It offers 250 GB of storage space, this is not a huge achievement for a 1.83 HD, however it does not sport any PATA or SATA interface, but directly a USB2 interface, a native one. The controller of the native USB2 has been integrated in the PCB of the HD, as shown on photos. Of course the size does not follow the standard defined for 1.8" HD, so this device will most likely be dedicated to external HD models.

They also updated all models by increasing the cache memory associated to the controller from 64 MB to 128 MB to claim higher performance level with SATA interface: 220 MB/s in reading and 200 MB/s in writing. This announcement comes as a new step in the emerging war between SSD manufacturers racing for the highest performance level, the race to the cheapest model should also appear in a near future. Well, let's hope.

For sure any leaks in the development of Chrome OS will be tracked and deeply analyzed, a bit like any piece of secret information related to a reported Apple product. Let's see if Google can develop an OS with a better success and adoption than its first trial, Android, dedicated to mobile phones.

One of the interesting points is the way PearC is considering its position vs. Apple. They do not build their rational for selling PC with Mac OS X only on terms included in the EULA. As a reminder, Apple states that Mac OS X can only be run on an Apple hardware. PearC explains that in EU, customers are protected against excessive claims included in product licensing/terms of use, and once the customer has purchased legally the product, he can use it the way he wants. PearC also explains that many terms described in the EULA are not valid in EU according to the European regulations. The EULA is a contract, not a law, and a contract might be invalidated because it does not follow the law. As another example of the invalid term in the EULA is the one year warranty applied by Apple on its products, as EU regulations indicate 2 years minimum...
Eckhart Covent is not a new comer in the Mac world, he has been working for 20 years in the field and holds an AASE badge (Apple Authorized Service Engineer). He described himself as a Mac OS X lover, and further explained PearC's wish to offer computer hardware and prices corresponding to models that Apple does not want or does not judge necessary to develop. He clearly states that nobody can offer an integrated product as Apple does, from the design, to the manufacturing and customer experience, however, there is a gap in today's Apple products line, and that's why PearC offers those corresponding models. Unlike other hackintosh based on iDeneb, iPC, etc., PearC models do not affect Mac OS X, so everything is working fine as on Apple hardware. However, you will have problem for running a BootCamp partition or using the Apple Remote, due to the lack of IR receiver.

Eckhart Covent does not think that Apple's and PearC customers are the same peoples, they are different with different needs. He even states that PearC helps Apple to increase the number of Mac OS X users basis and to generate additional incomes by bringing them to iTunes Store and AppStore. We can clearly question his statements: "[Apple's] revenues come from iPhones, iPhone bills, iPods, iTunes and laptops, not rack or tower hardware". According to our sources, margins are bigger on Mac Pro and iMacs than on MacBooks. The same is true probably for the margins on music tracks and AppStore. In addition, both the iTunes Store and the App Store are part of an ecosystem aiming to sell more iPhone/iPod models, as most revenues are coming from hardware sales, and margins on both online stores are complementary and might not even cover investments required to support (hardware and human resources) those services.

PearC offers "tower type" of computer powered by Core 2 Duo/Quad or Core i7 Intel CPU, both desktop processor ignored by Apple. In fact PearC assembles the type of computers many Mac users are expecting Apple to release: a Mac Pro mini without the Xeon CPU, a workstation dedicated Pro CPU. Of course Apple could kill PearC without going to court by releasing a mini tower Mac model, offering evolutivity and performance and powered by a true desktop CPU. If one looks at the current Apple hardware, it is either a mobile CPU (Core 2 Duo) or a workstation Pro-oriented CPU (Xeon), in between there is nothing, a gap, currently exploited by PearC to create its business model. So, Steve, if you read us...

Just to testify to the problem that I observe with the navigon software. Since I bought this application (49 euros) I still have not succeeded in testing it. Whether I am downtown or on motorway, on foot or in the car, I never have a GPS signal. I made a round on AppStore and to my large and happy surprise I am not alone, since 65 of 228 opinions are negative and relates to this problem of reception. Since yesterday navigon with published this message on its support site :

What can I do to improve the GPS-Signal of my iPhone? 

During the following process the memory of your iPhone will be reorganized. This will have a positive effect on the quality of the GPS-Signal. The internal memory will be entirely deleted during this process. Therefore it is extremely necessary to make a backup of the software as described in step 1.

1. Please connect your iPhone to iTunes and perform synchronize it. After that please click with the right mouse button on the iPhone-Icon (in the left menu of iTunes) and choose "backup". iTunes will now create an entire backup of your iPhone data and settings.
2. Then disconnect your iPhone from the computer and connect it to the power supply.
3. On your iPhone choose "Settings" -> "General" -> "Reset".
4. Then choose "Erase all Content and Settings" and confirm this.
5. The following steps can take up to two hours and more, depending on the model and storage capacity of your iPhone
6. After the procedure is finished please connect the iPhone to your computer again.
7. Now using the backup install your data and settings.

