China Blue takes on Blu-ray
Just when you thought the format wars were over and it was safe to buy a Blu-ray player it looks like the losing HD-DVD format may be staging a stealthy comeback Although Blu-ray won the battle in Europe, the US and Japan, on the other side of the World, in China, it is trailing behind the recently launched China Blue HD (CBHD) format. CBHD is very closely related to HD-DVD thanks to some clever licensing agreements between the DVD Forum and China’s Optical Memory National Engineering Research Centre (OMNERC) based in Tsinghua University. The principle differences concern compression and CBHS has more powerful copy protection, as piracy is a big concern in China. Already Warner Home Entertainment has announced support for the format in China with titles such as the Harry Potter Series, The Golden Compass and Blood Diamond likely to be the first into the shops. There’s speculation other major studios could follow suit
Microsoft Softwear Launch
No, it’s not a spelling mistake, Microsoft has either run out of money or has finally gone mad and announced its own range of clothing range called, you guessed it, ‘Softwear’. Launched next week in the US, an apparently well-known celebrity rapper called Common will, MS hopes, give the range the necessary street credibility. The designs are supposed to tap into the retro/nostalgia market for the early days of computing. They’ll feature the DOS and Microsoft logos and apparently there will even be a mug shot of Uncle Bill, as well as various other colourful and funky patterns. Mmmm cant’ wait. It will be interesting to whether or not they require on-line activation to stop them being pirated…
Clever Camera Card
Ho-hum, another 2Gb SD card, but hang on a minute, this one is different. The Eye-Fi Explore is a Wi-FI memory card. So what, you might be asking, SD Wi-Fi cards are nothing new, the one in my PDA must be at least 3 years old, but there is more. This is a fully self-contained wireless device, so it can be used in any SD compatible camera, and used to beam images across a network to a PC, printer or uploaded to the Internet. In other words the camera doesn’t need to be a special wireless-capable model. All you have to do is pop the card into your PC to activate and configure it then put it into the camera and while it is on it automatically sends image to any wi-fi device in range (around 3 – 5 metres). There’s an added bonus, it uses a system called Geotagging to label or identify where the picture was taken. Read more
NVIDIA’s Secret Weapon: 40nm GPUs
According to the most recent details regarding NVIDIA’s upcoming graphics products, the Santa Clara-based chip maker is planning to release its very first 40nm GPUs, even before competitor AMD has a chance of delivering its own 40nm-based solutions. Apparently, NVIDIA will step up to the next-generation TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 40G process technology with the introduction of new mobile chips, codenamed N10x.
At this point in time, there are no details regarding availability and official release date but, according to VR-Zone, NVIDIA will try to be the first to offer a 40nm graphics card, thus increasing its chances of gaining the number one spot in the graphics card market. Read more
