Archive for October, 2005
Samsung may be a big player in the global electronics market, but when it comes to mp3 players they still trail a long way behind Apple.
Joining a race late is never a strategy that puts you on an equal footing with your competitors, but that’s exactly what Samsung did when they rolled out their range of portable music devices last year. They also hamstrung themselves by sticking rigidly to NAND flash storage, an area in which they ARE the market leaders, but despite the obvious potential for the future such players still lag behind hard disk-based devices such as the standard iPod.
This problem is obviously vexing Samsung as they have revealed a blueprint for the future that they hope will enable them to catch up with Apple (perhaps “make up some of the lost ground on Apple” would be more appropriate).
Number one plan - take on iTunes head to head. “We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease,” said Samsung President Choi Gee-sung, at a press conference. “Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided,” Choi explained.
Attacking markets where iPods are not yet dominant would seem more like a rear-guard action than a full on assault, but past history shows that many companies have tried to create an iPod-killer and failed, so perhaps Samsung’s strategy is sensible. However, markets like China where music piracy is rife will be difficult ones to convert to paying customers.
Source: MediaCenterPCWorld
October 31st, 2005
Lost your phone and need to make an urgent call? Just arrived in the UK and find that your roaming rights have been revoked? Need to ring totally anonymously so that the police have no idea who made the call that detonated that car bomb or harassed your ex-wife? Vodafone to the rescue with their QuickPhone kiosk!
Yes, Vodafone have unveiled what is, in principle, a great idea, but that has too many potential problems, in the humble opinion of TechSmec.com, to be ethical. The QuickPhone kiosk offers three models between £30 and £60. Additionally, a SIM (subscriber identity module) card-only pack can be brought for £5, just in case you have got your mobile with you but need that instant anonymity. Manchester is the first lucky town to get a dispensing machine, but Vodafone hopes to roll them out in train stations and airports around the country.
“These will be popular with people who need a phone in an emergency, either because they have lost their phone or it has run out of battery,” said a Vodafone spokesman. “They are for people who know what they want and who don’t want to go through the rigmarole of talking to a sales assistant.”
TechSmec.com hopes the machine will use the same corkscrew mechanism as your standard crisp dispenser. We plan on hovering around a QuickPhone kiosk when we see one hoping that someone’s phone got stuck on the way out. A soft kick just there should do it….
October 31st, 2005
It’s without the doubt the weirdest idea we’ve come across all year and one that probably only appeals to those with too much spare cash and, most likely, no children.
iAttire, a Los Angeles-based online retailer, is selling ‘cute’ little costumes for your standard iPod, mini or Shuffle. If you really want you can dress up your inanimate (that’s INaninimate, not iNamanimate) best friend as a ghost, Frankenstein, or most popularly of all, a pirate.
The makers admit that costumes serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and in many cases actually render your iPod unusable while the costume is being worn.
Each costume is hand made and it shows in the price - $39.99.
This project does smack of someone searching for a word which hadn’t had the letter ‘i’ stuck in front of it yet and then building a business idea around the results, but we have to admit that it’s a professional looking setup and one that you crazy iPod owners are going to lap up…some of you anyway.
October 30th, 2005
Intel and Motorola have announced that they are to collaborate closely to ensure that their WiMAX devices inter operate satisfactorily and to inject some momentum into development of the standard for long range wireless broadband.
WiMAX, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is based on the proposed IEEE 802.16e standard for both fixed and wireless broadband applications. Proposed applications include bringing broadband access to remote rural areas and also blanketing whole cities with potentially free wireless access to the internet.
“WiMAX is beginning to deliver on its promise to provide broadband wireless access to businesses and consumers, and the promise of full mobility is around the corner with the anticipated ratification of the 802.16e standard,” said Scott Richardson, general manager of Intel’s Broadband Wireless Division. “By working with Motorola on mobile WiMAX standards and technology, we can jointly develop and test equipment to meet the requirements necessary for truly mobile broadband.”
“We believe 802.16e is going to be the way to go for both fixed and nomadic applications,” said Dan Coombes, chief technology officer, Motorola Networks. “With its robust specifications and ability to support high-value services like voice over IP and mobility, 802.16e is an ideal choice for many applications. Teaming with Intel to work on 802.16e standards and interoperability matters will complement our strategy of using 802.16e with our MOTOwi4 WiMAX solutions.”
Motorola and Intel are members of the WiMAX Forum, an industry-led non- profit corporation formed to promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products.
October 28th, 2005
Here at TechSmec.com we use both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. With the recent arrival of OpenOffice 2 we hoped that the performance of the open source (and free) office suite would improve, but were disappointed to find that it still seems a little slow and resource hungry.
Now we have the proof, courtesy of ZDnet who have run a comparison test of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice and the results don’t look good for Bill Gates’ rival.