Basically it advises to restore completely the iPhone.
If all goes well, should have recovered the GPS signal in the software. There is nothing more to hope for except that there is an update of Navigon or the iPhone OS to prevent such blocking of the GPS.

This update is recommended for all Safari users and improves the stability of the Nitro JavaScript engine and includes the latest compatibility and security fixes.

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

Transcend claims that those 600x cards offer 92 MB/S and 82 MB/s in reading and writing mode, respectively. this result was obtained by using a 4 channels controller (as for SSD). As for SSD, those CF cards can manage the wear-leveling technology aiming to optimize memory chips and increase their life time. 
Of course, the price remains unknown, and for sure SanDisk, Lexar and other renowned CF manufacturers/distributors are probably thinking of moving in the same direction before losing market shares. Indeed, such cards from Transcend, if priced appropriately could simply become the new reference for photogs. Imagine a Nikon D3x, with such card you could really extend the number of photos taken on continuous mode...

Thanks to an overclocked Indilix Barefoot controller (180 MHz instead of 166 MHz in classic Vertex SSD models) associated to 64 MB of cache, the Vertex Turbo SSD models offer 10% higher performance ranges: 270 MB/s in reading mode and 210 MB/s  for writing. OCZ also claims to have optimized the firmware to push performance further (so far all Barefoot-based SSD had a firmware provided by Indilix).

We think that it should be possible to flash the firmware of a classic Vertex SSD with the one of a Vertex Turbo, and performance would most likely be improved too. Of course the warranty will then be invalidated. So, when SSD will really be a true mass market product, we might play with firmware update to push further performance without purchasing a new model, similarly to the CPU overclocking era couple of years ago.

Of course, Palm and Apple will have to demonstrate if they can last as RIM does it for now years on this market. For the iPhone, the new entry ticket at 99 USD will for sure strengthen its basis, while Pré still have to demonstrate its capacity to become a major player in the field.

As expected from photos, both cards will belong to the entry-level market:

• GeForce G210: GPU clocked at 589 MHz, 16 Processor Cores clocked at 1402 MHz associated with  512 MB of DDR2 at 500 MHz in 64 bits.
• GeForce GT220: a faster model, with a GPU clocked at 615 MHZ featuring 48 Processor Cores clocked at 1455 MHz and 512 MB or 1 GB of DDR3 VRAM clocked at 790 MHz in 128 bits addressing. 

The main interest of such discrete GPU is their power consumption, with a peak at... 30.5 W! revanche, les consommations de ces produits seront très faibles, la première consommant au maximum 30.5 W for the GF G210

Later on, NVIDIA expects to follow ATI/AMD strategy to offer GPU models based on this thin engraving process, but with a much higher clock speed.

It does not take much studying to see that this information is false and that the shortage from which Apple suffers is not on its machines, but with the 250 GB 5400 rpm hard disks. If one chooses such a disk on the entry-line model, it also gets a deliver date of 7 to 10 days. Also, it is enough to replace the 250 GB hard drive of the 2,53 GHz model to find that the manufacturing lead time changes to 3 days, which is normal for a nonstandard machine.
In short, the only problem that Apple seems to have is a shortage of 250 GB disks.

Known by its code name, Sandy Bridge, it should be the first desktop CPU featuring an integrated graphics in the die (on the left side). It would allow very high clock speed, over than 1 GHz, for the integrated graphics while granting it access to the cache L3 to speed up transfer of data between all components, especially CPU cores. As a sign of the future role to be played by the L3 cache (here 8 MB), its latency has been dramatically improved, and it will feature a new dedicated instructions set, known as Advanced Vector Extension (AVX), something similar to the good old Altivec... from the previous century

As reported by the New York Post, it is not related to the still questionable validation procedure, but how Apple deals with payments to developers. The newspaper reports the case of an anonymous developer who is expecting Apple to pay him 10,000 USD of his application, but the transfer expected in February is not done yet. Of course, it is always difficult to carefully check such report, but what we know is that developers have a hard time to communicate with Apple. It is impossible to call any AppStore representatives, they can only communicate by emails...

This computer will have the usual hardware found in many models: 10" display, Intel ATOM CPU clocked at 1.66 GHz, Wi-Fi 802.11g, 1 GB of RAM, etc. However, it will offer LED backlighting to extend the battery lifetime to 3.5 hours. Its price: less than 500 USD. It will support Windows XP SP3, as Vista or Windows 7 will be too resource-consuming for its hardware (it would also be the case with Snow Leopard)

The VideoLAN project is pleased to announce the release of the first version of the Goldeneye branch of VLC: 1.0.0.
This major release introduces many new features, new formats and new codecs to the VLC multimedia framework and fixes a very high number of bugs that were present in the 0.9.x or 0.8.6 versions.
You can download it now.
The VLC project only lives with volunteers and would love help from new users and contributors: time, code, hardware and money would help us a lot. You don't need to be a developer to help.

This is a major achievement and one should always support them, it has been such a great application since the very beginning and a breakthrough as most Mac uses who have known the time before VLC can ensure it.