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.
It’s almost as much fun speculating about new gaming hardware as it is playing on current-gen consoles, so color us intrigued at DigitalFoundry’s “credible sources” who are saying that the next-gen Nintendo DS will run NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 and that it’s “not unrealistic” that the handheld will out-grunt the current Nintendo Wii. Problem is, Sony’s next-gen PSP2 has also seen a few spilled details, and that’s looking even more impressive: think along the lines of potential GPU power in-between the original Xbox and the Xbox 360.
NVIDIA’s Tegra may not have grabbed as much attention as its Ion sibling – the latter’s ability to grant the humble netbook with 1080p capabilities is certainly an eye-catcher – but the compact chipset is certainly doing impressive things inside the Zune HD and is poised to capitalize on Smartbooks too, so it comes as little surprise to hear that the company is readying its successor. The NVIDIA Tegra 2 – not yet officially named – is expected to drop in 2010, claim Fudzilla’s “high ranking industry sources”, with twice the computational and graphics power of the first-gen chipset.
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”.
There’s slim, and then there’s wafer-thin-mint skinny, and it’s obviously the latter that Cube’s new H600HDMI PMP is aspiring to. The 5-inch mediaplayer has an 800 x 480 resolution display, can cope with decoding up to 768p/30Mb media and is capable of outputting 720p/1080i video via its HDMI port, but most strikingly it’s just 6.99mm thick.
We have been hearing a lot form a little company called Emerge Technologies over the last few weeks. The company debuted a cool universal notebook charger last week that could charge most notebooks and netbooks on the market while it charges two other devices via Built-in USB ports. Today the company has unveiled a new Sync-n-Charge adapter for the iPhone.
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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.
SlashGear Japan
