Mac notebook supplies may reduce due to Chinese factory shutdown

The shutdown of production at a Chinese manufacturer may affect inventories of Apple's popular MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks, an analyst said Monday.
Catcher Technology, a Taiwanese company that has factories in the People's Republic, confirmed over the weekend that it had partly shuttered a plant in eastern China after local officials fielded complaints of a "strange odor" emanating from the facility.
Catcher produces 60 percent of the so-called "unibody" aluminum cases for Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, some casings for the iMac, and components for the Smart Cover that Apple sells as an iPad 2 accessory, according to Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities.
White said that the remaining 40 percent of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air cases are produced by rival Hon Hai Precision, part of Foxconn Technology.
In a press conference Monday, Catcher's president Allen Horng said, "Shipments to our customers will inevitably be affected. We already asked them to make adjustments to their (casings) procurement," the Wall Street Journal reported.
Horng added that shipments would fall 20 percent this month and perhaps as much as 40 percent in November if the production lines remain shut down.
Catcher has factories in Suzhou, an eastern Chinese city near Shanghai.
"This shutdown at Catcher is a wildcard and could have an impact on Apple's Mac business, especially the popular MacBook Air and MacBook Pro," said White in a note to clients Monday. "Furthermore, we believe a new MacBook Pro is set to be launched soon and this could [also] be impacted."
Mac notebook sales are important to Apple, accounting for 70 percent of the company's personal computer unit sales in the quarter ending June 30, and 69 percent of all Mac revenue in that period.
Apple will announce its third-quarter sales figures Tuesday. White expects that Apple will say it sold 3.1 million notebooks during the previous three months, and 4.2 million Macs overall.
Catcher Technology did not immediately reply to questions about the Suzhou factory shutdown.
Supplies of Apple's notebook -- all feature the unibody case milled from a single piece of aluminum -- were unchanged on Apple's website today, with all models showing an "in stock" message.

So guyz, go buy your Mac notebook now before it gets so scarce.

Cheers.

Google adds Cloud-based SQL database to App Engine

Google has created a relational database for its cloud-hosted App Engine application development and hosting platform, a much-requested addition, the company said on Thursday.
For now, the database, called Google Cloud SQL, is available on limited preview mode, which means that the company will hand-select the developers who get access to it.
During this preview period, Google Cloud SQL will be free of charge. Google will announce pricing a month before it starts charging for it.
"You can now choose to power your App Engine applications with a familiar relational database in a fully-managed cloud environment. This allows you to focus on developing your applications and services, free from the chores of managing, maintaining and administering relational databases," wrote Navneet Joneja, product manager for Google Cloud SQL, in a blog post.
An import/export feature will allow developers to move on-premise MySQL databases to Google Cloud SQL, where Google will handle back-end maintenance and administration tasks, while replicating data to multiple data centers, he said.
Google Cloud SQL also has a control panel for developers to engage in front-end administration of the databases. With Google Cloud SQL, App Engine developers get an option to Google's proprietary Big Table database.
John Rymer, a Forrester Research analyst, calls this move by Google "very significant."
"SQL is far more widely used by developers than key-value stores like Big Table. Absence of SQL options for App Engine has been a big barrier to adoption," he said.
Google App Engine was launched in 2008 for developers of consumer Web applications who wanted to host their software on the Google cloud infrastructure.
In mid-2010, Google unveiled an enterprise version of the service called App Engine for Business, but eventually folded it, although the company has said that its key features will find their way to the regular App Engine. The SQL database was one of those features.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

Creative genius revolutionized computers, music, phones

Steve Jobs, Apple's cofounder and former CEO, has died. He was 56 years old.
His death was reported late Wednesday in a brief statement on Apple's website. Apple's homepage featured a black-and-white photo of Jobs with a closely trimmed beard bearing his name and the years 1955-2011.
"Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," a statement by Apple said. "Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."
Arguably the most influential and charismatic leader in the history of an industry stocked with high-profile personalities, Jobs created then later transformed Apple into a consumer electronics giant that redefined product elegance and ease of use.
Having both publicly and privately battled serious health problem for years, Jobs' death was not unexpected.

