TechPortal

This week the mothership in Cupertino has been busy pushing out updates. In case you missed any, here’s a run down of what you might need to install, and why:

Hardware updates

MacBook, MacBook Pro Software update – This update, only for later model MBPs enables file system journaling on MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers.

MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.4 – Improves performance and reliability of Intel Core 2 Duo processors and fixes issues with Boot Camp.

MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.1 – Improves performance and reliability of Intel Core 2 Duo processors and fixes issues with Boot Camp.

Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.2 – Fixes fan behavior and issues with Boot Camp

iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.2 – Improves performance and reliability of Intel Core 2 Duo processors and fixes issues with Boot Camp.

iLife Updates

iLife Support 8.1 – An update to system software components used by all new iLife 08 applications.

iDVD 7.01 – A stability update, no new features added.

iPhoto 7.1 – A stability update which addresses issues encountered when moving photos between Events. This update also includes new greeting card themes, including holiday card designs (all of which are still useless in Australia)

iMovie 7.1 – This update addresses several areas including video and audio editing capabilities, and performance associated with opening and switching iMovie Events and Projects. Features added in this upgrade include:

• Multiple Clip Selection
• Fine Tuning
• Still Frame Creation
• Frame-by-Frame trimming
• Audio Ducking level control
• Manual Audio Fades
• Set Duration for Transitions and Stills
• Show Current Playhead Time

GarageBand 4.1 – Addresses isolated graphic display issues and compatibility with 3rd party audio software. It also fixes minor problems with Magic GarageBand and improves general compatibility issues.

iWork Updates

Numbers 1.0.1 – Addresses issues with tables and general performance

Pages 3.0.1 – Improves tracking changes performance

Keynote 4.0.1 – Improves performance of slide-show builds

iWeb 2.0.2 – Addresses issues when upgrading older iWeb 1.x. sites and fixes common publishing problems.

iTunes

iTunes for Windows 7.4.3 – Fixes iPod Touch setup on international versions

iPhone

iPhone 1.1.1 – Lots of great new features but HOLD OFF if you have an unlocked iPhone as there is no way of activating it so far (this includes those using the TurboSIM). Apparently the iPhone Dev team is working on it. The update includes the following new features:

• iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
• Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
• Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favourites of music controls
• Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
• Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
• Stocks and cities in Stocks and Waether can be re-ordered
• Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
• Support for TV Out
• Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
• New Passcode lock time intervals
• Adjustable alert volume

and various security fixes detailed here.

If you’d like more detail on the improvements Apple has posted a video here.

I’m not particularly concerned about this update – the iPhone in its 1.0.2 state is still the best phone on the market by miles, and will be until Apple officially release the iPhone in Australia some time next year.

Having earlier this year axed its agreement with Nokia to co-produce a 3G HSPDA module for the Centrino platform, in order to go full steam ahead with WiMAX, Intel has hedged its bets and putting 3G back on the mobile menu.
Rather than being built into the Centrino platform, however, this time 3G is optional. Quite literally so, as the company behind the new modules is Belgium’s wireless technology company Option. Intel inked the deal with Option in July this year, five months after it iced the Nokia-Intel partnership, to complement Wi-Fi in its Ultra Mobile Platform for UMPCs and mobile Internet devices.

Optional extra: Option’s tiny 7.2Mbps 3G HSDPA module for UMPCs and notebooks will ship mid-2008

At this week’s IDF, Option demonstrated its tiny HSDPA radio running live video streaming onto a Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC running Ubuntu. However, Option softare engineer Ulrich Fornefeld told apcmag.com that the tiny module, which is crammed into an LGA package that barely 30mm square, was also available for inclusion in standard notebooks. “We can make this in many form factors – we adapted it into a mini-card in just two hours before IDF, so if (an OEM) wants it then we can make it in whatever form factor they need.”

The module is still a long way from the market, with Fornefeld estimating it would be available to manufacturers ‘around the middle of 2008′. The unit will run at up to 7.2Mbps downlink and 5.7Mpbs uplink, depending on the capability of the local carrier’s network, with fallback all the way through Edge and GPRS to unadorned GSM.

