Maxell
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Travis Scott joins the PlayStation team as a 'strategic creative partner'
Travis Scott is teaming up with Sony to promote the PlayStation 5, and their first video shows off some new Nike Dunk Lows that feature his recognizable reverse swoosh with the PlayStation logo.
Maxell's Vibrabone HP-VBC40 earbuds can rattle your skull, if you'd like
Maxell has taken a slightly different approach to the bone conduction trope with its new Vibrabone HP-VBC40 earbuds – headphones that combine standard stereo drivers with the same bone-rattling, vibration-based technology we've all come to know and love. According to Maxell, the Vibrabone's hybrid system enhances the bass that would be coursing its way through your cranium, while its dual volume control allows users to fine tune that bass flow. Apparently, this bass adjustment mechanism puts less stress on your eardrums, which might make the entire bone conduction concept seem slightly less creepy. The earbuds come in black, blue and white, and will be available in Japan toward the end of April, for a little under ¥4,000 or about $50.
Maxell debuts SSD family, Acoustabar soundbars, accessories galore at CES
If you come all this way to the Consumer Electronics Show, why introduce just a single product? You wouldn't, as evidenced by Maxell's smorgasbord here in Las Vegas. Kicking things off is the outfit's new Acoustabar soundbar lineup, which boast integrated subwoofers and hardwood enclosures. The 32-inch Eht model includes ten speaker drivers, while the SD320 delivers 430 watts of audio through five drivers. Moreover, that guy touts a built-in iPod dock, and it allows for connectivity with any TV, DVD player and game console. The 32-inch SD-400 simply steps up to 520 watts of audio. Once you're done dreaming of ways to enhance your own home cinema, the outfit has one to consider for the kids. The KDP-1 projector includes an inbuilt DVD player and provides a plug-and-play experience that'll shoot up an image as large as 45-inches. You'll also get built-in speakers, a microphone input for karaoke and an undisclosed native resolution. We'll confess that not knowing the latter scares us a bit, but those who couldn't care less can find it nowish for $129.99. As you'd expect, Maxell's also dishing out a slew of new storage products. It'll be pushing out 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSDs (64GB, 256GB and 512GB models) in late 2011, SDXC cards and readers sooner than that, a number of USB 3.0 flash drives / HDDs and a non-networked. MP-100 media player. There's plenty of details on earbuds, iPod cases and other accessories after the break, too. %Gallery-112224%
Maxell launches flash storage line
Could this mean the death of the Cassingle?
Maxell's Leather Label DVDs are Fonzerelli approved
Oh man, just look at that. Soft, rich, leather-wrapped 16x DVD-Rs and 2x DRD-RWs -- guaranteed to make your data more creamy and you more socially awkward. Available October 25th in Japan for an undisclosed price.
Maxell's iVDR external HDD handles hardcore field operations
Just because Maxell left the disc manufacturing to other rivals doesn't mean that it's bowing out of the external HDD market. Announced this week, the firm has introduced its all new iVDR, which "connects directly through a bi-directional USB or eSATA adapter to a shoulder-mounted camcorder capable of delivering 10-bit, 4:2:2 master-quality video and native full HD video." In layman's terms, this here drive caters to those logging clips in the rough, and its innate ability to resist drops of up to 4-feet makes it the ideal candidate for even the clumsiest shooter. Unfortunately, mum's the word on price, but we are told that a 160GB version (with a 540Mbps transfer rate) is set to land in Q2, while a slightly more capacious 250GB edition is hitting shelves in Q3.[Via BIOS, thanks Christian]
Maxell to no longer manufacture discs, blow customers away
Though the Maxell brand name will live on, the company announced it is ending production of CD, DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD discs at the end of the month. It plans to outsource to other manufacturers (like Mitsubishi perhaps?) and though the name on the packaging will be the same, we just don't see how anyone else can provide the rather unique experience of Maxell tape discs.[Via Impress]
Hitachi Maxell unveils Bluetooth iPod dongle, stereo headset
Though Hitachi Maxell didn't see fit to dole out any images to accompany its newest duo of products, at least they're pretty self-explanatory. Up first is the Audio Transmitter / Dongle, which plugs into any iPod's dock connector input and enables audio to be "processed with SRS WOW HD audio enhancement before being transmitted via Bluetooth to any BT-enabled headset or speaker accessory." For those who aren't exactly wowed, you can flip off the process with a button on the appendage. Next up is an apparently unnamed Bluetooth 2.0 stereo headset, which doesn't seem to do anything out of the ordinary. Continuing the ambiguous trend, we're also left sans a price or release date -- thanks, Hitachi Maxell.
