Platforms

OpenTV PVR 2.0 Released
OpenTV Corp have given out a large toot on their PR trumpets and announced the availability of their “PVR 2.0” software to network operators and set-top box manufacturers worldwide.
OpenTV are big hotshots in the world of digital and interactive television technologies, and their new PVR 2.0 software is touted as an all-in platform for personal video recording, supporting standard and advanced features including push VOD and remote event booking.
The software includes support for the OpenTV streaming file system, a technology designed for PVR based usage with the aim of increasing the reliability and life span of disk drives.
PVR 2.0 is built upon OpenTV’s “Core 2.0” software, the fourth generation of set-top middleware which sports an architecture and features to support the expanding requirements of advanced digital television set-top boxes including PVR, VOD, IPTV, HDTV and home networking.
Network operators UPC Broadband, StarHub and AUSTAR have recently chosen OpenTV PVR 2.0 to integrate into their advanced digital platforms for the launch of their first PVR solutions.
OpenTV is also working to bring OpenTV PVR 2.0 to market with a wide range of set-top manufacturers including ADB, Pace, Phillips, Scientific Atlanta, Thomson and UEC, and with the leading CA vendors including Irdeto, NagraVision and Viaccess.
“Network operators increasingly understand middleware’s value in achieving their business goals, reducing operational costs and improving time to market of the services critical to the success of their businesses,” said Tim Evard, who has a very big name badge declaring him to be OpenTV’s “senior vice president and general manager of products and marketing.”
“OpenTV Core 2.0 and PVR 2.0 is quickly becoming the platform of choice for worldwide operators launching PVR solutions. We will be demonstrating the latest features of Core 2.0 and PVR 2.0 at the upcoming IBC conference in Amsterdam,” he added.
OpenTV
8 September, 2005
Nikon Coolpix S4 Swivels Out
We like swiveling cameras.
With their crafty pivoting design, they’re great for taking sneaky street candids, stealthy snaps and images taken from err, “imaginative” angles, so we were excited to hear about Nikon’s new Coolpix S4 camera.
Decked out in an attractive silver finish, Nikon’s new swiveler builds on the success of their Coolpix SQ and E9xx series cameras, boasting six million-pixels and a hefty 10x optical Zoom-Nikkor lens, covering 38-380mm.
The swivel capability lets users shoot from the eye, the waist, overhead or upside down if they so desire, with the 180 degree rotate making it easy to take self portraits.
The shirt pocket snapper comes with the usual slew of scene modes covering every climatic and lighting condition imaginable on earth, with the addition of an innovative “Face Priority AF Mode”, which claims to automatically find faces in photos and focus on their gurning mugs.
Handling’s been improved with the Coolpix S4 featuring a new grip design with a large 2.5-inch 110,000 pixel TFT monitor making it easier to compose scenes and admire captured photos.
Powered by a pair of AA-size batteries, the S4 is designed to be highly portable, boasting slimline 112 x 69 x 37 mm (4.4 x 2.7 x 1.4 in) dimensions and a light weight of 205g.
For fine tuning images, the camera offers In-Camera Red-Eye Fix, AE-BSS to select the best relative exposure from a series of shots and a “D-Lighting” function for brightening under-exposed pictures in-camera, conveniently saving a copy of the edited image rather than overwriting the original.
For punters with Spielberg aspirations, Nikon has included three Movie Modes (up to 15 frames per second) with sound and a time-lapse movie function.
The Coolpix S4 will be available at the end of this month priced €399 (£218, €320).
Nikon
Nikon Coolpix S4 specs
8 September, 2005
iPod Nano; Mot ROKR; iTunes 5 – Apple kills the competition (again)
iTunes 5.0
The iTunes software for PC and Mac has now reached v5, it’s available for immediate download from Apple’s site (and via software update for Mac users).
It features a “refined” interface with a new “search bar” making it easier for users to find what they’re looking for, playlists can be organised into folders, Smart Shuffle allows users change the randomness of their shuffled songs.
Windows users also get the added benefit of being able to sync contacts and calendars from Outlook (Mac users have had this ability through iLife for a long time).
iTunes software unsuprisingly integrates seemlessly with the iTunes music store which (in the UK) accounts for at least 80% of all downloaded music. There’s now over 1.7 million songs available, 15,000 podcasts and 10,000 audio books.
Motorola ROKR
The Motorola ROKR (pronouced rocker) is a quad band GSM phone with iTunes built-in. It can hold 100 songs and connects to a PC (or Mac) via a USB connection. Apart from the iTunes software (which can bedirectly accessed from a button on the front of the phone) it’s a normal Motorola phone. You either like them, or you don’t. It’s still encumbered with Motorola’s quirky menu system.
