MSI have announced five new notebooks in its C-Series, the 16-inch WXGA CX600, CR600-013 and CR600-017, and the 17.3-inch WXGA++ CX700 and CR700. Each packs a Pentium Dual Core processor – the T4200 2.0GHz, aside from the CR600-017 which gets the slightly faster T4300 2.1GHz – together with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard-drive.
Toshiba may have been late to the Blu-ray party, but that doesn’t mean they’re putting all of their eggs in one blue-lasered basket. According to Olivier Van Wynendaele, assistant general manager in marketing of Toshiba Europe’s consumer products division, the company is also working on an internet connected storage device that works with high-definition content.
Apple are planning to add Blu-ray support in iTunes 9, the next major upgrade to the company’s media software, according to the latest tipsters. The update is expected to coincide with Apple adding Blu-ray drives to its desktop iMac range, a move which has again been highlighted by Apple Insider.
Toshiba have gone public with their plans to develop Blu-ray devices, as they were tipped to be back in July. The company has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), the marketing and promotion organization behind the format, together with confirming that they intend to launch both standalone Blu-ray players and notebooks with integrated Blu-ray drives sometime during 2009.
Sharp Japan have unveiled their latest range of AQUOS HDTVs, each packing an integrated Blu-ray player. The DX2-series LCD displays range in size from 26-inches to 52-inches and have a slot-loading Blu-ray drive in their right-hand side; they also support BD-Live and IPTV via an ethernet connection.
Lexicon have announced their BD-30 Blu-ray player, which they describe as being truly “future proof”. As well as playing Blu-ray, BD-Live, BonusView, DVD, upscaled DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, and CD content, the BD-30 has a USB port which Lexicon suggest will “enable access to future formats”. Now to us, that sounds more like loading media onto a memory key and using the BD-30 as a very shiny mediaplayer, something a whole lot of other decks will do, but we’ll let them have their fun.
Panasonic are pushing out an update today that will bring Amazon Video On Demand support to owners of their 2009 Blu-ray VIERACast players. The update will allow users to browse and shop through Amazon’s catalog of over 45,000 standard-definition titles and more than 1,000 HD titles, with no monthly subscription and instant playback.
Acer Japan have announced a new version of their Predator desktop gaming PCs, the ASG7710-A41. Fitted with Intel’s 3.06GHz Core i7-950 processor, 6GB of DDR3 memory (with up to 12GB supported) and twin NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB video cards, the Aspire G Predator comes bundled with Acer’s G15 keyboard and G9 mouse.
As well as two new surround sound systems designed to fill your living room with sweet-sounding speakers, Onkyo have a new Blu-ray player on offer too. The Onkyo DV-BD507 supports BD Live for interactive content, with full 1080p playback and both Deep Color and x.v. Color support.
Well another week has come and gone as time steadily marches on and like every other week here on SlashGear, it has been a busy one. Poor old Toshiba took the old adage “if you can’t beat them, join them” seriously on Monday and announced that it would be launching its own Blu-ray player by the end of 2009. That had to be hard to swallow for the execs who bet it all on HD DVD only to be defeated by Blu-ray. Also on Monday the slick HP Mini 5101 netbooks tipped up starting from $399. I’m not convinced we need another netbook on the market right now personally.
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