Tech Digest

Archos launches 504 160GB portable media player

   Archos has gone big on the screen and the storage with its new 504 portable media player with 160GB hard drive - that's enough space to record 450 hours of video to view on the 4.3-inch screen.

The Archos 504 supports all standard video formats in full DVD resolution, as well as being a storage device for other files and media via USB 2.0. The 160GB drive can hold around 450 movies, 1.6 million photos or 80,000 songs. Video playback is via a 4.3-inch screen with 16 million colors or onto a television (with optional DVR Station). It also records from TV into MPEG-4 with the DVR station. It can also be used be used as a photo viewer and music player.

There's a range of sizes available, with a 40GB device retailing for £249.99, 80GB for £299.99 and the 160GB model selling for £479.99. All comes with headphones, USB cable and protective pouch.

Archos website

Bang & Olufsen HDR 2 250GB hard disc recorder launched

Bang & Olufsen have launched their HDR 2 hard disc recorder with a huge 250GB hard drive for storing and watching analogue and digital TV shows. It can be set up to record programmes in a series and automatically delete the oldest watched episodes to conserve space.

It features much of what you'd expect from a PVR: pausing live TV and simultaneous recording and playback. It also lets you create TV libraries which lets you store content in up to 8 different groups, named as you like. Recordings can be split, trimmed and renamed to save space and group similar programmes together.

The 250GB drive will store up to 110 hours of standard quality or 60 hours of high quality (not high definition) content. It features 2 SCARTs, Y/C input, and aerial connections. Done out in aluminium/black, it has dimensions 47 x 10.1 x 26.4 cm and weighs 6 kg. Price to be confirmed.

Bang & Olufsen

iFusion - watch TV on the go in 3D

Fancy 3D TV without a pair of cardboard glasses? Well, iFusion from Neovision could be for you.

Add the iFusion to a portable media player's screen (rather like a screen protector) and the video amazingly gets an extra dimension. There's no explanation of the science of doing this (probably to protect it from copying), so you'll just have to take our word on it. It's only currently available for the iUbi (also made by Neofusion), but there is the promise of a version for the Microsoft Zune and Creative Zen Vision W in the future.

Interesting to see it hands-on, which should be the case from early 2007.

Via Gizmodo

Mustek PD77 two screen DVD player

  No more crowding round a single screen on a long car journey - Mustek has introduced the PD77 - which offers two screens for your backseat passengers.

Both monitors are 7-inch TFT LCD screens, with a resolution of 480 x 234 pixels, whuich can deliver pictures in 16:9 widescreen format. The system can read all current CD and DVD format discs, as well as supporting a range of audio and video formats, including MP3, DivX, XviD and AVI. It's also Kodak Picture CD and JPEG compatible. Sound output is either through two stereo loudspeakers or through stereo headphone connectors on the DVD player and on the LCD monitor.

Loud traffic noises are also faded out through the integrated Dolby Digital decoder which sets the right tone on board and if you're on a bumpy road, there's a shock absorption system. Also included in the kit are car mounting straps, a dual 12-volt car adapter, remote control, an AC/DC power adapter and an A/V cable for connection (if you want to use it in the home) and a carry bag.

It retails for £179.

Mustek website

iZak - a portable media device for movies and music

Another new portable media device on the market, this time it's iZak, a PC and Mac-friendly device that stores your music, movie and data files to view on any TV.

Available as a 40GB  or 80GB drive, iZak connects to your PC or Mac via USB 2.0. to transfer over your favourite media content (music, movies, pictures, data files), then connects to any TV for playback. iZak is claimed to be the only portable device capable of playing ripped DVDs and DivX VODs, storing your own DVDs as a virtual library, which can be played back as if you were running the original disc. The manufacturers also promise the option of playback in HDTV quality Video and Dolby Digital or DTS quality Audio.

Other formats supported include MPEG-1. MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 for video and WAV MP3 MPEG-4 WMA and AC3 for audio. Available in the UK the coming weeks, pricing still to be confirmed.

Find out more

Tuesday Top Ten: Reasons to hate Microsoft's Zune

It was the consumer technology industry's worst kept secret for months. It was supposedly Microsoft's iPod-killer. And now Zune has been unveiled, the reaction has been... decidedly mixed. Which appears to make it the marmite of the personal media player world. And while there are plenty of bloggers and IT hacks out there who are always happy to  be rude about Microsoft, it does seem there are some legitimate criticisms of the new device.

With that in mind, here's Tech Digest's 10 Reasons To Hate Zune. Don't worry, we'll have 10 Reasons To Love Zune on Thursday. Stick the boot in, then cuddle up. It's called tough love. Anyway, on with the kicking.

1. Only 30GB of storage space. With Apple having just released an 80GB iPod, Microsoft comes across as a little bit stingy. How are we going to fit our 50GB of illegally downloaded Hollywood blockbusters onto it?

