The war of High Definition format between Blu-ray and HD DVD has come to the end. Toshiba just announced that they will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video. “We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company’s Tokyo offices. The move would make Blu-ray ? backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios ? the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago. Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs. HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity. Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 56% [?]

• 0 Comments

To provide low cost and rugged PCs for greater education opportunities for the young, Intel has released the Classmate PC. Its design is child friendly and comes with price US$200. With three available colors such as pink, blue and white, it comes in a size that fits perfectly for its younger audience. A leather cover encasing the plastic build of the Classmate PC gives it greater survivability in rugged environments and it also comes with a water resistant keyboard. It features a 7-inch display with 800×480 pixel resolution, which maybe a little restrictive in a Windows environment. The plus point with the Classmate PC though, is its round touch pad mouse which is easy to use and sensitive to the touch.

The Classmate PC is powered by Intel ULV Celeron M 900 MHz, 915 chipset and 256MB of DDR2 RAM, with preloaded Windows XP, it is able to handle itself well on Windows XP, one application at a time. You can have the option to preloaded with Linux (Mandriva Linux). Intel’s aim is to provide the Classmate PC with capabilities that are similar to existing PC architecture, software and usage. Its performance is sufficient for its tasks and loading time was quick since the whole OS is loaded on a 2GB flash module ? no HDDs in here. With extensive usage, the Classmate PC lasted up to 3 hours before we found the battery dried to the core.
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

• 0 Comments