quattro
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Playboy teams with Quattro Wireless for mobile venture
Thankfully, the previous rumors of a Playboy MVNO have been laid to rest (at least momentarily), but that hasn't stopped Playboy Enterprises from teaming up with Quattro Wireless "to provide Playboy content on mobile phones." Reportedly, "users of the mobile site will be able to view non-nude photos of Playboy playmates and read their personal interviews," and the phone-friendly site will also lead to music, game and book reviews along with access to the Playboy Advisor advice column. The content from the standard website is synced regularly to the mobile outlet through Quattro's GetMobile platform, and as expected, you'll find lots of targeted advertisements cluttering your diminutive screen should you chose to visit.[Via SlashPhone]
Buffalo intros 1TB / 2TB DriveStation Quattro hard drives
Nah, Buffalo's latest don't sport a gigabit Ethernet connection, but the 1TB HD-Q1.0TSU2/R5 and 2TB HD-Q2.0TSU2/R5 external hard drives do feature both USB 2.0 and eSATA options. The Quattro drives are the outfit's newest additions to the DriveStation lineup, and aside from offering up terabytes of stores in RAID scenarios, it also sports SecureLockWare for automatic encryption, Memeo AutoBackup, and near silent operation. Each unit touts four 7,200 RPM HDDs, RAID 0/1/5 and JBOD functionality, and just in case your PC doesn't play nice with eSATA just yet, it comes bundled with a "free" eSATA PCI card and back plate to get you going. Available right now, the 1TB flavor will run you $599, while you can double your capacity for an extra four Benjamins.[Via TechDigest]
HD VMD signs first U.S. distributor, preps for 2Q launch
If you're looking for an alternative to the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war, don't forget VMD, which has just announced it's first distribution deal with a U.S. retailer, PC Rush. NME plans to make two players available in the second quarter of this year, the HD VMD Player Duo for $199 and the HD VMD Player Quattro for $249. The 40GB multilayered, red-laser based format hopes to bring HD content home for prices similar to standard DVDs, but we still have to see what kind of content will be available when players hit the shelves.
Microsoft launching Windows home server product at CES
We know there's been a bit of speculation this way or that as to whether Microsoft would launch a home (media) server version of Windows to accompany its alread home media serving-centric Media Center (and Vista Ultimate) Windows builds, but we can finally say with some certainty that they will. A trusted source confirmed with us what ZDNet is referring to as "Windows Home Server". We don't yet have a final working name (it's internally codenamed Q and Quattro, as we understand), exact launch details, or real ideas of how it's going to operate, we know it'll be announced by Microsoft at CES. Our gut tells us it's going to turn out like an end-user version of Windows Storage Server 2003, which is a slightly obscure embedded-devices / network storage Windows build intended specifically for headless network-accessible NAS and SAN devices. Then again, maybe they'll release the server OS for desktops of all shapes and sizes so we can all have something to do with our old junker PCs that might still be a little too good to take over duty as a m0n0wall box. Either way, as we said, we know it's coming, it'll be announced at CES, and we're a little stoked that maybe Microsoft will have something here that'll take some of the common annoyances out of home media and data serving.
