Into Tech

Medion, the German PC giant, is entering the ultra mobile PC (UMPC) space next month. The company that likes to build high-end PCs, pile ‘em high and then sell them cheap through the supermarkets, is hoping there may be a wider audience for UMPCs which, to date, are very niche and massively overpriced.

Medion will change all that next month by launching the good looking RIM 1000 for £799.99 online. So what’s the hitch? That’s just it, the specs look decent. Here you go:

* Genuine Microsoft® Windows VistaTM Home Premium with Touch Pack
* VIA C7-M 770 ULV processor (1.0GHz, 400MHz FSB)
* VIA UniChrome Pro II GFX
* 6.5″ WVGA TFT Touchscreen with LED backlight (800×480px)
* High definition audio with integrated loudspeaker
* 30GB hard disc
* 768MB DDRII RAM memory
* Wireless LAN 802.11b/g with up to 54 Mbit/s
* Integrated Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR module
* Integrated webcam & microphone array e.g. for video over IP
* SD/SD-IO/MMC card reader
* External AC adaptor & lithium polymer battery VDE/GS approved
* Synchronise your UMPC with you desktop pc or notebook
* Transfer data from your MP3 player or digital camera via an SD or MMC card using the memory card slot
* Connect your mobile phone via Bluetooth
* Connect to a projector via the VGA port
* Share files via the USB port

Check out the connectivity options, software and another photo after the jump. –Martin Lynch

Connections

* 2 x USB 2.0
* 1 x DC-in
* 1 x Docking
* 1 x IEEE 1394 Firewire
* 1 x VGA out
* 1 x SD/MMC card slot
* 1 x Audio out
* 1 x Microphone In

Software Included

* Genuine Microsoft® Windows VistaTM Home Premium
* Microsoft® Works 8.5
* Nero Burning Rom & Recode SE

Weight & Dimensions

* Dimensions: width 190mm x height 121mm x depth 28.3mm
* Weight: 740g including battery

Accessories Included

* Lithium polymer battery
* External AC Adaptor

Warranty

* 12 months

UMPC portable laptop vista

Regular MP3 tunes are typically converted at 128kbps, which is pretty poor compared to CD quality. The difference might be harder to hear in earphones but hook your MP3 player to a decent hi-fi system and the quality shortfall is noticeable.

Creative Labs, the force behind PC audio, has not given up its efforts to stay sharp in the digital music scene by launching some products that will put some ‘oomph’ back in your MP3 audio, without encoding tunes at a higher bitrate.

They use the company’s X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio standard. The two main features in this are X-Fi Crystalizer which enhances the audio quality and X-Fi CMSS-3D which converts audio to surround sound. Be warned, prices here are conversions so expect this bunch to cost more here by 10-20% - at least.

First up is the big boy of the bunch: the shiny X-Fi Sound System i600 [above]. This is a 2.1 speaker system for iPods, with a compact subwoofer. A pricey £198.

Jump now for details and photos of the rest of Creative’s 2007 line-up.-Martin Lynch

The Creative Xdock is an iPod dock for playing tunes in X-Fi sound quality. It also has a video output and supports DTS interactive sound, allowing you to watch iPod videos on your TV while hooking it up to your surround sound receiver. Cost: £109

Next is the Creative Xmod Wireless which can be connected to a PC or music player and the X-Fi Wireless Receiver which can be placed around the house to hear to tunes. The Receiver can also be used with the Xdock. The Xmod Wireless costs £122 and the X-Fi Wireless Receiver £53.

The Creative PlayDock i500 is a portable docking speaker system that will also charge your iPods. There are two full range speaker drivers and a sub-woofer. It comes with a remote and runs off the mains or 8 C-class batteries for up to 16 hours. It costs £99.

The compact Creative TravelSound i plays and charges and comes with a USB slot for transferring tunes, photos and data files. It boasts four full-range NeoTitanium microdrivers and uses the Creative Wide Stereo Effect for a wider sound filed. Video and photo files can be viewed by hooking it up to a TV. It run off mains or four AA batteries for up to 25 hours with music. It costs £66.

ipod creative audio hi-fi MP3

Texas Instruments, the creators of the DLP projection technology used in most of the world’s new projectors, think there could a be a quid or two in mini-projectors for mobile phones. That would make it smaller than even the world’s smallest projector.

The company recently previewed a DLP Pico-Projector prototype to a few lucky industry sods, small enough to fit on the tip of your finger. Texas already has a pocket-projection technology out in the market, with products available from Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Samsung.

Researchers, Pacific Media Associates (PMA), thinks the pocket projector category (a bit bigger than this) to hit more than 1 million units by 2010.

The weenie projection tech is being touted for use in phones, digital cameras and MP3/video players. A camcorder with this in-built would be handy. Don’t expect to see anything real though until next year.-Martin Lynch

projector mobile phone video geek

With 100 million iPods knocking around it’s easy to forget that other companies make decent digital audio players too.

Next month will see Sony’s latest Flash players arrive in the UK, sporting cool-looking OLED displays and 30-hour battery life. There will be a variety of colours and some will sport tuners.

The NX-E01x series will come in sizes ranging from 1GB to 4GB, with prices starting at £59. They will also sport some decent high-end earphones, a handy USB port and a mere three-minute charge will give you three hours of playback. -Martin Lynch

MP3 music Flash sony

Sony is great at coming up with great little audio products and add-ons but, as always, there’s nearly always a price to pay. In the case of the dinky little Sony Cube – or the TDM-NC1 Digital Media Port Wi-Fi Client – it’s the £110 price tag.