OpenOffice uses roughly 10 times the resources of Microsoft Office, both in terms of memory usage and CPU time. If you are using the OpenOffice spreadsheet application, Calc, then be prepared for 100 times the CPU usage of Excel. We’d noticed a significant difference in loading times for the same spreadsheet between Calc and Excel and this explains it.
Still, OpenOffice is free and you do get what you pay for. Microsoft’s bloatware image appears to be unjustified, at least in the case of Office.
October 27th, 2005
Nintendo has licensed handwriting technology from Zi Corporation, a provider of intelligent interface solutions.
Under the agreement, Nintendo DS developers can employ Zi’s Decuma handwriting recognition technology while creating software for the Nintendo DS handheld video game system.
Nintendo DS is the first handheld gaming platform to offer dual screens and touch-screen technology, similar to touch technologies found in some PDA’s or smartphones. Users can interact with the Nintendo DS by using standard control buttons, a microphone or the gaming system’s innovative touch screen.
“As the leading provider of handheld video game systems in the world, Nintendo has a reputation for adopting innovative technologies that improve the user’s experience with its products,” said Milos Djokovic, chief technical officer and chief operating officer, Zi Corporation. “With Decuma, Nintendo DS users will experience natural handwriting recognition previously only available to PDA and smartphone users. Zi continues to bring its multi-modal input products to leading mobile phones, gaming platforms and smartphones across the globe.”
October 26th, 2005
IBM has announced the custom designed microprocessor built for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is in production at the company’s New York plant and at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore.
The specialized chip, featuring customized and enhanced IBM intellectual property, was designed and developed by IBM and Microsoft to meet the unique requirements of the next generation Xbox 360 console.
The chip was delivered to Microsoft in less than 24 months from original contract signing in the fall of 2003 in time to meet Microsoft’s massive worldwide product launch for the 2005 holiday season.
“The Xbox 360 chip set was designed from the ground up specifically for high-definition gaming and entertainment,” said Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president, hardware for Xbox. “Working with IBM gave us the flexibility to design a processor to give game developers the kind of targeted power they need to make great games.”
“Microsoft’s aggressive timetable required that IBM take the Xbox 360 chip design from concept to full execution in just 24 months,” said Ilan Spillinger, IBM Distinguished Engineer and director of the IBM Design Center for Xbox 360. “IBM’s success in delivering the chip to meet Microsoft’s worldwide launch illustrates our commitment to innovative processor design that builds on IBM’s wealth of intellectual property.”
“The Xbox 360 project called upon the full range of IBM’s On Demand technology capabilities, including our Engineering & Technology Services unit for custom design work and our world wide manufacturing resources to meet the aggressive time-to-market demands for this advanced microprocessor,” said Jim Comfort, vice president and Strategic Client Executive, IBM Systems and Technology Group.
“Leveraging a common platform strategy, Microsoft benefits from a unique collaboration between IBM and Chartered for meeting its design and manufacturing needs, no matter how challenging they might be. With IBM and Chartered sharing a common focus on customer success, customers can have a single design sourced at multiple fabs, and benefit from tighter coordination and shared learning to speed prototyping, ramp and improve yield and meet time-to-market demands,” said Kay Chai “KC” Ang, senior vice president of fab operations at Chartered.
IBM engineers have been working with Microsoft to develop the chip since 2003 at IBM locations including Rochester, Minnesota; Austin, Texas; and Raleigh, North Carolina. Microsoft plans to formally launch Xbox 360 simultaneously in the United States, Japan and Europe later this year.
The chip features a customized version of IBM’s industry leading 64-bit PowerPC core. The chip includes three of these cores, each with two simultaneous threads and clock speeds greater than 3 GHz. It features 165 million transistors and is fabricated using IBM’s 90 nanometer Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to reduce heat and improve performance. The chip’s innovative 21.6 GB/s Front Side Bus (FSB) Architecture was customized to meet the demanding throughput and latency requirements of the Xbox 360 gaming platform software.
Other Xbox 360 chip features include:
* 3 identical multi-threaded PowerPC-based CPU cores operating at 3.2 GHz enhanced with specialized function VMX acceleration for gaming applications and a high speed 128-bit vector unit
* 1 MByte Shared L2 Cache with custom logic for high-speed data streaming for graphics and system applications
* 5.4 Gb/s per-pin Front Side Bus (with an aggregated bandwidth of 21.6 GBs)
* Highly configurable and programmable utilizing eFUSE technology
October 26th, 2005
Google has moved quickly to scotch rumours that it is about to launch an eBay-like classified or auction service.
Internet rumours multiplied yesterday after screenshots were posted online showing a Google interface that could potentially, with the eye of faith, be the genesis of an online classified sytem.
