About Electronics

Duemotori: Previously something to be tackled with trepidation, an In-Car Entertainment (ICE) ‘install’ is no longer reserved for the audio expert, thanks to Clarion – the world’s largest manufacturer of in-car audio, entertainment and satellite navigation solutions – who’s launch of the DXZ388RUSB audio head unit finally makes customising your in-car experience, easy and affordable.

Stacked with features, including CD/CD-R/CD-RW and MP3/WMA/AAC playback, the DXZ388RUSB delivers direct iPod control (no additional leads needed) via the front facing USB slot, whilst the inclusion of Clarion’s own connectivity system – CeNet – allows for the optional add-on of a CD changer or the BLT583 Bluetooth receiver for full mobile phone integration.

Playback spec aside however, the DXZ388RUSB proves itself an ideal starting point for any system build thanks to the addition of 6 channel RCA line-out – previously a feature reserved for top of the range units – that allow greater flexibility with amp additions and speaker set-ups.

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The Register: Germany’s western state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) has told Nokia to repay all its subsidies plus interest by 31 March or face legal action.

The German state paid €41m in aid for Nokia’s mobile phone factory in Bochum, under the condition that at least 2,800 jobs would be created. However, the Finnish mobile giant is to close its plant by 30 June and move its operation to Romania.

The closure of the plant infuriated many German unions and politicians and fuelled a strong anti-Nokia and anti-Finnish sentiment in the country with many consumers turning their backs on Nokia products.

But Nokia says it has no choice. Labour and non-wage labour costs in Germany are not competitive enough for the mass-production of Nokia products. In Romania, the average monthly salaries will be about one-tenth of the average wage of workers at Bochum.

Nokia employed more than 2,300 people in Bochum in exchange for EU and state subsidies. The company says it fulfilled all the necessary conditions for the subsidies, but NRW believes Nokia fell short of the required numbers by 200 to 400 posts between 2002 and 2005.

On Tuesday, the state government formally demanded that the company pay back €41m in subsidies, plus €18m in interest.

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Slashgear: There are three things built into this jacket, a GPS receiver, some sort of audio output in the hood, and an LED array. The LED array is used to give you directions as well as the audio output for voice directions and it also acts as your menu system for selecting where you want to go and all that jazz.

Seems like a pretty cool system if you ask me. I watched the video and it shows the LED array scrolling through the various options on the menu, it also shows the jacket giving directions. I suppose its probably intended for skiers and snowboarders and sportsman of that type so they can find their way to the hill they want to go to or back to their cabin or the club house, but it’d be pretty awesome just walking around town with it.

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Engadget: It’s not enough that the Wii Fit is trying to cajole you into getting off your couch and actually engaging in physical activity — now the DS is worming in on the action. Developer Ubisoft is rolling out My Weight Loss Coach for the handheld, and going the extra mile (ha ha!) by including a pedometer add-on which interfaces with the system.

Apparently, the idea is that you’ll keep the pedometer in a pocket or on a belt buckle during the day, then plug the unit into your DS and let the software calculate how much fat you’ve burned — thus keeping track of your daily regimen and adjusting accordingly. The game / device combo is launching in one-croissant-too-many Europe this summer

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Hiddenwires: Total Blu-ray Disc movie sales across Europe have reached over two million units it was announced today by the Blu-ray Disc Association European Promotions Committee. The most recent figures show Blu-ray Disc movie sales totalled 2.37 million, which means that 79% of the High Definition movie discs bought by consumers year-to-date across Europe were in the Blu-ray Disc format compared with 21% in the HD DVD format, according to sales data provided by Media Control Gfk International1.

The news of the two million milestone comes within two months of the announcement of one million unit sales, which was achieved in early November last year. This news illustrates a rapidly accelerating rate in the growth of Blu-ray Disc sales across Europe, so the Blu-ray Disc Association says.

A graphic illustration of Blu-ray Disc’s rapid establishment comes through direct comparison of its performance with that of the DVD-Video format at a comparable stage in its development. DVD-Video was first introduced into Western Europe in 1997, and the following year some 230,000 DVD players were installed and 2.0 million discs were sold through. In comparison, Blu-ray Disc made its first tentative launch in Western Europe in 2006, and the following year some 3.2 million PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) consoles and 34,000 standalone players were installed while 2.3 million Blu-ray Discs sold through according to data from Screen Digest2.

