IPhone Unlock Delayed After AT&T's 'Friendly Advice'

Fear of litigation has led to an indefinite delay in the planned Saturday release of software to unlock Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said Saturday that he received a phone call about 3 a.m. Saturday local time from a man claiming to be from O'Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm, calling on behalf of AT&T. The firm has worked with Apple in the past.

The man informed McLaughlin that if he posted the unlock code, he could be sued for copyright infringement and for dissemination of Apple's intellectual property (IP).

McLaughlin was not completely awake when he took the call and did not get the full name of the person on the other end, he said. The man presented "friendly advice," but because of the timing of the call and the fact that it came on a personal mobile phone that McLaughlin never uses for business, it felt more threatening than friendly.

"If he wants to give me advice, he could have sent me an e-mail," McLaughlin said.

Spokespeople with O'Melveny & Myers, AT&T Wireless and Apple could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday.

Unlock: Promised and Ready

McLaughlin and his team had planned to release software by 2 p.m. EDT that he claims would unlock the iPhone so it could work with SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards from carriers other than AT&T Wireless.

Uniquephones set up the Web site, http://www.iphoneunlocking.com, right after the iPhone's release on June 29 and had been working on the software since then.

McLaughlin is concerned that fighting a lawsuit with AT&T or Apple would sink his small company, which does a modestly successful

business unlocking wireless handsets in the U.K. and Europe. At the same time, he and engineers in several countries have invested time and money to come up with the unlock software.

"It really annoys me," he said. "We have the solution sitting there and we have the customers there, but if you connect the two you could

lose everything."

About 550,000 people have signed up on Uniquephones' iPhone unlocking site as of Saturday afternoon in the U.K.

Delayed, Not Canceled

McLaughlin said he still plans to release the software eventually, but is not sure when. "We'd be happy to let another company take the heat and be the second or third company to post [the software]," he said.

In addition to Uniquephones' software, there have been two other reports of ways the iPhone can be unlocked. On Friday, blogger

George Hotz posted a step-by-step tutorial for unlocking the iPhone that involves both hardware and software modifications. At

another site, www.iPhoneSimFree.com, a company claims it can unlock iPhones through software only.

The iPhone has been a hot target for unlocking since its launch, both because of its advanced design and features and because AT&T has an unusual long-term exclusive relationship with Apple. It's common for U.S. mobile operators to lock the phones they sell, but in some cases they will later unlock the phones free or for a small fee.

source : www.pcworld.com

Sony Unveils Shoulder-Mount HDV Camcorder

Sony Corp. is expanding its range of products based on the HDV high-definition tape format with its first shoulder-mounted HDV camcorder.

The HVR-HD1000U is aimed at the low-end professional market and will be available in the U.S. in December, Sony said on Thursday. It has a 10X optical zoom lens and built-in down-convertor so that video can be shot in high-definition but exported to an editing system in standard definition format.

Other features include a slow-motion function in which the camera shoots 3 seconds of video at four times the normal frame rate, stores it in a buffer memory and then records it to tape at normal speed. The result is that the 3 second shot is recorded as a 12-second slow motion clip.

There's also a night-shot mode that shoots in low-light conditions with the aid of an infrared light, and the ability to snap 4-megapixel quality still images.

The camera will cost US$1,900. Launch plans for Europe other markets are still undecided, Sony in Tokyo said.

source : www.pcworld.com

EU Hopes Satellites Will Push Mobile TV

A European Commission plan to simplify the licensing of Europe-wide mobile satellite services could boost the nascent market for broadcast TV services over handheld devices.

With a general agreement on the DVB-H (digital video broadcasting - handheld) standard now in place, mobile operators across Europe are looking for economic ways of launching broadcast mobile TV services that send signals directly to handsets. While some companies plan to invest in building terrestrial systems to carry the signals, others are more interested in establishing mobile satellite services to provide coverage in not one but several markets, according to the Commission.

With its one-stop-shop proposal, the Commission hopes to overcome a current hurdle in Europe for providing satellite service: operators need to apply for a license in each individual country, which often have different regulations and requirements. A new body, organized by the Commission in cooperation with regulators in the member states, would be responsible for assessing applications based on common technical and commercial criteria and for selecting operators, which would then be authorized by national regulators.

The Commission hopes to win support for the new mobile satellite communications authority later this year when the region's telecommunications policy comes up for review.

Several European mobile phone companies, including Vodafone Group PLC, have expressed interest in mobile satellite technology for TV service as well as broadband data.

In addition to reaching consumers in rural areas and in more than one national market, satellite-to-mobile phone communications could also overcome Europe's tight spectrum availability.

Alcatel-Lucent SA, for instance, proposes using the widely available S-Band frequency reserved for satellites to transmit broadcast signals via satellite to mobile phones based on the DVB-H standard, instead of the UHF band. The UHF band is typically used for TV transmissions in Europe but has little or no capacity to spare.

