SoundForge 7.0 will be the first new version of the popular digital audio package since Sony bought all of Sonic Foundry’s desktop production assets in July this year. Aside from an improved, more informative interface, automatic time-based recording and many other usability features, the new release includes Windows Media 9, QuickTime 6 and RealMedia file export. This updated content creation feature will make it extremely useful for rich-media website creation, as well as in the package’s more traditional applications in recording studios and broadcast environments.
Category: Gadgets
IBC News: Autonomy and Virage Announce First Integrated Products
Autonomy and Virage have chosen this year’s IBC to announce the integration of the two companies’ key technologies.
Virage’s SmartEncode/VideoLogger/ControlCentre software is a leading platform for the automated capture, encoding and indexing of video. Autonomy’s Dremedia technology integrates structured and unstructured data by processing text, voice and video and then orders it by concept.
Autonomy acquired Virage in early September, for $24.8m, specifically with this sort of integration in mind: to enable customers to search and visualise their media stores. Given that many of Virage’s customers are large corporations or governments these media archives are likely to be vast.
3D Displays for Laptops – No Silly Glasses Required
Incorporating the new 3D LCD*1 technology developed by Sharp, their new PC-RD3D (sounds a bit Star Wars, really) is a high-performance workbook with a 2.8GHz processor and a GeForce 4 440 graphics chip.
The 3D display has very exciting applications: CAD, medical imaging, playing Star Wars Galaxies … but how does it work?
The display is switchable between two modes, standard 2D and a mode optimised for 3D applications. In 3D mode, light leaving the display is polarized by a filter into one of two different directions, so each eye sees a different image. This "parallax barrier system" has been used in things like those LCD switching glasses you get handed at the IMAX cinema, but this is the first time it’s been employed on a display.
Motorola’s Mini GPS Unit
The tiny FS Oncore module from Motorola consumes just 70mW whilst providing one position fix per second, and is designed to operate even with weak GPS signals.
To make the chip simpler, and therefore easier and cheaper to produce, the firmware is stored on the host device and retrieved when the chip is powered up.
Applications could include PDAs and maps that show real time navigation, position “stamping” in digital cameras, theft recovery, and mobile phones that can locate their position and find contacts and services nearby. The size of the unit means that it manufacturing companies will be able to use it in inventory tracking applications, and the low cost will help in making GPS units in cars more affordable.
New Captioning System Makes Live Theatre Accesible to the Deaf
Sound Associates’ Personal Captioning System (PCS) is a wireless handheld device featuring a colour LCD that deaf patrons can take to their seat. Captions are sent to the device synchronised to the show’s lighting cues, so the text is always in sync. The handheld uses a light polarising filter so theatregoers sitting nearby are not distracted.
The system is currently being used for the musical Big River at the American Airline Theatre in New York.
Sound Associates
American Broadcasting Corporation on Personal Captioning in Chicago
Bluetooth mobile phone to communicate through your car
Sophisticated GSM-based car communications systems have always required a second SIM card to operate but now Nokia have developed a system that will communicate with your Bluetooth mobile phone and use the subscriber details of your mobile to make calls and to log onto services such as Nokia Smart Traffic products.
It’s all about making the services more convenient to access for users – you can leave your mobile phone in you briefcase or bag, yet the in-car systems will soon be able to use Bluetooth SIM Access Profile (SAP) not only to get onto the network but read and write data (such as your address book and schedule) to the phone. It will also lead the way to more convenient (and legal) hands-free calls from cars. Presumably, a home version of this system will be on its way – the system is not too far off the very product used in vending machines in Finland.
The in-car system will be presented at the 8th annual Nokia Mobile Internet Conference, 29 – 30 October 2003, in Nice.
Apple Launches More New iPods, Sells Ten Millionth Song
Apple have proven their mastery of the portable MP3 player market with the announcement of two new iPods – even before the buzz has died down from the launch, less than six months ago, of their hugely popular 3rd generation players.
