StewtopiaOne other bit of PSP news today that I missed yesterday – at Sony’s announcement yesterday, Ken Kutagari also announced a couple of cool add-ons for the PSP, namely the rumored GPS add-on and an Eyetoy for video VOIP. Both of these devices should give Sony’s PSP a long deserved shot in the arm, but here’s one question, how about some kick-ass games?
Need a little content for your iPod? Google has made its videos (not the ‘for pay’ videos, mind you) available for download reformatted for the PSP and iPod. Thank God, I can finally watch “Road Trip Prank,” “Shtanga,” “Indian Exotic Dance in Office 2” wherever I want!
If you were expecting to get that Japanese import PS3 for Mom for Mother’s Day, looks like you’ll have to wait until Thanksgiving. Sony has announced instead of a staggered world wide launch starting in the Spring, PS3 will be released simultaneously worldwide in November.
Further details for the console have been confirmed including their “Playstation Network Platform” for online game play and a 60GB hard drive that will ship with all units. PS3 will also be backward compatible with all PS1 and PS2 games.
Looks like Xbox 360 will have a full year of next gen gaming all to itself (if you can find one).
Looks like our old pal Dave Zatz has uncovered some possible release information about the vapor-friendly Tivo Series 3 (the standalone HD Tivo with 2 CableCard enabled tuners and 2 OTA tuners). Tivo is having an American Idol related contest and the grand prize is a Series 3 Tivo. The contest ends at the end of American Idol on May 24th. The rules stipulate that the prizes will be given away no later than 4 months after the end of the contest.
So, what does all of this mean? There are two ways that you could look at this:
Now, I saw the Series 3 in perfect working order at CES this year and I banged on it quite a bit. I realize that it may have not been completely baked, it was mostly baked. My guess is that they are waiting for something else like a deal with cable companies (other than Comcast) or they are still figuring out pricing.
Oh ya, the dollar value they’ve put on the Series 3 with lifetime service is $1500, but with their new pricing model, I don’t know how much this tells us either.
Oh and here I thought that we had no Tuesday announcement for iTMS. Sure, while I’m gone they go an launch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on the “no-I’m-not-a-subscription-thank-you-very-much” MultiPass and the Academy Award Nominated Shorts, so I figured they were taking this week off announcement wise.
That’s right sports fans, for a mere $19.99 you can get condensed versions of all the March Madness games and full versions of the Final Four. Of course, you get them the next day. I’m no sports fan, but I’m guessing that for water cooler talk, this might be a smidge too late.
Rob Griffiths (of Macosxhints fame) has posted the second part of his first week with the new Intel Mac Mini online. Not so much a review as a walkthrough of all the things he imagines folks might want to do with it. Yesterday, Rob covered his initial set-up and some application testing but today he tests the part I’ve been waiting for, HD video performance.
Now, I’ve never felt that Intel based Windows machines were faster than Macs. Most things I’ve ever wanted to do with a computer (photo editing, email, web browsing and page creation, etc), my Mac was able to handle easily and it felt fast. That is until you try throwing 720p or 1080i HD video at it. My dual 1.25 Ghz G4 just chokes on 720p and don’t get me started on 1080i. My $500 2.8 Ghz Dell had no problems at all with HD…sigh.
Why do I want HD video on my computer? Surely I’m not sitting in front of my computer watching tv? Nope, but I do like recording it and watching it on the 42″ plasma.
Bottom line on the new Intel Mini – it has no problem with HD video whatsoever. Rob even had it playing in the background while doing other stuff. They’ve also upgraded FrontRow to pull audio and video in over the iTunes sharing feature.
Not the “never-gonna-happen-cuz-it-won’t-sell-more-videos” MacPVR, but count me in anyway.
A little post vacation post here – I’ve just returned from vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii to escape winter here in the Pacific Northwest (for the rest of the country, its really pretty moderate, but for a recent San Francisco transplant, oy, it’s been a bit rough).
Being a nerd on the go, I always travel with a fair bit of gear and adding an 18 month old to the mix changed out my gear bag substantially. I think folks are always a little shocked at the amount of crap I take on board the aircraft, but pleasantly surprised when they enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Here’s what I took, why and a letter grade for usefulness.
