about-electronics.eu

Yahoo: It’s about as glamorous as wearing an old-style TV set on your head, but the dome-shaped headgear from Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. isn’t meant to be fashionable. It’s designed to show images in a 360-degree view — synched with the motion of the wearer’s head to deliver the illusion of being someplace else: a cityscape at night, for example, or outer space.

The still experimental 6-pound bubble-headed helmet has infrared sensors on top that detect which way the wearer’s head is moving. A projector in the back of the helmet displays corresponding images on a 16-inch screen right before the user’s eyes. Although the headgear looks bulky, it’s actually smaller than older versions of the same technology, Toshiba spokeswoman Kaori Hiraki said. But Toshiba has no plans yet to turn the helmet into a commercial virtual-reality product. Eventually, Toshiba believes, it will come in handy for computer games or enhancing the impact of movies.

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Wired: The main problem with the video iPod is that there’s no video equivalent to headphones, as Steve Jobs has pointed out before.  I’ve tested goggles that let you watch movies on a virtual widescreen TV; not only can they make the viewer nauseus, but their “space age” appearance can have a nauseating effect on those around the viewer as well.

I’ve long said that the solution is the ultraportable video projector. Slap one of these on the back of a video iPod, point it towards a white wall, connect the sound to some speakers, and you could be up and running. (…)

We’re one step closer to this scenario, now that palm-sized video projectors such as the $700 (550 euro) Toshiba TDP-FF1AU have become available. “Using light-emitting diodes instead of a traditional bulb, the 1.1-pound projector is small enough to fit in a hand and lacks a noisy cooling fan. It also sips power so that it can run on an included battery pack for up to two hours,” says Toshiba.

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Anythingbutipod: Sony announced that it has begun development of a new Walkman with video capabilities. In classically vague fashion, Senior VP Hiroshi Yoshioka divulged that the upcoming device will “handle images” but pleaded the fifth when asked to reveal specific details. He also alluded to doubling Walkman’s share in the global DAP market (from its currently measly 10 percent to a more respectable 20 percent) but again declined to elaborate.
Not much to go on here, but at least Sony will abandon, if only temporarily, its love of the monochrome and OLED display.

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T3: It’s dabbled with memory stick movies, and realises there’s a problem with portable films, but Sony says it’s standing by the UMD.
That’s according to Sony’s UK chief, Ray Maguire. He says the troubled disks are a good way of shoehorning content into the PSP, and reckons Sony’s “pretty pleased with UMD” so far.

Maguire admitted that UMDs have seen less success as a movie medium than they have with games, but says they are still a strong carrier for short flicks.

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AVZombie: The latest projector in Sanyo’s well-regarded Z series, the HD Ready PLV-Z5, will ship in November. Unlike many of its upcoming rivals, it’s not a 1080p design, instead it offers 1280×720 resolution with 1100 ANSI lumens and a contrast ratio of 10,000:1.

The unit has horizontal and vertical lens shift, electronic keystone correction and twin HDMI inputs. Beneath the hood is a 12-bit video processor. To help minimise dust build-up, the PLV-Z5 also features Sanyo’s trademark automatic on/off slide shutter. Fan noise is rated at 22dB.

More tech specs at Sanyo Europe. The PLV-Z5 will sell for around 1,400 pounds (2080 EUR).

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Gizmodo: If the Xbox 360 can offer DVD playback at 1080p, so can Denon. Their freshly released DVD-3930 DVD players can take your old Lion King DVDs and upscale them to “near HD quality” at 1080p. We’ll skip the fancy tech mumbo-jumbo like Pixel Image Correction and Silicon Optix Teranex HQV technology. How much will this new-age trickery cost you? £1099.99 (1635 euro).

AVZombie: (…) Denon spokesman Rob Follis says: “It’s my opinion that the HD-Disc launch is a disaster, the early machines are dogs and the content is rubbish. Just Say No to dodgy HD formats and buy a serious DVD player instead!”

For a list of European distributors, please visit Denon‘s website.

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Anythingbutipod: The Disney Mix Max sports a 2.2” 220 x 176 color screen, along with 512MB of internal memory with the option to add up to 2GB via the SD/MMC memory slot. In addition to being able to play your own MP3/WMA and WMV content, you will be able to purchase Mix Max Clips, which are SD cards preloaded with Disney Channel video content. The player will also be able to player the first-generation Mix Clips that contained only audio content.

The player is priced for the tots as well at $100 (78 euro). Get your kids hooked on gadgets early and stick one under the tree this coming holiday season.

For tech specs, please visit the Mix Max productpage.

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Apple’s latest big move, a device code-named iTV, has divided the technology world…

BBC: Apple hopes people will buy the gadget to get the movies and other media they buy from the iTunes store via their PC on to other devices around the home – especially the TV. (…) Analysts, Apple advocates and industry watchers are divided on whether Apple can buck this long-standing trend. By launching a movie-download service and accompanying hardware it is taking on many more competitors than it did with iTunes and the iPod.

(…) “It made a success of those despite being late to launch an online music store and portable music player”, said Ian Fogg, senior analyst at Jupiter Research.
(…) Analyst Aleksandra Bosnjak from research firm Ovum said the movie download market was getting so crowded that there were bound to be casualties. “There are too many players and too many contractual co-dependencies for all to survive,” she said.

(…) For Apple, making a success of selling the iTV box is critical to its future prosperity. This is because Apple needs people to enjoy their digital media – be it images, music or movies – on the company’s hardware. Apple makes little money on the sales of songs via iTunes. It makes far more from iPod sales.

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Engadget posted pictures of the new products and services Steve Jobs announced today. Biggest surprise being “iTV”, the Apple home entertainment device that will ship early 2007. It looks like a small Mac mini and features wireless networking, USB, HDMI, component video and several audio connections.
We can’t spot a slot for DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray discs and it is unclear if these devices will have an internal hard disk for recording?

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Light-years ago – say: the Seventies – people wanting to buy a video recorder were faced with a difficult choice. On the one hand, Sony had its Betamax standard. JVC however promoted the VHS. All other manufacturers were divided into those two camps. In the long run, a practical matter (longer tapes) made most consumers decide in favour of VHS.

Now, in 2006, a similar war seemed to start between Blu-ray and HD-DVD producers, both boasting to be the real successor to DVD.

(more…)

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