Digital Tech News - Digital Technology & Consumer Electronics

HTC Galaxy Pocket PC Phone with GPS

HTC has got to be THE hottest mobile device manufacturer currently.  Here's another one from the Taiwan based company: The HTC Galaxy Pocket PC  phone with GPS built in.  Of course if you're familiar with HTC pda and Smartphones you know that when the devices are finally released, they are branded differently in each market around the world.

Example: The new HTC Universal will be named SPV m5000 by Orange, and i-mate JASJAR in other markets, which makes things a bit confusing. Let's just say that a picture is worth a thousand words, because although the brand names may change, the look of the HTC devices will be the same (except for carrier logo - Orange in EU for example) 

French website Mobinaute.com reviewed the HTC Galaxy Pocket PC phone, which features built-in GPS with the latest SiRFStar III GPS chip, Windows Mobile 5.0, 2.8 inch TFT QVGA, Samsung S3C2440M 300Mhz processor, 64MB Flash ROM and 32MB SDRAM.  HTC Galaxy PDA phone also has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11b, and expansion slots for SD or MMC cards.

Mobinaute.com has put up a bunch of great HTC Galaxy photos here.

more on HTC High Tech Computers

Hacking Mac OS X Tiger

From the ExtremeTech book series from Wiley Press,  Hacking Mac OS X Tiger: Serious Hacks, Mods and Customizations, examples of Hacks and mods are explored in excerpts from the book. 

ExtremeTech shows you how you can hack Apple's latest OS using TinkerTool, bring the world of Unix file ownership and permissions to the Mac, monitor memory settings, and do lots more.

Lucasfilm Selects HP for Digital Entertainment Technology

Lucasfilm Ltd. founded by "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas will partner with HP Hewlett-Packard Co. in a three year multi-million dollar technology and marketing agreement that will let the company's Industrial Light and Magic special effects house use HP Adaptive Enterprise solutions, hardware and software to design visual effects for its games and films. The deal includes 1,000 HP xw9300 Workstations that run both Linux and Windows® XP operating environments in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes, and data storage for its new Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco and its animation operations in Singapore.

The workstations are powered by Advanced Micro Devices Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ processors and advanced 3D graphics capabilities made possible by NVIDIA's dual PCI Express x16 graphics, and will be used to produce visual effects for higher resolution images, video games, animated television series Clone Wars and future movies, as well as for composing and editing.

"Lucasfilm has become a leader of the digital revolution in entertainment by understanding how to use technology to push the limits of what is possible in filmmaking," said Shane Robison, HP's chief strategy and technology officer.

Lucas Film website

INTEL Viiv Technology for Digital Entertainment PCs

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel presented a new platform brand for Digital Entertainment in the home that will introduce new technologies for home entertainment PCs and digital gear under the name "VIIV" (rhymes with jive, five)  You might be used to seeing the "Centrino", or "Intel Inside" stickers on PCs now but soon you'll be seeing the "Intel Viiv" sticker, (or maybe Viiv Inside?) on some digital entertainment PCs.

"Intel Viiv technology is our first platform designed from the ground up for the digital home, where consumers are passionate about the idea of accessing their content anytime, anywhere in their home on a number of devices," said Don MacDonald, vice president and general manager, Intel Digital Home Group.

"Following the success of Intel® Centrino™ mobile technology, we are applying a similar branding strategy to our new digital home platform composed of Intel's latest PC technologies. Intel Viiv technology marks the intersection point where innovation, a multitude of digital devices, first-class entertainment and state of the art technology converge to put consumers in more control of experiencing digital entertainment on their own terms."

Mio A701 GPS Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone?

The Register is reporting that Mitac will preview the Mio A701 GPS-enabled Windows Mobile-based Smartphone / Pocket PC next week.  The device features a 520MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor, 192MB of memory, 2.7" QVGA screen, tri-band GSM/GPRS functionality, integrated GPS, Bluetooth 1.2, a 1.3MP camera, an SD/MMC slot, and the new Windows Mobile 5.0.

SIRIUS S50 Wearable Satellite Radio

 

As the count down continues for Howard Stern's SIRIUS radio show debut, SIRIUS Satellite Radio today announced its first wearable satellite radio, the SIRIUS S50, which allows users to capture and store up to 50 hours of SIRIUS content, or a mix of SIRIUS programming and MP3/WMA files, for listening on the go. Hey, you'll have the choice of listening to Adam Curry's Podshow on SIRIUS or download the Daily Source Code MP3 podcast if you want.

SkypeWeb, SkypeNet from Skype

Over at the Share Skype blog, Lenn Pryor has announced two new services coming from Skype as part of their second year anniversary: SkypeWeb and SkypeNet, proving that the company has plans for more than just Voice over IP Voip Internet phone calling.

Introducing SkypeWeb
SkypeWeb will enable you to let others know when you are free and make it easy for them to reach you from any Web site, blog, email, or just about anything that can speak HTML. SkypeWeb extends Skype beyond your contact list and lets people connect with you via Skype even if they are not a
Skype user.

Introducing SkypeNet API
SkypeNet API will enable developers to access our IM and Presence system and bring it into new applications without needing to have the full version of Skype running on the machine. Think of it as mini Skype that can bring Skype to new places and let you do things you couldn’t do before.

This adds to existing SkypeIn and SkypeOut Voip services.

With Skype you can make free calls over the Internet. Skype – the whole world can talk for free

read more | ShareSkype blog

Google Talk IM and Voip

Google Inc. has launched Google Talk, a free instant messaging and computer-to-computer voice (Voip) and text chat program. Google Talk will go up against similar free services from Yahoo Messenger with Voice, Microsoft, AOL, and Skype but the ability to connect with users of competing services is an obvious plus for GoogleTalk.

e-label Coming from Warner Music

Warner Music Group is setting up a new "e-label" that will focus on releasing small numbers of songs at a time, letting artists create and sell songs exclusively for Internet downloads. Warner e-Label artists will be able to release around three songs every few months instead of an album every few years. Warner's CEO, Edgar Bronfman said that the e-Label artists could also keep ownership of the recordings and copyright, which is far from common practice in the music industry. 

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) today addressed a gathering of technology experts, government officials and business leaders about the future of the music industry in the post-Grokster world and what he described as "the intertwined destiny of music and technology."

This just shows how digital music, p2p software technology, file sharing, and illegal downloading has changed the music distribution game for all the major record labels, forever.

more | Cnet News

more | Warner Music Group

Sony BRAVIA LCD HDTV Line Introduced

I remember when Sony ruled the television market with the innovative Sony Trinitron TV product line, and later with WEGA. These days Sony has much more competition from companies like Samsung, who are releasing innovative digital TV displays   and new consumer electronics at an incredible rate.

In an effort to retain leadership in television products, Sony Electronics today introduced a new sub-brand for its line of high-definition LCD TVs that carry the BRAVIA logo.  BRAVIA, is short for "Best Resolution Audio Video Integrated Architecture."  The first models to carry this new sub-brand will be five LCD HDTVs ranging in screen sizes from 26- to 40-inches. Sony has teamed-up with the New York Yankees in a campaign to promote the BRAVIA LCD HDTV line which aims to become as important and recognized as Sony's Trinitron TV brand.

Sony recently launched the http://www.sony.com/HDTV consumer education web site that aims to demystify consumers' confusion surrounding high-definition technology.