Digital-Lifestyles is pleased to have Lawrence Dudley writing for us. All too often articles about the things teenagers are interested in are written by people old enough to be their parents. What teenagers are thinking isn’t represented. Lawrence will give you a point of view that you won’t find in other publications. You see Lawrence _is_ a teenager.
Happy New Year!!Since the New Year has just begun, a piece focusing on last year, the one that has just begun and the developments suspected to emerge during it seemed justified.
It’s strange in many ways, to look back on a space of time as long as a year in tech history. Technology evolves so rapidly that a time span of even as little as a week can seem like a month.
2005 was hailed by many as ‘The Year Of HD’: More and more High Definition TVs and displays have become available, and the recently launched Xbox 360 supports HD out of the box. HD promises us richer colours, and most importantly a resolution higher than the abysmal 500×300 or so resolution offered by a lot of standard definition televisions.
The price of HD equipment also dropped by a huge amount. A year ago, I remember seeing prices that one just couldn’t justify for a TV, with £3,000 not being an unusual sum of money to see for a HD television.
Walking into UK Electronics retailer, Dixons, the other day, I came across a set that cost a ‘mere’ £1,000. While a thousand pounds is still a lot of money, it’s a much more realistic price for a television than the three grand of a year ago. As far as I am concerned then, the ‘Year of HD’ was certainly a raging success.
I know a lot of people in technology make all sorts of predictions, and a lot of them turn out to be false, but there is one prediction I am fairly confident in making: 2006 will be THE year of the home entertainment computer.
You might wonder why I am so confident in this prediction: Afterall, Microsoft has been pushing out Windows Media Center for a good few years now, and they still haven’t gained dominance. The deciding factor for this year, I believe, will be the fact that Apple is now in the market.
On 12th October last year, Apple unveiled their first media-oriented computer, the iMac G5 which featured a remote control and accompanying software for watching DVDs, slideshows, playing music and movies. While the product’s reception was great, and the media loved it, nothing much has been heard of it since.
A nice gimmick, sure, but nothing more. It wasn’t about to replace the box under the TV, or indeed the TV itself because it missed one important feature: The ability to watch actual live television with it.
There were of course enhancements that could be purchased which made this possible, but they are awkward and use a different remote control. Never mind having different remote controls for different boxes, this was a case of two remote controls for the same one, and I for one know how frustrating it is to lose a remote. Having two of them increases the chance of losing one. Apart from this it wasn’t a polished affair, and the software to facilitate a media centre-like experience wasn’t mature enough.
What makes me think this will change? One word: Macworld in San Francisco next week. Apple are poised to do to video what they did to music, and I am confident they will pull it off with a rush of brushed aluminum and cool white plastic, accompanied with their usual style.
In the past, Apple haven’t briefed journalists in advance. There were of course all the usual rumour sites, and their fan base has always been prominent on the Web.
However, this has always been on quite specific Mac-related Websites, and not in main stream media.
Over the past few days however, the rumours have increased to such a level that popular news site Digg.com had almost one out of every two stories it carried relating to Apple in one way or another. I got a familiar buzz from this – something must be going on. Imagine my surprise then when I opened the newspaper this morning, only to find a nice big picture of Steve Jobs on the front cover of one of the inserts.
One thing’s for sure, San Francisco 2006 is going to be BIG. Along with a slew of expected Intel Apple Macs (yes, Apple are moving to the Intel architecture), a product is expected that, if released, could transform the way we consume media.
Think of it as an iPod for your living room. It downloads music, videos and films, can display and record television, radio and any other input source and can pipe audio to any room in the house, wirelessly, thanks to the existing Airtunes technology. Whether this is a dream that will soon become reality or not, will be revealed in the next few days.
It may of course be that Apple ship this wonder product later than this, but I have a feeling, only a feeling mind, that it will be at Macworld San Francisco.
So what about competitors? What are Microsoft doing about all this? It seems that Windows Vista will ship with a media center module built-in, meaning that it isn’t necessary to buy a separate Windows Media Center machine to run it on. However, not many details exist about this, and the release date isn’t certain yet, although it is scheduled for sometime in 2006.
There’s not much else to say until it becomes apparent what is released during the year, but I shall be doing a special piece covering the developments from Mac World San Francisco on or around the 12th of January. Here’s to a good year in media and technology!
Clearly suffering from an overdose on the hyperbole intake, Michael Dell has been getting all lyrical about Dell’s new ideas, unveiled at CES 2006.
First up is the new Dell XPS 600 Renegade, a powerful, high-end gaming PC described as a (here we go again) ‘manifestation of power so pure it can only be described as supernatural.’ 
The attractive monitor offers WQXGA resolution (that’s 2560×1600 pixels to normal people), fast 11ms grey-to-grey response time, 700:1 contrast ratio and an integrated 9-in-2 memory card reader.
