Tech Digest

Arcam's top notch DAB

Cambridge-based Arcam is renowned for its excellent quality of audio products, producing kit that comes with the very best components, along with all the attention to detail you want from your high-end audio gear. The company was one of the first to get into DAB digital products (and in fact made the first domestic digital tuner in the world), and now it's taken the technology a stage further with its latest tuner. The DT91 will set you back a hefty £449, which we're hoping means the radio is as good as Arcam promises. Providing both DAB and FM tuner, the DT91 comes with digital processing for FM. Digital output from DAB or FM can be used to feed external DACs, recorders, or an AV processor. The tuner's available from March.

Arcam

Hard Drive Camcorder from NHJ

Following the path previously trod by JVC with its Everio, comes NHJ and its painfully monikered D'Zign DV-5. This hard disk drive digital camcorder comes with a 2GB hard drive for storing digital video, allowing you to record MP4s at 640 x 480 pixels and 30fps using the 3.2-megapixel camera. You can also play back MP3s, hence the earphones. Hard drive seems to be the done thing for camcorders at the moment, and we're expecting a good crop to arrive in the UK in the not too distant future. While NHJ don't sell directly over here, the company frequently gets picked up by other retailers, so there's a good chance we'll be seeing this one soon.

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Navman gets into sports gear

GPS specialist, Navman, has done a bit of branching out and come up with this range of sports kit designed to appeal to active types. The company's decided to keep it all very simple with colour coding, creating GPS Sports Tools that are tailored to specific sporting activities. The lowest-priced unit, is the Inline Skaters' unit, costing £79. It provides speed and distance information, and has a special alarm that will let you know when your speed drops below a designated rate. The other units are for Walkers (£89), Runners (£99) and Alpine (Snowboarding and Skiing, £119). There's also a Marine version on its way for windsurfers and water sports enthusiasts. They all have similar features, but these are slightly tweaked depending on the pastime.

Runners get pacing and lap timers, walkers get calore usage info, while the Skiiers benefit from the most advanced info, with downhill distance to let you exactly how much actual skiing you've done in a in a day out.

The units have been designed to be worn on the upper arm, which is apparently a bit of a USP for GPS sports gear. They're accurate to within 10-20m over 1000 metres and will be available in sports shops from February onwards. Incidentally, if you don't like the allotted colour of your chosen GPS Sports Tool, you can get add-on clips to change colours.

Mikey and Slim: Hitachi's tiny hard drives

Hard drive stories may not be the most thrilling in the world, but when Hitachi sent us a load of neat little photos of its latest products, even we were momentarily beguiled by the tiny things. The Microdrives, nicknamed "Mikey" and "Slim" are one-inch and 1.8-inch hard disk drives respectively. Mikey is 20 percent smaller than the company's previous drive, and will have a maximum capacity of 8-10 gigabytes.

Meanwhile, the 1.8-inch Slim has 30 percent shaved off its thickness, leaving it just 5mm thick with a 30-40GB capacity. The Mikey is all set for the second half of 2005, while Slim will be launched shortly after. Hitachi's 4GB Microdrive is currently being used by Apple for the iPod mini, but with that capacity set to double, there's a chance we may see it appearing on an upcoming model. Current rumours seem to be that the iPod mini will move onto a Seagate hard drive, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of idle speculation.

Moto's Black Razr

Mindful that many celebrities are living on the bread line, Motorola is doing its bit by handing out free special edition V3 Razr handsets at this year's Oscars. A special black version of the super-skinny model will be gifted to all the super skinny models - winners and presenters - in attendance at the Academy Awards ceremony on 27th February. It's not clear whether the phone will also be offered for sale to the general public. More news as and when, etc.

More here and here.

Mio's GPS units with MP3

Mio, the company responsible for providing countless UK laptop companies with re-badged PDA offerings, has been dipping its toes into the Sat Nav market once more. The Mio 168 PDA/GPS hybrid went down pretty well, and now the company has branched out with 2 new GPS handhelds. This time the satellite navigation products are standalone devices, offering portable navigation for less than £300. The Mio268 (pictured) is the cheaper option, while the Mio269 comes pre-installed with all the European mapping software, which bumps its price up to £399.

Both units are designed for multi-purpose use, with settings for car, motorbike, bicycle and pedestrian. This means you can use them for straightforward navigation, or you can get them to tell you the location of the nearest pub or petrol station. What's more, an MP3 player comes built into both units. The Mio268 relies on memory card storage as it doesn't have a hard disk. This means you can have up to a gigabyte's worth of music, but you'll need to get another memory card for the maps if you want a lot of tunes. The Mio269, meanwhile, is a 2.5GB hard disk unit. With all the maps preloaded, you'll have 500MB of free space to save the music onto.

Rio Forge 512MB launched

The latest version of the Rio Forge has just arrived in Europe. With an RRP of £129, the Forge now comes with a 512MB capacity. The flash device is Rio's sporty player, with durable strainless steel face plates and protective rubber grips. The SD/MMC memory card slot means that the capacity can be exanded up to 1.5 gigabytes, and there's some nice features such as the FM tuner that also lets you record straight to memory. A Stopwatch and lap timer, along with armband and sport clip earphones, make this a nice little sporting companion.

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Panasonic's Smartphone

Panasonic has just launched its first smartphone onto the UK market. The X700 handset is based on Symbian's Series 60 platform and comes with all the usual PIM features associated with that OS. It's also a camera phone, with video capability, as VGA camera and a flash light for nightime shooting. Support for Mini SD memory cards will come in handy for storing music, images and video files, but there's no mention of the phone's built-in memory capacity. There's a 65K colour main display and a colour outer display on the clamshell chassis. Other features include Bluetooth, voice recognition and tri-band frequency range.

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More Nintendo DS launch plans

Brought to you in bullet form:

• Nintendo has allocated 650,000 units to Europe
• There's an aggressive marketing budget of €35m for the launch
• The company showed off MarioKart DS with eight-player Wi-Fi wireless play, due for launch at some point in 2005.
• Nintendo says it will be marketing the DS to women.

All this and more on Games Digest

Nintendo DS UK launch in March

Well the news gamers have been waiting for all day is just in. In Paris today Nintendo confirmed that its new DS handheld will launch in the UK on March 11th and will retail for £99.99. There will apparently be 14 games available from day one.

The dual screen handheld has already been quite a hit in both the US and the Far East and its launch is eagerly awaited in Europe. Among the early games, which will cost between Those games will cost between £19.99 and £29.99, are Super Mario 64DS, Rayman DS, Project Rub, The Urbz, Pokémon Dash, Sprung, Asphalt Urban GT, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Zoo Keeper, Ping Pals, Robots, Polarium and Spiderman 2. The actual DS hardware will ship with Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt.

Loads more details and background stuff from the launch on Games Digest in the next couple of days.