With Guitar Apprentice users can then learn to play the guitar or play along with apps such as GarageBand. What’s even better though, is with the custom Ion Audio application the strings will light up as indicators when you’ve struck the correct cord — or wrong one when your fingers aren’t long enough like mine. The learning stage each individual fret will light up and direct the user to the proper location that for chord, making the learning experience easy — and fun. If you’ve been eying a good way to finally learn how to impress your friends and family on the guitar this is for you.

Live at CES, the demonstration unit was fully running although the Ion iPad app needed some work and was still very much in beta stages. It did however still put on quite the show and I might of learned how to play a few D chords. Hitting the U.S at just $99 the build quality was better than expected. I was worried about the weight on the end with an iPad being built-in but weight distribution didn’t seem to be an issue.

This is like Guitar Hero but on a whole new level. Ion Audio told SlashGear it will hit the U.S. initially but they plan to launch in other regions and the UK soon. Again the Ion Guitar Apprentice will retail for $99 (£64 approx) and should be available in many of the same retailers as other Ion Audio devices like Best Buy, Walmart and more soon.

The idea is to create a standalone venture, where the main focus is bringing the content from each of these broadcasters into the mobile industry. They’re even planning on utilizing existing broadcast spectrum, so that these mobile devices will be able to access the content quickly and easily. So what kind of content are these 12 broadcasters planning on bringing to the table, or, more accurately, mobile devices? Quite a lot, actually: live and on-demand viewing, local and national news from both electronic and printed sources, sports, and finally entertainment programming.

The existing broadcast spectrum is coming from NBC & Telemundo, Fox, and ION, along with nine other local broadcast stations. These companies’ efforts are going to, reportedly, reach up to 150 million US residents, which should make their claim to mobile content fame quite possible. But, these companies aren’t just providing the spectrum. Oh, no, they’re actually providing the content, advertisement, marketing resources, as well as pure capital for the entire venture. It seems that they’re wholly invested in the endeavor, and we’re hoping that the content they provide is actually worth something. Full press release is below.

Twelve Major Broadcast Groups to Form Joint Venture to Develop National Mobile Content Service

LAS VEGAS, April 13 /PRNewswire/ — Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., ION Television, Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media today announced plans to form a standalone joint venture to develop a new national mobile content service. Utilizing existing broadcast spectrum, the service will allow member companies to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, as well as sports and entertainment programming.

Broadcast spectrum to be utilized for the new mobile service will come from the three owned-and-operated station groups — Fox, NBC & Telemundo, and ION — and the nine local broadcast groups, which are Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom. Separately, these nine local broadcast companies formed Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC as a vehicle for their involvement in the venture.

By aggregating existing broadcast spectrum from its launch partners, the new venture will have the capacity to offer a breadth of mobile video and print content to nearly 150 million U.S. residents. In addition to broadcast spectrum, the partners will commit content, marketing resources and capital to the new venture. The service will employ ATSC-M/H, an open broadcast transmission system developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) specifically for mobile devices.

The venture is designed to complement the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Initiative by giving consumers mobile access to video content while reducing congestion of the nation’s wireless broadband infrastructure. In addition, the service’s mobile content network will have the capacity to deliver local and national time-sensitive emergency information to citizens across the U.S.

Regarding the announcement, Jack Abernethy, Chief Executive Officer of Fox Television Stations, stated: “We are excited about building a platform that makes mobile television universally available and economically viable. This venture is the first step in forging cross-industry and company partnerships to deliver content to consumers.”

“This initiative offers a path for the next generation of video consumption, and will help the FCC in its goal of ensuring efficient and reliable broadband service for US consumers,” said John Wallace, President, NBC Local Media.

“Local broadcasters are the backbone of the U.S. media industry,” said David J. Barrett, President and CEO of Hearst Television Inc. “This sharing of content, broadcast spectrum, marketing resources and capital is unprecedented, and underscores U.S. broadcasters’ commitment to bringing vital local news, weather, and emergency information to increasingly mobile U.S. consumers. This is a critically important initiative that holds great promise for our audiences and the television industry. This is truly the next generation of local television service.”

“This venture takes to the next level the work we embarked upon three years ago with the development of Mobile DTV technology, in anticipation of digital TV capabilities and consumer mobile demand,” said Brandon Burgess, CEO of ION Television.

