IFA 07: Audio-Technica unveils ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint noise-cancelling headphones

By

Dave Walker

on August 30, 2007

Japanese company Audio-Technica is quick off the mark at IFA, launching its ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint headphones.

The headphones are noise-cancelling, claiming to reduce background noise by 85 per cent. At work is a miniature microphone in each earpiece, which actively monitors what you are hearing, including the unwanted environmental noise. The onboard electronics identify the difference between this and the 'undisturbed' signal from your listening source. This is used to create an anti-noise signal. By mixing this with the intended signal source the unwanted noise is cancelled out.

Other features include a closed-back design, large-aperture drivers, a wide extended frequency response and deep bass frequencies. No news on a shelf date or price, although the company says these will be 'almost half the price of any comparable headphones'.

Find out more

Parrot introduces multi-connectivity digital photo frame - DF7220

By

Dave Walker

on August 30, 2007

Parrot has launched a new multi-connectivity digital photo frame - the 7-inch DF7220.

As the above suggests, there are various ways to transfer your photos to the frame, including by Bluetooth, via a memory card slot (SD/MMC) or by USB connectivity. You can view your photos horizontally or vertically, as single images or as a slideshow. There's also an auto shut-off when it is dark and brightness adjustment if it's your photos that happen to be a little dark. Memory-wise, there's enough room for around 300 images.

The Parrot DF7220 will be available from October, priced at £99.99.

Parrot website

Sanyo launches Xacti DMX-HD1000 - world's smallest 1080p camcorder

By

Dave Walker

on August 30, 2007

Sadly, we might have to wait a little while for this in the UK, but if you're in Japan, you can soon get your hands on the Sanyo Xacti DMX-HD1000, claimed to be the world's smallest 1080p camcorder.

It records full 1080p, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution video using the HD/MPEG-4 AVC codec, as well as being able to snap 8 megapixel stills. Other features include 10x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD screen, HDMI-out and recording direct to SD/SDHC cards for up to 2 hours of battery life. If the SDHC thing puts you off, don't worry - an 8GB SDHC card can hold about 1 hour and 25 minutes of full HD.

Should be in the Japanese shops in mid-September, retailing for the equivalent of £500.

Sanyo website

Via Engadget

Video: Nokia's new N81 music phone in action

By

Stuart Dredge

on August 30, 2007

As you'll know if you ready our Nokia Go Play liveblog yesterday, alongside its launch of the Nokia Music Store, the company unveiled its new N81 8GB music phone.

Well, there were plenty of 'em available for demoing at the event, so I grabbed one to shoot a quick video, showing its neat multimedia user interface that sees one button take you directly to your music, videos and other content.

First hands-on impressions of the Nokia Music Store

By

Stuart Dredge

on August 29, 2007

At today’s Go Play event, Nokia announced its new Nokia Music Store service (see the earlier story and liveblog for full details). In the afternoon, I got hands on with the web and mobile versions, to see how they’re shaping up.

First, some factual info that didn’t come out in the earlier press conference:

- The DRM-protected tracks will be WMA files encoded at 192kbps. Initially, it’s using Microsoft’s old Windows Media DRM, but in the future, there’s scope to switch to the newer PlayReady system (you might remember, a couple of weeks ago, Nokia and Microsoft signed a deal to work together on the latter).

- All four major record labels have signed up to supply songs for the service: EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. There’ll also be tunes from many many independent labels.

All geek demographics catered for with the Transformer Deluxe Death Star

By

Gary Cutlack

on August 29, 2007 Comments (1)

And this isn't just some 35-year-old man's dream - it's an official product you can buy on Amazon. It actually exists. The crazy bastards have only gone and done it.

To celebrate the true glory of this toy, we'll bust out the rarely-used full-width image code so you can see it properly:

Beautiful. And it's only $50, which at today's ridiculous exchange rate is practically free, or at least less than you'd spend getting a round in. Go on, order one now. Things like this don't come along that often.

Price per GB of external hard drives drops by one-third in a year

By

Andy Merrett

on August 29, 2007

Let's be honest, hard drives aren't exactly the sexiest bits of computer gear, but they're increasingly important as we download yet more data from the Net and have to store it.

A new report from GfK shows that the price per gigabyte of external hard drives has fallen by around one-third in just one year.

In the first half of 2006, consumers would have paid an average of 64p per GB. Today, that's fallen to 43p per GB.

The volume of external hard drives sold has increased year-on-year, with 1.3m units sold in 2006 compared to 560,000 units in 2005.

This trend is attributable in part to the growth in popularity of notebook computers, many of which have fairly low-capacity internal hard drives.

