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| 02-24-11 / 08:12 PM : PublishMe : HTML designer in Cappuccino (cjed) |
| PublishMe is a Wysiwyg HTML site designer made using Cappuccino, that then (as Atlas did) allows live preview from the designer/browser. It can be launched by clicking the Create Publication link from that site. Many publications can be managed, and each one can include many pages (buttons above the pages list allow to create, copy or delete pages). |
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| 02-24-11 / 06:08 PM : MacOSX Lion: iOS widgets/touch/anim/AV/Versions (cjed) |
 Apple provides to Mac Developer Program subscribers a preview of MacOSX Lion. No details are available yet about a new Finder (except Launchpad, full screen mode and Mission Control), nor about enhancements/completion of some foundation technologies (Quartz GL, resolution independence, Grand Central), however the dedicated ADC page presents the following new features :- new Aqua widgets (popovers, overlay scrollbars), Multi-Touch and animations (higher level APIs than Core Animation), derived from iOS. - AV Foundation : new time-based (not exactly realtime) and high level (Objective-C) framework to manage audio and video (abstraction to Core Audio, Core Media and Core Animation). We could then expect a new audio engine for the next version of Logic (it is due this summer, probably a few weeks following MacOSX Lion's release), as it has been said it wasn't initially intended to manage so many time-based constraints (despite latency generated by third-party plugins - PLAY for example - is often the cause to overload). - Auto Save and Versions : automatic save (using increment) of files for document-based applications, with a Time Machine like interface to browse the versions. - Applications state save and restore after relaunch or restart. - Sandboxing and Privilege Separation (complementary to existing signing technology). - File Coordination : eases concurrent accesses (from different threads) to files. |
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| 02-24-11 / 05:16 PM : New MacBook Pro 13' / 2010 mac mini (cjed) |
| Apple did not state performance improvement with new Intel HD3000 chipset (found on entry-level new MacBook Pro models) over the previous NVidia 320M, and only stated that performance is up to 3 times higher with the new ATI Radeon HD 6750M dedicated card (found in the high-end model - 1 Gb of DDR5 -, the Radeon HD 6490M with 256 Mb of DDR3 found in middle model not being as fast) compared with previous Nvidia GeForce GT 330M dedicated card found on older middle and high-end MacBook Pro. Moreover the new middle and high-end models use a quad core processor (Core i7 at 2,2 Ghz) instead of the dual core i5 processor (2,53 Ghz or 2,66 Ghz) found on the olders Macbook Pro. The new entry-level MacBook Pro isn't then faster for gaming than the previous one (Intel HD3000 chipset ranks 154th and Nvidia GeForce 320M 129th) or the June 2010 mac mini. However the new Core i5 based entry-level Macbook Pro (2,3 Ghz) brings Turbo Boost 2.0 and Hyper threading (compared with previous 2,4 Ghz Core2 Duo). It may then be faster with single threaded applications (the single activated core speeds up to 3,4 Ghz) or with applications that use at least 4 threads (performance will be similar with two-threaded applications). Result will then rely on Grand Central enhancements in MacOSX Lion. |
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| 02-24-11 / 04:33 PM : Thunderbolt / details and announcements (cjed) |
 New Macbook Pro have finally been unveiled today (and are available at the App Store). Apple presents details about Thunderbolt technology, that it has been working on with Intel in order to speed up its release : it provides two 10 Gbits/s channels (that is twice USB3 throughput) and daisy-chaining of up to 6 devices (including Apple's displays as it manages both PCI Express and DisplayPort protocols).Intel also presented the new data transfer technology as well as industry support. Among companies that have announced Thunderbolt compatible devices (or are planning to release some) are LaCie, Western Digital, Apogee and Universal Audio. |
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| 02-24-11 / 12:53 AM : Apple Special Event : Lightpeak (cjed) |
| Apple announced a special event that will take place March, 2. We expect the presentation of iPad 2, and the release of new MacBook Pro fitted with Lightpeak transfer technology (renamed Thunderbolt by Apple, and whose connector is similar to mini display port). Last June mac mini wasn't then the real/full revolution, and Firewire 800 daisy-chaining problems on Snow Leopard with PLX chipsets (that acquired Oxford) are less likely to be fixed. This would explain why Apple didn't have used USB3 nor Firewire 3200 in recent macs, and had been waiting to jump directly to the next technology, as they did 12 years ago with Firewire. |
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| 02-22-11 / 10:37 PM : iTunes Store : soon 24 bit (cjed) |