If you actually take a step back and look at what the page actually says (and what the service is apparently called - Google Base) then it appears that Google is actually soliciting you to add just about anything to a massive online database. Admittedly one of the suggestions is to upload details of a car for sale, but that sits alongside the idea that you could upload a database of protein structures (not commonly found on eBay).
The page also implies that results from Google Base might one day appear in the main search engine listings. Google is trying to index the world!
The official Google blog flatly denies the, frankly rather boring, eBay rumours, but does confirm the much grander plan of storing user-submitted content. “We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps. We think it’s an exciting product, and we’ll let you know when there’s more news,” says the blog.
October 26th, 2005
The alleged tendency of the iPod nano screen to scratch has landed Apple with a class-action lawsuit in San Jose, California.
nano owner, Jason Tomczak, claims he managed to scratch his screen simple by wiping it with a paper towel. Although, the temptation is there to believe that he must have previously used the paper towel to wipe up some iron filings, the flimsiness of the nano in general has been the subject of much online discussion since it was unveiled last month by Steve Jobs.
The law suit itself is fairly vague about the nature of the complaint. iPod nanos “scratch excessively during normal usage, rendering the screen on the Nanos [sic] unreadable, and violating state consumer protection statutes… and causing Plaintiff class members to incur loss of use and monetary damages.”
The plaintiffs are, quite reasonably, asking for their purchase price to be refunded, damages and attorney fees. INcrediblty they are also asking for a share of nano profits, but on what grounds is unknown.
October 23rd, 2005
Sony’s entrant into the digital living room category breaks all boundaries by managing not only personal and downloaded multimedia content but pre-packaged audio CDs and DVD movies as well.
The VAIO XL1 Digital Living System brings all of your entertainment into the living room and lets you manage it with a remote control.
Two sleek components comprise Sony’s Digital Living System: a high-end multimedia PC and a 200-disc media changer/recorder. Both are designed to fit into a home entertainment rack and the elegant silver and black casings are sure to complement the rest of your home entertainment system. The PC connects to a television via an HDMI cable, the emerging standard for digital connectivity, to output high-definition video and multi-channel digital audio in a single connection.
Close collaboration with Microsoft and tight integration with the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system ensure unique functionality only when using the XL1 system’s disc changer. Discs inserted into the changer are automatically detected by the PC which downloads (over a wired or wireless network) available metadata on each one, including jewel case covers and artist information. For movies, an in-depth synopsis is also downloaded in addition to the star, director, producer details and more. All of this information is easily sorted and accessed using the included wireless keyboard or remote control.
“Sony has innovated once again by introducing a product that is a monumental step forward in defining the way consumers enjoy digital entertainment,” said Mike Abary, vice president of VAIO product marketing for Sony Electronics in the U.S. “With the XL1, users can still manage all their meaningful entertainment content such as downloaded music, home movies and personal photos. But the really groundbreaking functionality is the additional ability to easily organize, sort, and access packaged content — all of the DVD movies and audio CDs that have been traditionally relegated to a bookshelf.”
“The Sony VAIO XL1 Digital Living System combines an innovative and cost-effective CD/DVD changer with a state-of-the-art Windows Media Center Edition PC, offering consumers a very cool, high-quality living room entertainment experience,” said Joe Belfiore, general manager of the Windows eHome Division at Microsoft Corp. “The XL1 is a result of close collaboration between Sony and Microsoft, and our two companies will continue to work together on future products that extend the Windows Media Center platform.”
With the XL1 Digital Living system, you can consolidate your music library by backing up your music CDs to your hard drive to be stored along with all of your downloaded music. With the touch of a few buttons, you can automatically and sequentially record up to 200 audio CDs from the media changer to the hard drive along with available album covers and track information. You can also record a series of television show episodes to the hard drive and easily transfer them to blank DVDs stored in the changer. The system alerts you to how many discs are needed and you can burn a whole season of your favorite TV program to DVDs to take on your next road trip.
In addition to being the ultimate home A/V entertainment center, the XL1 system is a powerful PC delivering robust performance for running multiple applications simultaneously. With its Intel Pentium D dual-core processor, ample DDR2 memory, PCI-E graphics and room for up to three SATA hard drives (RAID ready), the VAIO XL1 system is well-equipped to tackle your most demanding tasks. Internal PC components are liquid-cooled to ensure quiet operation worthy of a living room. Advancements such as Sony’s Sound Reality technology boost audio performance for high-quality digital sound.
Web browsing has been especially designed for an engaging living room experience. With the touch of the remote, you can quickly expand your favorite web pages for comfortable reading from your couch.
The Digital Living System will be sold as a package and will be available next month for about $2,300 online at SonyStyle.com
October 23rd, 2005
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