The Alcatel-Lucent proposal calls for equipping base stations with S-Band repeaters and, in addition, using satellites capable of transmitting in the S-Band to deliver content to 3G (third-generation) phones enabled with DVB-H technology in three different ways: base-station streaming, base-station broadcasting and satellite broadcasting.

source : www.pcworld.com

Sony: 'We Should Have had More Original PSP Games'

Sony's European boss admits in an interview published Friday that the PSP has suffered from a shortage of games.

"Honestly... we should have had more original PSP games," David Reeves told GamesIndustry.biz when asked about the upcoming extended services for PSP.

"We took this decision maybe a year ago and said what we'll do now is we'll bring out more services because we know that the games are coming."

Reeves added that the company is now committed to releasing games that rival the DS's offering.

"We now have to go back and think more about the games because if we lose that advantage - well it's not really an advantage, it's the advantage Nintendo have on DS," he said. "It's like in the circus - you've got to keep all the plates up, you know? So the plate we'll be working on now will be the games on PSP."

Since first launching in 2005 and despite respectable sales, the PSP has been widely criticized for a lack of compelling games. The handheld has sold 25 million systems worldwide, nearly half the total of Nintendo's popular DS.

In July, Sony unveiled an updated PSP due in September that will retail for US$169 (comparison pics here).

source : GamePro

Digital SLR Camera Trends: Cheaper, More Features

What's behind the uptick in the number of walkabout photographers toting digital SLR cameras rather than smaller point-and-shoots? Wider availability, lower costs, and greater functionality.

Once confined to the realm of enthusiast or professional photographers, digital SLRs now have greater appeal to more-casual photographers. "We're forecasting about 35 percent growth in the consumer SLR market this year," says David Haueter, an analyst at imaging market research firm InfoTrends.

IDC, another market research firm that tracks digital SLR shipments, makes similar estimates. IDC says it expects U.S. shipments of digital SLR cameras to grow to 2.2 million units this year. Furthermore, by 2011, IDC expects the market to nearly double, to 4 million units in the United States alone (about 36 percent of the total units worldwide).

And fortunately for digital SLR buyers, prices on digital SLRs continue to drop. According to InfoTrends, the average selling price of a digital SLR in 2006 was $966. Now, Haueter says, "we expect the average selling price to drop to $775 for 2007, driven by lower-priced and very popular models such as the Nikon D40x and Canon Digital Rebel XTi."

Taking Photography to the Next Level

Inexpensive digital SLR models might be driving the market for new camera purchases, but for people looking to upgrade--or to graduate from advanced point-and-shoot cameras--the introductions this week of new midrange cameras from Nikon and Canon are significant.

Nikon's new addition is a $1799 D300 (body only); Canon's is a $1299 EOS 40D (body only).

The Canon 40D will ship by the end of the month, while the Nikon D300 will come in November, just in time for the holiday season.

Together, Canon and Nikon control 80 percent of the consumer digital SLR market, according to InfoTrends. These companies' combined heavyweight market share makes it all the more noteworthy that the two are simultaneously refreshing their step-up cameras.

Both models bring professional-level features to consumers, yet both aim to attract photo enthusiasts and professionals as well. "They're trying to make it easy for someone to move up from a point-and-shoot to an SLR by adding scene modes, auto settings, and live view [features]," says Haueter. "But they're also trying to appeal to some of the pros to use [one of] these midrange models as a backup camera."

Analysts are seeing a clear trend in how people are expanding their use of digital cameras. "It's easier in today's market to become an enthusiast/professional photographer," says Ron Glaz, program director of digital imaging at IDC. "We're seeing a lot of growth among individuals who'd consider themselves a hobbyist or enthusiast, and who might also work weddings for free."

This latest generation of midrange cameras straddles the consumer and professional markets as never before. "Manufacturers hope that as the low-end digital SLR users really get into photography, and as they move up the scale from hobbyist and early adopter to more of the enthusiast, they will buy more-sophisticated digital SLRs [by the same company] because they already have the lenses and other accessories," says Glaz.

Features Trickle Down, and Creep Up

For the most part, technology tends to migrate down to lower-cost models, but that isn't always the case. Take the example of Nikon's D300: This camera integrates scene modes and creative functions that have migrated up from the company's lower-cost point-and-shoot models. "People are trying to be more creative with their images, and a lot of them are trying to do the creativity in their camera, and not in Photoshop," notes Glaz. By putting such features into a digital SLR, "it's eliminating the need to utilize your PC to tie the creativity to the photo. People enjoy taking the pictures more than they enjoy editing them."

A live LCD preview of your image--a standard feature on point-and-shoot cameras--previously wasn't common on SLR cameras. (Olympus was the first to offer this capability, on its eVolt E-330 digital SLR, introduced a year ago.)

Live-preview functionality in the Canon 40D and Nikon D300 is just the beginning: As existing models face their next refresh, I fully expect to see live preview become the de facto standard for digital SLRs as well. And as live preview becomes more commonplace on SLRs, it will ease the transition for users moving from a point-and-shoot to an SLR--and it will bring one of the benefits of a point-and-shoot camera squarely into the SLR space.

Although consumers will purchase the majority of midrange models such as the Canon 40D and Nikon D300, these offerings hold clear appeal for professional shooters, too. The 40D and the D300 share a surprising number of commonalities with their bigger professional-grade cousins, the Canon EOS-1D Mark III and the Nikon D3, respectively.

