Tag: shinymedia
Samsung launch new range of MiniDV and DVD camcorders
Samsung has unveiled a new range of MiniDV and DVD camcorders.
The VP-D371W, VP-D372WH, and VP-D375W (pictured above) MiniDV range are compact camcorders offering 800k pixel CCDs, 34x optical zoom lens, and a 2.7″, 112k pixel widescreen LCD preview screen.
Various audio functions allow background noises to be reduced, improving the quality of sound recording, while Voice+ allows immediate audio dubbing over pre-recorded material. The VP-D375W also features a SD/MMC slot and USB port.
Samsung launch eleven DVD recorders including digital Freeview models and upscalers
Samsung has announced eleven new DVD recorders, including combo, single, and hard disc versions. HDD DVD recorders The HDD DVD range includes the DVD-HR755 DVD recorder which comes with a 250GB hard drive and supports multi-format recording onto DVD RAM/+RW/+R/-RW/-R,…
Blogging is ten, maybe twelve, or twenty-four years old
The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article over the weekend suggesting that blogging is now ten years old.
According to the article, the first blogger is “regarded by many to be Jorn Barger”, who “began his business of hunting and gathering links to items that tickled his fancy, to which he appended some of his own commentary, on Dec. 23, 1997.”
What appears to be closer to the truth is that Jorn Barger was the first person (or one of the first people) to coin the phrase ‘blog’, because other sites reckon that blogging has been around for much longer than a decade.
Logitech launches MX Air rechargeable cordless mouse
Logitech has unveiled its MX Air rechargeable cordless mouse, a versatile laser mouse that works both on the desk and in the air.
The device is like a cross between a remote control and a mouse, and is supposed to cater for those who want to command their media PC from the comfort of their sofa (or indeed, anywhere that there’s an absence of solid, flat surface to use a traditional mouse on).
“The MX Air mouse offers a radically new way for people to control their PC entertainment,” said Erik Charlton, Logitech director of product marketing for performance and gaming mice. “It’s for anyone who has listened to music on their PC and been frustrated by having to return to the desk to change songs or volume. It’s for people who want to share vacation photos with friends and family without being tied to the desk. It’s for any of the millions of people using the Internet to browse and watch videos on sites such as YouTube or Grouper. And it’s for people with a living-room computer or media PC who want to navigate their media content on their terms.”
Second-hand computers an ID fraudster's paradise
New research from Navigant Consulting suggests that slack handling of computers destined for the second-hand market could make them an identity-thief’s dream.
To demonstrate the potential dangers, the consultancy purchase three second-hand computers last week, and determined that one of them still contained sensitive personal information on the hard drive.
It’s not enough to simply wipe the hard drive using most basic operating system tools, as anyone with some tech knowledge can recover data from a disk that’s supposedly been wiped. Simply dumping the hard drives intact isn’t a good plan either – it’s akin to putting your paper-based financial documents in the waste bin without shredding them first.
One second-hand computer recovered from a community college still contained student and staff details, including names and addresses, budgets, payroll information, photos, and bank account details.
Streakr: Another vowel-challenged social network goes into beta
Prepare yourself for Streakr.com, a “web discovery tool and social networking site” that has just entered public beta (read “we’ll let people in but don’t blame us if it stops working”).
It appears to be Facebook meets MySpace meets Digg meets StumbleUpon meets… another irritating browser toolbar.
The system works once you embed the Streakr toolbar in your web browser, which you then use to rate sites with a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’. This links them to a personal profile page, and allows them to be shared on the social network.
Orange intro new European roaming rates
Orange has announced the launch of new European mobile roaming rates for its consumers. From 30th August 2007, it will cost 38p per minute to make a call while roaming, and 19p per minute to receive them – at least, in their “Europe 1” area.
Orange customers can check how much a call will cost while away, by texting “FROM [COUNTRY]” to 452 (PAYG) or 159 (Pay Monthly), and receiving a free-of-charge confirmation from Orange.
No doubt this new “transparency” on Orange’s part is in response to various initiatives by the EU and Germany to pull into line the high costs associated with mobile roaming abroad.
Blu-ray film studios launch "Hollywood in Hi-Def" web site
High definition disc formats may not be the most exciting news around, but that’s not stopped companies who support either HD DVD or Blu-ray doing what they can to push their format as the best choice for consumers.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (I think it’s all about home entertainment) have backed a new web site that aims to push Blu-ray as the best choice for watching movies.
It’s called Hollywood in Hi-Def.
Opinion: Should Apple extend their new family with touchscreen, Intel-based, OS X laden iPods?
Andy Merrett writes…
With all the furore surrounding the iPhone, rumours about the next (sixth) generation of iPod have been a little quiet.
Now that the iPhone is safely launched, in the US at least, we can once again discuss what Apple might do to keep on top of the portable music player market.
PMPToday is just one site circulating the rumour of a touchscreen iPod – coming as early as August.
DigiTimes says that the next-generation 6G iPod video will feature touch-screen panels similar to the iPhone. The reported supplier of the capacitive touch-screen panels is Taiwan-based manufacturer WinTek. WinTek has yet to make an official statement due to customer confidentiality, but sources from upstairs have confirmed the news. The estimated shipping date of the panels is late 2007.
Yes, it seems that the touchscreen device is the new, erm, non-touchscreen device. Now that Apple have pushed large touchscreens into the public gaze with their shiny iPhone, it’s not surprising that some think they should roll that out to future iPods, too.
The hardware is just one aspect of Apple’s future success. It’s rumoured that future iPods could run OS X, which might also imply they’d use Intel chips.
As far as I’m concerned, Apple’s “killer app” is becoming even clearer.
Virgin Media to offer streaming Football League matches via broadband and mobile
Virgin Media has announced that it has struck a deal with the Football League to stream match action via broadband and mobile to its customers.
It seems as if selected matches will be streamed live, while highlights will be available for a week after the transmission. The service will start ahead of the Coca Cola Championship.
