News Archive for 03/02/08

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Apps: KiGB, iPod.iTunes, DiVA, Mactracker

02/08, 6:20pm

Apps: KiGB, iPod.iTunes, DiVA, Mactracker

KiGB is a new Gameboy Color emulator for the Mac that features detailed and accurate emulation. KiGB includes high quality sound support and supports additional video modes via the Blitter Library plug-in. [Download - 508KB]
crispSofties has released the first public beta release of iPod.iTunes 2.0, its music synchronization tool. It enables users to keep music and playlists on different Macs up to date, do a full restore of tracks and playlists, clone an iPod, or transfer an entire music library from one Mac to another via the iPod. Version 2.0 features a completely new Aqua interface. The interface is tabbed, for easy access to settings, synchronization and tools. [Download - 428KB]
The second public beta of DiVA -- "the fastest transcoder on the Mac" -- is now available. It is a high-speed, MPEG-2-to-QuickTime transcoder, which features an all YUV graphics pipeline and pro-level image scaling, for maximum image fidelity. The built-in crop/scale panel and support for NTSC 3:2 pull-down makes video manipulation simple, according to the developer. Major new features in this release include: preview and cropping window now in color, a ten percent speed boost, 3:2 pull-down support, variable framerate support, framerate "auto-sensing," scaling speed improvements, upscaling support, and HDTV support. [Download - 581KB]

Mactracker 2.0.2 adds the new iMacs as well as updated "History" information (for all the latest models), to the Macintosh history and specifications catalog. The update also corrects some of the information in the database, and fixes "a few" minor bugs. [Download - Classic, OS X]

Pixar switches to Intel for render farm

02/08, 4:20pm

Pixar switches to Intel for render farm

Pixar Animation Studios -- which shares CEO Steve Jobs with Apple Computer -- is switching from Sun Microsystems to Intel, according to c|net. The film studio is replacing servers from Sun in its render farm with eight new servers from Rackspace. In all, the blade system contains 1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors, and it runs the open-source Linux operating system. As part of the switch to Intel for rendering, Pixar has ported its Renderman software to run on Linux. Sun and AMD both submitted bids on the Pixar deal. At Macworld in January, Intel President Paul Otellini sat in the front row for Steve Jobs' keynote as a VIP guest of Apple. Later in January, Jobs delivered the morning keynote address at Intel's annual sales conference in Las Vegas.