And the fact that it’s only designed to work with Sony Bravia home cinema kit. Apart from that, it’s quite good. You hook it up to the Digital Media Port (DMP) of your Bravia surround sound kit and stream music from your PC. It has a bright digital display, weighs 11oz and measures 7.5 x 7.6 x 7.5cm.

It’s compatible with ATRAC, AAC and WMA music files but will not play DRM-protected tunes unless they’ve been bought from Sony’s CONNECT music download service.

See, what did I tell you about those little drawbacks? US-only at the moment but should be here in the coming months.-Martin Lynch

MP3 music gadgets sony audio

Long battery life in an MP3 player is an important factor for me when I’m in purchasing mode – except for my last one, of course, which cost £25 and has a battery life of about 12 minutes. Only joking, it’s about 5 hours, which still sucks.

The successor to the entry-level T10 from iRiver, is the T50 which promises a whopping 52 hours from one AAA battery. Again, I’d wait for the reviews before endorsing that claim fully. I’m not sure if I like the ridges on the design but at 52 hours, it could be turd-shaped and I wouldn’t care.

It will come with 1Gb of storage, a 1in colour screen – that you can view photos on – a voice recorder and FM radio. It’s going on sale in Japan first in two weeks and will cost around £45.-Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets music MP3 audio

It’s tiny storage time folks with Sony doubling the capacity of existing Micro Vault storage cards to 4GB.

The new 4Gb Micro Vault Tiny comes in a clip-on case and a variety of new colours for those of you that think colour is important on a piece of kit almost too small to really see. You can now get it in purple too. To put 4GB in perspective, Sony says it equates to – approximately - 69h 50min of music (MP3, 128Kbps), 2,928 digital photos (5Megapixel, Standard mode), or 16h 20min video (MPEG4 QVGA 384Kbps with 128 Kbps audio).

It comes pre-loaded with Virtual Expander data compression software that the company says will let you store up to three 3 times more data than the native capacity. There’s no UK price yet but it costs around £50 online here.-Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets storage memory laptop sony

Wow, when I read something about the fuzz raiding this year’s Geekathon at Cebit this morning I thought I was in for some potential terrorist action, a geek-punch between Apple and Microsoft stand reps maybe, or – optimistically - a steamy tale of all those scantily clad booth babes getting in on an impromptu mass shower. Ah well, you can always hope.

Instead, the cops were looking for patent dodgers. Yes, it really is that exciting. Just like last year, the police were hunting [successfully] for companies showing off products that were infringing MPEG audio patents. In other words, those companies building MP3 and other products without ponying up for the rights.

The companies that were nabbed are being kept under wraps for now but it’s safe to say we’re talking minnows here, not sharks. Now, back to that shower scene…-Martin Lynch

news technology music gadgets MP3 geek fun

Making its debut at Texas’ SXSW music fest is Slacker, a new hybrid music service that delivers music online, via satellite, or from any wireless hotspot. It’s a pretty big package so we’ll break it down to its simplest forms. So first let’s check out the service. It’s already up and running and free to anyone after a quick sign up. The service makes money through video ads, so naturally there’s also a premium plan sans ads that goes for $7.50/month. Users in both camps can tune into any Slacker station (their DJs cover all the genres just like XM and Sirius) and you can vote to “heart” or “ban” songs from the station’s playlist by simply pressing the appropriate icon. As an extra perk, you can also republish your music channels to your blog/website. Next comes the device, a sexy little player with enough features to put many of today’s DAPs to shame….

It’ll debut this summer in sizes ranging from 2GB to 120GB (prices will range from $150 to $350). It’ll have a 4-inch screen with a touch-sensitive side strip for scrolling through your music. Like any other DAP, It’ll play WMAs, WMVs, MP3s, etc, all of which you can load onto the player via USB. Here’s where things get interesting. The device will also have built-in Wi-Fi so it’ll sync up with your personalized Slacker stations wirelessy. You’ll then be able to listen to them from any hotspot. Alternatively, you can listen to Slacker via a satellite broadcast system (you’ll need the optional Slacker “car kit” for this) that’ll beam the music to your player from unused commercial satellites. This is Slacker’s own proprietary technology here at work, so you’re not relying on Slacker’s own satellites here.

So after spending the morning personalizing a few Slacker stations, I got a decent feel for the service. Quality-wise, music plays hiccup free with no lags or delays (and very little video ads, at least for now). More importantly, music sounds awesome for an online station. I’m not talking audiophile quality, but still pretty damn good. I found banning songs from stations to be pretty addictive/fun (free members can only ban 6 songs/hour) and I’m guessing this is how Slacker will rope people into paying for the premium service. Slacker’s real test will come with the debut of their player. Is there a market for another DAP and will the Wi-Fi feature work as promised? If they deliver on the hardware front, they can consider me a full member. This is one space you’ll definitely want to stay in tune with. – Louis Ramirez

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GROS ISLET, St Lucia (Reuters) - England’s cricket team are
using an extra player to give them the edge in the World Cup –
an MP3 player. Coaching staff have started loading bowling
actions on to players’ handheld iPod electrical gadgets so they
can analyse both their own and opposition techniques.