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Hexus Lifestyle: Nokia this week introduced three further music models due to come available very soon – the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5200 and the Nokia 3250 XpressMusic.

The 5300 XpressMusic slide phone – €250 before taxes and subsidies – is reckoned to hold up to 1,500 tracks, though that requires upgrading to a 2GB microSD card. And, it offers a reasonable spread of features. There’s a 1.3 megapixel camera for a start, plus the ability to have video ring tones for incoming calls.

Down a notch in features – well, presumably, because Nokia gives few details apart from the price (€200) – the Nokia 5200 is another slide phone and said to be an  “exciting combination of music and messaging functions” and targeted at “young and sociable” consumers.

Last of the bunch, and most expensive – at €400 – is the 3250 XpressMusic, a reworked version of the original 3250 twist phone that can hold twice as many tracks (1,500) as its forerunner – thanks to new support for an optional 2GB microSD card. As before, this is a GSM model carrying a 2 megapixel camera.

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Yahoo: Microsoft Corp. will likely lose money on its new music player, Zune, against Apple Computer Inc.’s “industry-leading iPod profitability,” an American Technology Research analyst said Friday.

Analyst Shaw Wu said a perhaps unintended side effect of the software company’s entry into the portable music player market will be competition with its own licensing partners — even putting smaller ones out of business.

On Thursday, Microsoft said the 30 gigabyte Zune, designed to compete with the runaway success of the iPod, will ship Nov. 14 and list at $249.99, about the same as a 30-gigabyte iPod at $249.

Wu said Microsoft was caught off-guard by Apple’s aggressive pricing and was forced to match the price to stay competitive. Microsoft not pricing lower, he added, shows Apple’s “underappreciated scale and supply chain strength,” where Microsoft will lose money — probably about $50 per Zune.

While people often focus on Apple’s product innovation, marketing and brand name, the company is also well-run, from the operational standpoint, Wu said.

Wu said while it remains to be seen whether the Zune, with its similar pricing, bulkier form and “inferior battery life,” will take share from Apple and its loyal customers, it will likely at least see modest success thanks to Microsoft’s vast resources and strong brand name.

This success, however, may be at the expense of Windows “partners,” especially companies like Sony, Samsung, Toshiba and Creative Technology Ltd., and others that sell hard drive-based players.

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EETimes: To better compete against flat-screen TV sets, JVC has developed an optical engine that allows a 60-inch class rear projection TV to have a depth of just 10 inches.

Liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display (PDP) TVs are considered flat screen, but these TVs measure 14 to 16 in. deep if the stand is factored in. JVC said its rear projection TV stands by itself and can be placed flush against a wall or on a table, or mount directly on a wall due to its light weight.

JVC is one of the companies that founded the Micro Device Display Consortium to promote microdisplay-based rear projection TVs. (…)

JVC intends to introduce the slim rear projection TVs early next year for the North American market.

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Engadget: The 25-gram Scitec SSF-512 with OLED display brings an FM tuner, voice and line-in recorder, 10-hour playback off AAA battery, and a piddling 512MB of flash to host your MP3/WAV/DRM’d WMA audio. No details about that speaker but really, how good can it be? Available in silver and black ’cause even pirates need to jam. On sale today in Japan for a ¥8,980 or about 60 euro.

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DJmag’s annual Tech Awards honour the companies and products that keep the DJ technology world spinning. A selection:

• Innovative New Product: Allen & Heath Xone:3D Midi Mixer
• DJ Mixer (under £400): Numark 5000FX
• Top of the range mixer: Pioneer DJM-800
• Scratch Mixer: Pioneer DJM-909
• Ultimate Turntable: Numark TTX
• Single CD/MP3 Player: Pioneer CDJ-1000 Mk3
• Dual MP3/CD Player: Denon DN-S4500
• Portable MP3 Recorder: Creative Zen V Plus

Discover all winners & the jury’s argumentation at DJMag.

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Reuter’s: It’s one musical performance where your cell phone can – and should – ring. U.S. jazz composer David Baker is encouraging people to use their mobile phones during the debut performance of “Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra” that will open the 20th anniversary season of the Chicago Sinfonietta classical music festival next month.

During the 15-minute composition, members of the audience and the orchestra will be asked to use their cell phones at various points throughout the piece with red and green lights telling them when to turn their phones on and off.

“I think some people would think it is insane to even think about trying to combine the cacophony of cell phones with the pristine purity, sometimes, of an orchestra,” Baker, 74, told Reuters in an interview.
He also said this was first time in his career that he had finished a piece but did not know what the result would be.

