Zune Originals promised us more color choices for Microsoft’s Zune HD PMP, and as expected the catalog has been updated with new magenta and purple versions. The colors – which join the original black, silver, blue, red and green models – are part of Microsoft’s Zune HD holiday promotion, and the company is also offering free message engraving.
Up until now the colorful part of the Zune HD has been its striking OLED display; if you wanted any color in your Microsoft PMP then you’d have to resort to a third-party skin or case. That’s set to change tomorrow, however, according to the official Zune store, which has tipped three new colors – Magenta, Red and Purple – as arriving on December 1st.
Some people go to the park or Starbucks to people watch, I prefer an outing to Best Buy. I love checking out all the newest gadgets and tech under one roof (more than I should even let on), but I often get distracted by watching people who seem totally confused about which PC to buy. More often than not, I see them peruse the notebooks and desktops on display and struggle to figure out the difference between, let’s say, a netbook and a full-size notebook. And when they approach a Blue Shirt, the answers I have heard can be quite comical. No kidding, it’s the size of the netbook that makes it different!?
MSI are threatening to join the ebook reader market themselves, with company chairman Joseph Hsu revealing that they’re currently working on an NVIDIA Tegra based device. The news comes after ASUS reiterated their ongoing ebook reader development, with the most recent news suggesting that the company has not one but two such devices in the works, offering two different screen sizes.
One of the ongoing frustrations for Xbox 360 owners is the absence of a Blu-ray accessory; they keep pestering Microsoft for one, and Microsoft keep rolling out the same “we have no plans” excuses. Now, finally, the company appears to be changing its tune, though it takes some between-the-lines reading of outspoken CEO Steve Ballmer in order to fathom it. Talking to Gizmodo, Ballmer told interviewer Wilson Rothman that “you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories”.
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After spending most of Friday curled in a ball twitching and drooling after losing power and Internet access for almost 12 hours, I am glad to be back online and in the 21st century again. Just in time to hunker down and dose myself with a nice helping of week in review for your perusal. Chris reviewed the GSM Palm Pre and found the camera wasn't as good as some of its peers but found plenty to like in the end. The webOS operating system stands apart from rival OS'. Buffalo announced the HD-HU3 USB 3.0 drive and controller that will be shipping in Japan this month. The drive isn’t even that expensive; I hope it comes to America too.
After mediocre feedback to the leaked Microsoft Pink handsets, Turtle and Pure, now comes word from inside the project itself that the whole house of cards may be close to tumbling. An ex-team member has been talking to Apple Insider about the Pink “skunkworks” project and its mismanagement, including attempting to develop too many SKUs simultaneously, potentially misleading hardware and carrier partners, and in the process pulling the rug out from the already-ailing Windows Mobile. In fact, he reckons the Pink project is “near death and probably will be canceled”.
One of our key criticisms of the Zune HD was that Microsoft don’t offer a version of their desktop management software for Mac, thus giving Apple users another good reason to stick with the iPod. That might change, though, says Mary-Jo Foley, who has been talking to Microsoft’s director of communications for the TV, Video and Music Business, Jose Pinero. According to Pinero, Microsoft are considering porting the Zune software and services to various non-Windows platforms, one of which would be OS X.
When I first was briefed on the Media Center edition of XP by Microsoft, I thought MCE was a pretty bad idea. A lot of my skepticism had to do with the market they claimed they were going after, namely college students in dorm rooms and yuppies living in cramped apartments with no room for both TVs and PCs. Of course, college students mostly buy laptops, and no matter where you live most folks don’t watch TV on a small computer monitor from across the room. The short-term market were enthusiasts who understood the value of a DVR such as a TiVo.
Over time, Microsoft tried a few approaches with MCE – from extenders to allow you to view content on other TVs in the home over your network, to creating extender technology for Xbox (which is already hooked up to a TV set) – as well as working with a host of OEMs to create “living room” form factor home theater PCs. The result of these efforts was less than a stellar success and few vendors actively build home theater PCs; these days, if a consumer uses media center they’re either an enthusiast or they’ve tripped over it by mistake trying to do something else. That’s a shame, as MCE has evolved over time to become a great technology, one that few people even know exist.
In case you missed something this week, it’s time for another week in review for you to enjoy on a lazy Sunday. Asus quietly let the Eee 1201N Ion netbook slip from the bowels of the netbook kingpin. The machine sports NVIDIA Ion power, it’s nice to see more Ion netbooks coming to market. Acer has its line of smartphones coming in Q4 according to reports early this week. The Acer F1 and the HTC Leo will hit in Q4.
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