GfK predict that over two million drives will be sold this year.

Manx Telecom offers Mobile Downloads service on superfast 3.5G network

By

Andy Merrett

on August 29, 2007

We often credit (and drool at) Japan with having the most advanced technology, and bemoaning the lack of such gadgetry in the UK, but you don't have to look so far away to find cutting edge technology and services.

Manx Telecom, which serves the Isle of Man, has just launched a converged content delivery service called Mobile Downloads, which will enable its 75,000-strong subscriber base to purchase, download, and consume music from both mobile devices and PCs, thanks to the new iO Mobile Experience Platform.

Manx claims to be the first operator in the world to deliver such a service from iO global, having also credited as the first in the world to launch a 3.5G mobile service.

YouTube Video of the Day - Miss South Carolina makes news feature in US

By

Mof Gimmers

on August 29, 2007

Watching Miss South Carolina stumble through the simplest of actions (namely talking click here to see what I'm talking about) it's worth seeing that, even though it's embarrassing getting something wrong like that, it's not as embarrassing as watching two news presenters giving high fives and touching knuckles in respec' whilst giving you your platform to rectify your mistake.

Scoff 'til you drop: EAT and Krispy Kreme sign up to BarclayCard OnePulse

By

Andy Merrett

on August 29, 2007

We already know that over 1,000 shops have signed up to offer BarclayCard OnePulse payment to their customers, but it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm a bit peckish, so this news story caught my eye as it names some of those fine businesses.

EAT and Krispy Kreme are among the first eateries to offer the cashless payment technology, along with the likes of Coffee Republic, Threshers, YO! Sushi, Books Etc, and the Science Museum (yes, I'm aware that you can't really eat anything at those last two establishments).

Spokespeople from EAT and Krispy Kreme both expressed their excitement, noting that people would be able to spend more time enjoying their food rather than queuing for it. Quite.

The card, launching next month, can be preregistered at the Barclaycard OnePulse web site

Very smart new Panasonic D-Snap MP3 player

By

Gary Cutlack

on August 29, 2007

Look at that. What a lovely screen. So futuristic and nice.

Panasonic's D-Snap player itself has seen a bit of a feature update to bring it up to late-2007 levels, with the SV-SD950N now coming with Bluetooth for (painfully slowly) transferring your tunes across. Then there's the usual stuff - takes cheap old SD cards, plays AAC, WMA and MP3 files, plus it comes in a range of fancy colours. Black. And white.

It's basically yet another fairly boring little MP3 player, but it has the sort of screen you'll want to show to people, particularly girls, so they think you've got lots of money and have all the "cool stuff".

Shiny Video Review: Motorola Razr²

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

Here's Katie and Susi getting up close and personal with the new Razr from Motorola, including showing off its crazy voice, and a hot debate on the word 'haptics'. Oh yes. It all goes on at Shiny Towers. For a more in-depth review, check out Susi's thoughts here.

Motorola

Daily Tech Hotlinks for 29-Aug-07: South Park, Steve Jobs, Windows, SMS, Michael Arrington

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

- South Park launches a new online 'hub', reportedly the first of its kind (Paid Content)
- Steve Jobs is to be inducted into California's Hall of Fame (Apple Insider)
- An illegal downloader is being forced to use Windows as his OS as part of his punishment (Valleywag)
- An American teen so engrossed in texting, gets hits by oncoming train (Wired)
- Move over Fake Steve Jobs, say hello to fake Michael Arrington at CrunchFood (CrunchFood)

Video Games Live returns to London, hurrah!

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

Keep October the 22nd clear in your diaries, London-based people, as Video Games Live is swinging our way once again.

Hosted by co-creators Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, it's an amazing night featuring members of the Philharmonia Orchestra playing tunes from game soundtracks such as Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and Halo. I went to the event last year and can recommend it to any gaming aficionado, especially if you want to get up close and personal with gaming musical giants such as Richard Jacques.

Take a look below the jump for a video a friend and I made at last year's, where Martin Leung, aka The Blindfolded Pianist, showed off his amazing Mario soundtrack skills on the piano. See you there, October 22nd, at the Royal Festival Hall!

Video Games Live

Palm offers free Windows Mobile 6 update for Treo 750v and Treo 750 smartphones in Europe

By

Dave Walker

on August 29, 2007

If you are the proud owner of a Palm Treo 750v and Treo 750 smartphone, you can take advantage of a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.