The Canon 40D and EOS-1D Mark III share such features as a 3-inch, live-preview, 230,000-pixel LCD; a DIGIC III image processor; highlight tone priority; dust reduction; and similar menus and controls. The Nikon D300 and D3 share a slew of attributes, including the live-preview LCD screen; 3D Focus Tracking, a 51-point auto-focus system; various in-camera controls (Scene Recognition System, Picture Control System, Active D-Lighting); and dust reduction.

The advantage to adding such features to a midrange camera is multifold. No one stays a beginner forever; having more built-in pro-level features means you don't have to stay penned into a box, and you gain a more powerful creative tool. Plus, more-advanced photographers, like myself, can ratchet down to a more walkabout digital SLR without needing to make as many compromises in how we shoot as we once might have. (An EOS-1D Mark II is a wonderful tool, but not something I enjoy carrying with me on a day out in Tokyo.)

Everyone agrees that the advent of digital has changed the landscape of photography and how individuals regard their cameras. Buying a camera is now more like buying a computer: "With digital, now you have to upgrade every few years to stay on top of the technology," says Haueter. "That's unlike film, where you could buy a camera and then have it for decades."

source : www.pcworld.com

iPhone Unlockers Lining up

Two claims of unlocking Apple Inc.'s iPhone have surfaced in recent days and a third is set to be announced Saturday.

One blogger, George Hotz, on Friday posted a step-by-step tutorial for unlocking the iPhone that involves both hardware and software modifications. His blog also includes photos of an iPhone he said is unlocked and shows T-Mobile USA as the service provider. At another site, iPhoneSimFree.com, a company claims it can unlock iPhones through software only. A screen image with an item about the company on Engadget.com also shows an iPhone displaying the T-Mobile name.

In addition, John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, said his Belfast, U.K., company will be posting software on Saturday that iPhone users can download to unlock their handsets to work with any SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card on any network they choose. The software should hit the Web at www.iphoneunlocking.com between noon and 2 p.m. Eastern Time, he said.

The iPhone is based on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication), the most widely used cellular technology, but today the hot phone is sold only in the U.S. and locked into AT&T's network. Unlocking would allow iPhone owners to break the required two-year contract with AT&T and choose their own GSM carriers. More importantly, it would allow people outside the U.S. to own and use the highly prized device. With an unlocked GSM phone, it's possible to change carriers by putting in a different SIM card.

Uniquephones' McLaughlin said 450,000 users already had signed up at iphoneunlocking.com, which the company set up soon after the iPhone was released for people interested in having their iPhones unlocked. The Web site was not active at the time this story was written, but should be reactivated Saturday with options for users to access the unlocking software, he said.

McLaughlin plans to charge between US$25 and $50 for the software, but users who had already signed up will have access to the code at either a 25 percent or 50 percent discount. Uniquephones will let people anywhere in the world download the software. The company already unlocks phones from many manufacturers, including Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc.

There were about eight locks that Uniquephones engineers had to break in the iPhone software to come up with the code that will unlock the phones, and engineers in several countries had been working around the clock since the phone's release to do so. McLaughlin declined to go into great detail but said one of the most difficult locks to break was contained in the handset's electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). There also was a lock in the handset's permanent phone memory (PPM) as well as other places in the iPhone's software. In the end, it was an engineer in Russia who came up with the software for unlocking the phone, McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin claims he is using his iPhone on the Vodafone Group PLC network in the U.K. He added that both Vodafone's network and T-Mobile U.K. Ltd. network allow iPhone users to download data faster on their iPhones than AT&T Wireless's network does.

Although almost 100 percent of the iPhone's features work even when the handset is unlocked and using another carrier's SIM card, the Visual Voicemail feature will only work on AT&T's network because of the way the feature is designed, McLaughlin said. Visual Voicemail lets users easily view the messages that have been left for them.

The iPhone has been a hot target for unlocking since its June 29 launch, both because of its advanced design and features and because AT&T has an unusual long-term exclusive relationship with Apple. It's common for U.S. mobile operators to lock the phones they sell, but in some cases they will later unlock the phones free or for a small fee.

On its site, iPhoneSimFree.com says it will start selling individual per-unit licenses for its unlocking software starting next week. The company will also accept inquiries for bulk purchases of 500 or more licenses.

Hotz, who wrote that he is soon heading off to college, isn't offering to sell his technique but is auctioning on eBay what he claims is the world's second unlocked iPhone.

source : www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Issues High Heat Warning on Xbox Racing Controller

In the second incident this summer, Microsoft Corp. admitted this week to another overheating problem in the hardware it sells to video gamers.

The 230,000 owners of its US$130 Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel should order and apply a free retrofit, Microsoft said Wednesday, before continuing to use the driving game controller when it's plugged into a power outlet. "A component in the Wheel chassis may in rare cases overheat and release smoke when the AC-DC power supply is used to energize the Wheel," the company said in a warning posted to its Xbox 360 site. No property damage or injuries have been reported, the company claimed.

