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| Sunday, May 22, 2005 |
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Apple recalls notebook batteries that pose fire hazard risk
Apple Computers and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have jointly announced a massive recall of 225,000 lithium ion rechargeable batteries in some of Apple notebook computers due to a fire hazard risk posed by overheating of these batteries.
In exchange, Apple is offering free replacement batteries for certain units of the 12-inch iBook G4, and 12-inch and 15-inch PowerBook G4s, sold between October 2004 and May 2005.
The affected batteries, manufactured by South Korean company LG Chem, have model numbers including A1061, A1078, and A1079 and serial numbers that start with HQ441 through HQ507 or 3X446 through 3X510. So far, six consumer complaints of the batteries overheating have been received by Apple.
However, no fires or injuries have been reported.
Of the 885,000 computers sold worldwide, around 128,000 affected ones were sold in the United States, for a cost between US$ 900 to US$ 2300. Batteries were also sold separately for about US$ 130.
“We do not expect the cost of the recall to be material to Apple, and our supplier will bear those costs,” said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris, but refused comment when asked if the recall would hit the sale of portable computers. This is the second recall involving the LG Chem, the first being in August 2004, when 28,000 computers batteries were recalled. Kerris, however, did not say if Apple would terminate its contract with LG Chem.
LG Chem officials were unavailable for comment.
Other major battery recalls include Dell and Compaq in October 2000. While Dell recalled 27,000 batteries, Compaq recalled 55,000 of them. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 3:00 PM |
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| Friday, May 20, 2005 |
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Apple patches up Tiger Server Operating System
Apple last month launched their latest Operating System codenamed Tiger. And like most applications, bugs and security flaws were discovered within a few weeks and as a result, the company has released an update fixing the Server version of the Operating System. This is just after a couple of days that they fixed their desktop variant.
The latest fixes updates the version of the Operating System to Mac OS X 10.4.1 and it fixes problems in Software Update Server used for delivery of patches and updates to the Operating System. Another update fixes the Apple File Server issue, which resulted in a dead server if both the SMB and CIFS network file services were used simultaneously.
More fixes are there including for a bug, which prevented backup disk images from mounting properly. In addition, there are updates for Apple’s Open Directory, which now allow users to add password hints to an access list. Apple is making the update available from their website. Alternatively, the network administrators can update the Operating System from the internal utility as well.
More details are available on the Apple’s Support Site. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 6:45 PM |
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| Wednesday, May 04, 2005 |
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Apple Upgrades iMac G5
The new and improved iMac from Apple includes widescreen displays, faster processing, built-in wireless capabilities and Tiger.
May 3 Apple Computer introduced an updated version of its iMac G5 computer Tuesday to include faster 64-bit processors and graphics capabilities. The machine is set to take advantage of the new "Tiger" operating system, which will be bundled with the new computers, along with a built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.
"Reviewers have called the iMac G5 'the most elegant desktop computer in the world,' and now it's getting even better," Peter Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple Computer Inc., said in a statement.
The new iMac G5 now can be purchased with a 17- or 20-inch widescreen display, with 1440x900 and 1680x1050 pixel resolution, respectively, which will be powered by an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics processor with 128MB of memory.
New, customizable upgrades include 400MHz of DDR (double-data-rate) memory that can be expanded to 2GB, while the storage capacity can be upped to 400GB.
In addition to running Tiger more efficiently, the expanded memory and hard drive also will let users take better advantage of the included iLife '05 application suite, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and iTunes.
"With a faster processor, built-in wireless networking, Tiger and iLife '05, the new iMac G5 offers the best consumer desktop computing experience in the world," Schiller said.
The lower-end package will sell for $1,299 and includes a 17-inch widescreen, a 1.8GHz processor and a 160GB hard drive. The high-end system will sell for $1,799 and includes a 20-inch widescreen, a 2.0 GHz processor and a 250 GB hard drive.