Windows Mobile 6 paired with Exchange Server 2007 means email enhancements such as HTML-formatted email messages, the ability to set an out-of-office message remotely, plus live links to Microsoft SharePoint documents. And there are the new mobile versions of Microsoft Office Outlook, Office Word, Office Excel and Office PowerPoint to play with. In addition, Palm will use the update to add HSDPA connectivity to boost download speeds.

Palm’s Windows Mobile 6 Professional update for the Treo 750v smartphone will be available in the UK and Ireland immediately.

Get the download now at the Palm website

Joel Johnson and Boing Boing launch Boing Boing Gadgets blog

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

The whole tech 'blogosphere' is no doubt feeling a little unnerved today, as heavyweight tech journo Joel Johnson has just launched a brilliant new gadgets blog with 'blogosphere'-ruling Boing Boing.

Boing Boing Gadgets is a sleek looking version of the web's best-loved aggregator, Boing Boing, focussing just on electronics and all things gadgety. Scary news for other tech blogs such as ourselves, particularly when Joel has an already-impressive CV, being the former editor of Gizmodo and publishing his own lifestyle blog, Dethroner.

Joel's already written an introduction up on the site, proclaiming that Boing Boing Gadgets seeks to sort the superior electronics from the tat, and has even mentioned his aspirational hopes for the consumer electronics industry. Definitely worth adding to your del.icio.us account, but just don't forget about us here at Tech Digest *sobs*

Welcome back to the tech world Joel, we've missed you bucketloads!

Boing Boing Gadgets

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Toshiba adds T410 and T401S to Gigabeat series

By

Dave Walker

on August 29, 2007

Toshiba has some new additions to its media player range - the Gigabeat T-series, which consists of the T401 and T401S.

The T401 is a Wi-Fi-enabled player - and that's essentially the main difference, with both offering a 2.4-inch screen, WMA and MP3 playback, Windows Mobile operating system, 4GB of storage and a choice of colour.

Both launch in Japan on September 7th - as yet, there's no date for a UK launch.

Toshiba website

Via PMP http://www.pmptoday.com/2007/08/28/toshiba-unleashes-gigabeat-t401-wifi-t401s/

Sega collaborates with Japanese newspaper on new Nintendo DS title

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

I'm suffering from a huge amount of Japanese-envy at the moment, with my best friend arriving home last night from Tokyo after four months away, an extra suitcase stuffed to the brim with Hello Kitty, Studio Ghibli and other assorted goodies. Someone get me over there, fast!

My latest reason for envying everything Japan has to offer comes courtesy of WiiWii, who have reported that a new DS title will be available over there, full of major Japanese events from the last 135 years. The Mainichi newspaper has collaborated with Sega to bring the history-hungry citizens of Japan over 1,000 historically significant events all covered in the newspaper previously, and also comes with a quiz game to test your newfound knowledge. It'd be great if a similarly British title was released in conjunction with the Guardian, to help brush up on our rich history whilst sitting on the tube to work.

(via WiiWii)

Nokia launches entertainment-friendly mobile handsets - N81, N81 8GB, N95 8GB, 5310 XpressMusic and Nokia 5610 XpressMusic

By

Dave Walker

on August 29, 2007

We're liveblogging the Nokia Go Play event right now - and if you want to know the latest news from Nokia's big launch event check here. If you missed the morning's news, the company has launched a range of entertainment-based handsets, these being the N81, N81 8GB, N95 8GB, 5310 XpressMusic and Nokia 5610 XpressMusic.

The Nokia N81 and Nokia N81 8GB feature dedicated music and gaming keys, 3.5 mm headphone connector and 3G and WLAN connectivity. Externally, there's a polished surface and keys that light up when you activate them. Both are configured to find, buy, manage and play music and games purchased from the Nokia Music Store and N-Gage games service. The estimated retail price of the Nokia N81 is 360 Euros, while the Nokia N81 8GB is expected to retail for 430 Euros. Both should ship in the final quarter of the year.

Lego playset showing Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak from Apple, on sale today!

By

Katherine Hannaford

on August 29, 2007

It's fairly safe to say that tech geeks and Lego go hand in hand, as comfortable with one another as Trekkies and their massive dress-up boxes.

Tomi have struck gold with the ultimate in geek toys, a Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak playset. Set in the early days of 1972, the playset features two little Steve characters with a custom-made computer (Apple, naturally), a circuit board-based project and a calendar with a particular date circled. Considering it's a limited edition run of 300, and aimed at an obsessive fanbase renowned for flashing the cash, the $39.99 price-tag isn't too shabby at all. It'll become available today at 9am EST on the PodBrix site, so get your skates on for this lustworthy piece of desk-candy.

PodBrix (via Shiny Shiny)