Intel’s focus remains firmly on WiMAX, of course, with WiMAX slated to be part of the platform mix for 2008’s notebook ‘Montevina’ and ultra-mobile ‘Menlow lines. Indeed, after sitting through the keynotes and briefings at Intel’s IDF techfest, you could be forgiven for thinking that in the world of mobile broadband, WiMAX is just about all there is. 3G barely rated a mention, and usually only in the context of speed comparisons where it came off second-best to WiMAX.

Yes, WiMAX is fast enough to truly be called broadband by world standards, and it’s flexible enough to provide the often-missing ‘last mile’ of high-speed Internet to suburbs where ADSL isn’t on the menu. And yes, on top of scores of trials around the world there are commercial services and in some cases (including the US) it’s being rolled out as a nation-wide ‘4G’ wireless broadband network.

But the US-centric perspective overlooks that 3G happens to be the dominant mobile technology around the world and the evolution to HSDPA has been taken up by most 3G countries. Most importantly, 3G has the the infrastructure for which WiMAX is still waiting.

The first wave of Intel’s much-hyped Penryn processors will touch down on November 12, with server and high-end desktop superslabs leading the charge.

Speaking at this morning’s kick-off of Intel’s IDF techfest in San Francisco, company president and CEO Paul Otellini said that the 45nm Penryn-class chips would initially be offered in 20 flavours.

“There’ll be a large number of SKUs launched on November 12 for servers and high-end desktops. In the first quarter of 2008 you’ll see additional SKUs including products for the mainstream desktop and mobile markets”.

Those notebook chips will include a refresh to the current Santa Rosa platform, but will be followed in the middle of 2008 by the fifth generation Centrino platform dubbed Montevina.

Penryn will debut in some 20 versions: Intel boss Paul Otellini shows the ‘Extreme Waffleboard’ edition which can be used to provide music for Rolf Harris songs

Otellini confirmed that it would include “WiMAX and will have native support for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. We’ll also take the form factor, the footprint, down by 50%”. The WiMAX radio will be integrated into a multiband Wi-Fi module codenamed Echo Peak. Otellini said that Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Panasonic and Toshiba had all committed to include WiMAX in their Montevino-class notebooks.

Sitting at the bottom end of the Penryn family tree would be “a very small (system on a chip) based on Silverthorne core to address the needs of ultra-low power portable computing”.

While Penryn is based on the current Core 2 microarchitecture, 2008 will mark the debut of the all-new Nehalem microarchitecture. “The design is complete, it was finished around a month ago, and we’re on track for the second half 2008″ said Otellini.

He also revealed that Nehalem would employ “a very dynamic and modular design with the ability to change the configuration of cores, cache size, IO and so forth to meet the needs of diverse (market) segments.”

The premium Nehalem chip will have eight cores on a single die, with an on-die memory controller and a new system interconnect called QuickPath – a feature set that clearly marks Nehalem as Intel’s challenger to AMD’s Barcelona and its HyperTransport feed.

A demo showed a prototype Nehalem machine running Windows XP, while Otellini said they’d also been able to boot Apple’s Mac OS X.

In 2009 the GPU would move into the 45nm Nehalem die, “at which point in time it becomes part of the microprocessor” said Otellini, who also forecast that “both the microprocessor and the graphics will be designed from scratch to hit the launch of 32nm” with the arrival of Nehalem’s 32nm successor ‘Sandy Bridge’ in 2010.

USB is one of those rare pieces of technology which actually lives up to its name. From PCs of all shapes and sizes, to peripheral devices, mobile phones and even an increasing number of living room-based consumer products, it’s truly become a ‘universal’ connector.

However, it’s also becoming a bottleneck when it comes to moving large files from fast-moving drives – particularly capacious flash-based solid state drives which are moving to the fore in the mobile device space, including forthcoming digital cameras and camcorders.

