Optiarc, the product of the joined Sony and NEC’s optical storage divisions, has released the BD-M100A, their first Blu-ray Burner.
It burns single and dual layer BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray discs, giving a storage capacity of up to 35Gb and 50 Gb respectively. It also supports BD-ROM and BD-AV discs.
Continue reading Optiarc BD-M100A: Blu-ray Burner First From Sony NEC
Sony and BT have just signed a four year deal to extend the function of the Sony PSP to have it act as a Wi-Fi video and voice ‘softphone’.
We’ve been digging a bit as the initial information offered by BT was sketchy to say the least.
Continue reading VoIP On PSP Offered By BT And Sony
T-Mobile USA has launched the Wing QWERTY Smartphone to replace their popular MDA Pocket PC smartphone.
Built by mobile maestros HTC, the new T-Mobile Wing comes stuffed full with the latest technology, offering quad-band GSM/EDGE support, 802.11g Wi-Fi, a 2.8″ touch screen display and a slide-out, 40-key QWERTY keyboard.
Continue reading T-Mobile US Announces the T-Mobile Wing Smartphone
Just when Microsoft was developing as bit of a confident man-about-town swagger about its rising search engine performance, a new report from Nielsen/NetRatings delivers a humbling slapdown in the goolies.
The figures, released yesterday, show that after gaining ground for a couple months, Microsoft lost a chunk of their search market share in April, while rivals Google and Yahoo enjoyed lengthy back-slapping sessions as traffic rose.
Continue reading Google Rampant: Microsoft Search Slips Up
Car rental giants Avis have starting offering their Autonet Mobile-based Wi-Fi service – known as Avis Connect – in their rental vehicles.
The service – priced at an upmarket $10.95 (unlimited usage) a day in addition to the car rental fee – lets multiple users connect to each other and to the Internet via a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device, powered by the car’s power adapter or cigarette lighter.
Continue reading Avis Offers In-Car Wi-Fi Service
Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University has been a clever bunny. He’s used clips from many of Disney’s films to explain how copyright law and fair use works in the America.
Even if you’re a copyright nut who thinks that these rights should be extended indefinitely, excluding others from benefiting for the same advantages that Disney had, of building on others works that came before, you’ll appreciate the skill and patience that were required to make it.
(Watch it after the jump)
Continue reading A Fair(y) Use Tale
Rocking up on the 12 megapixel bandwagon is Panasonic, who have just announced their new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100 digicam, a sweet-looking snapper sporting a 1/1.72-inch sensor, 28mm wide-angle zoom and image stabilisation.
Shimmying its way to the vanguard of the Lumix FX compact camera series, the Lumix FX100 packs Panasonic’s Venus Engine III processor supporting a High-Speed Burst shooting mode that can knock out a sizzling eight shots per second, with a High Sensitivity mode taking the sensitivity into the stratospheric heights of 6400 ISO.
Continue reading Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100 Digital Compact Announced
British private equity firm Terra Firma looks to have fought off heavyweight rivals – including the mighty Warner Music – to put in a winning offer for the ailing EMI music group.
The deal values the music group at just over £3.2 billion (including debt), and is set to see off other hopeful suitors including US investment firms Cerberus, One Equity Partners and Fortress, all of whom had been granted given access to EMI’s books in preparation for finalising their bids.
Continue reading EMI Agrees Terra Firma £3.2bn Takeover
Just after the back-patting of the release of the upgraded Apple MacBooks last week, there news that Apple is the target of a class-action in the US.
The case for false advertising and misrepresentation centers on the claims by Apple that the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks display supports “millions of colors” and offer views “simply unavailable on other portables.” The plaintiffs say this isn’t the case and that they are only capable of displaying the “illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as ‘dithering.”
To get all medieval on your arse with the numbers – the monitors is only capable of 6 bits per channel (18-bit colour), rather than 8 bits per channel. This enables the displaying of only 262,144 colours without dithering, as opposed to the 16 million colours that 8-bit could do.
More when we hear it.
(via Appleinsider, where you can find a PDF copy of the complaint)
Sky has made the decision to scrap the subscription charge for the Sky+ PVR service starting 1 July 2007.
Since its inception in 2001, Sky has been charging users of the Sky+ service £10 per month to keep using it, this includes receiving the EPG information, required to drive the service.
Continue reading Sky+ Subscription Charge Ending