Pepcom Show Touts 720p Zune, New NVIDIA Toys, And Phones Galore 66
MojoKid writes "Recently, at the Pepcom Digital Experience show in New York, NVIDIA demonstrated the capabilities of the upcoming Lenovo S12 netbook, which features a single-core Atom CPU and an NVIDIA ION graphics processor. However, probably more interesting to some, NVIDIA was also showing off its new Tegra system-on-a-chip CPU, which will be powering the recently-announced Zune HD portable media player. The device was being demonstrated in a netbook form-factor and was streaming full quality 720p HD video over HDMI. On the networking front, Belkin was displaying its Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit — a speedy alternative to wireless networking."
Crashes Firefox (Score:3, Informative)
I just had my Firefox taken down 5 times in a row the second I opened the link. I get the HTML but once it starts rendering something Firefox 3.0.11 goes kaplut.
Be warned.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I've got a non-resumable multi-gigabyte download at 85% completion here... So thanks.
I hope your porn downloads turn out okay
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've got a non-resumable multi-gigabyte download at 85% completion here... So thanks.
PROTIP: Run your big downloads in Wget, not your web browser.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:1)
It's the embedded Viddler video.
They cause that sometimes, especially if you navigate away before the video has fully loaded.
Re: (Score:2)
The word you were searching, is "kaputt [wiktionary.org]".
Zune! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I bought a 30 gig Zune on Woot for about 70 bucks. It's perfect for my needs. Teamed up with Any DVD Converter Pro, I can watch all kinds of video, including streaming from the web (not live, of course).
Plus, it cost so little I won't feel so horrible if I lose or break it. Oh, it displays video really nicely and can output video from the earphone jack like an iPod.
The sound quality seems a little better than my old 30 gig iPod, and the video display is definitely nicer.
My biggest complaint is that I c
Re: (Score:2)
It outputs video over the earphone jack?!? So the zune uses a sound out port for a video out port as well?
That seems wrong. I have to go look up the specs on a zune now. I try never to go look at microsoft's website.
Re: (Score:1)
A lot of video cameras have that feature too. For some reason Apple stopped supporting that after the 5.5G of the ipod and the newer ipods need those special apple cables instead of the standard 3.5mm to RCA cable.
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to, uh, 2006? I can't remember when I got my 5(.0)g iPod but it's been a pretty common feature for quite some time now. Maybe even 2005 it's hard to remember back that far.
Re: (Score:2)
Anytime I read the word Zune, I just laugh... is that just me?
Yes, it's just you. Although the previous versions were not up with the competition, I'm excited to hear about the new versions. First of all it might be better than what's on the market. And even if it's not, it might try to compete on the price, which will, hopefully, drive the prices down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Devil's advocate:
If you don't want DRM tracks, you don't need to buy them from the Zune Marketplace.
For non-DRM tracks, be it MP3s, WMAs, or iTunes Plus tracks that are not FairPlay protected, the Zune can play them, as well as allow for copying from the Zune to a PC (which iPods don't do by default in iTunes.) The Zune by itself does not add any restrictions of copy protections, unless one is mentioning the "squirting" feature of sharing tracks between Zunes via wireless.
All and all, the Zune is a quality
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't have any problem loading all my own ripped mp3 files onto my Zune. Who would want to use any of the big online music stores anyway?
Re: (Score:2)
Who would want to use any of the big online music stores anyway?
On the other hand, who would want to pay $14.99 plus shipping and tax for one or two songs from an album?
Re: (Score:2)
It might be something someday, but as of today, I think it's a punchline.
Re: (Score:2)
New tag: lolzune
I prefer to tag stories about Microsoft's iPod wannabe with "zurd"
YMMV.
It might be something someday, but as of today, I think it's a punchline.
I agree that it might be something someday. Specifically, I think it's likely to be a discontinued product. And maybe even more of a punchline, like "Edsel" was for so many years.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I, on the other hand, vomit a little. It really is the Goatse of words.
The Seagate BlackArmor NAS looks interesting (Score:3, Informative)
I like the fact that Seagate is expanding its line of hardware AES hard disks. For backups (Time Machine, the included SafetyDrill software, Retrospect, Windows's backup utilities) it should provide decent protection of data in case of physical theft.
For a household or SMB, having the ability to install some "fire and forget" backup software that copies to a hard disk that has hardware AES encryption mitigates a lot of security risks. For larger businesses, it allows external drives to be repurposed from division to division just by telling the drive to do a secure erase (which erases the old AES keys making it well nigh impossible to recover the data.)
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite part of the video in the article (don't go there unless you're running Adblock Plus) is when the Kyocera lady brags about how their new phone has a dedicated music player with "8 megabytes of storage".
You could maybe fit 3 mp3s on there, as long as you stick to 48 bit.
Chiptunes don't take much space (Score:2)
the Kyocera lady brags about how their new phone has a dedicated music player with "8 megabytes of storage".
