Peter Rojas
Articles by Peter Rojas
The Elonex eXentia Media Center PC
Damn, the Brits are definitely keeping pace with us in the stylie Media Center PC department, especially since the release of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 a few weeks ago. The latest to crop up across the pond is the Elonex eXentia, an all-in-one model that they've packed into a 32-inch LCD TV that doesn't skimp on the specs: a 3.0GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 200GB hard drive, an 8-in-1 memory card reader, a DVD+-R/RW drive, and built-in 802.11a/b/g (which is somewhat uncommon for a Media Center). [Via Digital Media Thoughts]
Windows Mobile passes Palm in PDA sales
With PDA sales essentially flat, we're practically at the point where they're squabbling over a dead carcass of a market, but Microsoft just swiped the title of most popular PDA operating system away PalmSource. A full 48.1% of all non-smartphone PDAs sold in the third quarter of this year run on some flavor of Windows CE (mainly the Pocket PC operating system), while Palm-powered PDAs accounted for only 29.8% of sales, a pretty significant decline from the same period last year. Windows Mobile and Palm are still dwarfed by Symbian when it comes to the ever more important market for smartphones, but any way you slice it, the Palm OS is hurting, with Sony killing their Palm-powered line of Clie handhelds everywhere except Japan, and former conjoined twin palmOne supposedly flirting with a Windows Mobile version of the Treo.
Patent for wireless iPod turns up
The patent for this was filed over a year and a half ago, but c'mon, is anyone all that surprised that Apple has at least been experimenting with a wireless iPod, a WiPod, if you will? A patent published on Thursday but that Apple filed in April of last year talks about a wirelessly-enabled handheld player that can beam music and information to multiple other media devices, a docking station for communicating with other devices, and something about wirelessly transmitting "media items" to a handheld device over a network. No mention of what wireless standard might be involved (maybe Apple is just waiting for 802.11n to get going), but don't be shocked if they roll out a new a wireless iPod next year that can beam music to an AirPort Express and wirelessly sync up with a computer. [Thanks, 010111]
Music Thing: A real digital studio for £27/$50
Each week, Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out these days, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment. Last Saturday, it was the Fairlight CMI Synthesizer, which cost about £27,000. This week, he explains how it's now possible to build a complete digital studio for £27: A month ago, I wrote a piece on Music Thing about building a home studio for £500. This week, I looked at the numbers again. I realised you don't need to spend anything like that, because you don't need to buy everything at once. So, given a PC with a soundcard, a home stereo and a pair of headphones, you only really need to spend £27, and you're in business. Here's how you do it:
The HVR-Z1U, Sony's new pro HDV camcorder
Sony hit us hard with the HDR-FX1, their first consumer-grade high-definition camcorder a couple of months ago, and now they're back with the HVR-Z1U, their latest camera that's compatible with the High-Definition Video, or HDV format. Only this one is more on the professional tip, and besides costing a lot more ($4,900 vs. $3,600), the HVR-Z1U can also record at video at 24 frames per second, something which is supposed to give digital video more of a cinematic look, a feature that was conspicuously absent from the HDR-FX1. Should start rocking retail beginning in February.
The Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller for GameCube
Before you get your hopes up, we should probably break it to you that while it is nicely gory, you can't exactly use the Chainsaw Controller for GameCube to play Resident Evil 4 all Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style. Nah, despite what it looks like, it's basically just a regular GameCube controller (in fact, it's got all the same buttons you'll find on a standard GameCube controller). That means no running around your living room, slashing away with this thing as you virtually decapitate zombies and such, though it does have a built-in speaker for delivering that rusty chainsaw sound. [Thanks, Colin]
The Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller for GameCube
Before you get your hopes up, we should probably break it to you that while it is nicely gory, you can't exactly use the Chainsaw Controller for GameCube to play Resident Evil 4 all Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style. Nah, despite what it looks like, it's basically just a regular GameCube controller (in fact, it's got all the same buttons you'll find on a standard GameCube controller). That means no running around your living room, slashing away with this thing as you virtually decapitate zombies and such, though it does have a built-in speaker for delivering that rusty chainsaw sound. [Thanks, Colin]
T-Mobile going to get on the EDGE bandwagon?