If you’re listening to iTunes and the phone rings etc, it will pause the song playing and you can return to it when you’ve finished the call.
The phone does have some good features with passable stereo speakers and pretty good playback through headphones. Battery life is meant to be good too, though exact figures were not quoted.
It’s available in the US now exclusively through Cingular.
iPod nano
The nano is the new iPod killer. It’s tiny, but holds up to 4GB (1000 songs, though there’s a 500 song/2GB version available too). It’s got a colour screen and a click-wheel. It comes with a USB 2.0 cable, earbud phones and a CD with iTunes, etc.
The colour screen gives it away, it’s an iPod Photo shrunk to miniscule dimensions, bigger than a Shuffle, but smaller than a mini – and thin (it hides behind a number 2 pencil). It features a standard 30pin dockconnector port, so can be used with most (if not all) mini or standard accessories. Apple have put in a couple extra bits of software like world clocks (you set your normal country, but can select as many otherclocks relating to a country as you wish, each clock shows whether it’s day or night), there’s also a screen lock – to stop others messing with your nano. It can also hold 25,000 photos (when synced through iTunes).
Apple have also released some specific nano accessories like tubes (sleeves in various colour, 5 in a pack), lanyard headphones, armbands and a dock. These should be available within 30 days.
Apple may have been losing to the competition in the lower end of the market especially in the solid state arena, however the nano changes all that (it’s got 4GB of solid-state memory in it, not a hard disc like the iPod Mini) and it’s going to knock the competion for six, it’s got all the “Designed in California” (of course by a Brit, but they keep quite about that) sex appeal and the packaging is superb. It’s smaller than almost everything out there. You’re going to want one for Xmas … actually, on reflection, you’re going to want one of these straight away.
Pricing for the nano is $249 for the 4GB (+ local taxes) or in the UK, £179 inc VAT, in Europe Eu 239. The 2GB model is $199, or GBP 139 inc VAT in the UK and is available now.
The best thing about it though, you can get it in white or black.
Apple iPod Nano
Motorola ROKR
Apple iTunes 5
8 September, 2005
Toshiba LED Pocket Projector For 3G Phones:IFA
Promptly filed under “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” at first peek, Toshiba are debuting a portable LED pocket projector at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) trade show 2005 in Berlin.
Toshiba’s new bijou baby has an unusual twist -the projector can be used to connect to 3G multimedia handsets, making it ideal for execs who want to travel light (and for those who want to share their text messages with the world).
Smaller than a gnat’s undercarriage, the teensy weensy LED projector weighs a mere 565 grams, and serves up SVGA (800 x 600) resolution using a 0.55-inch digital mirror device (DMD) chip, boasting a contrast ratio of 1500:1.
The cool-running LED technology means that there’s no need to fit the thing with both a lamp and a colour wheel – and with a lot less heat generated, there’s no need for a noisy, dust generating fan.
Inside there’s a panel fitted with different coloured LEDs which serve both as the light source and the means to determine the colour of the projected images.
With portability in mind, the unit is fitted with a 250-gram battery which can run for two hours and recharge fully in three hours, according to the company’s figures.
The projector is scheduled to be available by the end of the year, with a recommended retail price of approximately 999 euros (£675, $1,250). Not likely to be a big seller at that price is it?
Toshiba
7 September, 2005
Siemens SL75 Gigaset WiFi VOIP Home Phone Announced: IFA
Siemens have announced their new Gigaset SL75 WLAN Voice-over-IP (VoIP) cordless telephone for the home.
The Gigaset SL75 WLAN is one of a new generation of cordless VoIP phones that lets users wander free from the limited range of base stations, with the phone being able to access any open Wi-Fi points.
Ideally suited for workers ambling around corporate Wi-Fi networks and cuddling sofa lovers (see photo), the SL75 will hook up to any public WLAN access point (gateways/hotspots) and store profiles of hotspots for fast retrieval when shuffling between networks.
Users will be able to make VoIP calls from any of these access points without the need to have a PC rattling away in the background.
Siemens haven’t held back on the feature set, with the Gigaset SL75 WLAN handset offering an instant messaging service and the ability to receive and send emails, complete with photo attachments.
Blurring the distinction between a mobile phone further, there’s an integrated digital camera onboard and the usual 16 polyphonic ring tones, with personalised caller tunes.
The handset can store 200 names, phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses, with the information niftily synchronised with the desktop via WLAN.
Decked out in (ahem) “the season’s high fashion colour night grey”, the Gigaset SL75 WLAN sports a colour display (128×128 pixels, 4k/65k colors) and comes with a small docking station.