2. Name ambiguity. Do I pronounce it Zyoon or Zoon? Until someone gives me a definitive answer, I'm sure as hell not walking into Currys to be patronised by some twerp who can't wait to correct me.

3. Who wants Wi-Fi sharing anyway? Especially when it's 30-second song samples, and only of stuff you've bought from the official Zune store. I don't want to spend every bus journey fending off requests from kids who want to send me their latest Lady Sovereign mash-up. EDIT: See comments for correction to this point.

4. The brown Zune. I mean, brown. Jesus.

5. Another closed ecoysystem. So let me get this straight, will the songs I buy from the Zune store work if I buy another MP3 player in the future? Or will I have to buy them for the third time, having already repurchased all the ones I already got on iTunes?

6. Wot no games? I thought this was supposed to be Xbox in the palm of your hand. Swizz! Yes, I know this may be the rumourmongers' fault rather than Microsoft's. But still.

7. It's not that stylish. And if this is supposed to be an iPod-slayer, isn't it duty-bound to look nice? I'm not saying it's ugly, but [insert yo' momma joke here]...

8. It won't work on Macs. Hello Microsoft, us Mac-owners aren't all lap dogs of the Jobs Empire, y'know. Some of us might've quite fancied buying a Zune, but apparently it won't support Macs at launch, and the Zune Marketplace will be Windows-only too. Cheers for that.

9. It won't work with Napster. Or, indeed, any digital music store that uses Microsoft's own Plays For Sure DRM platform. D'oh!

10. They're being a bit shifty about Zune's battery life. This could mean it runs out of juice in 10 minutes unless used with the screen off and at 10% volume. Or it could mean it ships with futuristic fuel-cell batteries powered by rechargeable goblins, I suppose.

MSI D310 portable Freeview player finally hits the UK

Back in April, we mentioned that the MSI D310 portable media player with integrated Freeview (the first to do so) would hit the shelves in "a couple of months" - in good time for the World Cup. Well, they missed that, but now it's here - in good time for Christmas and cheaper than we expected.

The D310 is both small and light, weighing just 180g, so ideal to stick in your bag for a long journey or commute. It's got a 4.2-inch colour TFT screen with an integrated Freeview receiver, so you can watch all the digital TV channels, reception permitting. There's also an EPG, auto scanning, digital Teletext, a remote and AV out to a larger TV. It also supports music and video playback plus photos viewing. The downside is a lack of memory - so you'll need to store on SD/MMC cards.

It's got a rechargeable battery, with a charge offering 3 hours of digital TV. Available now, you can pick it up for a reasonable £119.

Find out more

Xoro HSD 7500 Freeview DVD tablet

Probably useful for long journeys, the slimline Xoro HSD 7500 takes the typical portable DVD player and adds Freeview functionality for all the main channels on the move.

As a portable player, it features a full colour widescreen 7" display (16:9) and plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, MPEG-1, 2 and 4 videos, standard audio and MP3 CDs, as well as displaying both JPEGs and Kodak Picture CDs. And if you're bored of all that, you can turn on the TV, as there's a DVB-T receiver with automatic channel scan, EPG and Teletext. There's also USB connectivity and a card reader for SD and MMC.

Power is via an Li-Ion battery, with a mains adaptor and car charger also included. And just in case it gets kncoked about on those long journets, it's got a soft black rubber surround. The Xoro HSD 7500 is available now for around £209.

Find out more

PDT launches Eye-Theatre - the head-mounted multimedia viewer

Staring at a small portable screen can put something of a strain on your eyes. If you want something bigger, especially on the move, it might be worth checking out PDT's Eye-Theatre - a head-mounted multimedia viewer that promises an "immersive audiovisual environment" wherever you are.

Admittedly, you'll look slightly ridiculous. But if you can get past that (or actually like the idea of looking like a Star Trek extra), you can watch movies wherever you are in any format (NTSC/PAL/SECAM). The Eye-Theatre uses twin TFT LCD screens to display iPod video resolution (320 x 240) video. Also incorporated into the unit are high-quality stereo earphones and a choice of nose-pieces, so the unit will fit every face from children to adults. The display offers a similar effect of watching a 50" screen viewed at 2.5m. Because of the dual screen, your eyes focus at 2.5m, so there's no straining of the eyes.

There's enough power for eight hours of viewing, with charging via USB. You can pre-order now, with a price of £149.99 and a shipping date of mid-October.

Eye-Theatre website

The Week In Tech: 10 stories you might have missed

The first in a new weekly feature rounding up some of the more intriguing, informative or plain baffling tech stories knocking about the internetweb. Casting aside all those cast-iron predictions that Apple would launch the iPhone this week, first up is News Corporation finally starting to throw its weight around in the Web 2.0 world.