Honestly, with all the other carriers here in the US already either deploying or testing high-speed 3G wireless networks, isn't it a little weird that T-Mobile still hasn't upgraded their network to EDGE (which is a like a faster version of GPRS), let alone announced their plans for 3G? They won't say anything official about it, but our buddy Om Malik noticed that Ericsson announced a deal to sell some EDGE-compatible cellular network equipment to T-Mobile, which means they're probably going to roll EDGE out not too long from now.
Apple flash-based iPod is coming
The rumors about Apple doing a flash-based iPod have been kicking around for a few weeks, and while they ain't official until they're official, AppleInsider says they have some more details about them, including that they'll come in sizes ranging from 256MB to 1GB, retail for below $200, and begin shipping sometime in late January/early February, which almost guarantees an announcement at Macworld in January. Oh, and for anyone holding out hope that Apple might someday do a video iPod, just remember that coming out with a flash-based player pretty much goes against Stevie J.'s previous statements about how most flash players "end up in a drawer". The man is allowed to change his mind. [Thanks, Steve]
Movie Gadget Friday: The Cursed Video Tape from the Ring
Last week Phillip pinched hit and wrote about the cube from CUBE, this week Josie Fraser escapes both 1983 and stuff men put their heads into, and checks out the cursed video tape from The Ring films: Based on the popular Japanese novels of Koji Suzuki, the story of cursed-movie maker Sakuma has inspired a slew of similarly titled horror movies, including Ringu (1998), Rasen (1998), Ringu 2 (1999), Ringu 0 (2000), The Ring (2002) and Ring 2 (due out next year). Many films dealing with technology take a fairly apocalyptic view of the outcomes of increasingly sophisticated developments – usually it ends badly, with computers or robots deciding that the world would be better off without the meddling of foolish humans. The playing out of these kinds of anxieties on screen constitutes a fairly substantial part of the sci-fi genre. The beauty of The Ring series is that it takes a fairly ordinary (& now becoming obsolete technology), the video tape, and uses it to tap into the potential horror of mechanical reproduction as unavoidably endless. The Ring is the perfect horror film for anyone responsible for drafting or enforcing copyright legislation.
Motorola A630 pushed back another month or so
Following up on our post from earlier this morning about the Motorola A630 disappearing from Amazon.com, we just spoke with one of our contacts at T-Mobile, who says that the phone is definitely still coming out, it's just been pushed back for another month or so. He wouldn't get specific about why, but obviously there must have been some sort of problem with it that Moto is trying to clear up.
The Versatile MultiLayer Disc -- Yet another competitor for Blu-ray and HD-DVD
As if anyone needed yet another high-capacity optical disc format to contend with, a company called New Medium Enterprises has been showing of their new 20GB high-definition Versatile MultiLayer Disc, saying that they'll have drives and up to 30GB VMDs ready by Fall of next year. It's hard to see VMD catching on given the complete lack of support from any major manufacturers or any movie studios (which the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps are each trying to convince to release high-def movies in their disc format), but the fact that VMD uses a red laser rather than a blue laser does it mean it'd be easier for factories pumping out DVDs and DVD players to switch over. They just probably won't.
Verizon launches shot across Cingular's bow
Get ready for what is surely going to be an incredibly annoying advertising war between Verizon and Cingular. It's just an opening salvo, for sure, but now that they've been bumped down to the number two spot by Cingular, which recently gobbled up AT&T Wireless (and will surely be feeling some serious indigestion very soon), Verizon Wireless has decided to hit back with a new advertising campaign targeting AT&T Wireless subscribers who might feel a little left out in the cold from the recent merger. The ads, which are mainly running in newspapers in the Northeast, say "Attention AT&T Wireless Customers: As long as your wireless carrier is changing, why not change to the best?"