“Mobile digital television places each of our companies at the center of a consumer transformation, putting us on cell phones, netbooks, DVD players and even in-vehicle entertainment systems,” said David Lougee, President, Gannett Broadcasting, Gannett Co. Inc. “And it’s the consumers who are the big winners. From news and entertainment to emergency information, virtually all U.S. consumers will soon be able to bring their most valuable content with them wherever they go.”

Information regarding a dedicated management team that will focus on securing additional content, spectrum and distribution partnerships for the venture will be made available at a later date.

SOURCE Brainerd Communicators

NVIDIA has a new video that it has tossed up over on YouTube. The video shows some of the green geeks playing with a couple notebooks running IE9. IE9 is optimized from the ground up to take advantage of a GPU for making things faster and smoother.

To illustrate the point in the video NVIDIA takes a pair of netbooks with one sporting next generation Ion and the other not. They run the machines side by side with IE9 installed and try to play a generic Asteroids style game. The non Ion machine lacks up and is slow while the Ion machine is fast and smooth. It’s a fairly impressive video.

The kit includes a ZOTAC SFF motherboard with a ION GPU built-in. the ION graphics card has 16 unified shaders and 512MB of DDR3 memory. It supports CUDA, PureVideo HD, DirectX 10.1, DirectComputer, OpenGL, and OpenCL.

The core clock for the GPU is 589MHz, the shader clock is 1402MHz, and the memory clock is 790MHz. The card slips into PCI Express x1 slots and should make for a nice upgrade for a small HTPC. Outputs include DVI, HDMI, and VGA with an optional bracket. Pricing and availability are unannounced at this time.

The cool part about the Ion Twin Video camera is that while your pal is rolling around on the ground (in tears) and you are laughing so hard you are crying the Twin Video dual-lens handheld camera can record you and him at the same time. The little camera also has dual mics for stereo sound and has live editing features.

The live editing features include picture swap, split screen, and PIP functionality. The camera records to SD or SDHC memory cards and connects via USB to Mac or PC systems for uploading and editing video. The camera will ship in Q2 2010 at an undisclosed price. There is no mention of the video resolution; I am betting it’s not an HD camera.

The specs were dug up on a Dutch shopping engine, so they may or may not be accurate. The specs are thought to include an Atom N270, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, and a 6-cell battery. Gizmodo reports that the machine is believed to cram NVIDIA Ion LE graphics inside as well.

Other rumored new machines coming out of HP include a CULV running Pavilion dm3 with an 11.6-inch screen and a dm1 with a 13.3-inch LCD along with a big daddy 18.4-inch Pavilion dv8 running a mobile Intel Core i7 CPU. Scuttlebutt has the machines hitting in October around the launch of Windows 7, but this could all be smoke and mirrors.

NVIDIA Ion video after the cut

Those friends include Adobe, Google, Microsoft and Electronic Arts, who have been talking about how Ion’s graphical grunt lends itself well to not only games – like Spore and Call of Duty 4 –  but Google Earth, Photoshop and Cyberlink PowerDVD.  No specific hardware partners have been revealed, but NVIDIA is claiming “leading PC manufacturers” are all planning to use Ion.

One of the first Ion-based nettops could be the Acer Hornet, which is believed to be launching in Beijing on April 8th.  Intended to fit on the back of a flatscreen monitor, the Hornet offers both media center functionality and motion-sensitive games, similar to the Nintendo Wii. 

Press Release:

World’s Leading Software Companies Rally Around NVIDIA ION

Highly Anticipated PC Value Platform Expected to Invigorate Software Sales

NVIDIA ION will power a new generation of incredibly small and capable PCs. This prototype design supports HD video, gaming, and photo editing.

See leading game developers react to ION’s small size and big performance.

SANTA CLARA, CA—APRIL 1, 2009—NVIDIA® ION® is drawing industry-wide support from analysts and the world’s leading software companies, including Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts. ION’s powerful performance and competitive pricing will help enable incredibly small and affordable PCs that are expected to find strong interest in the marketplace when they begin to arrive in the second quarter of 2009.

NVIDIA ION graphics processors will power a new generation of smaller, greener, fully capable PCs. Consumers utilizing ION-based PCs will be able to make full use of some of the world’s most popular applications, such as Spore, Call of Duty 4, Google Earth, Adobe® Photoshop®, Cyberlink PowerDVD, LEGO: Batman, and Battlefield 2.

