be a blockbuster and Apple is dedicated to available resources to complete the work, even if all other products have to suffer delays. Of course if what you want is a new MacBook or a Mac Pro, you might not care at all about the iPad and its future success... Let's hope that this situation will quickly evolve.

Specifications of New Intel Xeon

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:50:01 +0100

Here comes the new Intel Xeon moels available from the catalog of the founder. All CPU are engraved at 32 nm and feature 12 MB of cache instead of 8 MB for the unit powering current Mac Pro. Depending on models, they offer 4 or 6 cores:

With such choice, Apple has plenty of choice to update its current Mac Pro, giving Cupertino the opportunity to offer a large range of Mac Pro, from 4 core unit (single Xeon) to 12 core unit (dual hexacore Xeon). So far, Apple only used CPU with a TDP of 95 W for Mac Pro featuring dual CPUs, so it would mean that the fastest Xeon (2xhexacore) to be found in future Mac Pro would be clocked at 2.93 GHz. However, if Apple can find a way to manage a TDP of 130 W, we would then get either dual hexacore at 3.33 GHz or dual quad core at 3.43 GHz. Despite the entry level model, all Xeon supports TurboBoost, giving access to on-the-fly overclocking for mono-threaded tasks

Nokia accuse Apple of deploying a smoke screen

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Here the latest episode to date in the battle between Apple at Nokia.
Nokia asked court to throw out the complaint of Apple in which they accuse Nokia of violating the antitrust law. Nokia indeed considers that this procedure and these charges are only to create a smoke screen hiding the true problem, that is that Apple violated their patents. Nokia have declared to the court: "Sometimes a patent dispute is just a patent dispute,", not wanting that this other procedure comes to disturb the principal one and especially since it can cause enormous adverse effect for them.
While waiting, the ITC announced that the procedures launched by Apple and Nokia will only be treated during 2012. Be reassured,other things will come out to divert minds since this is a fight to the death between two companies who will fight without mercy.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 to Cost 450 €!?

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:16:00 +0100

According to Fudzilla, NVIDIA might price its future high-end model, aka GeForce GTX 480 around 450 €. If this is more expensive than the current high-end ATI Radeon HD 5870, it will be less expensive than some previous graphic card models launched at 600 € in the past.
Let's hope now that Apple will refresh its catalog of graphic cards to be installed in Mac Pro, as plenty of Mac Pro are currently offered on the Refurb Store, while waiting the new models to be released... one year later...

Apple losses the head of PA Semi

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0100

The breaking news (not officially confirmed), it seems that Dan Dobberpuhl, the founder of Pa Semi who had joined Apple at the time of the purchase of its company (which made him a rich man) has been seen elsewhere. He will have left with at least another person from the company and now works for a StartUp.
Technically, this is not surprising, the leaders are usually engaged to remain X months or years before being able to go elsewhere; thus we are not at all surprised. To have reached this position, it is necessary to have character and a sharp decisional spirit. It is difficult to make use of these qualities at Apple where all the decisions are centralized between the hands of few people who are not willing to share.

Apple Wanted to Be a Worldwide TOP Partners of Olympic Games!?

lionel@macbidouille.com (Lionel) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

According to one of our source, Apple is annoyed after being rejected to be a Worldwide TOP Partners for the olympic games 2012. Indeed, Acer, after being the IT partner for Vancouver 2010, has been selected for the next even to take place in London in 2012. It seems that Apple executives did not really digest this decision and the main goal is now to kick Acer out for Winter olympics in Sochi 2014 and Summer Olympics in Rio 2016. As the selected IT partner, the company has to provide thousands of computers as well as network, infrastructure, engineers and resources to make the event a success.

For additional information about Olympic games sponsoring: http://www.olympic.org/en/content/The-IOC/Sponsoring/Sponsorship

Intel Larrabee: Definitely Post-Poned or Temporary Dead!?

linathael@macbidouille.com (linathael) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

When couple of month ago Intel announced it would delay Larrabee introduction in 2010, many analysts thought it was the first sign for dropping the project. According to an anonymous insider, reported to be an Intel Larrabee engineer, the company has a whole product plan and roadmap still in place. While first "demos" of the system were not really astonishing, Intel seems to be still working on it and might simply decide when it wants to release it or not.

Of course, this information comes from an anonymous source, (controlled or not by Intel) and might not reflect necessarily the decision of the company. Larrabee might also not be the main priority of Intel as GPGPU while promising a lot since months (if not years) is not really there yet on the mass market. In other words, if we consider the current problems faced by NVIDIA with its first Fermi-based GPU, Intel does not really need to hurry up to release a competitive solution. In other words, when time has come then Intel will have enough engineers and resources to quickly release a GeForce killer. One should not forget also that GPGPU is associated with flexible graphics and data processing architectures and programmability, the later point being probably the key one as it would define a quick and broad adoption. Intel might want to see what type of solution would be really offered by ATI and NVIDIA (CUDA) in this field.