The REX-Link1P iPod Wireless Digital Adapter
When it's comes down to it this is basically just a fancified version of the iTrip (but with better sound quality), but next month RATOC will begin shipping the REX-Link1P, a wireless transmitter attachment for the iPod that uses the 2.4GHz spectrum (more interference with WiFi, yay!) to beam audio to your home stereo. Works with the 3G, 4G, and iPod mini, and is probably only for the Japanese market. [Via eHomeUpgrade]
PRETTY GIRLS DON'T RIDE THE SUBWAY
They're not sure whether it was an inside job or the work of some hacker who experienced a little rejection while riding the rails, but somebody hacked into the New York subway computer system and switched one of the electronic signs at the W. 4th Street station to read "PRETTY GIRLS DON'T RIDE THE SUBWAY". Apparently it was up there for a few hours, too, before MTA workers finally just unplugged the damn thing. Could someone please get Jenny Holzer on the phone? [Via Gothamist]
Your last chance to win a free MP3 player or Audible audio book
So like we said, we're going to be mixing things up today with the contest to a free MP3 player and/or audio book courtesy of Audible in the last day of our giveaway this week. Here's the deal: somewhere in our archives is a old post with a special code-word that we've inserted into it, be the first person to email the URL to us (use our contact form) and you'll win a free Creative 128MB MuVo MP3 player and a audio book from Audible. Be the second person to find that URL and you'll win a free audio book from Audible. The code-word you're looking for is "tangential", but lest you think you can just use our search function (or Google) to automatically find the code-word, we're going to put the word in a GIF, so it won't be searchable through normal means. If no one is able to find the URL within the next few hours, we'll post some clues to help you out. Get cracking! UPDATE: We have some winners! Congrats to Chris, who wins the MP3 player and audio book, and Clara, who won the 2nd place prize of an audio book. Thanks to everyone for participating in our giveaways this week, we'll be giving away some even bigger prizes very soon. P.S. - In case you were wondering, the post you were looking for was here.
Get ready for the RAZRberry: The scoop on Motorola's new RAZR V3-styled smartphone
We just got some scoopage on a Motorola smartphone that is coming out next year. A source deep within the company has confirmed for us that they're gunning for RIM with a smartphone, codenamed "RAZRberry" that's just as thin and has the same styling as their RAZR V3 cellphone (which is pictured at right), but is wide enough to fit a QWERTY mini-keyboard. Our source couldn't confirm the operating system, but the RAZRberry is likely to run on some flavor of Windows Mobile and come out sometime in the middle of 2005.
The B221: Smartphone or Pocket PC Phone?
Yeah, there is plenty to like about the B221, Ya Hsin's new clamshell smartphone which comes with a 2.2-inch LCD screen, a built-in digital camera, and plenty of memory (64MB of RAM and 32MB of ROM), but it sounds like they mixed up which OS it's running on. They have it down as running on Microsoft's Smartphone 2003 operating system, something which is pretty much contradicted by the rest of the specs, which list it as having a touch screen with a resolution of 320x240, as well as coming with all the mobile MS Office applications, features that are only supported by the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile, not the Smartphone version (and we swear, this is as nitpicky as we like to get). Anyway, we don't know much else about the B221 at this point, but we have this sneaking suspicion that you'll probably see somebody else's name on this when it finally comes out. [Via MSMobiles]
Your cellphone is your front door key
Alright, you probably already don't like losing your cellphone, and it'll be even worse when your cellphone also doubles as your wallet, but pretty soon it might also double as your front door key. At least in Japan, where several companies are working together to adapt NTT DoCoMo's FeliCa wireless payment system so that you can also use your cellphone to lock and unlock doors (one bad thing: if there's a blackout, you better hope that the backup battery in the door doesn't run out). The "kesaka service" will also let you do stuff like check to make sure that your doors are locked from your handset (or even get an email every time it's unlocked) or issue duplicate keycards with expiration dates so your unwanted houseguests can get the message that it's time to go home.
Motorola A630 goes AWOL from Amazon
We've gotten about a million emails about this over the past few days, and yes, it does look like Motorola's A630 has mysteriously disappeared from Amazon's website. Amazon had been taking pre-orders for the phone (which flips open to reveal a mini QWERTY keyboard, and has Bluetooth, MP3 ringtones, a 176 x 220, 65k color display, and quad-band GSM/GPRS, and was to have been availble from both T-Mobile and Cingular), but now there's not a trace of it on there anywhere. We'll make a few calls… [Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this. We feel your pain.]