Microsoft have been given the all clear to bringing out a wireless 54Mb version of the Xbox, after they won approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Knowledge of this came about after the FCC posted information of the approval on their Web site in error. Interestingly Advance Data Technology Corp. of Taiwan is listed as the technical contact of the applications.
Category: Platforms
Rio show two interesting portable music players
The market has been waiting to hear what SonicBlue was going to come out with after their assets were purchased by D&M back in April 2003. Two Rio portable music players were shown on CNet , the Nitrus and the Karma.
The Nitrus looks about the size of a box of matches and is the first player to use a 1.5-gigabyte, 1-inch hard drive. Holding around 350 songs, it will play for sixteen hours, has great quality sound with 96Db and will cost $199.
The Karma is a more serious beast with either 20Gb or 40Gb storage and a reported 18 hours battery life and costing from $399. The docking station has audio out for HiFi connection, USB2 and, interestingly, an Ethernet port. The device can be assigned an IP address and be used to reference content held on other devices on the network – an inter feature, and the first to appear on a portable music player.
Music can be stored in four formats, MP3, WMA, and two open source formats, Ogg Vorbis and the lesser known Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC).
Review of the Linksys WMA11B Wireless-B Media Adapter
Tom Hardware reviews the Linksys WMA11B Wireless-B Media Adapter.
In the same vain as other Digital Media Adaptors based on the Intel reference design, this VHS cassette-sized unit connects to a TV set, Using the supplied remote control it allows the browsing and playback of photo’s, music and video, that are held on your networked Windows PC, to be enjoyed through your TV screen. Interestingly, the serving machine has to be running Windows XP but can be connected either via cabling or using 802.11b, WiFi connection.
It’s essentially the same functionalisty as Sony’s Roomlink, but has the advatage that you don’t need to buy a Sony Vaio PC to serve the content from. To date, Sony won’t sell the serving software seperatley.
It’s works with the mainstreem formats of media, but there’s no mention of the Ogg Vobis, which is growing in popularity with computer audiofiles.
Their view of the product is that it’s a good first stab. Street price should be around $149.
DivX.com becomes first US retailer for KiSS DP-500 DVD player
KiSS was the first licensee of the DivX codec for use in a DVD player, now DivX.com will be the first retail channel for the DP-500 at a price of $299.
In addition to supporting DivX 3.xx, 4.xx and 5.xx.video technology, the DP-500 offers a number of cutting edge features including progressive scan, Ethernet 10/100, Internet radio streaming, PC-Link, support for DVD, SVCD, VCD, CD, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, CD-RW & DVD-RW/+RW playback, and a photo album feature that enables users to view digital photos on a television.
Sky reach 105,000 Sky+ DVR boxes
As at 30 June, Sky added 77,000 Sky+ subscribers to reach 105,000, exceeding their 100,000 target. Tony Ball, Chief Executive for Sky said they were planning to “play around” with the pricing of Sky+ as he felt DVR’s offered interesting possibilities.
165,000 Sky subscribers also have the Extra Digibox, enabling the household to watch Sky programming in more than one room. 57% of Sky+ subscribers are also Extra Digibox subscribers.
Sony announce wireless enabled plasma TVs
Sony have announced that they will release two new plasma TVs in Japan later this year.
The exciting thing about the uninspiringly named KDE-P50HZ1 and KDE-P42HZ1 is that they come with a remote-control-on-steroids, better described as a web pad.
The multi-function 6-by-3.5-inch display, which gives an 800-by-480-pixel resolution, communicates with the main TV unit using 802.11a giving the ability to use it to view a different TV channel; browse the Web; and be used as a ‘soft’ remote control – the function and display on the remote will change depending on the which operation is being carried out.
Sony are saying the remote will understand gesture-based fingertip strokes – think PalmOS Grafitti for entertainment (They already licience PalmOS for their Clie PDA range). Sony has dubbed this as an “air baton”.
Although not mentioned, there is a possibility that the Web pad coudl be used The opens up the a long held belief – interactivity on the remote.
These products fit within Sony’s project, code-named Altair, designed to make the TV the centre of consumers digital lifestyles.
Xbox2 reports incorrect
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the Japanese newspaper that reported that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO said the Xbox successor, Xbox2, would be launched in 2006 have now issued a retraction statement.
Xbox2 – penciled for 2006?
The usual technique of talking about what companies will be doing with their next generation of equipment has been going on for a while with gaming consoles. Talk of the PlayStation 2 came out around the same time as the Xbox was released. It’s all an effort to make unsettle the consumer of the rivals products.While in Japan, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said they were planning to release the Xbox2 in 2006 – what isn’t clear is if this would be the release date for Japan or Worldwide. Some analysts are wondering if this date is being floated as it matched the year given by Sony for the PS3 and Microsoft aren’t rushing the Xbox2 out so as to give the Xbox box as many years as possible to make back some of the losses they’ve had on the project to date.In a typical large company PR fog type of way, MS reps are quoted as saying
“Our executives often talk about the future in terms of vision and the possibilities of technology. This is what allows us to be innovative as a company.”
At the same time a MS VP Peter Moore, has been telling conference delegates in London at the Games Summit that MS “have no plans” to bring out a handheld gaming device, saying that as hand held games were solitary experience, they had no future. This really sound like someone shooting from the hip and not carefully thinking about where these devices are or where they will be in the future. There a big future for networked games on handheld devices, I’ve had games demoed to me running on handheld devices, including Smartphones that really come alive when they played against other people.
Sony laptop with PVR built-in
Sony have released the Vaio PCG-GRT190G — a high-spec portable that has built in TV tuner and PVR. Their interesting marketing angle is it’s for executives that are really busy, so they need to shift their viewing and watch the recorded shows when they’re on the move.Video – BB NB
D&M strip ReplayTV of controvertial functions
The new owners of ReplayTV have decided to avoid the roth, and the lawyers, of the US TV broadcasters by removing two of the functions that the broadcasters had the greats expection to — the automatic skipping of adverts and the ability to send a recorded show to another ReplayTV-equiped household — from their soon to be released 5500 series. Pricing hasn’t been announced.