Until they receive the retrofit, users should run the wheel on batteries only, the advisory continued.

The wireless controller, which offers "force feedback" -- shuddering and pulling that mimics a real stressed-out steering wheel -- works with such titles as "Test Drive Unlimited" and "Need for Speed: Carbon."

The too-hot wheel follows the far more expensive repairs to the Xbox 360 itself that Microsoft conceded earlier this summer. In early July, company executives announced a $1 billion-and-change charge to pay for an Xbox warranty extension and the ensuing fixes to what some analyst have calculated as one in three video game consoles. The Xbox, said Microsoft then, suffered from design flaws and "an unacceptable number of repairs."

Xbox 360 overheating has been long suspected by users and analysts as the most likely cause for the high rate of unit failures, although Microsoft has declined to get that specific.

Microsoft has posted a retrofit kit request form on its site, and is also taking calls at 1-800-4my-Xbox.

source : Computerworld

Via Announces 1-Watt Processor for Mobile Devices

Via Technologies Inc. has developed a processor that consumes a maximum of 1 watt of power and is intended for use in mobile devices and embedded applications.

The latest Eden ULV chip was announced on Thursday at the Embedded Systems Conference in Taipei, where customers showed off systems based on the chip. Previously, the lowest power chip in the Eden lineup was the 1GHz Eden ULV, which consumes a maximum of 3.5 watts. The 500MHz version consumes 0.1 watt of power in idle mode.

Like other Via processors, the 500MHz Eden ULV processor is based on the same x86 instruction set found in CPUs from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and is capable of running Windows or Linux. But instead of desktop PCs or laptops, the new chip is intended for embedded applications, like point-of-sales systems, thin-client computers, set-top boxes, and security systems.

The chip uses the same Esther processor core found in Via's line of C7 processors.

The latest Eden ULV chip, which is manufactured using a 90-nanometer process, is paired with Via's CX700 chipset, which combines both the Northbridge and Southbridge chips inside a single package to conserve space in a computer. The CX700 consumes up to 3.5 watts, but system makers can reduce this by disabling some of the chipset's functions, such as USB ports or the SATA interface for hard drives.

Via, which is a distant third in the CPU market behind Intel and AMD, has long championed the development of cheap, low-power processors that can operate without elaborate heatsinks or fans. These chips allow hardware makers to build devices that are smaller, quieter, and cost less than most PCs.

source : www.pcworld.com

New Phones Deliver Speedier HSDPA Downloads

South Korea's three big cell phone makers are speeding the path to higher speed data downloads over wireless networks.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., LG Electronics Inc. and Pantech Co. Ltd. have all unveiled this month their first phones that are compatible with 7.2M bps (bits per second) variants of HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) networks. HSDPA is a packet data transmission technology used on WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) networks.

First generation HSDPA networks supported speeds of up to 1.8M bps. This was doubled in second generation systems and now third generation (3G) are rated as high as 7.2M bps. The speed is a theoretical maximum download speed and users are unlikely to hit that in real world usage, but nevertheless they will see a relative jump in download speed from generation to generation.

The phones are appearing as Korea's carriers begin switching on the latest upgrades and increasing transmission speed. The same thing is happening elsewhere in the world.

In Asia, Singapore's StarHub switched on a 7.2M bps HSDPA network on Aug. 4, and the Netvigator Everywhere service from Hong Kong's PCCW that was launched this week also uses such a network. Networks in various European countries are also offering the faster downloads.

Between them the three South Korean handsets share more than high-speed downloading: all are slider-type phones and have 2-megapixel cameras. The LG-SH150 and Pantech IM-U210 will cost about 500,000 won (US$531) and the Samsung SCH-W300 will cost around 600,000 won.

With the upgrades to 7.2M bps the HSDPA technology isn't done yet. Future upgrades are envisaged to boost speeds to 14.4M bps and work is continuing on a new generation that will push speeds even higher. There's also a companion technology called HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) that can boost upload speeds from phones to the network. These networks generally offer around 2M bps at present.

source : www.pcworld.com

Nokia Batteries to Cost Matsushita $172 Million

TOKYO (Reuters) - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said on Friday that Nokia's replacement of mobile phone batteries made by the Japanese electronics maker is likely to cost it 10-20 billion yen ($86-$172 million).

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, earlier this month warned consumers that 46 million batteries made by Panasonic-brand maker Matsushita and used in its cellphones could overheat, and offered to replace them for free.

Matsushita said it had no plan to revise its earnings outlook.

The world's largest consumer electronics maker expects its group operating profit to grow 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 477 billion yen for the year to March 2008.

Finland's Nokia said earlier in the day Matsushita Battery Industrial Co, Matsushita's wholly owned battery subsidiary, will cover the direct costs related to the replacement.

Most Japan-based analysts had expected replacement costs to total somewhere between 10 billion yen and 50 billion yen, but some have suggested they could reach as high as 138 billion yen, weighing on Matsushita shares.

Nokia's Japan unit plans to hold a news conference at 7:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. EDT) on the batteries in question. Nokia Japan President Tyler McGee will attend the Tokyo briefing.