Sony, Fuji, and Maxell fined $110M for videotape cartel
The EU just lashed Sony, Fuji, and Maxell with fines totaling €75 million ($110 million) on grounds of fixing the price of professional videotapes. The 3-way Japanese cartel controlling 85% of the professional videotape market was found guilty of artificially controlling prices on Betacam SP and Digital Betacam -- the two most popular professional videotape formats in use between 1999 and 2002. According to the EU commission, they "organized three successful rounds of price increases and endeavored to stabilize prices whenever an increase was not possible." Such naughty, naughty billionaires now reaping what they've sown.
Sony, others named in video tape price-fixing scheme
Seems we can't have a month go by without another industry-wide price fixing scandal. Today's cartel was bent on fixing the prices of professional-grade video tapes used in television. An infamous list of swindles which includes DRAM, LCDs, and online-music just to name a few. While the EU regulators citied "several companies," only Sony would confirm that they were charged with the crime. Fingers are also wagging in the direction of Panasonic, Fujifilm, Hitachi Maxell and TDK but all declined to comment on the matter. So innocent until proven guilty, mkay. The EU's charges are based on raids it made in 2002 as well as information received since, under a leniency program. Companies now have two months to respond. If guilty, companies could be fined as much as 10% of their annual global sales. Oh my.
Maxell intros MXSP-1000, the tubular iPod speaker system
Just in case you weren't digging the stereotypical "Made for iPod" speaker systems cluttering up the shelves out there, Maxell is busting out an uber-slim, tubular-styled setup to decorate your dorm room wall or compliment your table of choice. While it's probably not as cool as the blown-away guy, the MXSP-1000 is a 23.4-inch long speaker system designed to conveniently hold and charge your dock connector-equipped iPod and pump out the jams through its dual 4.8-watt speakers. The unit comes in silver, black, and the ever-trendy white flavor, but at least Maxell was kind enough to toss in a 3.5-millimeter aux in jack to utilize other musical sources when your 'Pod's not around. Aside from sporting playback controls and a nifty dock lid, you can pick up the optional wireless remote for controlling your playlists from afar, but you won't be picking this up in North America anytime soon it seems. Regardless, the MXSP-1000 can be snapped up in a week or so if you're venturing through Japan.[Via Far East Gizmos]
Maxell/Hitachi plans September US HD DVD-R/RW launch
According to this article from TWICE, the US division of Maxell is planning on releasing HD DVD-R and -RW discs in September (July for Japan), and shipping Blu-ray BD-Rs and BD-REs in August. They haven't announced a price for either yet. Also notable was the quoted VP's concern over the complexity of a format war and how many returns they had of recordable media in the early days of DVD. They don't anticipate the market to be profitable until at least 2007 and are focusing on consumer and retail education to ease the transition. Finally, they consider hardware pricing the most important factor in consumer acceptance of new technology. Very interesting words, we can assume HD DVD burners will be available come September, but who, what price and what speed?
Maxell announces SDHC-compliant card reader
Accessory manufacturers like Hitachi-owned Maxell must love new memory card formats almost as much as we hate them, because each tiny new card that hits the market requires a corresponding round of high-profit-margin peripherals to support it. We already knew that the new high-capacity SD version 2.0 (or SDHC) cards would not work in readers that don't support the FAT32 file format, so Maxell has leveraged this incompatibility to come up with a new 5-in-1 reader that will support the 4+GB cards when they hit the market, along with MMC, MemoryStick/MS Pro, and our old favorite, xD. Better known as the UA20-SDMSXD, the new reader will be available sometime this summer -- about the same time we're expecting the first SDHC cards from Panasonic.
Hitachi Maxell 1TB SVOD optical disc cart
Good morning, kids. Are you ready for the optical disc format of the day? It's Hitachi Maxell's 1TB stacked volumetric optical disc (SVOD) array, comprised of rather thin DVD-size discswith DVD-size capacities: 9.4GB total storage each on two 92µm thick data layers. Yeah, we know, we promised a terabyte; well, watch and learn. These polycarbonate discs may be too thin to be manufactured from typical plastics, but they can be stacked in an optical array 100 tall, and 6.5 x 13.3 x 16.1cm (2.5 x 5.2 x 6.3-inches) in size. Even though Hitachi Maxell wants to make the terabyte carts relatively cheap at ¥40,000 (about $340 US) and claims there are consumer applications, don't toss that HD DVD player just yet. It's pretty easy to realize why optical arrays are really of only limited utility for the end-user; if these should ever be popularized, we'd imagine it would serve first as data archival medium for businesses before you'd ever outfit your rig with, like, the high def optical disc system, dude.[Thanks, Andrew]
HVD to offer mega-storage in 2006
Instead of asking "HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?" next year, we might be asking "Holographic Video Disc or other inferior products?" We're not even done with the current format war and the troops are already gearing up for the next one. Actually, from the sounds of the new HVD, I may bypass the high-def DVD silliness completely.We mentioned 200GB HVDs last month, but already Maxell has come forth with plans for 300 GB of digital capacity. It's still not enough for a whole season of "24" in high-def, but we're getting closer!