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The Register: Nokia’s upcoming flagship handset, the 16GB N96, will arrive in the UK in August, according to retailer Carphone Warehouse.

Carphone Warehouse’s website has been updated to reveal that the successor to the popular N95 will arrive in the summer. Until now, Nokia fans had been waiting with baited breath because only a vague, sometime-in-Q3 shipping date had been mentioned by the Finnish handset giant.

Unfortunately, the retailer’s website doesn’t treat us to any other nuggets of N96 news, such as an estimated UK price.

Tech specs for the phone were mistakenly leaked on Nokia’s German website last month, but the handset giant has since confirmed that it’ll sport a 2.8in display, a five-megapixel camera and 16GB of on-board memory.

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NaviGadget: Samsung in Korea just came out with a GPS enabled PMP that is capable of download speeds up to 13MBps (WiBro). The device is called SWT-W100K, which we’re not sure what it stands for but here is the scoop:Samsung SWT-W100K has a 4.3″ WVGA touch screen, 8GB of internal memory, and supports digitally broadcast TV channels. In addition there’s a 2MP digital camera and a USB host so you can easily transfer your pics to a memory stick.

It can support many multimedia formats such as MP4, XviD, WMV, and H.26, is capable of VoIP phone calls, comes with a browser, and costs about 340 €.

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Mobile Magazine: Ready for a blast from the past? It’s a little hard to believe that the first commercially available MP3 player hit the market 10 years ago this month. The MPMan F10, released in March 1998, was a product by Saehan Information Systems of Korea and it featured 32MB of Flash memory.

Naturally, its functionality was a far cry from what is readily available today, so you didn’t get anything like video playback or FM radio, but you were able to listen to digital songs encoded at 128kbps. The uploading of content happened over an old-style parallel port and the tiny LCD was enough to show basic song information.
 

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PMP Today: We’ve pegged Energy Sistem as possibly a major player in the PMP industry in the near feature and we are absolutely correct. A successor of the 5000, the Inngenio 6000 is a wholly different multimedia animal with a 2.8-inch touchscreen and a shiny steel casing.

It does not have WiFi and no Bluetooth but with a 89.90 euro MSRP (includes a 36-month guarantee), you can have a fashionable touchscreen media player that you can brag about.

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NaviGadget: At CeBIT electronics show which closed its doors last week in Germany, Korean manufacturer Bluebird presented Pidion BM-350, a new PDAphone with GPS and support for 3G+ networks.Here are the main features:

• Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), 3G (2100 MHz), GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA (3G+)
• integrated SiRF III GPS receiver with A-GPS support
• 2.8″ TFT LCD touch screen with 320×240 pixel resolution
• 520Mhz PXA 270 processor
• 1.3MP digital camera
• 0.3MP front camera for the videoconferencing
• FM Radio
• 64 or 128 MB of RAM
• 128 or 256 MB of ROM
• Infra-red 1.2
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• microSD HC port (up to 32 GB)
• MiniUSB 2.0 and USB Host
• Removable 1230mAh Li-Ion battery with 200 hours standby and 6 hours talk time
• Dimensions: 11.4×6.1×1.5 cm
• Weight: 120 grams
• Windows Mobile 6 Pro

It could hit the market in Europe soon for about 500 €.

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Electronista: Microsoft has quickly confirmed existing rumors and today officially dropped European prices for the Xbox 360. The base Xbox 360 Arcade system now costs £160 in the UK and €200 in Europe, making the system less expensive than the already low-cost Nintendo Wii that serves as its chief rival; the standard 20GB Xbox 360 in turn drops to £200 or €270. The black, 120GB Elite model now sells for £270 or €370 depending on the region.The price cuts are as steep as £50 (€80) for the 20GB console and are said to make the Xbox 360 “mass market” in Europe for the first time. In addition to improving competition against the Wii, the move is also likely to defend against the PlayStation 3 in terms of HD movie playback. Microsoft offers downloadable videos through the Xbox Video Marketplace but currently has no hardware HD movie player, having dropped its HD DVD player after Toshiba ceased production of the drive inside.

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