The Japanese unit has said about 160,000 battery packs will be targeted by the replacement program in Japan.

($1=116.36 Yen)

source : www.pcworld.com

Amazon Leaks Price, Date of Windows Home Server Box

Details and prices of the first home server running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Home Server software were posted briefly on several online stores Monday. Systems are scheduled to ship Sept. 15 at prices starting at US$599.

According to listings on such e-tailing sites as Amazon.com, PCMall and onSale.com, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s MediaSmart Home Server will be sold in two models at prices of $599 and $749. The pair are identical with the exception of the amount of included storage: the $599 server contains 500GB, while the $759 unit offers 1TB.

Both servers will be powered by a 1.8GHz Sempron processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., and come bundled with HP's Photo Webshare software, an add-on to Windows Home Server (WHS) that builds a photo sharing Web site and serves it from the MediaSmart box. None of the for-sales listings spelled out the amount of memory in the servers, however.

HP declined to comment on the MediaSmart leaks.

Although some of the MediaSmart listings have been pulled, others remain online, if in truncated form. Amazon.com, for instance, still shows the servers but has removed the pricing it posted for a short time Monday.

The two servers are equipped with four drive bays for internal storage, and four USB 2.0 ports to connect additional external drivers. The 500GB model has only one bay filled, while the 1TB system fills two, indicating that HP is using 500GB drives.

Windows Home Server has been in the news of late -- users have reported that the software-only system builder edition is available in some countries -- but this is the first hint of pricing, configurations and delivery dates for a system from one of the OEMs which has committed to Home Server hardware.

Other manufacturers set on producing servers running Home Server include Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Gateway Inc., Iomega Corp., LaCie Ltd. and Medion AG. None have disclosed prices or set ship dates, however.

source : Computerworld

Apple's Laptop Market Share Climbs

While Apple may be focusing a lot of its attention on the iPhone lately, consumers are clearly still interested in the company's computer offerings. Data from one market research firm shows Apple's notebook business broke 17 percent while another research firm said Apple has moved into third place among computer makers.

According to NPD, Apple's retail notebook market share for June 2007 was 17.6 percent, a 2.2 percent increase over the same period last year when Apple posted a 15.4 percent market share.

As good as the notebooks are doing, Apple's overall standing among computer makers is up too.

According to data from research firm IDC, Apple's continued rise in computer sales puts it in third place overall among all computer makers. This is the first time since 1996 that Apple finds itself this high on the list of top selling manufacturers.

Dell took the top spot with HP coming in second place of total unit sales. With Apple taking the number three spot, Gateway and Acer round out the top five.

The good news continues for Apple - with increased notebook sales pushing it forward, the company now has an overall market share of 5.9 percent, up 1.1 percent from the 4.8 percent it posted this time last year.

In its most recent financial quarter Apple sold 1.76 million Macs, a 33-percent rise over what it shipped in the third quarter of 2006 and 2.5 times the industry-wide growth rate published by market-research firm IDC.

Mac sales for the quarter marked a record for the company, topping the previous quarterly high of 1.61 million Macs shipped during the fourth quarter of 2006.

While there was a rise in desktop sales for the quarter - 634,000 units compared to 529,000 for the same period in 2006 - laptop unit sales skyrocketed 42 percent to 1.13 million portables. All told, 64 percent of the Macs sold during the quarter were laptops.

source : Macworld

Apple Drives Transformation in PC Sales

New research indicates that Apple laptop sales have soared to new highs on the back of a new halo effect for the company's products generated by clamor surrounding iPhone.

A ChangeWave survey confirms first intimations of the move as indicated in a previous such survey in June. A survey run across the first week of August now describes a "transformational shift" that is propelling good fortune for Apple -- but denting Dell.

The survey of 3,665 ChangeWave Alliance members asked those who bought a computer in the past 90 days which manufacturer they had bought it from. The survey then asked those planning to buy a computer in the next 90 days which manufacturer they'd be buying from.

In an ongoing alteration of the consumer PC landscape, Apple laptop sales have surged to a new all-time high over the past 90 days -- up from 12 percent in June to 17 percent currently. Apple desktop sales (7 percent; down from 8 percent) have been solid but unspectacular during that same time period.

But it's the future that truly represents the change. A total of 28 percent of respondents who plan to purchase a laptop in the next 90 days say they'll get a Mac -- maintaining the momentum originally observed by ChangeWave's June survey. An additional 23 percent say they'll buy a desktop Mac.

"These results are great news for Apple, and they serve as powerful evidence that the 'halo effect' is indeed translating into real world Mac computer sales for Steve Jobs and company," said Tobin Smith, founder of ChangeWave Research and editor of ChangeWave Investing.

Apple satisfies. The poll claims 86 percent of those who bought a Mac over the past 90 days report being "Very Satisfied" with their purchase -- by far the highest of any manufacturer.

Dell's market share is taking a huge hit. Just 30 percent of purchasers say they bought a Dell desktop in the past 90 days. This represents a 7-point drop for Dell since June -- down to the second-lowest percentage it's recorded for desktops in a ChangeWave survey. Similarly, Dell laptop purchases (24 percent) have fallen 4 points to a new all time low.

source : Macworld

Toshiba Planning 320GB Notebook Drive

Toshiba Corp. will start producing a 320G-byte hard-disk drive for laptop computers before the end of this year, the company said Tuesday.