| The iTunes Music Store may soon provide 24 bit encoded songs (that is the standard for mastering theses days, and it had also been used in 90s for some albums/compilations of some famous artists (a 24 bit to 16 bit dithering was used for CD media). However it still won't be lossless, and as stated in a comment the better headroom (additional dynamic range left for mixing before clipping) - noise floor not being anymore a problem with converters these last years - is of few use since music editors keep maxing out the level (using a compressor). I indeed had to use a limiter to rise MJ Style's album audio level (a compressor would have produced a pumping effect if applied after the original mix's reverb), in order to ensure it being close to other songs at the iTunes Store. The result was a somewhat mechanical sounding beat for snare (levelled due to the use of a limiter). |
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| 02-12-11 / 12:59 AM : Flash 10.2/Nvidia chipsets : H264 accelerating (cjed) |
| Adobe provides final version of Flash 10.2, that brings hardware accelerating of H264 video decoding (through Apple's Video Decode Acceleration Framework) when using some Nvidia chipsets (9400, 320M and 330M) and then uses 3 times less processor resources (is now as efficient as Quicktime). With ATI card the acceleration isn't fully optimized, so it still uses two times more processor resources than with Quicktime. Playing a 360p video directly at Youtube site, the Flash plugin (separate process on Snow Leopard) uses 11,5 to 12 percent CPU resources (15 to 20 percent at start when buffering) on a 2010 mac mini (2,4 Ghz, Nvidia 320M chipset), and Safari uses between 4 and 5 percent CPU. With same video played from toucharcade site (the page contains a lot of other embedded Flash videos), the Flash plugin uses 35 percent resources. |
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| 02-06-11 / 03:34 PM : Spotify : labels's opinions (cjed) |
| Macnn provides an interesting article on Spotify, that confirms what I thought of such services : The most critical label executive called Spotify's revenues "microscopic" compared to iTunes, Amazon MP3 or even eMusic, and thought it was borderline "scandal" that it was even allowed... Their game plan is to devalue music 10 - 20 fold and then swallow it up like Pacman. stereotypical technology bubble company, which raised as much money as possible before the "business falls apart" and could start again solely based on the ability to attract venture capital funding. With the full catalog available for free with ads and relatively little marketing of the paid version, almost all of Spotify's subscribers don't pay the minimum fee. Apple and its pay-per-track peers have potentially limited audiences but will often make as much revenue on one or two albums per month as they would for unlimited audio streams over the same period. |
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| 02-05-11 / 05:02 PM : Cappuccino 0.9 : major update (cjed) |
| Version 0.9 (Golden Maser following 5 beta) of Cappuccino is available. The changes include a huge number of enhancements, fixes, full rewrite of controls or Foundation classes, and many new features and classes. It may then confirm Motorola being interested in using Cappuccino to build applications targeted for their tablets. We notably find : - wider use and enhancements for bindings, KVO and KVC - features complete TableView and OutlineView (inline editing, themes, etc.), Aristo 2.0 theme (including new HUD look) - wider support for keys shortcuts (navigation), contextual menus (also managed by TableView - new delegate), hover states - native scrolling for ScrollView (also auto-scrolling), support for alpha layer for windows (transparency and dynamic shadows were still provided for dialogs), full rewrite of CPAlert and CPTabView - rewrite of CPArray (better sort performance) and CPSet, timezone support (and ISO dates parsing and display) for CPDate - Native Host feature now included (was used by Atlas) - new controls : CPCursor, CPBrowser, CPButtonBar, CPBox CPStepper (an unofficial implementation was still available) - new CPSound class (based on HTML5 audio tag) - new utility classes : CPDecimalNumber, CPExpression, CPPredicate, CPTokenField An update to CP2JavaWS would then allow inline editing for master/detail views (as an option, as we may prefer separate editing as with current version, and we may want the table view not display all the properties). Compatibility with existing applications and frameworks seems however good (few deprecated methods). |
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| 02-03-11 / 12:52 AM : Music / IT : technical skills become critical (cjed) |
| Roland reports (from a Digital Music News's article) that music companies are looking more on more for CEOs with technical background (then not only CTO), while relational and marketing skills are becoming less critical. That is then the opposite to what is happening to IT business. |
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