iPod for Windows; rumor or fact?
Posted by me101 on 21 June 2002 - 18:05 · 18 comments & 47 views
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But Apple may be close behind with its own Windows-to-iPod software, Needham analyst Charles Wolf wrote in a Friday research note. Wolf said the release of Windows syncing software could boost the iPod to 10 percent of the portable digital music player market.
MediaFour is rushing ahead of most software developers trying to get a finished product out the door. Most Windows-to-iPod utilities are in the beta, or testing, phase.
Competitor TrentSoft makes EphPod, free software with similar features. But to make the most use of EphPod, iPod owners must buy MacOpener from software maker DataViz for $50.
MediaFour will release the final version of XPlay on Monday at the TechXNY trade show (formerly PC Expo) in New York. XPlay will sell for $29.95. The software allows iPod owners to manage songs on their PC or transfer them to the device. They can use either the provided XPlay interface or Windows Media Player for Windows XP.
Apple has yet to commit to releasing software for syncing iPod to Windows PCs. Right now, the company offers syncing and managing of songs only through its iTunes digital music software for Macs. But that could change as early as next month.
"We confirmed just this week...that Apple will also introduce a product that ports the iPod to Windows this summer, possibly as early as Macworld New York on July 17," Wolf wrote. "We have no details on the product. But given Apple's attention to design and ease-of-use, we think it will be a turnkey product that just works when it's plugged into a FireWire port."
The circuitry is then etched into the silicon and the printed image removed.
Because the individual features of the chip are so tiny, as narrow as 130 nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) in current chips, the printing machine can cost well over £10m.
An entire chip factory can cost in the order of a billion pounds.
The etching and image removal stages of the manufacturing process involve use of substantial amounts of chemicals which can place a load on the environment.
Professor Chou's process, described in the scientific journal Nature, involves a simple mechanical printing of the features of the chip.
A quartz die is pressed against the silicon, which is melted briefly by a laser.
Professor Chou says his invention can produce chip features 10 times narrower than current techniques.
If he manages to put his invention into practice, it will enable chip builders to pack 100 times as many components into the same area of silicon.
The more densely packed the components on a chip, the faster the chip can run, because the signals passing through its circuitry arrive more quickly.
Professor Chou's process has the potential to be cleaner, too.
"In our process there is no waste. It's a purely physical process with no chemicals," he said.