Which is actually quite a bit if you listen to SID or NSF chiptunes or tracker files in an 8-bit style. For example:
It's too bad the official firmware of most popular portable music players can't play chiptune formats or tracker formats.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, tepples, thanks for these links. I've always had a soft spot for 8-bit.
I'm not familiar with your expression "tracker files" though. Do you know where this name comes from and can you explain it, please?
Re: (Score:2)
Never mind. You must mean files from tracker software. Sorry, it's early.
Re: (Score:2)
Tracker files: MODs. Intuitracker (.it), Fasttracker (forget), Screamtracker (.s3m)
e.g. Chiptunes with samples.
Re: (Score:2)
How does it handle data errors? You know. That kind that needs scrubbing?
And: Can you define your own key? Preferably a keyfile on a destructible USB stick. (In case where the data is more important than you, so they can't torture it out of you.)
The Zune HD! Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
The Zune HD features 720p on a tiny, tiny, screen...or at home, where I can watch TV on a computer, console, or cable box. Not to mention, I'm sure the "720p" is compressed to shit just like all the movies on Xbox Live (and probably PSN for that matter). I guess this will make the Zune more attractive to a few people, but I'm not sold. I'd rather they took it more in the direction of a portable console, but I guess they are too chicken to fight Nintendo.
Re:The Zune HD! Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, given that the Zune display is expected (as MS hasn't announced anything) to still be sub-standard definition, there isn't much point to having 720p video on the device UNLESS you also commonly carry around a dock so you can connect the Zune to another display that IS 720p.
Otherwise, it would be better for the video to be encoded at the resolution of the Zune's display.
Getting on my Apple soapbox now, this really looks like a 'bullet-point' type feature, like FM-radio, or that bizarre wireless-sync feature MS touted with the last version of the Zune (where they conveniently failed to mention that the Zune still had to be physically plugged into a power source to sync, making the feature at best 'remote' sync and not wireless sync at all). This kind of marketing has been shown over the last 5 years to be completely ineffective against the iPod.
Re:The Zune HD! Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
>where they conveniently failed to mention that the Zune still had to be physically plugged into a power source to sync
Thats not true. [zune.net] It wont sync automatically on battery power, but it syncs fine if you do a manual sync. You dont want it syncing every few hours only to pick it up a couple of days later and have the battery dead.
>This kind of marketing has been shown over the last 5 years to be completely ineffective against the iPod.
To be fair, the amazing Italian place near me cant compete with McDonalds. Popularity doesnt necessarily translate into quality. Consider how one of the most popular apps for the iphone/ipod is the fart simulator and, well, things arent so cut and dried. Those who side soley with popularity really arent convincing.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting that Apple vetted the fart app but not the Kama Sutra.
I'm not saying it says anything about the sexual preference of Apple users, though. Absolutely not. I can unequivocally say that it doesn't have to do with the sexual preference of Apple users. It would be silly to say that.
Silly, I tell you.
Re: (Score:2)
The head of the amazing Italian place would probably trade place with the head of McDonalds in a heartbeat.
Re: (Score:1)
The head of the amazing Italian place would probably trade place with the head of McDonalds in a heartbeat.
So, the head of the company making the Zune would trade places with the head of the company making of the iPod in a heartbeat.
By similar reasoning, the head of the company making OSX would trade places with the head of the company making Windows in a heartbeat.
Thus Microsoft and Apple get into an infinite loop of Steve-swapping.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Your wrong on the wireless sync comment.
Zune can be sync'd wireless by selecting it from a menu option or will automatically sync when docked after 1 minute of inactivity.
For example, I have a Zune FM Transmitter in my car that also charges the device. When I pull into the driveway, the Zune sync's automatically to update my playlists and podcasts.
You can also download directly from the Zune Marketplace wirelessly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Zune HD features 720p on a tiny, tiny, screen...or at home, where I can watch TV on a computer, console, or cable box. Not to mention, I'm sure the "720p" is compressed to shit just like all the movies on Xbox Live (and probably PSN for that matter). I guess this will make the Zune more attractive to a few people, but I'm not sold. I'd rather they took it more in the direction of a portable console, but I guess they are too chicken to fight Nintendo.
The Zune HD's screen isn't HD - it's 480x272. The "HD" just indicates the device is capable of driving an HD display, such as a 720P television.
Re: (Score:2)
While it could be cool to have one file that you can "play everywhere",
doing this with 720p content at this point is impractical. You will
waste space on your PMP and gut your effective storage space.
OTOH, doing this with just quality 480p content would be a nice improvement over previous devices.
"drag drop and play" handily beats "pander to an ipod's limits".
Why aren't HTPCs widespread (Score:2)
And no, not everyone has an HTPC, PS3, or anything that can play files from a USB key.
