Author: Daniel Sung
HTC Hero (er, sorry, G1 Touch) prices on T-Mobile
While HTC was making a song and dance over the Hero, T-Mobile launched their own version of the same handset only in black and with a name noticeably devoid of the actual manufacturer – the T-Mobile G1 Touch. I wonder if Peter Chou and his men have scratched HTC somewhere on it in very small letters?
The important difference – apart from the colour, obvs – is that T-Mobile has got some prices for us. It’s available for free – good start – from £40 a month on Flext which gives you £225 of effective credit to spend on any mix of UK and international calls and texts, picture messages, 08 numbers, voicemail and includes “unlimited” data.
SHINY PREVIEW VIDEO: HTC Hero with HTC Sense
HTC pulled out all the stops today for their gala launch of the HTC Hero Android phone and HTC Sense secondary OS. They even got out the smoke machines.
The handset seems to have just about everything you could want, except a flash – no idea why smartphone manufacturers keep leaving that out – and. essentially. it’s got all the same internal build as the Magic. But you can read about these things forever, so take a closer look here…
The outsides are all very well and good. I did feel it was a little underpowered and laggy with a slightly dead touchscreen but I’ll wait for a review for the final words on that. What I feel this handset’s going to live and die by, though, is the HTC Sense Android toupee.
It looked fantastic in the demonstration and everything the HTC product designers said made perfect sense. The idea of integrating all of your communictions from each contact looked excellent and the degree of customisation looks beyond anything offered so far.
The trouble is that when I got the Hero into my hands it just seemed a little overcomplicated and rather ruined one of the beauties of Android which is its relative simplicity and ease of use. Now, bear in mind this was only a three minute play, so I’ll give you more on that when I’ve had the chance of a proper review.
I’ll get some more vid up of the Sense as soon as I can but, for now, you can take HTC CEO Peter Chou’s word for it. Chou like.
HTC
CEDIA 2009: DF Solutions home AV solution with last.fm included
The DF Solutions multimedia set ups is one of those things you just wished you owned. Sadly, 99% of us never will. It’s a pretty similar solution to the Kaleidescape products we’ve seen before. This time it’s a 1TB HDD solution that’ll play and upscale video to Full HD.
The base unit, known as the Base, supports up to 17 audio outputs and you also attach link units, known as Links, to bring visual joy to other all sorts of other rooms in your palace as well.
You can store some kind of epic number of CDs and DVDs (20,000 and 3,000) and play back all the important video files – H.264(MPEG-4), wmv, avi, mpg, asf, qt, mov – but the real boon is the internet connection which brings you all the usual YouTube, Amazon, Google, Flickr widgetry plus the recent addition of last.fm too.
It’s all connected up by cat5 cables and has an absolute dream of an interface known as iDyl. It has to be seen to be appreciated. It’s like a sliding wall of all your media with just the right amount of information offered at just the right times.
As for the price, well, if you’ve got ask, then you can’t afford and I forgot to ask so we’ll never but perhaps by virtue of not asking then it means that I can afford it?
Sadly, I’m not sure the logic works the other way around.
DF Solutions
CEDIA 2009: Bobby – virtual remote iPhone app for all your AV kit
It’s not all credit card busting home cinema set-ups at CEDIA – well, at least not on one stand at today’s show in the Docklands. There’s an iPhone app called Bobby for just £5.99 that’ll add some significant pleasure to your viewing, pariculary if you’re lazy.
Bobby is a virtual remote control for a growing database of AV products. There’s currently over 400 different BD-players, TVs and set top boxes whose controls you can download and operate from your phone and, if you can’t find your hardware, on the list then you can map it yourself. Probably a propper pain in the bum but the good news is that Bobby’s only been around for a couple of weeks, so that database should be rapidly expanding as we speak.
Bobby’s not the first TV remote app for the iPhone/Touch but it is the best I’ve seen. They’re implenting a TV guide into the software and, currently, slightly gimmicky social functions meaning that you can see what other Bobby users are watching and switch to their channel if you like. Presumably it’s a feature you can turn off should – how should I put it – choose to be watching something that might not be a good idea to advertise. I think that’s clear enough.
Buy it here | Bobby
CEDIA 2009: JVC shows off GD-463D10 Full HD 3DTV
JVC uncovered a protoype of a 46″ psuedo-high definition 3DTV at the CEDIA exhibition today called the GD-463D10. Cacthy. The set uses polarized light to create a steroscopic image with each alternate line of pixels emitting light in a different direction.
What then happens is that your glasses – yes, you do have to wear them – decode the half the set of pixels with the right lens, producing one angle of the image, and the other set of pixels with the left lens, producing the same image from a different angle. The two images together then give you a 3D perspective of the broadcast/playback.
Now, I call it pseudo-HD because if all 1080 horizontal lines aren’t forming the exact same image, then it’s not quite authentic but once you get the googles on – as modelled here by by Kat from T3 and Marc from Tech Radar – you’ll be too busy thinking about the depth than you will the exact perfection of the resolution which is very good all the same.
The set itself, strictly a monitor, offers a static contrast ratio of 2,000:1 (10,000:1 dynamic) and a very normal viewing of 178 degrees. JVC is only going to make 2,000 of them for sale and they’re likely to cost and an appropriately 3D eye-popping £8,000. Don’t worry, though, you’ll have some time to save up while JVC waits for the Blu-ray 3D standard to be decided before bring the TV to the market.
