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| 06-25-11 / 05:56 PM : Facebook/Sofa (cjed) |
| Facebook acquired Sofa, that notably provided Aristo theme for Cappuccino and Enstore solution (initially made using Cappuccino, and now using jQuery). The later, as well as Checkout and Versions mac application, weren't part of the acquisition. |
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| 06-24-11 / 12:51 AM : MacOSX 10.6.8 / WWDC2011 videos (cjed) |
| The MacOSX 10.6.8 update is available. We can also download WWDC 2011 videos at Apple site (Apple Developer Connection area). |
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| 06-07-11 / 01:41 AM : WebGL : optimizing / compositing (cjed) |
| Composting engines found on browsers that support WebGL use the CPU in order to mix HTML elements with 3D canvas (required by the specification) : WebGL is essentially another rendering context on the canvas element, so it can be cleanly combined with HTML and other web content that is layered on top or underneath the 3D content. Then optimal performance cannot be achieved (there are GPU to CPU data transfer, and then CPU back to GPU transfer). Common optimizations (batch commands, shader - GLSL - functions) arent' then so much efficient. Browsers could use two rendering engines, as compositing between WebGL views (3D canvas) and other HTML elements aren't likely. Dedicated hardware rendered views are still used for 3D applications, windowed games, and recent versions of Flash plugin. However Flash uses the embed element, that is managed in a different manner (it was created on purpose, to allow to embed non standard elements), while WebGL element (standard) is at the same level as other HTML elements, and then rendered by the same container view (that corresponds to the HTML document), that is a Cocoa WebView on MacOSX. Hardware acceleration is still used for CSS Effects/CSS3 transitions and video tag, however they may also require software compositing (or the specification doesn't state to allow mixing with other HTML elements). |
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| 06-07-11 / 01:07 AM : iCloud / major labels fees (cjed) |
| Apple paid about $100-150 million to major labels to provide access from everywhere to their customers to their previously paids iTunes songs. The service will be free for some time, then about $25 a year. Apple will then share 70 percent of revenues with the major labels and 12 percent with the publishers, while keeping 18 percent. Annual fees for technical access seems fair, however labels shouldn't receive anything for this, as it is for personal use/listening, and it isn't really different than carying a CD on a portable player (or many CD copy on a memory-based player). Such service would have been better targeted to indie artists as customers would be more inclined to pay a subscription fee for listening to many more unknowns artists, than pay twice for knowns ones or full album price per indie artist (as without hints they would have to try many to find some they like). |
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| 06-07-11 / 12:26 AM : iOS5 SDK: auto ref count/GL Kit/storyboard (cjed) |
| Among new features and frameworks in iOS5 SDK we find auto reference counting (however still no Objective-C 2 garbage collector from MacOSX - for performance and memory constraints reasons), GL Kit, OpenGL ES game extensions, OpenGL ES debugger, storyboarding. Update: auto ref count (ARC) provided by Apple indeed works by adding objects management code at compile time (enhancement), and also includes releasing code. We then benefit from both transparent coding (as with a garbage collector) and performance (no additional runtime that dynamically checks memory, objects are released as soon as reference count is 0). |
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| 06-07-11 / 12:05 AM : MacOSX Lion soon on Mac AppStore (cjed) |
| MacOSX Lion will be available through the Mac App Store starting July, for 29$ (4 GB download). The included Mac App Store will allow to download delta data only for updated applications (notably the system), as well as a sandboxed execution environment. The Versions features, based on TimeMachine, will provide access to documents revisions directly from their applications. |
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| 06-02-11 / 07:28 PM : Security update/Lion soon at Mac AppStore (cjed) |
| While a Snow Leopard security update is available (brings malware detection with automatic update), MacOSX Lion is expected to be released next week through the Mac App Store (Mac OSX 10.6.8 update will be provided before to allow system install from download). Mac OSX Lion creates a small disk partition (1,5 GB) for a compressed restore system (also allows to launch Safari). |
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