September 28, 2005

Apple Will Replace Cracked iPod Nanos

Apple Computer has promised to would replace defective iPod nano screens that have cracked after a flurry of complaints.

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, a "vendor quality problem" caused cracking on a small number of iPod nano screens, said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. The problem affected "less than one-tenth of 1%" of the nanos shipped, Schiller said.

Affected customers simply need to contact Apple to arrange a free replacement unit.

Blackberry 8700

I am personally waiting for the Motorola Q, but just in case you don't see things my way, here are the specifications for the Blackberry 8700

Panasonic P701iD

Panasonic, Japan has announced the availability of the P701iD mobile phone for the NTT broadband mobile phone network FOMA.

The P701iD measures 100x49x19. 7mm and features a 2.2 inch TFT screen and a very retro 0.6 inch monochrome STN display.

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Toshiba announces world's first PC that reads HD DVD discs

Japan's Toshiba Corp. said on Tuesday it had developed the world's first PC able to read HD DVD discs, a next-generation disc format it is promoting over a rival standard pushed by Sony Corp..

Toshiba and Sony, leading rival camps, have waged a three-year battle to have their different standards adopted for the next-generation of DVDs, which promise much greater capacity for high-definition movies reports Reuters.

Toshiba, along with NEC Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co., has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray.

September 26, Intel and Microsoft announced their support for HD-DVD. The need for a new standard is apparent. People are buying High-Definition television sets, and as should be immediately obvious to anyone who has seen the same video displayed side by side in standard-definition and high-definition format reports ZDNET.

Toshiba, said the PC would be introduced in Japan in early 2006. It is still considering the timing for an overseas launch.

The PC will be equipped with a slim, read-only HD DVD drive produced by Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology, a joint venture between Japan's second-largest electronics conglomerate and South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

next version of the BlackBerry will use Intel Hermon processor

Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor maker, won its first order for a new mobile-phone processor in a contract to sell chips for Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry devices reports Bloomberg

The next version of the BlackBerry, a combination mobile phone and e-mail pager, will use the processor, codenamed Hermon, Intel said in a statement today. Hermon is a baseband processor, the key chip that runs the basic functions of phones.

JVC GY-HD100 review

At first blush, the camera looks like any other midlevel prosumer camera with lots of switches, dials and places to plug in microphones, drives and so on. It operates in most ways like a regular old video camera. You don’t have to do anything magic to make a high definition recording, just press the button. But there are differences.

E ink electronic paper displays

E Ink Corporation, today announced that it will offer samples of electronic paper displays through the AM-100 EPD Prototype Kit, enabling prototyping across a wide range of display applications. The high-resolution display in this kit is bright, high-contrast, thin, lightweight, viewable from all angles and able to operate with dramatically less energy than liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

This is the first high-resolution developer kit that contains a graphical electronic paper display. E Ink's EPD technology offers the bright, bold look of ink-on-paper and is ideal for mobile devices because it can be read in any lighting condition, including direct sunlight, and at any viewing angle - just like paper. A resolution of 170 pixels per inch (PPI) and the capability of displaying four gray levels give this 6" diagonal display text quality with the clarity of newsprint. Once updated, the display image remains visible without energy, so the power draw of the display is reduced by up to 99% compared to traditional LCDs.

Cingular Wireless gets Real

Cingular Wireless, has announced plans to use RealNetworks Inc.'s video streaming technology to deliver video to mobile phones, the companies said late on Tuesday reports Yahoo News.

"If Microsoft had won this contract the battle for the mobile media player market would have been close to being over," said Ovum analyst Roger Entner, who noted that Microsoft is ahead of RealNetworks in the desktop media player market.

"This is version 2.0 of the media player battle. It shows that somebody is fighting back," Entner said.

Cingular's biggest rival, Verizon Wireless, uses Microsoft's media player for a mobile video service that delivers news and entertainment video clips to customers using its high-speed wireless data network.

OQO 01+

OQO has announced an updated version of their OQO Windows XP PDA called the OQO 01+.

The OQO 01+ features upgraded memory, larger hard drive and faster USB writes i4u.

OQO 01+ Specifications:

* 1GHz processor
* 30GB hard drive (shock-mounted)
* 512MB RAM
* 4.9" x 3.4" x .9"
* 14 ounces
* 800 x 480 W-VGA 5" display (indoor/outdoor readable)
* 3D accelerated graphics with 8MB video RAM
* QWERTY thumb keyboard with mouse buttons and TrackStik®
* WiFi®
* Bluetooth®
* USB 2.0
* FireWire® (1394)
* 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
* Microphone
* Pen-based digitizer
* NEW support for screen rotation
* NEW support for network boot (PXE)
* Removable lithium polymer battery
* Battery life up to three hours, depending on usage

InMotion portable multimedia docking station for the Palm Treo

Treonauts has some images of Altec Lansing's forthcoming InMotion portable multimedia docking station for the Palm Treo. I am going out on a limb to say the InMotion cradle probably hopes to be to the treo what the bose sound dock is to the iPod.