We’re not sure what a ‘portfolio’ design is, but this thing’s sure got it, along with ‘anodized articulating hinges’ and a detachable wireless keyboard and mouse.
Hauppauge Digital have whipped out a new add-on card to convert a boring old PC into a multimedia-tastic satellite TV receiver. 
Freesat will be the satellite equivalent of Freeview,” said Yehia Oweiss, Managing Director of Hauppauge Digital. “Already broadcasting BBC, the service will be available to all UK households and bring free digital TV to the 25 per cent who are outside Freeview’s area. Consumers can buy our Freesat tuner now and enjoy many digital channels now, with more being added all the time.”
The best thing about Samsung’s press photos is that they always feature groups of attractive young ladies deliriously happy to be touching their latest products.
Coming in two parts – the laptop and its detachable 19″ screen – we were confident that we’d be in for double the fun and, sure enough, we were rewarded with happy-clappy shots of two ladies near-ecstatic to be fondling the electronics.
Happily, Samsung have had the nous to ensure that they used standard monitor connectors too, so that the laptop can be connected to a bigger screen (for giving a corporate presentation, for example) – and even the display can be used with a different PC.
Full technical details, pricing and availability is yet to be announced, but we can tell you that the laptop packs a whopping 19″ WSXGA+ (1680×1050) HDTV compatible screen and is powered by a Pentium M770 (2.13GHz) CPU.
Fashion aficionados concerned that the hue of their laptop may clash awfully with their high fashion clobber will be delighted to learn that Sony is releasing their Sony F-type laptops in four stylish colours.
Carbon Fibre Laptops
The Vaio TX series offer a handy AV mode button which makes the machine available for watching movies or listening to music in just 12 seconds with no need to boot up Windows.
Japan’s largest annual IT show, Ceatec (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies), opens today and will feature around 700 companies, according to the organisers. 
Toshiba has promised to display a super-slim 12.7 millimetre high drive designed for laptops which can read HD-DVD discs and read and write DVDs and CDs.
Philips has announced the Showline MCP 9350i, a media PC powered by Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 platform.
There are two integrated tuners onboard letting sofa-reclining types watch one channel while recording another on the 250 GB hard drive or to CD or DVD.
Philips’ Digital Natural Motion technology is employed to improve video quality and reduce stutter, with built in support for the UPnP protocol to allowing the unit to act as a media server for products in Philips’ Streamium range of media viewers. 
Fujitsu LifeBook T4020
The Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005-powered convertible Tablet PC comes fitted with a 56K V.90 modem, Ethernet and Atheros Super AG or Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Wi-Fi connectivity, with the option to add Bluetooth.
Running on Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, the Stylistic ST5032 tablet PC comes in two sizes, with customers able to choose between the 12.1″ XGA and 10.4″ indoor/outdoor displays.
Cranking up his PR offensive to eleven, Moore continued, “Fujitsu offers a broad array of mobile solutions with the features, security, flexibility, reliability and ease of integration these companies need – all at competitive prices”.
The Lenovo Group has officially announced the first ever ThinkPad tablet, the ThinkPad X41. 
The growth of Tablet PCs – once described as the future of mobile computing by Microsoft – has so far been slow, with total sales only representing a tiny fraction of the PC market. 
The anti-reflective and anti-glare screen claims to provide 170-degree viewing, and an optional integrated fingerprint reader offers extra security for the terminally paranoid and distrustful. 
The JVC Mini Note (MP-XV841GB) is what’s known as a sub-notebook, but for such a small system it’s packed with features. What is immediately noticeable is the fantastic screen which is extremely bright and sharp and in a widescreen format (about 9 inches across diagonally) perfect for playing DVD’s on the move. The screen resolution is 1024 x 600. 
The internal drive plays DVD’s (and comes with WinDVD so you can watch them) and also writes CD’s (both CD-R and R/W). There’s 2 USB ports, an i.link (or IEEE-1394/Firewire) port, 10/100 Ethernet, a V.90 modem, microphone and line out jacks. The in-built microphone is OK for Internet chat type applications and the stereo speakers have a virtual surround sound. You can plug in an external monitor with a supplied adapter, there’s a PC Card slot and a slot for an SD memory card. Not forgetting the built-in WiFi for connecting to wireless networks or hotspots. The disk drive is 40GB split into a drive C: and D: 
The docking station/port replicator which comes with is plugs into the same connector as the external monitor, giving you 4 USB ports, an Ethernet socket (LAN), standard VGA connector and an optical digital out so you can listen to your DVD’s through an external surround sound decoder. 
JVC include some reasonable software. Pinnacle Studio v9 which is a simple video editing package (supporting capturing video from your DV camera through the firewire port), Real Networks RealOne player, Norton Antivirus (with a 3 month subscription), WinDVD for DVD playback and CC converter a sound enhancing utility. 
Summary