While it makes the carry on pretty heavy (I’m guessing at least 20 lbs), the trip gadgets definitely aided in our enjoyment.
Looks like I have a lot to catch up on with Microsoft’s Origami unfolding, new Apple hardware and the iTMS “this isn’t a subscription” Multi-pass all launching while I was basking in the Big Island’s sunny rays.
If you wanna catch up with what I’ve been up to in the last couple of weeks, check out my Flickr pix and my personal blog.
Hey all (both of you) – I’ll be on a vacation for a couple of weeks so posting will be at best very light and at worst not at all. Enjoy the Apple event on Tuesday… here’s to a Disney branded iPod that docks with Intel Mac Mini that has been built into a plasma tv.
See you on the flip side….
Apple’s iTunes Music Store hit their 1,000,000,000th download this evening around 9:35 PM Pacific Time. One lucky SOB got their grand prize of an iMac, 5 black and 5 white iPods and maybe best of all, $10,000 to spend on the store. I dunno about you, but 10k tracks would take me a long time to download.
Congrats to Apple on this tremendous milestone.
Walt Mossberg, venerable old fogey of personal electronics, likes the new set of big LCD compact digital cameras introduced at PMA this year. Tested were the Olympus Stylus 710, Nikon Coolpix S5, and the Canon SD630 with the Canon coming out on top.
Overall, we preferred the Canon. In addition to its superior pictures and larger screen, the Canon had a much cleaner user interface than the others. Many things about the Canon felt more like a tiny computer than a digital camera.
The Nikon and Canon were on par picture quality wise, but the Nikon requires a dock to actually remove pictures from the unit. The Olympus requires xD storage, which automatically deducts points from any review(we need to do a review of why to not buy cameras that don’t use SD or Compact Flash, but trust me, just don’t). Walt also found the Olympus a little more difficult to use.
The last few weeks on iTMS have been busy ones with swimsuits, weed, mice and buttheads, so maybe they let their engineers out of their cages last weekend. Only two new shows (although I’m not sure one counts) this week, America’s Funniest Home Videos and the more interesting release, Conviction, a soon-to-air new TV show from the creators of Law and Order. Best thing about the show, it’s a free download. Being a complete sucker for free, I watched it on the treadmill this morning… not bad, but like I need more TV in my life.
With digital cameras, I love both ends of the spectrum. There are a lot of great cameras out there right now, but I always feel like the middle kind of sucks. It just seems like there are too many compromises. I like digital SLRs and barring that, I like little pocket cameras. Canon’s announcement of the inexpensive A-line cameras is a little yawnsville for me. While I don’t d find them that exciting, the A75 I bought my parents last year for $200 was a delightful, feature packed performer and it occupies another great area of the spectrum, cheap.
New A series cameras include the A430, A530, A540 and A700. The A430, the smallest and cheapest of the lot is a 4 megapixel, 4x zoom camera for $179. The 530, 540 and 700 are basically the same camera with 5 , 6 and 6 megapixels respectively with a 6x zoom on the 700 rather than 4x on the lesser models. At $229, $299 and $349 these are respectable little shooters with many automatic and manual features.
One last Canon to mention, at the top end, the 20D got a modest upgrade to the 30D with a larger 2.5″ LCD and 5fps shooting in JPEG mode for $1399.
Canon’s Elph series got an upgrade today with 3 new models, the Canon PowerShot 600, Canon PowerShot SD630, and Canon PowerShot SD700 IS. All pack 6 megapixels, the 600 has a 2.5 inch screen, the 630 and 700 upgrade to a 3 inch screen (although the 630 loses it’s viewfinder) and the 700 adds a 4x zoom rather than the 3x that has been standard on most of the Elph line.
Canon has introduced image stabilization to the Elph line with 700 IS. In theory, this will help make those long zoom shots less blurry. This is unique in the compact digicam space and new for Canon.
Canon has once again made the naming of these cameras confusing as they have fewer megapixels than the SD500 and SD550, but seem to have more features . I can’t wait for the questions as to why the 600 has a higher model number but fewer megapixels. No prices on these digicams yet, but I’m sure they’ll be priced somewhere around the $400-500 mark.
(via Imaging Resource)
Now, these haven’t been announced, but a good source has confirmed them.
Pentax brings us new thin cameras as well as a new underwater addition to their line.
(via DPReview)