Apple's refresh of its consumer iMac line fell in step with the company's announcement last week of upgrades to its line of Power Mac workstations. The new workstations include a dual 2.7GHz system that supports Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD display. Many of the company's latest enhancements are targeted squarely at Apple's creative-professional customers.
In addition, Apple last week announced price reductions on its 20-inch Cinema and 23-inch Cinema HD displays. The price of the 20-inch Cinema display has been lowered to $799 from $999, and the high-definition Cinema HD 23-inch display has been lowered in price from $1,799 to $1,499. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:30 PM |
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| Sunday, May 01, 2005 |
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Windows Again Chasing Mac OS to Shelves
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 1, 2005; Page F06
With its new operating system ready to ship, Apple felt justified in kicking some sand in Microsoft's face. Its marketers crowed about how its new Mac OS X release included features that Microsoft could only talk about while it continued to work on its own long-delayed successor to Windows XP.
That was a problem for Microsoft -- in 2003, when Apple was talking up Mac OS X 10.3, a k a Panther. Now, two years later, things haven't changed much.
A new Apple update, OS X 10.4, or Tiger, is on store shelves while that XP replacement -- nicknamed Longhorn for now -- is still, well, not here.
Longhorn is now scheduled to arrive during the 2006 holiday season. Originally, it was to show up sometime in 2004.
It was also supposed to have a lot more features in its original incarnation. The most important of these were to be an improved, faster file system, the Windows File System (WinFS). WinFS would turn today's static lists of files and folders into a searchable database, allowing users to find files in a snap and quickly build their own custom folders on the fly.
A second core Longhorn component was Palladium, Microsoft's nickname for a special chip and a new layer of software to ensure that only trusted programs, not viruses or spyware, were afoot on a PC.
Now, WinFS has been dropped entirely (although Microsoft says it will still build in the sort of desktop-search capabilities that users now get only with add-on software. Palladium's reach has been downgraded, allowing this technology to regulate only what software runs right after the computer boots up.
Instead of the biggest, baddest operating system ever, skeptics see Longhorn as Windows XP Service Pack 3.
But it should certainly look better than XP as we know it. Longhorn's graphics architecture, called Avalon, will allow for some of the same slick graphics effects as in Mac OS X, but it's not just a pretty new Windows face. (Microsoft calls those interface graphics Aero.)
Avalon also can work with properly written applications to adjust their appearance, making the best use of display hardware. For example, it would allow a desktop-publishing program to tap every pixel of the higher resolution of a future display instead of crudely scaling up its graphics.
A second Longhorn technology, Indigo, may be of less relevance to home users. It's more of an office feature that will help programmers write applications that run across local networks.
A third change, however, should benefit anybody anxious about security. Microsoft plans to reduce the authority Windows grants to individual programs to operate as they see fit, which should reduce the amount of damage any one virus can do.
Longhorn's system requirements are still somewhat up in the air. Microsoft has been cagey about saying exactly what users will need to run Longhorn, but so far it seems clear that they'll need at least 512 megabytes of memory. Its fanciest 3-D graphics will, in turn, require a high-end video card, along the lines of what is needed to run a fast-paced video game today.
Microsoft representatives have also said that Longhorn will run best on dual-core processors, which put the guts of two processors on a single chip. AMD and Intel are both hard at work producing dual-core chips, but none are sold in home PCs.
But Microsoft also insists that users will be able to run Longhorn on older machines with 128 or 256 megabytes of memory and today's graphic cards. It just won't be a great experience, they admit, and may not look much different from XP today. (Microsoft offers some information on Longhorn, though mostly oriented toward developers, at http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn .)
To make the most of Longhorn, users will also need to upgrade their applications, although XP-capable programs, such as Microsoft Office and Intuit's Quicken, should still run just fine.
Microsoft reaffirmed the holiday 2006 timetable for Longhorn at last week's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle, but that will take some quick work. It has yet to release a beta of Longhorn, although it plans to do so this summer. If that test release should slip, watch out -- it took Microsoft a year to go from its first beta of XP to the shipping product. And Longhorn incorporates many more changes than XP did. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 3:30 PM |
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