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AV zombie: Wannabe hi-def format HD VMD will launch in France with software support from two French studios. Seven Sept and Metropolitan FilmExport have both pledged 20 titles for release in the autumn, with regular releases to follow. (…)

Developed by UK-based New Medium Enterprises, HD VMD is a high-density red-laser format that allows up to eight layers of information to be stored per disc side. Resolutions up to 1080p are supported. To date, the maverick system has found few backers amongst the Hollywood elite.

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HDTV UK:

Bang & Olufsen have introduced their BeoVision 8 high definition TV, a 26-inch screen that stands on its own, or can be mounted on a tabletop stand or wall bracket.

It comes in black and silver finish, has a resolution of 1366×768, brightness of 500cd/m2, contrast ratio of 1200:1, and a 6ms response rate.

Viewing angle is around 88 degrees, and it supports A2 + Nicam stereo.

It has one HDMI connector, 2 Scarts, 3 phonos, and 1 VGA.

The screen is based on a new and progressive anti-glare technology that is supposed to perform well during the day.

Aurally, the TV has been designed with the quality of speech reproduction in mind.

It’s priced at around €2,600 and comes with a Beo4 remote control unit.

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Engadget: According to a recent patent filing in the US, Apple engineers explain how a mysterious “mobile phone” could be used to control your Mac (and specific applications like iTunes) via built-in Bluetooth, and the wording even mentions specific software that would be tailored to the Mac and handset in order to make it all happen.

More specifically, consumers could “use the directional controls on the mobile phone to change listing volume, skip forward and backward, play / pause, etc.,” and while no mention of the forthcoming iPhone is directly made, the allusion here seems to be fairly clear.

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GuardianUnlimited: Thousands of hours of broadcasting history are to be made available to the public online as part of a plan to open up the BBC’s entire archive to licence-fee payers free of charge.

The radio and TV material, some of which has never been repeated, includes an interview with Martin Luther King filmed shortly before he was assassinated, and another with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in which the former Beatle talks candidly about the impact their relationship had on the band.

Other programmes include a 1956 episode of the nature series Zoo Quest in which a young David Attenborough captures the komodo dragon on film for the first time. The episode has never been repeated but could soon be available online as part of the ambitious project, headed by the BBC’s director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield.

The BBC wants to put nearly one million hours of material on the internet for viewers to watch, listen to and download and has already begun the long process of retrieving and transferring programmes. A trial involving 20,000 users will begin next month, and the service could be available nationally in a year’s time. Highfield will announce details of the scheme in a speech this week.

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PCPro: The Blu-ray Disc Association has announced that following breaches of the security of the high-definition format’s AACS security technology, it has brought forward the planned release date of the BD-Plus (BD+), a more advanced anti-copying system. BD+ is an entirely different encryption system to AACS. Instead of each movie having the same encryption key, BD+ allows each disc to install a small piece of encryption software on a player, so that each disc has its own key.

A method for extracting Blu-ray keys was published in January (the rival HD DVD format, which also uses AACS, had already been cracked). As a result, the AACS licensing body last week released a security update that supplied new encryption keys for the affected discs. However this means that existing discs can no longer be played until the update is applied. BD+ would avoid this scenario, by applying the DRM to individual discs rather than movie titles.

The Blu-ray Disc Association reports that player compatibility testing has ended and that studios have had test discs for the last few months.

Once BD+ is available it will add between seven to 28 days per title to production time. 20th Century Fox is expected to be one of the firsts to implement this new technology, having slowed disc production since the attacks on AACS, and Sony Pictures is planning to be using it by the end of the year.

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Tech.co.uk: TomTom yesterday revealed details of its new ONE XL range of sat-nav devices. The new batch come with a super-sized 4.3-inch high-quality touch screen and a sleek new design.

The TomTom ONE XL is also traffic ready, meaning that drivers have easy access to traffic information via an RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver accessory or a subscription to TomTom Traffic.

TomTom ONE XL owners will also have access to all TomTom PLUS services including safety camera alerts, real-time traffic and weather reports, updates on road conditions and the TomTom Buddies feature.

TomTom ONE XL will be available from all major retailers across Europe, as well as the US, Australia and South Africa from May 2007, retailing for £249GB (around €370).

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Reuters: Samsung, which last year introduced the first Blu-ray Disc player, says it will support the rival HD DVD format as well.

The Korean consumer electronics manufacturer said Friday it expects to have a dual-format machine that will play Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD software in stores this year.

The announcement comes at a time when Blu-ray software continues to outsell HD DVD software. HD DVD is supported by three major studios — Universal, Warner and Paramount — but Warner and Paramount also support Blu-ray. 20th Century Fox, Disney and Sony Pictures are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp, as is minimajor Lionsgate.

LG Electronics also has a dual-format player on the market, and Warner this year plans to introduce a “Total HD” disc with Blu-ray content on one side and HD DVD content on the other.

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Business Times (Singapore): TELE Atlas will put a recognisable face to the names of local landmarks in its upcoming GPS maps to help drivers find their way around.

The company, which supplies digital maps to companies like Nokia, Blackberry and a host of other makers of in-car navigational systems, is planning to release a three-dimensional (3D) version of its Asian offering by the end of this year.

GPS units that are available today offer a bird’s eye view of road information, complemented by turn-by-turn voice navigation, to direct users to their desired destinations.

However, Tele Atlas’ upcoming Singapore map will show buildings in 3D detail, so instead of relying in part on guesswork, users can instantly identify their end points.

And instead of a top-down view, 3D GPS navigation will allow for a real-life view as the user drives through the city, much like popular first-person racing games on computers and gaming consoles.

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Electronista: Nokia wants GPS navigation to be a standard feature across all its phones, its software supplier Route 66 said (…). Although the Finnish cellphone maker already has multiple phones with mapping functionality, including the N95 and the 6110 Navigator, it hopes to make a GPS chipset a standard feature of even its cheapest models as a way of separating itself from rivals. (…)
Nokia didn’t set a timetable for the transition but has noted that multiple N-series phones already have the option.

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Yahoo: Samsung Electronics will be very selective in choosing new markets for its mobile phones and will not take on handset leader Nokia in the cheapest models, Samsung Chief Executive Yun Jong-yong said in an interview published on Sunday.

“Nokia is very strong as a maker of cheap phones. We cannot compete against it in those (models). That’s why we are very choosy,” Yun told Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat. (…)

Focusing on cheap phones would not fit its brand image, but with 60-70 percent of future mobile handset sales forecast to be in developing markets, Samsung could not ignore them, he said. (…)

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Next generation: Due to high earning prospects brought around by the success of Wii and DS systems, JPMorgan Securities Japan Co. (…) gave Nintendo an overweight rating causing the company’s shares to swell by 2.5% to 37,200 yen (230 euro) on the Osaka Securities Exchange.

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New Launches: Come the end of this year, and we may be having a whole new breed of iPods in our midst. Apple has announced that they are working on an iPod with Wi-Fi support.
This may help the iPod face the Zune with some pride as it comes into the ring. Well, the line between the iPhone and the iPod shall soon be thinning and so, we should expect some kind of a mutation of an iPhone, an iPod and a capable Wi-Fi supporting device all in one.

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