Waterless washing machines to hit the market next year
To be fair, “waterless” is a slight exaggeration, but only slight because a company named Xeros has managed to develop a washing machine that uses just 90% of the water used by a normal houselhold unit.
This utility room game-changer employs reusable nylon polymer beads to wash your undies. They clean the clothes faster, using 30% less energy and each cycle only requires a single drop of detergent too. What’s more, expensive eco-enemy tumble dryers need less time because you’re linen will be less wet too. Therefore saving a few inches more planet. Sounds pretty marvelous really.
The trick has been working out a way to get the beads from your togs at the end of the wash but, now that’s sorted, Xeros reckon they’ll have commerical units in hotels and other such large operations by the end of the year.
And if that hasn’t got your juices flowing green, then check this – if these nylon polymer machines were as standard in the UK, it’d be the equivalent of taking 2 million cars of our roads. Where do I sign up?
(via Cambridge News)
MySpace looking shaky as 'restructuring' begins
MySpace is ditching two thirds of their international staff and closing down at least four of their offices in a global restructuring strategy. The move will see 300 jobs lost outside of the US, leaving London, Berlin, and Sydney as the regional hubs and Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain offices all ominously “under review”.
MySpace chief executive officer Owen Van Natta said:
“As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions. Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.”
Half of MySpace’s traffic comes from outside the US but it’s in America where the network has been strongest, only being surpassed by Facebook a few weeks ago. A smaller wage bill isn’t going to help growing traffic any but it’s clear that the once darling of the web 2.0 world needs to start trimming the fat as their power continues to wain.
I’d still like to think that MySpace has its place – in the music world if nowhere else – but I’m sure it’ll see numbers tumble a long way before it levels out again.
SHINY PREVIEW: iPhone 3G S & iPhone 3.0 software
You’ll have to wait till the end of the week before we bring you the full review of the iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3.0 software but, until then, I can certainly offer any potential purchasers of Apple’s latest handset plenty to be getting on with.
I met up with a chap named Eric from Apple, San Francisco, who talked me through all the new hardware and software features on the phone that currently sits by my side. Seeing as it was a rather complete briefing, I thought I’d share the footage before I add my tuppence-worth at the end of the week.
So, they sorted the camera to 3-megapixels and added some good features and the mini-video editing looks pretty swish too. Still no flash, though. Let’s hope that ISO is up to it. Tune in at the end of the week for the final say but, for now, what do you think?
Apple | O2 |
Carphone Warehouse
Wyplayer: HD multimedia set-top box – internet, audio, video & TV recording too
It doesn’t take a satellite dish or subscription service to get yourself a PVR these days and a company from France is pushing the set-top box paradigm a little further as of last week with an HD multimedia HDD device known as the Wyplayer.
It’s a good-looking, fairly compact device in the flesh with all the ports you’d expect in the shape of 3 x USB, Ethernet, RCA and, of course, HDMI (1.2 only). It also happens to have a built-in Wi-Fi N receiver with no ridiculous aerial sticking out of the back. So, already we’re looking at one function most PVRs don’t have – media streaming straight from your computer.
Naturally, it plays back just about every file format under the sun including (are you ready?) MOV, MKV, H.264, VC1, ISO, AVI, ASF, MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, WAV, AC3 and soon the lossless FLAC. Not bad at all. Plus, because the Wyplayer is internet connected there’s worlds of streamed web radio, podcasts and, soon likely, connection to services like Spotify too. It’s also happy to run Flash so you can watch YouTube and iPlayer in High Quality on your big screen.
There’s services accessible through the Wyplayer online portal which you can set up on your computer so that you can read your RSS feeds and access P2P services too, as well as all sorts of other features. Not quite sure how much P2P access you get, though.
The machine is capable of doing all sorts of things like actually recording Flash streams too but it’s been disabled so as not to start a fight with YouTube and the Beeb. Doubtless the Wyplayer can be chipped and the limits bypassed in some way, so it might be a good device for those confident with a little code and touch of solder.
Back on the legal side, the Wyplayer has twin tuners, so you can record and watch something different at the same time, plus it offers three hours of pause time and a really very nice, friendly and usable EPG and menu. It also happens to have a decent remote too.
The 500GB version will cost you €395 including postage and packaging but it also comes in 160GB, 320GB, 1TB and 1.5TB sizes.
Sadly, the site’s only in French at the mo but I assure you they will deliver in the UK – so long as you can work out the store. Good luck.
Achetez ici
LG adds ARM technology to digital TV range – 3D on the way
LG’s 3D aspirations are one step closer today with the announcement that they’ve licensed multi-core processors for their digital TVs.
The Korean company now has access to both graphics and central processing units from ARM, the archeitecture of which is suited to improved multitasking, Adobe Flash acceleration, cleaner 1080p resolution and the kind of power to crunch the numbers necessary for 3DTV.
The chips will allow the sets full web interactivity including video-on-demand, e-commerce, social networking, voting and whatever other kinds of widgets you care to chuck at it plus, of course, the Flash favourites like YouTube and iPlayer straight to your big screen. And all of that without a set top box.
Normally associated with mobile phones, ARM will supply processors running at 1GHz and are looking to develop smarter technology to save even more power further down the line.
All in all, it’s a good move for LG, helping their panels take a step up in quality and begin to match the top players in the field. Look out for a similar move in exterior design some time soon.