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Heisse: Having taken over Siemens’ mobile phone division, the BenQ group’s mobile phone business in Germany is now facing imminent collapse. BenQ Mobile GmbH would in all likelihood in the next few days file for bankruptcy, a spokesman of the company said in Munich today. The move will affect the headquarters in Munich and the production locations Bocholt and Kamp-Lintfort, where about 3000 people are employed.

In a press release by the parent company it says that the company had “resolved to discontinue capital injection” into BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co OHG. The revenue and margin development during the important Christmas season would definitely fail to meet expectations, the company has declared.

Update: The bankruptcy of Siemens’ erstwhile cell phone division with its 3000 employees is now official. BenQ Mobile had filed for bankruptcy protection, a spokesperson of the Municipal Court in Munich stated today. The daughter company of the Taiwanese BenQ group is thus facing imminent collapse.

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Yahoo: Microsoft’s Zune music player looks a lot like an iPod, acts a lot like an iPod and will cost about the same as an iPod. The software giant said Thursday that it will charge $249.99 for the device, signaling that it isn’t planning to spark a major price war to gain market share.

Instead, the company is hoping to gain an edge by touting two features Apple Computer Inc. doesn’t offer on its iPod: a subscription music service, and the ability to share music with other Zune users through a wireless connection. The other users can then listen to the songs three times over three days before deciding whether to buy the tune themselves.

The Zune player, to be made by Toshiba, will have 30 gigabytes of memory, enough to hold about 7,500 songs.It also will feature a 3-inch screen and a built-in FM transmitter, and will come loaded with about 25 songs and other content. The rectangular device has a simple look and feel similar to the iPod.

An iPod with a 30-gigabyte hard drive and a 2.5-inch screen sells for $249. Apple also offers lower- and higher-priced versions.

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Bit-Tech.net: Speaking at Tuesday’s Intel Developer Forum, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said that the inevitable next step for YouTube will be to distribute content in high definition.

Otellini explained the need for faster processing. A YouTube stream would have occupied the majority of a PC’s CPU time 5-10 years ago, he said. Today, it is a very small amount, allowing us to do many other things simultaneously.

He said that this year would see the true mainstreaming of HD, with the first sub-$1000 HD camcorders.

“We’re going to see HD content on YouTube in the future,” Paul told the audience.

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Following yesterday’s news of Nokia’s new N95 high-powered phone, additional details have emerged on its sat nav capabilities.

The N95 will have access to maps of more than 100 countries and start selling for $697 (around €550), Nokia said.  Maps for the N95 will be free and services like city guides and voice navigation will be made available for an extra charge. 

With the new map functions, Nokia is challenging makers of navigation equipment like TomTom. Nokia agreed in August to buy Gate5, based in Germany, for an undisclosed amount to add mapping, routing and navigation software to its phones. 

Source: International Herald Tribune

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Digital Home: Panasonic yesterday announced the DMW-SDP1, a secure digital high capacity (SDHC) card reader that allows users to view digital photos in 1080i high definition quality on their big screen televisions

The DMW-SDP1 will be available in late October and will have a suggested selling price of $149.99 (around €120). 

To use, owners simply plug the SDP1 to their HDTV using the supplied HD component cable and then insert a SD or SDHC memory card into the slot. With the remote control that is included users can playback images or get printouts by connecting the DMW-SDP1 to a PictBridge-corresponding printer via the included USB cable.

The DMW-SDP1 also supports motion JPEG playback and normal VGA (640 x 480) and wide aspect VGA (848 x 480) motion images, commonly recorded by today’s digital cameras. The player also offers high definition motion image (1280 x 720, at 15 fps) that is recordable with the new LUMIX model DMC-LX2.

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Engadget:  Here’s a date for your diary – almost.  In roughly five to six years, your GPS devices won’t work for several hours due to solar flare activity, according to new research from Cornell University.

In 2011 or 2012, when the sun reaches its next solar maximum, scientists expect it to cause a 90% GPS signal drop for several hours.

Alessandro Cerruti (pictured on the left), a Cornell graduate student who studies solar flare effects, envisions this horrific day as a “nightmare situation,” given that all planes will likely have GPS signaling by that time.

However, Dr. Paul Kinter (pictured on the right), Cerruti’s advisor, has a solution: “I think the best remedy is to be aware of the problem and operate GPS systems with the knowledge that they may fail during a solar flare.” Voila.

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