Now you might be wondering, “if it’s a home phone, why haven’t they made the thing more useful by bunging in a DECT phone too – like their earlier Siemens M34 Wireless DECT Handset?
The answer is simple. This is the future and, as Siemens explains, this puppy is going to “dispense forever” with the traditional concept of a “home phone.”
So now you know.
The Gigaset SL75 WLAN will be available in Europe from November 2005 for approximately EUR 299 (~$370, ~£205).
Siemens
7 September, 2005
Samsung To Produce Dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player
With Sony and Toshiba still enjoying a schoolyard scrap over which of their rival formats should become the standard format for next-generation DVDs, Samsung have announced a nifty compromise that plays both formats.
With the ghost of Betamax still casting long shadows over weary consumers, Samsung have decided to soothe buyer indecision by offering a player that supports both Sony’s Blu-Ray Disc and Toshiba’s HD DVD standards.
In an interview in the Financial Times Deutschland, Samsung’s consumer electronics big cheese, Choi Gee-Sung, announced that the machine will launch sometime next year.
“We would welcome a unified standard but if this doesn’t come, which looks likely, we’ll bring a unified solution to market,” he said.
“It won’t be simple but you’ll see our solution in the coming year. Consumers will be too confused otherwise,” he added.
The bun fight between the two next-gen DVD camps has been dragging on for what feels like an eternity, with initial hopes of an agreement in April 2005 falling apart by August.
See: Unified DVD Format Trouble Confirmed
All this faffing about with different formats is sure to hold back punters who don’t fancy being lumbered with this year’s Sinclair C5, but pundits are hopeful that dual-play machines could prove the key to breaking the deadlock.
Although both Blu-Ray and HD DVD use groovy blue laser light to dramatically increase the storage capacity of a DVD-sized optical disc, they work in completely different ways.
The two formats employ different capacities, optical specifications and file structures, so Samsung’s new dual-format player will have to supplement its red laser (for current CDs/DVDs) with at least two other read heads for the blue-laser discs.
All that extra electronic wizardry suggests that their combo player is not going to be cheap, potentially putting off consumers wooed by the prospect of future-proof compatibility.
All of which adds to the industry pressure for stubborn Sony and tenacious Toshiba to sort out their differences in double quick time.
HD-DVD
Blu-Ray
7 September, 2005
VP-MS15 Miniket Digital Camera Unveiled by Samsung
Samsung have unveiled their sleek, credit-card sized Miniket VP-MS15 digital camera at the Berlin IFA show.
It may be smaller than a cold ant’s nether regions, but Samsung have managed to pack in a 5.25 mega-pixel CCD sensor, 3x optical zoom and a large 115K 2.5″ LCD display.
With the factory humming to the tune of convergence, Samsung have wedged in an MP3 player, voice recorder and a high quality video recorder capable of capturing high quality VGA clips (640 x 480 @ 30 fps) assisted by the built-in DIS (digital image stabiliser).
The camera comes with 512 MB of memory on board with a miniSD slot offering up offering up to 1GB of additional storage space – enough to store 250 songs or 17 hours of recording via the microphone.
Unlike many other digital cameras, users can zoom in and out to their heart’s desire while shooting video and Samsung’s little box of tricks is also capable of outputting video at a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels at 25fps via the AV out port.
Connecting the Miniket via USB 2.0 also lets it be used as a Webcam or a ‘portable hard drive’.
Conveniently, the VP- MS15 can also be charged via a USB connection, saving the hassle of carting along a power cable or optional charger when on the move.
“Samsung is always looking to combine stunning design with high functionality,” said Byoungyoul Yu, Senior Vice President of the Digital Video Division at Samsung Electronics.
“We are bringing to market multi-functional products that change consumers’ perceptions over the limitations of a digital device. The VP- MS15 allows consumers to carry one business card-sized device whether they wish to record high quality digital video, digital photos or MP3s.”
Samsung have also released two identical-looking smaller brothers to the MS15; the VP-MS11, with 128MB of onboard memory. and the VP-MS10 with 64MB.
The Samsung VP-MS15 digital camera will be launched in Korea on October, followed by a European debut the following month with a recommended retail price of €399 (~$500 ~£271).
Much as we love these do-it-all gadgets – especially when they’re smaller than a shy dot and kitted out in a smooth black finish – we wonder why someone looking for this kind of convergence wouldn’t just shell out for a smartphone instead….
Samsung
Photos courtesy of Let’s Go Digital
6 September, 2005
Showline MCP 9350i Media PC Announced by Philips
Philips has announced the Showline MCP 9350i, a media PC powered by Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 platform.