And there’s more: the iTunes site, now selling 500,000 songs per week has just sold it ten millionth song. Thanks to the wonder of modern transaction processing we even know what and when it was: Complicated, by Avril Lavigne at 11.34pm (PST) on the 3rd of September. We wonder how much that commemorative file would fetch on eBay.
iTunes is immensely popular, despite being a US and Macintosh only platform – it demonstrates that there is a real market out there for properly licensed music downloads and the 99c price point seems ideal. Windows users and non-US customers look forward to enjoying the service later this year – we can’t wait to see how many units it’s going to shift then.
Steve Jobs said: “Legally selling ten million songs online in just four months is a historic milestone for the music industry, musicians and music lovers everywhere.”
Despite our shiny 30gb iPod being only four months old, it’s no longer the top of the range: the new 40gb iPod will hold 10,000 tracks (or as many songs as the iTunes store sells in three hours) for $499. Together with the 20gb ($399) model, they provide a more comprehensive range for people who like to carry a lot of music with them.
The iTunes Store: http://www.apple.com/itunes/
The iPod Lounge: http://www.ipodlounge.com
New PVR Sets Storage Benchmark
Sony are releasing a new personal video recorder in Japan with enough disk space to store more than two weeks of video at its lowest quality setting.
Going on sale in Japan only, the $1400 personal video recorder doesn’t feature a DVD drive, but can be connected via Ethernet to the Vaio PC range, using “Sony’s Click To DVD” software.
Users can edit the footage stored on the PVR and then make their own DVDs, or store programmes off line permanently.
The EX11 has three quality setting which equate to High Quality (114 hours, 9Mbps), Standard (171 hours, 6Mbps) and Extended Play (3Mbps). The recorder makes use of an EPG for automatic recording and is equipped with two tuners and two MPEG2 encoders, allowing users to record two programmes simultaneously. Also useful is the inclusion of a memory stick slot for displaying photographs.
The PVR features two analogue and one D1 digital video output. Interestingly, Sony have chose Linux as the PVR’s OS. This seems to be increasingly common on this type of platform – TiVo recorders use an older Linux kernel.
New Epson Widescreen Projector for Home Use
The Epson PowerLite Home 10 projector, priced at $1300 (£820), is designed to appeal to home users by getting the best out of widescreen DVDs and HDTVs. It has a native resolution of 854 x 480, and can switch aspect ratios as necessary.
Previous “budget” projectors have suffered from washed out colours (think how your PowerPoint slides can appear in presentations sometimes) but the newly designed 3-LCD elements that make up the projection technology have a reported contrast ratio of 700:1. These 0.5 inch LCDs were seen earlier in the year in Epson’s EMP-S1 business projector.
Epson are really going after the home market with the new PowerLite – the casing is styled to look good in a domestic setting, and it’s designed to sit easily on your coffee table without all that fiddling with getting the feet at the right angle by propping your annual report under them.
If you’re lucky enough to have a 25 foot living room, you can enjoy a 300 inch picture whilst watching Legally Blonde.
AIBO Gets an Upgrade
The new revision of AIBO, the ERS-7 will soon be available in Europe. Sony’s recreational robot has been extremely popular, despite its high cost, since the introduction of the ERS-110 in 1999 – the series has sold a reported 45,000 units. As the various models have retail prices between £800 and £1200, this has obviously been a success for Sony, and indeed become a cultural icon.
The new features on this unit include a more expressive face display (the “Illume-Face”), and a restyled casing. More dramatically, the ERS-7 features an improved memory that enables the robot to retain and develop its personality over its lifecycle. We’re wondering if there will be a tearful moment in the house when AIBO has to go and “live on a farm” when he gets a bit older.
Sony claim the personality development routines are a significant step in artificial intelligence.
The new AIBO is also the best connected ever – using a built-in wireless LAN, he can connect to PCs and other mobile devices. His nose camera allows him to perceive his environment three times better than before, distinguishing shapes, patterns and even faces. He can send photographs of his surroundings and your au pair to your mobile phone.
We would have liked to have brought you some links on AIBO hacking, but Sony used the DCMA to bring all the sites down.
You’ll be able to see the new AIBO in the “flesh” if you’re in Paris at the weekend at the Sony Dream World exhibition.
AIBO’s home page: http://www.aibo-europe.com/