PMP Today

The guy above seems to be smoking some sort of bong made of metal, or is it a canon - but which way does the iron ball come out of? The bearded young man in the B & W picture was actually Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the phone. The bong-like gadget he was holding was a liquid transmitter used to send and receive the first words spoken and heard over the phone: “Mr Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”

“In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and had become ‘the nervous system of commerce’ Read the rest »

The coolest iPod accessory of them all will now be available outside the U.S. The “Myvu Made for iPod” gives you an equivalent of 27-inch viewing of you iPod Video, way better than the 2.5-inch provided screen. This is the same iPod accessory that iLounge named best “Best Wearable Display” in 2006 and also named by the World Economic Forum  as one of the 47 Technology Pioneers for 2007. Myvu comes with batteries,  ear buds with noise reduction technology, an extra pair of buds, control pendant, two  types of chargers and a travel case for the Myvu and the iPod. Sixteen countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa can purchase Myvu from the Apple Store.

[via mobilewhack]

Don’t be surprised if you see the Yukai brand slapped on the multimedia Mustek PVR-H240, which is a PMP (portable media player), video recorder and document viewer in one device. This site asked if this wrong to change labels. As it happens, Yukai is a brand under Mustek of Germany as one can clearly see from this web page. So no worries whether it’s a Yusai or a Mustek, better yet Yusai/Mustek.

The Yusai/Mustek PVR-H240 has a 2.4-inch TFT screen and plays video at 30fps - that’s the same frame speed on your TV. It’s the successor of the PVR-H140.

[via product-reviews, mustek]

We were much impressed with Newman’s stainless-steel M950A PMP with a camera. Newman has introduced a more streamlined follow up. I don’t know why they can’t take a more decent product photo of the M968A, but I can’t help but express how good this would look outdoors when I pull it out of my pocket. The M968A has a 2.4-inch 320 x 240-pixel 260k-color TFT screen. Form factor is nothing special at 118 × 61 × 17mm. This one has a lower 1.3 megapixel camera but its price point will leave a lot of mouths open: priced at only 499 yuan or about $65, one almost doesn’t care if this is factory price or retail. Onboard memory is 1GB. Video support is limited to AVI, MP3 and WMA for audio as well as JPG, BMP, GIF and PNG. Other features include LRC lyrics sync, ID3 tagging, document manager, file browser, USB, line-in AV, audio recording, game emulator and SD/MMC memory extension.

More pics after the break. Read the rest »

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulwA3n8AYM0[/youtube]

Microsoft has adopted it’s multi-touch “Surface” table monitor technology on a laptop and the results are, frankly speaking, a glimpse to the future. Though the table monitor concept has met a lot of skepticism, this new Surface mouse-less concept seems like the thing to make me a Microsoft fanboy. Steve Hodges of Microsoft Research had the brilliant idea of adoptiing the technology we saw in the table monitor, fitted in infrared instead andthe result is a thin-enough laptop monitor that is bound to be thinner still. An added benefit of infrared is that you can actually use remote control and get an effect on the screen.

[via gizmodo, source]

Sony didn’t tell us about thi swhen they announced the 3.50 firmware upgrade last month. Formerly, game developers for PSP are restricted to 266Mhz speed or about 80% of the PSP’s full potential. It’s taken for granted that this saves on power and allows PSP users more gaming time. But now with the full 333Mhz made available to game developers, the question is, will PSP users have less playing time or is a new redesigned Playstation Portable, or at least a new battery.

With game developers using 333Mhz, we can expect speedier load times and frame rates, which makes a lot of difference if you’re an avid gamer.

[via qj.net]

People who use PCs or laptops running Windows know about the Blue Screen of Death. But what about Zune owners? This guy says he was just scrolling through his audio files when his Zune crashed. Now I haven’t had the experience myself, not with my laptop or my PC. But I’ve seen the BSOD in phones and teller machines, and sometimes it’s damned beautiful.

[via zuneboards]

Apple iTunes has surpassed Amazon.com to become the 3rd largest music retailer in the U.S. Apple’s online store is now responsible in supplying 10% of the music market. Meanwhile, according. Meanwhile, according to the NPD Group, CD sales continue to dip as digital music keeps growing. Apple benefited from iTunes Plus’ DRM-less music, which rolled out May 20.

Walmart leads the market with 15.8 share followed by Best Buy Co Inc. with 13.8 percent share. Amazon is in fourth place with 6.7 percent share. According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of physical CDs is down 20 per cent compared to last year.

[via i4u]

The TNT TV tuner on the PET835 is the Télévision Numérique Terrestre. It uses the same DVB-T standard popular in the rest of Europe and is actually the French version of Freeview (both are very similar). The PET835 has 8.5-inch and reads DVDs (DVD, DVD-/+R, DVD-/+RW, Picture CD, (S) VCD). It’s also compatible with DivX, MP3 and WMA. It also has line-in AV. It measures 255 x 170 x 31mm, weighs a kilo, with 3 hours of battery life. Price is €319 or about $429.

[via gmp3]

The new iRiver P10 is a delectable-looking full-sized PMP with the motto “Less is More” dictating its appearance, and, yes, its entire being. They’ve only posted pictures of this PMP and some cryptic messages:

REMEMBER NUMBER 33

INCREDIBLY SMALL

LAUNCH THIS YEAR

Did they mean the Jim Carrey Movie?

[via anythingbutipod, iriver] Read the rest »