The result of collaboration with Intel, the Philips media centre is based around an Intel Pentium 4 processor running at 3 GHz atop an Intel 945 chipset, with support for the soon-come high definition TV (HDTV).
Philip’s media PC is aimed at the living room/lounge, allowing punters to store and share photos, music and video in a single system.
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.
Housed in a stereo component form factor, the unit offers high-quality audio and video playback and a ton of connectivity options including a front-mounted flash memory card reader supporting SD/MMC cards, Memory Stick and CompactFlash cards, two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire connector and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g wireless connectivity.
The Philips MCP9350i (snappy name fellas!) will also come pre-installed with Windows Media Manger, which serves up an electronic program guide (EPG) providing access to one-touch recording, access to music, video, photos and games as well as Internet browsing and online services.
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.
The Philips Showline Media Center MCP9350i will be rolling out in Europe in October. Pricing is yet to be announced.
Philips
6 September, 2005
Atom Chip Corporation Reveal Ultra Fast 6.8GHz Laptop – Vapourware?
UPDATE – Thanks for the number of people who have written to us about this one, lead by Matt Lacey.
When originally checking the background for the story, we looked at the CES site finding AtomChip had a stand at CES _but_ that they were listed as a CES Innovations 2005 Awards Honorees.
The AtomChip.com domain is registered to Shimon Gendlin, who filed a patent on November 29, 1996 for ‘Non-volatile record carrier with magnetic quantum-optical reading effect and method for its manufacture‘, which was granted on November 24, 1998.
It looks like we, like many other publications, could well have been had on this one. If we have, hats off to ‘Shimon Gendlin’ who’s done everything he could have done to make it look real.
So be it as you choose … here’s the original story.
Research and development company, Atom Chip Corporation, have unveiled a beast of a laptop – the competition-frying 6.8GHz AtomChip SG220-2 sporting a TeraByte of RAM and 2 TeraBytes of storage.
With enough firepower to make the latest high-end laptops look like backfiring peashooters, this monster achieves its breakneck speeds by dispensing with hard disk drives and thus increasing system stability by generating less heat and vibration from rattling disk operations.
The laptop uses new Quantum and Quantum-Optical devices for storing and processing information, with the machine being completely based on solid state AtomChip optoelectronics (whatever they are).
These non-volatile Quantum-Optical RAM wotsits increase the speed of the system, removing the need to refresh information after every cycle of reading of information, as with regular RAM.
The 6.8GHz behemoth is powered by AtomChip’s Quantum II processor (or four 1.7GHz Intel Pentium M processors) with a terabyte of Quantum-Optical non-volatile RAM (NvIOpSRAM-SODIMM 200-pin) onboard.
The new non-volatile Quantum-Optical RAM increases the speed of the system as the need to refresh information after every cycle of reading of information (like regular RAM) doesn’t exist any more.
Even the most obsessive MP3 file collector will have serious problems filling the colossal 2TB of non-volatile Quantum RAM storage space onboard (NvIOpRAM-ATA IDE).
Compared to these eye-watering specs, it’s a surprise to see that the screen’s a bit of a squinter, offering just a 12.1″ WXGA (1280 x 800) display.
The actual laptop looks a bit rubbish too, bedecked out in a ‘High Street’ bog standard silver finish with a design that won’t be troubling Sony and Apple execs.
Despite the nation-threatening amount of power on hand, Atom Chip are claiming an impressive battery life of approximately 8 hours for the AtomChip II processor and 3 hours for the 4 x Intel Pentium M processor version.
The company will be showcasing their Billy Whizz laptop at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) held in Las Vegas in January 2006.
Pricing has yet to be announced, but I suspect we’re talking ‘re-mortgaging the house’ here.
Atom Chip
6 September, 2005
PSP Launches In UK To Big Queues
After having made the UK wait nearly 9 months since the launch of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in Japan, the BBC are reporting that enthusiastic potential owners of PSP’s have been queuing for 12 hours or more to get their hands on them.
The original UK release date was knocked back after Sony said it needed to provide the product to the US.
Those UK’ers who couldn’t wait for the much-desired, multi-media device to arrive had an avenue closed to them after Sony successfully took legal action against grey-importers of Japanese and US equipment.
The Japanese giant cited infringement of their trademark, claiming that the provision through these paths could not guarantee the quality of the product.
The UK PSP sells for £179 (249 euros), but it is understood that many shops have pre-sold most, if not all of their allocation of initial stock.
The BBC quoted one 36-year old gamer who had queued for a massive 11 hours to pick up his PSP.
Whilst we respect his dedication to the cause of all things Playstation, we hope we never reach that level of obsession with gaming.
Sony UK
2 September, 2005