Archive for December 20th, 2005
Lexar has announced it is bringing Google applications directly to customers by including Picasa, Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search applications on its line of popular USB flash drives. The offering is the first time consumers will be able to install Google applications from a USB flash drive directly to their desktop to edit photos, find files and search the web using popular Google applications.
“While these popular applications have traditionally been available on the web directly from Google and other web affiliates, offering them on a Lexar JumpDrive provides a new channel to reach customers,” said Steffen Hellmold, vice president of USB flash drives at Lexar. “Taking web-based applications from Google and making them available on the Lexar JumpDrive line is appealing to retailers and is very valuable to consumers worldwide.”
Customers who purchase a Lexar JumpDrive simply have to plug the device into the USB port, on their computer, where the user will be prompted with instructions to easily install the free applications. If the user accepts installation, Google products automatically install to their computer and are then removed from the USB flash drive.
“We’re excited to make it possible for people to easily search the documents, photos, music and video they store on their Lexar JumpDrives and computer hard drives as well as to find information on the Internet,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President, Search Products & User Experience.
Lexar JumpDrive products with Google applications will be available worldwide beginning in January 2006.
December 20th, 2005
Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft has surpassed five million customers worldwide.
The subscription-based MMORPG launched approximately one year ago in North America, Australia, and New Zealand and has since released in multiple countries throughout Europe and Asia. This latest milestone comes on the heels of Blizzard’s recent announcement of a World of Warcraft expansion, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, which will push the boundaries of the game and offer even more content and features for players.
“World of Warcraft’s growth continues to exceed all our expectations,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We want to reiterate our thanks to the millions of players worldwide and to all the retailers who have enthusiastically supported the game over the past year. Our commitment to continue growing World of Warcraft is stronger than ever, with development on future content patches and on our 2006 expansion, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, well underway. We look forward to offering even more content for current customers in the months ahead and welcoming new players into the world this holiday season.”
With a strong presence across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, World of Warcraft has quickly become the world’s most popular MMORPG. Most recently, the game was launched in the regions of Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong on November 8, 2005.
As World of Warcraft’s population grows, Blizzard continues to support the game with additional content through regular patches and a planned expansion pack, set to release in 2006. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will add new lands, quests, monsters, magic items, spells and abilities, two new player races, a new player profession, 10 new levels of power for players to achieve, and much more. Additional information on the expansion and the game’s regular content updates can be found at the official World of Warcraft website.
December 20th, 2005
If you’re desperate for some PSP wireless goodness, then you might like to look at WiFi MAX for PSP, a no frills solution for creating an internet WiFi access point in your home.
WiFi MAX is a dongle that plugs into a USB port on an internet-connected PC. You can then connect to the internet and play online-enabled multiplayer games with PSP gamers from all over the world. WiFi MAX supports up to five ‘local’ PSP gamers at a time, so you and your mates can all play online at once.
As well as multiplayer games, WiFi MAX also lets you organise your media files and download them to your PC using our exclusive MAX Media Server software. Transfer MP3s, images and video files from your PC to your PSP from anywhere that’s within range of your new WiFi network.
Now, onto the downside. £30 isn’t expensive, but it’s not markedly cheaper than a full-blown wireless router which provides a lot more features. Worst of all, we could find no mention of any security features so for all we can tell, WiFi MAX might be opening up your PC for the whole world to look at.
It certainly looks easy to set up, but for the moment we will be sticking with our tried and trused wireless router.
You can read more (or even buy) here…
December 20th, 2005
Hauppauge has announced the release of its new ‘Wing’ software, enabling consumers to record TV shows on a personal computer for playback on the PSP, video iPod, and other portable video players. Wing can also be used to convert existing TV recordings to the PSP and iPod format.
Wing is sold as a $24.95 accessory to Hauppauge’s PC-based WinTV-PVR personal video recorders. Live TV shows can be recorded with a single click and played on a PC or TV set as well as a portable video player. Wing records in H.264, MPEG-4 and Divx formats, and also will record directly to a recordable DVD disk.
The Wing application comes with three components: a plug-in for the popular TitanTV internet based electronic program guide for automatic recording of TV shows, a plug-in for Hauppauge’s WinTV Scheduler for manual TV record scheduling, and an off-line recorder which will turn MPEG -2 videos into any of the formats supported by Wing.
Hauppage’s Eskape Labs division is also developing a version of Wing for the Apple Mac using the myTV.PVR, the Eskape Labs Mac-based personal video recorder . That product will be released in early 2006.
Wing is available directly from Hauppauge at: www.hauppauge.com/wing
December 20th, 2005