Chief operating officer Peter Chernin (left) told a conference that MySpace wants to crush YouTube and, well, basically any other big Web 2.0 service. "If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket…almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace, there’s no reason why we can’t build a parallel business."

One reason why that might not be the case? If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, it's easier to use than MySpace. And you don't have to worry about your content getting spewed out of other parts of the Murdoch empire. Mashable's verdict on MySpace's plans: "This is such a ridiculous strategy that it’s not even worth contemplating."

This week's bear/woods story comes courtesy of Microsoft Exchange hosting firm Intermedia.NET, which released some survey findings claiming that IT staff are twice as likely to wear a heavy metal t-shirt as their non-IT colleagues, are 32% less likely than business managers to wear clean clothes every day of the week, and twice as likely to carry a Maglite and a Leatherman.

"Our large Microsoft Gold Certified team of engineers was comforted that IT people are twice as likely to wear Megadeth and similar t-shirts, and that black jeans and ponytails are still hot items," said Intermedia.NET's boss marketeer Rurik Bradbury. "However, they were distraught to find that the cellphone belt clip has gone ‘mainstream’ and lost its identification with the IT subculture."

Talking of heavy metal t-shirts, self-styled "software-Jedi" Dana Hanna starts his 'An App a Day' campaign today. He's writing 30 software applications in 30 days, and then giving them away for free. "I write tons of prototypes at home, and never end up doing anything with them," he says. "So I might as well toss them out there for the good of the world."

First up is this nifty app that turns your mouse cursor into a magnifying glass, although Dana reckons the most entertaining suggestion he's had so far is "an app to count polarbears in Norway and geotag them in Google Earth." That would be cool.

Moving on to enormous telephoto lenses, Carl Zeiss unveiled a whopper this week. It's got a focal length of over 5.5 feet, with 21x magnification. Oh, and it weighs in at a healthy 256kg. So you won't find it in a Cyber-Shot anytime soon. It's being shown at this month's Photokina show in Cologne. I'd like to see Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay try to pick a fight with a paparazzo holding this heavyweight jobby.

From the large to the small now. How about a projector the size of a sugar cube? Yes, it does mean a passing hungry horse could guzzle up your home entertainment system, but still, it's a feat of engineering. But hang on, read the story, and the ugly truth becomes apparent.

"Today’s technology allows RGB projectors with a side length of ten by seven by three centimeters to be produced. Although this is still distinctly larger than a sugar cube, it is only a quarter the size of a standard projector."

Fix! Apparently the key to getting sugarcube-sized projectors is shrinking green diode lasers. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, boozers among you shouldn't consider paying a visit to South Dakota any time soon. The state attorney general's office is testing alcohol-monitoring bracelets on convicted drunk drivers.

The 'Scram' bracelets measure "vapours from the skin" (i.e. beer sweats) and send the results for analysis. If someone could invent one that would tell me the sixth pint of cider ISN'T a good idea on Friday nights, while flashing a photo of the local gutter in warning, that'd be grand, thanks.

Talking of items of personal clothing with unexpected digital-media features... How about the Egokast, a hefty belt-buckle that doubles up as a video player. You're not supposed to watch it, mind, it's for the people around you.

“This is the first media device that you don’t watch, but everybody else does,” says inventor Shaw Kaake, who I sincerely hope was named after the popular biscuit. “Instead of staring into your BlackBerry or your PSP, you’re looking at the reactions of people to the content.”

Surely this means entire train carriages of fellow passengers staring at your crotch. Where can I get one? Moving swiftly on, news of some Princeton computer scientists who've created prototype vote-stealing software that can be installed on public voting machines. Right now, someone's reading this in a secret White House laboratory and saying "Meh, we did that weeks ago. Now when's e-voting coming in..."

Paris Hilton, it's time to dump the BlackBerry. There's a new celebrity mobile on the block, codenamed 'Black Diamond' (right), which costs $300,000. Why? Well, it runs Windows Mobile 5.0, has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an SD memory slot and a touch-sensitive keypad. Oh, and only five units are ever being made. Far better value than a chihuahua.

And finally... We may be also-rans in Miss World, but us Brits can boast the most beautiful computer-generated woman on the planet. Doesn't that make you feel proud as punch? Her name's Prada Woman (left), and she was created by UK designer David Cathro using Photoshop, for a competition organised by 3D site 3DM3.

She's a cross between Jennifer Lopez and the sort of secretary who appears in films pretending to be plain, until she gets to take off her glasses, swish her hair back and PURR LIKE A PUMA! She beat off competition from Poland, France, South Korea and Poland again.

Sources: Mashable, Intermedia.NET, Dana Hanna, Engadget, Physorg.com, Madisonet.com, New York Times, TechEBlog, 3DM3.com