Western Digital is the company we all know for making HDD’s, but now they are testing the waters in the video streaming territory. Their finger for testing is called WD TV HD Media Player. Armed with 2 USB 2.0 drives that work simultaneously, you just plug in an watch on your HDTV. Also the Media Player comes with a remote and with a browsing software. The price tag shows $130, which is rather reasonable.
I don’t give a damn about many of the stupid battles between giants in any industry or between public personalities, but this little story I am going to tell you is so stupid that is worth telling.
It seems that Microsoft has set up a boot in front of the Apple Store in Bullring, Birmingham. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? All this as a response to Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads, Microsoft inviting with the message on the booth to upload videos and photos to show “how they, too, are PCs”.
I sure hope that Apple’s response will be something elegant and classy, and not stupid and desperate as Microsoft’s.
Intel and Asus recently launched a site that allows normal users to lend a hand in designing a PC. The result will be a “community designed PC” that will actually be bought by the same people that shared their ideas for making it. The motto of this whole thing is “You Dream it. ASUS Builds it. Intel inside it.”
The site is divided into communities which in turn are divided into three different conversation groups: notebooks, netbooks or gaming notebooks. Users are encouraged into giving simple idea for design, or general ideas, going as far as making sketches of their dream PC. There will also be a section where other users can vote ideas from other users.
Neat idea I say, it gives me the impression that what I thing and what I want means something. Power to the people!
I realize everyday that I am getting old, because with each passing day, everything I thought was magical, becomes pig food. DVD’s were replaced by Blu-Ray’s, I could have lived with that, but now, only a short while after the blu disk took the reality to the next level, now we will get something bigger and better.
Responsible for this replacement for the Blu-Ray, is Royal Digital Media and DreamStream, but their baby is still unnamed. The info on the disks will have “military-grade” encryption and will allow us to store up to 100GB. This size is not astronomical, as they plan to store on these disks the new generation of high definition, the 1920p.
For those alarmed of having to pay half-a-year salary on a player for these things, the producers announced that they will cost as much as a normal DVD player out there.
If you are looking to have on your desk a pretty looking desktop, you will have to look another way or in Beautiful-Desktop-Land, but that is just me. Three versions of the new OptiPlex have been made: mini tower, slimline desktop and small form factor. Each of them will have under the hood a 3.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive and will ease our pockets of $902, $892, and $912 for the tower, slim desktop and small form factor PC, respectively, or more if you want to roll like the big-shots with high-end components.
Dell has thought about the people that don’t want too much from their PC’s and have made a 399 OptiPlex FX160 thin client PC, and updated versions of the OptiPlex 760 and OptiPlex 360 desktops.
Me, for one, I am not impressed, but like I said before, it may be just me.
Netflix, the world’s largest online movie rental service has joined hands with Samsung Electronics America and will offer us the ability to instant stream movies and TV episodes directly from Netflix web site and into our living rooms, with the help of Samsung’s BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray disc players.
And now the interesting part, the way this works. First of all you have to connect the Blu-ray players to a wired broadband connection. Netflix members will then pay a visit to the Netflix Web site so that they can add both movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues. But you won’t get what you selected right away on your screen, as the data has to travel to your home. In half a minute you can start watching the movie or episode of your desire. As we expected there will also be the option to rewind or fast-forward using the remote.
The BD-P2550 and BD-P2500 can be bought for as much as $399.99 each and those who have older models of Samsung Blu-ray players can upgrade them. Me, I am going to save some money for a new chair and a new popcorn machine.
Just when you thought you have seen them all, fairy tales come to life but with add-ons. It’s easy as pie to go in front of the mirror and jut touch it to turn it into a computer. Watch a movie, see your stocks falling or just do a virtual make-up of yourself.
The mirror works similar to an iPhone so most of us should have no trouble to use it. The makers of this fair mirror, BlogLitStudios didn’t give any info on the price tag, but if anyone is interested in the Interactive Mirror should contact them. I for one, am curios of how fun it can be to sit in front of one of these contraptions, but not looking forward to seeing how much more time women will spend in front of the mirror.
Here is a crazy gadget that caught my eye the other day. We bring you The Margarator MSB-585. No drums and no parade, but it doesn’t matter, I love it. It’s not just a blender to make margueritas, oh no my friends, it can also make other ice-cold drinks to keep us un-sweaty during the summer or to keep our minds off the things that happened at work when we finally get home.
It has a built-in tap and a car plug that will help you to drink and drive and also drink and crash. For me, it’s a gift from the heavens, being a fan of margueritas and of cocktails. We will wait and see what it is for you. Drink responsably.
Navigon 1200 and Navigon 1210 are two new GPS devices that were just released on the market. Both of them hide under the hood standard specs: a 375MHz processor, a 3.5-inch touch screen, a microSD slot and 64MB RAM and high-end features: Lane Assistant Pro, Radar Info and Speed Assistant.
And that’s pretty much all they have in common. Now about their differences: the 1200 includes the maps of Switzerland, Austria and Germany while the 1210 will offer the maps of all 40 European countries.
The units will be available in stores anytime now with the following price tags: the Navigon 1200 – 129 Euros ($189) and the Navigon 1210 – 149 Euros ($218).
If you miss Opera’s possibility to keep the open tabs in a vertical bar, there is a Firefox addon that can take care of that now. It’s called Vertigo and gives you the possibility to keep your tabs on the left instead of the top.
You can see it in action the pic above, on the left side of the browser.
