We which all our readers a merry Christmas
Blog Archives
Apple buy Anobit for $500 million
Anobit is an Israeli based start-up specialized in flash technologies for mobile and data centers. They developped the MSP™ technology that increase greatly endurance of any flash-storage device using advanced error correction and proprietary flash management, as well as specific signal-amplifier, offering SLC endurance with MLC NAND. Anobit deposed 95 patents, of which 21 where granted, on flash technologies, that are strategic for mobile devices, SSD-based computers, and SSD-based data center or servers. Anobit products are already present into Apple mobile line, including iPhone and iPad. Apple bought Anobit this week for $500 million, probably planning to use their technologies into new mobile devices as well as Mac computers as a side-effect, but the main interest is into the patent wallet portfolio of the company and the ability to create a strong R&D center in Israel.
Apple may reverse dividend in early 2012
This rumors started by Howard Ward, a money manager for Gamco Investors, during an interview for Bloomberg’s “Street Smart” when it stated that “We’re going to see a dividend announced for Apple at some point in the first half of 2012″. Apple didn’t reverse dividend since 1995, but Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs and may decide to give shareholder a strong signal. Apple has more than 86 billion dollars in cash, that is the stock-market value of Dell and HP together!
DxO Optics Pro 7.1 for Mac
DxO Optics Pro is a raw photo file manager, that include many advanced features to enhance the quality of the image, such as denoizing and lens distorsions correction, to unleash the true potential of any digital DSLR (see DxO features here). This is a great tool to obtain perfect image quality, working in combination with Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. DxO Labs announced it’s new version of DxO Optics Pro for Mac, with improved performance and support of 5000 body-lens combinations. You could download a 30-day Free Trial, and there’s currently a discount price through December 24, 2011: DxO Standard Edition $99 (from $169) and DxO Elite Edition $199 (from $269). If you are a photographer pro or amateur, at least give it a try, you might be surprised by the results!
The third Thunderbolt peripheral available [Update]
![The third Thunderbolt peripheral available [Update]](http://mhackintosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/sonnet-echo-expresscard34.jpg)
As some of you may know, LaCie have presented the Thunderbolt Little Big Disk, but delivery date range from march to april (3 to 4 months!), so there’s only 2 available Thunderbolt peripherals: Promise Pegasus and Apple Thunderbolt Display. Today Sonnet presented the Sonnet Echo, a Thunderbolt ExpressCard/34 adapter, enabling any owner of 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro or MacBook Air to use ExpressCard/34 cards on their computers (also compatible with iMac & Mac Mini). This open to ability to have eSATA and USB 3.0 ports on our Mac, with up to 5GB/s bandwidth (more than 600MB/s) enough to connect USB 3 SSD or eSATA fast RAID Storage! All that have a price, that is $235 without taxes, shipping and the mandatory USB 3 or eSATA ExpressCard/34. And as you see on the picture, it’s not the cute little adapter on the top (announced), but the big adapter on the bottom (delivered), mainly due to Intel Thunderbolt chips that dissipate too much heat and need a big aluminum box or a fan to stay cool (as in the Little Big Disk!). This is at least 3X the volume of the initial announcement mock-up! With a tag price of 350$ (including