It is the first 2.5-inch drive to be announced at that capacity, with production to begin in the fourth quarter, according to Toshiba. Pricing was not announced.

The drive is one of a series of five that make up Toshiba's new MKxx52SX family of hard-disk drives. The 320G-byte model will contain two platters -- the circular disks on which data is recorded. Other drives in the range will offer between 80G bytes and 250G bytes of storage space. They will connect via a 3G bps (bits per second) serial ATA (SATA) interface.

The amount of data that can be stored on a hard-disk drive is constantly expanding as drive makers fine tune technology, and the needs of laptop users are growing in tandem with the expansion in drive space . While enterprise users might not require such a capacious drive, users of multimedia laptops will almost certainly welcome the extra space to store video.

Today, some laptops feature digital TV tuners and companion video recording software, allowing them to double as a digital video recorder. Also, editing of home video is becoming increasingly popular, thanks to Internet video Web sites like YouTube.

source : www.pcworld.com

Augmentix Unveils Rugged Laptop

Augmentix Corp. launched Monday what it calls the first fully rugged-widescreen laptop based on Dell Inc.'s Latitude product line.

The new XTG630 offers a 14.1-in. wide aspect screen with DirectVue LCD technology, the company said in a statement. The Austin-based company builds computers for military use and other rugged-computing settings.

Its Armored Protection System includes a dense magnesium exoskeleton and a patent-pending thermal management system for handling desert heat. It is based on Dell's Latitude D630 and ATG630 software for operating systems, drivers, BIOS and utilities.

The DirectVue LCD screen is designed to improve viewing in direct sunlight by reducing reflection and improving contrast while retaining battery life.

It comes with 802.11a/g and draft n wireless and Bluetooth Class 2 and GPS capability. It runs the Intel Core 2 Duo processor with speeds of up to 2.4 GHz. It is available in desert tan or black and charcoal colors. Pricing ranges from US$3,200 to $3,500, depending on configuration.

source : Computerworld

Apache Slips, Study Says

More evidence is emerging that Apache is suffering against Redmond, after a survey revealed that Microsoft's Internet Information Services Web server is outserving Apache on Fortune 1000 websites.

According to Port80 Software, which periodically surveys the public sites of Fortune 1000 companies to determine their use of web and application hosting technologies, Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 web server (IIS 6) gained 9.5 percent since August 2006, and passed IIS 5 to lead the survey for the first time, "outserving the open source Apache server and all other Web servers among Fortune 1000 sites."

Overall, IIS 4, 5, 6, and 7 deployments continue a four year lead in the survey with a combined 55 percent share of all Fortune 1000 corporate sites, versus Apache's 24.9 percent share.

Last week a similar survey by UK-based research firm Netcraft found that IIS continued to narrow the gap with the open-source Apache web server, suggesting that Redmond's offering could surpass Apache as early as next year.

It found that Microsoft grew to 36.2 percent of all active websites, while Apache lost nearly a million website names, as its share of active websites fell to 48.4 percent.

"While Netcraft's recent surveys demonstrate the rise of Microsoft's Internet Information Services across the Internet at large, Port80 Software continues to see IIS beating Apache among leading US enterprise companies," said Joseph Lima, Director of Product Development at Port80 Software.

"Having analyzed Fortune 1000 websites for years now, we estimate that IIS 6 penetration will continue unabated while IIS 5/Windows 2000 servers are decommissioned, with a few Apache defections along the way," Lima added.

"If the trend from previous surveys holds, IIS 7 should be the dominant web server for Fortune 1000 sites by 2011."

Meanwhile, Port80 Software (in a related survey) found that Microsoft ASP.NET and ASP application server environments are currently used on 51.5 percent of Fortune 1000 sites, an increase of 7.9 percent since 2005. Other application servers like Java platforms (J2EE, JSP, WebLogic, WebSphere, and Tomcat), PHP, and ColdFusion all combined account for 24 percent of Fortune 1000 site deployments. The survey says that heavier use of ASP.NET among Fortune 1000 sites is to be expected, given the prevalence of Microsoft IIS on the same sites.

So does the struggle of such a popular open source web server as Apache suggest a difficult period ahead for open source in general against Windows?

Not according to industry watcher Robin Bloor, founder and chief research officer of Bloor Research. Bloor believes in the gradual triumph of Linux and states in a recent article, that open source moves at a different speed to commercial software.

He quotes IDC figures from May 2007, which showed that Linux accounts for 12.7 percent of the server market by revenue compared to Windows with 38.8 percent of the market. "Most of the remainder is Unix, although IBM mainframe still has a share," says Bloor.

However, he stresses these figures are for servers shipped from the major hardware makers such as HP, IBM, Sun, Dell etc, and omit "constructed servers". Bloor points out that Google for example builds all its own servers, and is estimated to be the fourth largest builder of servers in the world - after HP, IBM, and Sun. Indeed, Google's activity is so great says Bloor, that it distorts the market stats.