While the first day of Intel’s annual San Francisco gabfest appeared focussed on processors, a breakout session with surprisingly little fanfare announced the third generation of the Universal Serial Bus spec, to be developed by the USB Implementers Forum. Intel is not only one of just six companies with a seat at the USB-IF’s director’s table, but its “technology strategist” Jeff Ravencraft is Chairman and President of the club.

While not pegging a peak speed for the nascent spec, Ravencraft told apcmag.com that USB 3.0 would offer at least “over 10 times performance increase over USB 2.0″ – which translates into at least 4800Mbit/s, or 600MB/s. That’s the theory, anyway – as is the case with current USB specifications, and life in general, reality doesn’t always match up.

Intel software architect Rahman Ismail, who shared the stage with Ravencraft, said that while “with USB 2.0 you can get 40MB/s on a good day if the stars are aligned”, USB 3.0 would still have “a guaranteed throughput of 300MB/s… we have flash devices hitting 45-50MB/s, so we need to provide the headroom so that USB doesn’t become the bottleneck”.

Part of this will entail a new ‘mass storage protocol’ which allows USB-based devices to act as hard drives. “Current USB mass storage averages around 32MB/s, and the existing mass storage driver will hit (its limit) at 150MB/s. We need a new mass storage protocol, and our goal is to hit around 400MB/s” said Ismail.

The spec’s design would also “minimise software overhead and wasted bandwidth” which co-ordinates data shuttled over the bus, as well as remove the constant polling of devices to check if they have data to send to the host PC.

“In USB 2.0 you’re always asking do you have data, do you have data, do you have data. But even with a mouse or keyboard, 90% of the time there’s no data, you’re sitting there thinking”. USB 3.0 does away with polling, says Ismail – “when a device has data, the device will transmit the data. And if you’re idle, we want (USB 3.0) to go to the lowest power state possible, not keep polling the device to see if it’s in use”.

This not only reduces the power drain of a USB device when connected to a notebook, it also cuts back on traffic and ensures devices that do have data get immediate attention. “When USB is checking if your mouse or keyboard has data, it’s not checking if another device has data”. The spec will also support native virtualisation of USB 3.0 devices, says Ismail. “This lets a virtual machine interact directly with a USB device, without any software intervention, such as storage devices with a partition for each VM.”

As you’d expect, USB 3.0 will be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and will use the same connectors. However, “the insides of the cable will be different, but the user won’t notice” said Ravencraft. The revised cable “will have dedicated in and out lanes, so you can get data from a device while moving data to a device at the same time. You can have data streaming in both directions at the same time”.

Following the branding of USB 2.0 as ‘Hi-Speed USB’ – which we’ve always found confusing, considering that USB 1.1’s snail-like 12Mb/s pace is dubbed ‘Full Speed’ – USB 3.0 will carry the consumer brand of being ‘Super Speed’ USB. But the devices themselves won’t arrive Super Fast.

“We intend to have a completed spec in the first half of 2008″ predicts Ravencraft. “When the spec gets to the .9 level people will begin to build products, so we’ll see product development through 2008, with initial deployment in 2009 and broad deployment in 2010″.

On Thursday, Swedish computer security consultant Dan Egerstad posted online the usernames, passwords and server addresses necessary to access up to 100 e-mail accounts worldwide. He says he used an unnamed vulnerability to obtain the usernames and passwords for up to 1,000 e-mail accounts of government employees around the world. Egerstad also said he’s found information for accounts belonging to major U.S. and U.K. corporations. He has not used the information himself.

Egerstad told Computer Sweden: “I did an experiment and came across the information by accident.” He said he tried contacting a few of the administrators responsible for the sites he posted, but so far they have all ignored him. He hopes that by posting the information the agencies will take corrective action.

Computer Sweden confirmed that the log-in details for at least one of the accounts is correct. Egerstad provided the publication with an e-mail sent by an employee at the Swedish royal court to the Russian embassy. The Russian embassy has since changed its password.

Computer Sweden has not been able to confirm the authenticity of any of the other information that has been posted.