“Providing superior performance for one of the fastest growing market segments makes NVIDIA ION a winner,” said Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, an analyst firm specializing in the mobile internet and digital entertainment markets. “Consumers today want less expensive PCs with more capabilities, which is exactly what ION delivers. Users can suddenly do more with their systems, and developers benefit from an expanding market. It’s a win-win for the entire industry.”

“ION enables consumers with new mini-notebook and small desktop systems to access and play a larger library of Windows games, creating incredible opportunity and access for all gamers,” said Corey Rosemond, group manager, Microsoft Games for Windows program.

“New affordable and powerful PC hardware like ION is going to change the landscape of PC gaming,” said Ben Cousins, executive producer at DICE, a division of Electronic Arts. “This new mass-market target audience is a perfect match for Battlefield Heroes.”

Bryan O’Neil Hughes, product manager for Photoshop at Adobe, said: “Along with the built-in productivity features and time-saving capabilities in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended, the NVIDIA ION platform supports new hardware-accelerated functionality in the software and extends the feature set on small, low-powered systems. Efficiency is key for our customers’ design and photography workflows. Harnessing the power of the GPU allows for the utilization of new features and a more fluid experience in Photoshop.”1

“NVIDIA and Google will bring the Earth into view for millions of new users,” said Stefan Kuhne, Google Earth software engineer. “We’re really impressed with how well Google Earth will run on affordable PCs powered by ION graphics processors. It will raise the industry standard for entry-level graphics.”

1 Available for Windows and Intel based Mac OS systems, Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended help save valuable time at every step. Benchmarking results from an independent research study conducted by Pfeiffer Consulting and commissioned by Adobe shows that features in Adobe Creative Suite 4 software can dramatically increase productivity, efficiency and return on investment. The report includes several ways Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended saves times and money.

About NVIDIA ION graphics processors
NVIDIA ION graphics processors turn up the visuals on small PCs with up to 10X faster graphics performance than similar systems. ION graphics processors provide support for premium Windows Vista features, outstanding media capabilities including 1080p high definition video and Blu-ray movies, and support for popular PC games. ION-based PCs will arrive in the second quarter of 2009 from leading PC manufacturers.

After the cut, Huang on Ion, AMD, MIDs and more

While Huang wouldn’t suggest any possible release dates for Ion-based netbooks – though he claims “almost every single OEM in the world is exploring it” – he obviously feels that the platform is better than Atom alone.  In fact, “Atom by itself with Intel integrated graphics would get crushed” by AMD’s Neo CPU and companion graphics chip, he claims.  Huang is complementary about both Neo and VIA’s Nano platform – which he believes is “architecturally one generation beyond Atom” only held back by VIA’s lack of software resources – not least because he expects the next-gen Ion to support them, together with all manner of other CPUs.

Huang also discussed the Tegra platform – NVIDIA’s HD-capable mobile chipset – and its potential for devices with up to 10-inch displays.  These, he suggests, are possible netbook killers, as they could offer a full keyboard and 2-3 days runtime from a single charge.  He also expects to see $199 MIDs with full QWERTY keyboards, based on Tegra, that would be able to surf the internet for two days without rejuicing.

[via GottaBeMobile]

The Ion uses NVIDIA’s 9400M GPU for its graphics, being capable of full-HD video decoding, and is paired with Intel’s Atom 330 dual-core processor.  Apple already use the 9400M GPU in their recent unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro ranges.  It’s also possible to repurpose the 9400M for general processing, thanks to NVIDIA’s CUDA technology, which would go some way to answering any concerns buyers might have regarding the Atom CPU.

Given the smaller size of Ion, Tom’s Hardware predict that the new Mac mini will be physically more compact than the existing model.  Obviously the optical drive (or rumored dual-drive alternative setup) will limit just how much the mini can be miniaturised, however.  No pricing information has been released, although they suggest somewhere in the $500 to $700 range (while NVIDIA themselves have previously indicated they expect Ion-based devices to start at $400).

Ion will also allow netbooks to run more intensive operating systems, such as Windows Vista Premium and Windows 7.  It will also open the door for models with HDMI outputs, capable of pushing out high-definition content. 

To demonstrate Ion, NVIDIA have put the platform into a nettop reference design.  The Pixo-ITX Reference PC will go on show at CES 2009.  While exact pricing has not been made public, NVIDIA expect it to add around $50 to the cost of  netbook.