Bloor thinks Linux probably doesn't trail Windows by much and it will almost certainly dominate in time. The determining factor, Bloor says, is the emerging economies (China, India, and Brazil) where Linux is growing at a much faster rate. He believes Linux will triumph here because it can be used to establish a local software industry with local skills, and the cost of adopting it is lower by far than any alternative.

source : www.pcworld.com

EA Ships Four Mac Games

Electronic Arts (EA) late Friday announced that it is shipping four of its promised six new games for the Macintosh, including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars.

Users can order the games from Apple's online store Friday. Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are both going to be available in Apple retail stores beginning Tuesday, August 21, while Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars will be available a week later, on the 28th.

"We're thrilled that the world's number one games company is making this major commitment to the Mac and game fans are going to love playing these new EA titles on a Mac," said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar.

Customers looking for the games will need to go specifically to Apple's retail or online stores. The titles aren't available anywhere else. Apple confirmed to Macworld that the games are exclusive to the Apple stores, at least for the moment.

The announcement that EA is shipping these titles comes weeks later than expected. Back in late July, EA had no explanation for the delay.

"Over time, as EA gains experience in completing and shipping Mac games, the gap will narrow. This is a huge leap compared with past launches. We've shorted the gap between the Mac launch and other platforms to just a few weeks," said EA spokesperson Tammy Schachter.

When EA co-founder Bing Gordon originally announced plans to publish Macintosh games at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, 2007, the company said it would release Mac versions of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 and Madden NFL 2008 as well -- two of the company's landmark sports titles. EA indicated both games would ship simultaneously on the Mac and other platforms.

Madden NFL 2008 was released on August 14, 2007, but the Mac version is nowhere in sight. And this afternoon EA confirmed that the game's release -- along with Tiger Woods PGA 2008 -- had been postponed. Mac versions of both games are now slated for "the September/October window," according to EA.

"It is our intention to ship the games as close to other platforms as possible," said Schachter.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a tie-in to the recently released movie of the same name; an adaptation of J.K. Rowling's fifth novel in the Harry Potter series where players help Harry, Ron and Hermione form "Dumbledore's Army" as they bolster their defenses against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Need for Speed Carbon is a street auto racing game in which you and your crew race vehicles to take over territory by winning progressively more difficult races. You don't just face heat from other races, but from the police, as well.

Battlefield 2142 takes the venerable war combat action game in a very different direction. While past installments of the game on the Mac have focused on World War II-era warfare, this game takes you to the future, where two multinational coalitions wage a war for survival; each side is armed with an arsenal of weaponry and gear like active camouflage, EMP grenades and more. You have to work as part of a team to win battles.

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars is the latest installment of the hugely popular real time strategy game series. This game takes place in 2047, after a nuclear fireball initiates the Third Tiberium War. The infamous Kane has returned and the Brotherhood of Nod is staging a massive assault on the Global Defense Initiative. You have to use your skill to fight for your side in the battle as you deploy forces and use the mysterious alien substance known as Tiberium to the best of your ability.

All of the new games have been developed for the Macintosh using Cider, a technology developed by TransGaming that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows games inside a translation layer running on Mac OS X. They are not playable on PowerPC-based Macs.

source : Macworld

Tested: Core 2 Duo Mac Mini

Apple updated its Mac mini desktop offerings a little more than a week ago to very little fanfare. Maybe the company should have made a bigger deal about the new minis-thanks to faster Core 2 Duo processors, the latest minis clearly out-perform their Intel-based predecessors.

Unlike the new iMacs, the latest minis haven't changed in any way on the surface. The major additions are under the hood, where the mini now has a Core 2 Duo processor, running at either 1.83GHz or 2GHz. Previous Mac minis featured a Core Duo chip with speeds of 1.83GHz and 1.66GHz. In addition, the mini now ships with 1GB of RAM, up from 512MB, and more hard-drive capacity. Unchanged are the price, the need to supply your own keyboard, mouse and display, and the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics, which shares the system's main memory.

It's the inclusion of the second generation of the Core Duo processor line that represents the biggest change for the mini line, and not just because of the marginally faster clock speeds. The Core 2 Duo chipset contains the 128-bit SSE3 vector engine, which can process twice the amount of data per cycle than the Core Duo processor, which could process only 64 bits at a time.

The proof of the Core 2's advantage can be found in the benchmark results. For example, the new 2GHz model was 24-percent faster than the old 1.83GHz Mac mini in our Photoshop test. More significantly the new 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo model was 19-percent faster in that test than the old high-end Mac mini, despite having the exact same clock speed. (The new 1.83GHz mini was 20-percent faster than the old 1.66GHz model.) Compressor 3 scores showed even more dramatic improvement, with the new high-end model compressing our movie 35-percent faster than the old high-end. The new 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo model finished compressing the movie 28-percent faster than the Core Duo version of the mini running at the same speed and 32-percent faster than the 1.66GHz Core Duo Mac mini.