In August 2004 he revealed that he had a rare but survivable islet cell neuroendocrine tumor removed from his pancreas. At that time he told Apple employees that he would return in September. He did.
In January 2009, Jobs released an open letter in which he said that his severe weight loss – which had been "a mystery to me and my doctors" – had been discovered to be a "hormone imbalance".
Just over a week later, however, Jobs began a second medical leave of absence. In an email message addressed to "Team", he wrote: "I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought."
In June of that year, a spokesman for a Tennessee organ-transplant center confirmed that Jobs had received a liver transplant in April. Jobs returned to Apple on a part-time basis at the end of June, and in September he appeared at an iPod-introduction event, where he told the crowd: "I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple, and loving every minute of it."
During the later half of 2010, however, it became clear that Jobs' health was deteriorating. In January 2011, he began what was to be his third and final medical leave.
Jobs never returned to day-to-day duties at Apple – although he appeared to relish his appearances at the iPad 2 and iCloud roll-outs, over which he presided in his familiar black-turtleneck-and-jeans public personna.
During this third leave of absence, as with the first two, Apple's COO Tim Cook took the reins as acting CEO. Apple's board of directors, at Jobs' urging, named Cook CEO when Jobs resigned in August.
In his letter of resignation, Jobs wrote: "I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you."
Jobs was nothing if not a polarizing figure, but any honest member of the consumer-technology industry must thank him for the many years of being able to work alongside the mercurial visionary.
Adopted son of Paul and Clara Jobs, Steven Paul Jobs was born to Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali. He leaves his wife of 20 years, Laurene Powell Jobs, and children Lisa, Reed, Erin, and Eve.

Microsoft may bid again for Yahoo, report says

Just three years after a failed attempt to buy Yahoo, Microsoft may be considering whether to try again.
According to the report, Microsoft executives are split on whether the company should bid for Yahoo. A final decision has not been reached, the report noted.
Citing an unnamed "high-ranking Microsoft executive," the report said Microsoft is evaluating whether to pull in a partner for a joint effort to buy Yahoo.
Microsoft said it doesn't comment on rumors or speculation. Yahoo didn't respond to a request for comment on the report.
"As long as Microsoft is committed to growing its online presence, this makes sense," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "Yahoo has a large number of subscribers and regular visitors, many of whom are not considering going elsewhere. And that would be a good boost for Microsoft."
He also noted that Yahoo Mail, Yahoo's popular free email service, would combine well with Microsoft's own Hotmail service to create a very large base of email users.
"It looks like Yahoo is much more available than last time. More willing, or at least less unwilling," Gottheil added. "It's like a Jane Austen novel -- the Yahoo board no doubt regrets rejecting Microsoft's [past] advances."
In 2008, Microsoft tried to acquire Yahoo. Yahoo's argument that the bid was tool low prompted Microsoft to finally give up.
Since then, Yahoo has been dealing with some significant problems.
No longer the high-flying Internet pioneer of its heyday, Yahoo last month fired Carol Bartz, who had joined the company as CEO with high hopes that she could return the company to its past glory.
Yahoo is now searching for a new leader.
Once Bartz was out the door, industry analysts began speculating that Yahoo's board might be open to a solid acquisition offer.
However, Yahoo remains a large, unwieldy organization and thus a difficult aquisition target for many companies. Speculation has turned to Microsoft as a company large enough to handle the purchase.

iPhone 4 to be free' when new iPhones ship

iPhone 4S and 5 to be dual-mode. Other changes leaked
Schlumberger uses IBM BNT RackSwitch for HPC
Upon Tuesday's rollout of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, the existing iPhone 4 will be offered for the low, low price of nothing at all when purchased with a presumably two-year contract.
That is, if a pricing roundup leaked to MacDailyNews from "a sole source [who] has provided reliable information of Apple’s moves in the past" is accurate.
MacDailyNews warns that the leaked price sheet is to be regarded merely as a rumor, and we agree. But the specs included along with the prices are interesting nonetheless.
For one, the iPhone 4 – currently available in 16GB and 32GB models – will contain only 8GB of storage.
The iPhone 4S – $99 for 16GB, $199 for 32GB – will be bumped up from an A4 processor to an A5, as is in the iPad 2. In addition, both the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 – $299 for 32GB, $399 for 64GB – will be dual-mode GSM/CDMA handsets with 1GB of RAM, up from 512MB in the iPhone 4.
In addition, the iPhone 4S, like the iPhone 4, will have a 5-megapixel back-facing camera, while the iPhone 5's main camera will be an 8-megapixel shooter. The iPhone 4S is listed as being available in both black and white, while no color information is given for the new iPhone 5.
As we said, these are single-source rumors, so take them with the requisite grains of salt – but, hey, what's an Apple product roll-out without a healthy dollop of delicious rumor-mongering?