Apple introduced a new bright red iPod Nano model on Friday as another available color for the 4GB iPod Nano. For every red iPod Nano purchased, Apple has said it will donate $10 to RED, an organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver in order to support the effort to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The iPod Nano 4GB model is also available in blue, green, pink, black, and silver (Apple won't donate any money if you buy one of these); these models and the new red one are all equally priced at $200. In addition, there is a silver 2GB model for $150 and a black 8GB model for $250.
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Sony's hopping on the bandwagon, and for good reason: the iPod is one of the biggest success stories Apple has to tell, and the 5G and 5.5G iPod Videos carry on the tradition. And now Microsoft's in the picture with their Zune too. So it's only natural that Sony takes a stab at it. Besides, if the PS3 doesn't end up beating out the Xbox 360, Sony can be ready for round two.
At a news conference today announcing Sony's new NW-S600 and NW-S700 audio players, Sony's senior vice president briefly mentioned a new Walkman with video playback, but gave absolutely no further details. We'll have to wait for a while, but it's refreshing to see Microsoft and Sony try and take Apple on.
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If you thought DSL and cable Internet were fast, you're in for a surprise. A new bandwidth project called Dynamic Spectrum Management is in progress. DSM would effectively replace DSL with a technology that uses the same copper wiring to transmit a whole lot more data than any existing (affordable) home broadband solutions today. The difference between DSM and DSL is apparently the way in which signals and packets are processed and sent to a destination.
If DSM actually ends up working as well as it seems like it could, we could be seeing a much better alternative than digging into the ground all over the place to lay lots of fiber-optic cable. Of course, the telecom companies own the majority of usable wire going to your house, so they'll have to work out some way to get this up and running first. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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3D television seems to be the newest craze in entertainment. Neovision's iFusion may give you the easy solution you've been looking for. The iFusion basically looks like one of those plastic screen protectors you put on your MP3 player. But when you put the iFusion on a screen, the same video you were watching before appears to become 3D. No one really knows how this works, but if it works why question it?
Currently the iFusion will only work on the iUbi, a media player designed by Neovision (of course--though I doubt anyone's going to go out and buy an iUbi right now just for that). Neovision is currently in the process of making an iFusion for Microsoft's Zune and Creative's Zen Vision W.
Pricing is not available, but it should be out sometime early next year.
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Here's yet another digital picture frame, but this one's got a few more features than your average frame. DigitalSpectrum's new MemoryFrame MF-8014 has several neat capabilities. Most notable is its WiFi and IP addressing support, which lets you find the frame on your home network and send it pictures to display. It can also use pictures from online photo sharing websites like Flickr.
The frame has Windows CE 5.0 loaded onto it, which lets you easily navigate around and find pictures you want to use. It's fully compatible with Windows Vista and Windows XP; Windows Vista can automatically detect the frame, and the frame can automatically display pictures from Vista's Pictures folder. It supports 802.11b and 802.11g wireless protocols and IPv4 and IPv6 for accessing web content. Oh, and just for fun, it's got stereo speakers built-in and will play MP3, WMA, and streaming audio, and a card reader and USB support allow you to transfer pictures without a wireless connection.
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Upconverting DVD players have been around for a while now, but this is
the best-looking one yet. The Helios H4000 DVD player from NeoDigits
offers you high-definition outputs up to and including 1080p from any
of those "old" DVDs you have. 1080p output is available from
component, HDMI (or DVI with an adapter), and, surprisingly, VGA as
well; NeoDigits says the H4000 is the only player to offer all of
these. Audio can be output as analog stereo, 5.1 channel, optical, or
coaxial signals. All that in a sleek, slim design.
The Helios H4000 plays a wide variety of formats. Aside from DVD,
VCD/SVCD, CD, HDCD, and MP3/WMA support, the H4000 also plays MPEG4,
DivX, and XviD-format video, so you can play all those movies you legally
acquired on your computer. It's already available on the NeoDigits
site for pre-order, so it should be coming soon. The price on the site
is $169, which is pretty good for an upconverting player.
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Sony Pictures will begin releasing movie titles on 50GB (dual-layer) Blu-ray discs. These large-capacity discs will allow a single disc to hold not only the movie in high-definition but also plenty of special features. The first three such movies, Click, Black Hawk Down, and Talladega Nights, will be released over the coming months.
Click, the first movie to be released, will begin selling on DVD and Blu-ray today. Click will be the first movie to re-render all of its special features into a high-definition format, Sony said. In addition to the high-definition movie, the disc will contain deleted scenes, a making-of segment, and an uncompressed PCM audio track.
Black Hawk Down and Talladega Nights will be released later on Blu-ray at the same time as the DVD versions, November 14 and December 12, respectively. While it will not offer high-definition special features, Black Hawk Down will introduce a new technology called Blu-Wizard, which allows you to program in special features to automatically play at certain points in the movie. Talladega Nights will have most of its special features available in high definition.
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Samsung's got a new MP3 player on the block. The Yepp Yp-T9 has all the usual features of
a portable media player these days: video and audio playback and the ability to
view pictures, in this case on a 1.8" screen with a resolution of 178x220. The YP-T9 also has an FM tuner and recorder,
voice recording capabilities, and a Flash interface that supports Flash
games. There are two versions of the
player, with capacities of 2GB and 4GB; both are priced the same as their iPod
Nano equivalents, but SanDisk's Sansa players will cost you a bit less than
Samsung's or Apple's products.
One thing that amazed me about this player is the battery
life. It's rated at 30 hours for audio
playback and 6 hours of video. That's
about as good as battery life gets, and it even beats the 24 hours on the new
iPod Nanos.
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“Couch potato” and “on the go”. These two terms were once considered
to be an oxymoron. Now, a network add on from a new company called Sling Media
allows anyone to take their T.V., DVD player, satellite TV receiver or PVR.
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Bose is cooking up some new headphones, which should be available on the 12th. The TriPort OE (on the left above) is a new on-ear (that's what OE stands for) design of the original TriPort headphones, for more compact headphones that do just as good of a job. It comes with all the TriPort technologies, detachable 43" and 16" cables, and a carrying case. Pricing is not yet available, but don't expect it to be cheap.
The TriPort IE (on the right) is, you guessed it, an in-ear version of the TriPort headphones. There really isn't much information on these, but you can bet they're probably a nice pair of earbuds. I've never been a fan of earbuds myself (I'm always scared I'll step on them), but Bose can make anything work. No pricing available for these either.
The original TriPort headphones will now be called the TriPort AE (for around-ear), to keep naming more systematic.
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