The Core 2 Duo chipset can accommodate up to 4MB of L2 cache, which is shared between the processing cores. The upper limit of the Core Duo processors is 2MB of L2 cache. It takes much less time for the processor to access data stored in the L2 cache than in main memory, so the more L2 cache available, the more data the processor can keep close at hand. The 2GHz Mac mini includes the full 4MB of L2 cache, while the new 1.83GHz system still ships with the same 2MB found in the old machines. And though the new 2GHz Mac mini was about 8-percent faster in our overall system benchmark, Speedmark, with the higher-end processor running about 10-percent faster than the lower end, it's hard to figure out how much of the performance difference is attributable to the increased L2 cache.

Core 2 Duo Mac mini Benchmarks

Best results in bold. Reference system in italics.

Speedmark 4.5 scores are relative to those of a 1.25GHz Mac mini, which is assigned a score of 100. Adobe Photoshop, Cinema 4D XL, iMovie, iTunes, and Finder scores are in minutes:seconds. All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.10 with 1GB of RAM, with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable. The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 scripted tasks using a 50MB file. Photoshop-s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum. We recorded how long it took to render a scene in Cinema 4D XL. We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV file using the DVD: Fastest Encode 120 minutes - 4:3 setting, using Apple's qmaster software to create a two instance cluster to process the job. In iMovie, we applied the Aged video effect to a 1-minute movie. We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes' High Quality setting. We used Unreal Tournament 2004's Antalus Botmatch average-frames-per-second score; we tested at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and graphics enabled. We duplicated a 500MB file in the Finder. We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1GB folder. To compare Speedmark 4.5 scores for various Mac systems, visit our Apple Hardware Guide.-MACWORLD LAB TESTING BY JAMES GALBRAITH AND JERRY JUNG

Regardless, the new systems were faster than the older models across the board, even managing to get about 13-percent more frames per second in our Unreal Tournament 2004 test against the old high end model and 19-percent more frames per second than the low-end 1.66GHz model. And while it is nice to see some improvement in game scores, the Mac mini remains at the bottom of the Mac barrel for gaming. Many gamers were hoping that a new version of the Mac mini would ditch the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics for something with a little more kick, but Apple opted to stick with the budget graphics for this new set of Mac minis. Compare the new Mac minis' 23 or so frames per second to the entry level, 2GHz Core 2 Duo iMac's 70 frames per second result and you'll see why even casual gamers will continue to eschew the mini in favor of hardware with dedicated graphics memory.

In many of the processor-intensive tasks, like rendering a scene in Cinema 4D or encoding a movie in Compressor, the 2GHz Core 2 Duo iMac and Mac mini were neck and neck. Other tests included in the overall Speedmark score, such as file duplication and importing files into iPhoto, highlighted the disadvantage of including slower, 5,400-rpm hard drives in the Mac mini as opposed to the iMac's 7,200-rpm drives. These tests, along with the slow 3-D game frame rates, help give the iMac its 22-percent higher Speedmark score.

If you're looking for an older Mac mini to reference while looking at the performance of these new Mac minis, look no further than the Speedmark score. Our baseline, or 100 system, for calculating all systems Speedmark score is a 1.25GHz G4 Mac mini with 1GB of RAM.

Check back soon for Macworld's full review of these new Mac minis.

[James Galbraith is Macworld Lab director.]

source : Macworld

Fujitsu Announces Ultramobile PC Tablet

Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. Tuesday announced a 1.56-lb. miniconvertible computer that will sell with a price tag of US$999 when it goes on sale in September.

The LifeBook U810 is the first of its size to combine tablet touch-screen convertibility from a clamshell with ultramobile PC size, said Paul Moore, direct of mobile product marketing at Fujitsu in Sunnyvale, Calif.

It enters an ultramobile PC market that includes the OQO Inc. Model 2 and the FlipStart by Vulcan Portals Inc., Moore said.

The U810 has a QWERTY keyboard that works when the clamshell design is opened, but also allows touch-screen input from a finger or pen. It also can be converted to a tablet PC by twisting around the 5.6-in. screen and laying it back on the keyboard.

The device runs standard notebook applications and will run a choice of Windows operating systems: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Moore said.

With 5.5 hours of computing life from a four-cell lithium-ion battery, it will exceed some standard laptops, Moore noted. The device has 1GB of memory and 40GB of storage capacity.

Fujitsu also announced a 3.52-lb. LifeBook T2010 tablet PC with a 12-in. display that is on sale now starting at $1,599. It features unusually prolonged battery life of nine hours with a standard battery, and runs Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Moore said.

The LifeBook T2010 can support up to 160GB of storage with a maximum of 4GB of memory.

The T2010 supports 802.11 draft-n wireless and Bluetooth, while the smaller U810 supports 802.11a/b/g wireless.

Moore said tablet PCs have not performed in the market as well as vendors would like. However, he predicted that including touch-screen capability within the Vista operating system, instead of separate from Windows XP, will improve adoption.

"Vista will help the tablet PC," he predicted, noting that Fujitsu had the first tablet PCs, which have come into use in a number of vertical business markets, including health care, where doctors and nurses use the touch-screen capabilities.

source : Computerworld