May 2007 Archives

From Mustek comes the MP100 portable DVD player, the big brother of the MP80D that I reviewed earlier, another straight-forward but well-conceived machine.

The main controls on the machine itself are simple and allow for easy navigation through DVD menus with little hassle, this is something I've come to know and love from Mustek. Simplicity. The controls themselves are well flushed with the surface of the player, but not so much so as they would become difficult to operate and irritating. They work fine and each is clearly labelled with its function.

The player itself is reasonably sized and lightweight, but bigger than past models. The LCD screen is a nice large 10-inch which takes up a good amount of the lid of the player. Definitely a decent size in my opinion, it allows for good solo viewing and also gives you a good view if you have multiple people watching. Also due to its widescreen proportions you don't get the letterbox effect splashed across your films. The screen is both hinged to fold down, like a laptop, but also on a swivel hinge which lets it fold round to allow you to simply just have the screen visible. This is very useful during car journey which lets you simply hang the screen on the back of a car headrest with the provided sling. This does give the impression that the MP100 was designed with keeping the kids quiet in the back of the car...

Zima Designs, sponsored by Intel, have shown off their specifications for a new 'Metro' laptop, dubbed the world's thinnest at 0.7-inches and lightest at 2.2-pounds. The external e-ink display and always-on Internet connectivity may be pretty high-tech, but Intel may also be heading towards the female market - one corner it hasn't cornered yet. Intel is hopeful that it could begin manufacture later this year, although we know the consequences of repeated delays all too well.


Read: BusinessWeek

Size really does matter as manufacturers look for new and innovative ways to loosen Apples strangle hold on the MP3 player market. The latest is the announcement from LG of the ultra-stylish MFFM37, their first touch-screen video player.

Chic and compact, the LG MFFM37 made in light-weight aluminium measures just 51.5mm wide, 90mm long and 9.9mm thick is available in 2Gb and 4Gb options.

The MP3 player has an easy-to-use touch screen, which features a customisable and interactive interface on a 2.4inch LCD display. With LG's Mobile XD Engine built-in the player claims to offer a better viewing experience.

The (long long) long-awaited Optimus keyboard is finally available to pre-order from Art Lebedev. Back to its original 113-key layout, it can be yours in December for $1564.37 (about £700, which works out at $13.84 per key). Only 200 will be made in the first batch, so act quick if you want one.

Also at the below links are some decent images of the finally-built keyboard. We can see it has USB output, two USB input ports as well as an SD card slot for saving the keyboard layouts. Also provided is a K-Lock for security - you wouldn't want a $1500 keyboard to go walkabouts in the office, would you?

Link: Art Lebedev

So Apple are the undisputed kings of the MP3 player market with millions of iPods in use across the UK and indeed the world - Microsoft looks set to challenge this dominance with the Zune but we like choice and we believe Samsung has something to offer.

We recently covered the launch of the Samsung music store (SMS) and two new MP3 players, one of which we have had the pleasure of testing for the past week. So out the window went the Nano and into the recycle bin went iTunes, stepping up to the plate to fill the void, was the smooth looking YP-T9.

So straight out of the bag we note that the stylish Samsung offering is smaller than the Nano (83 x 42.6 x 11 mm), weighs in at only 49g and boasts a significantly larger 1.8-inch. On closer inspection the YP-T9 impresses further, packed solid with a range of features it is clear the word 'compromise' didn't even figure into the making of this device and has a good solid battery life (about 30hrs).

The Center for Information Work at Microsoft concentrates on taking emerging and new technology and finding real-world applications for it. One product they have developed is the DigiDesk workstation, shown off at Convergence 07. The DigiDesk is a workstation intended for use at a manufacturing plant or suchlike, and it combines many managerial functions into one station. From this desk, you could check for errors on the system, see where stock is, calculate whether there is enough stock to fulfil any new orders, automatically order new stock, alter the schedules and rotas to accommodate changes and publish them directly to the web. It also includes a document digitizer (OCR), natural language input (speech recognition) and loads of fancy user interface gimmicks such as manual on-screen document moving and resizing. No word on when this would actually be implemented anywhere, but the concept is great. Video after the jump.