Why doesn't everyone who has an HDTV have an HTPC? HDTVs can use the RGB video and analog stereo audio that any old PC outputs. Or are you talking about SDTVs, which need a converter like this one [sewelldirect.com] to display PC video?
No SCART in the United States (Score:2)
Because HTPCs are noisy, expensive, difficult to set up and use, prone to crashing, breaking, and just not working right.
They're no worse than a certain media center extender device made by Microsoft that has a "red ring" failure mode.
That said in Europe
My comments refer to the United States market because I live in the United States, as do the editors of Slashdot and the executives of SourceForge Inc., Slashdot's parent company. In North America, the closest thing we have to SCART is YPbPrLR component over five RCA cables, and the video side of that is not electrically compatible with VGA.
All you need is a custom modeline
But will the average Windows driver support a custom mo
Re: (Score:2)
The Zune HD features 720p on a tiny, tiny, screen...or at home, where I can watch TV on a computer, console, or cable box.
It's not that small a screen for a portable media player, and it'd OLED, not another lousy 24-bit LCDs with horrible banding.
For myself, there's an important third place I'm often in: hotel rooms. Which increasingly have nice HD TVs cursed with only lousy 4:3 SD coax analog inputs getting stretched to 16:9. ...and an HDMI input (universal in Marriotts now, and in other chains as well).
Being able to carrying around decent HD programming to hook into those sets should be a lovely thing, and free with Media C
Re: (Score:1)
I'd rather they took it more in the direction of a portable console, but I guess they are too chicken to fight Nintendo.
I read that when the XBox was being planned different teams at Microsoft got to pitch a solution to Bill Gates based on their technology. One of them was the WebTV team who had a Windows CE based platform.
Bill Gates detected the problem. Windows CE had to be made compatible with the upcoming version of DirectX 8.0. He interrupted the presentation and asked who was working on this project. Berkes, who was in charge of developing the latest version of DirectX, said to Gates that he didn't know anything about it. He would need a lot more programming resources to make sure that this conversion would happen and if done it would be a slow process. "It wasn't a credible claim" that Windows CE would be synchronized with DirectX anytime soon, Berkes said. The Xbox team had considered using Windows CE, but they dropped it as soon as they discovered the file size for CE programs was limited to 32 megabytes; they would have had to partition a hard drive into thousands of parts just to make CE run. Hence, the WebTV people didn't have a good software story. They hadn't had the presence of mind or resources on short notice to put together a demo that showed Windows CE working with a new version of DirectX. Gates also hammered the failure of Windows CE in the Sega Dreamcast.
"Tell me who used Windows CE in a Dreamcast game," Gates demanded.
Kummert had to reply that very few game programmers had done so. He and Phillips offered a half-hearted response about why that was so. Gates knew the matter all too well already.
The other was the XBox team with a proposal based on desktop Windows - apparently the original XBox used a hacked version of the Windows 2000 kernel - which ended up winning. Plausbibly the PowerPC based XBox360 still uses the same kernel, i.e. even though PPC support was dropped in the desktop version of
Belch-kin kit (Score:3, Informative)
"Belkin was displaying its Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit...."
Does this have that wonderfully innovative Belch-kin mis-feature where the device will hijack your connection randomly to show you ads for other Belch-kin products?
Seriously - I would NEVER put Belkin gear any place where it could theoretically modify the communications. Add to that Bletch-kin gear is usually overpriced for what it is....
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"Belkin was displaying its Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit...."
Does this have that wonderfully innovative Belch-kin mis-feature where the device will hijack your connection randomly to show you ads for other Belch-kin products?
Seriously - I would NEVER put Belkin gear any place where it could theoretically modify the communications. Add to that Bletch-kin gear is usually overpriced for what it is....
What did you purchase that was giving ads? I have never had this problem with any Belkin networking devices and they have always worked well. **shrugs** Besides Gig-E over power sounds promising if actually works.
Re:Belch-kin kit (Score:4, Informative)
Sound like he was referring to this: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/07/1740205 [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
P!
"streaming full quality"??? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I suppose from a very technical point of view, you're "streaming" over hdmi, that's no more streaming than it is over a vga cable or over the air. What it *does* do is confuse consumers by making s.t...re...am....i.n.g sound like a good thing. "streaming full quality" is an oxymoron in normal contexts.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, I've run that through my MS-Marketingspeak-to-English parser (V0.0.1pl1, so be gentle), and here's the gist of what I could glean from the coredump it generated:
The Zune is streaming content over WiFi. That content is 720P. That content is being displayed on an external monitor, connected to the Zune via HDMI.
Thus, the Zune is "streaming" in the commonly used sense of the word. The reason HDMI is mentioned is to address the issue that the Zune's built-in display is nowhere near 720P. The intended use-ca
IMG SGX Chips (Score:1, Interesting)
SGX chips (see OMAP3430) have been doing this at a fraction of the power for quite a while now....