Xbox 360 Elite and 120GB drive now official

HD nerds and Xbox fanboys, the moment you've been waiting for: the Xbox 360 Elite we alerted you about way back when it was just called the Zephyr has finally been announced. As we previously mentioned, it will be black, it will have HDMI, and it will have a 120GB drive (it'll also come bundled with a one month Xbox Live trial) for $479. Unfortunately, also as mentioned before, it's not going to have the new 65nm CPUs, it still doesn't have integrated WiFi (Xbox said it's because a study showed the majority of their customers use Ethernet to connect -- huh?), and it won't have an integrated HD DVD drive (not that we expected otherwise). Microsoft did make some marketing decisions since our sources spilled the beans on this thing though: it's not going to be limited edition, as we previously had. Instead, the Elite will be a permanent SKU, the third and top-tier Xbox device. On the solo 120GB drive side of things, that unit will cost $179, and will come with a cable and software to migrate from your old 20GB drive. (MSFT wasn't yet sure if that kit would be sold separately for new Elite users -- sounds like it will be though, and will be priced very reasonably.) More info:

• The console will come with component and composite cables, as well as an HDMI cable. (Take that, Sony and Apple!)
• The console will come with a black wireless controller and black (wired) headset.
• Sorry, the new black controller still doesn't have backlit buttons -- don't let the pic fool you.
• The black controller, black rechargeable batteries, black headset, and black Play & Charge kit will all be available in retail for the same price as the white gear.
• The HD DVD drive will not be released in black.
• Xbox didn't know what HDMI version the Elite uses, nor whether it supports PCM 5.1, TrueHD, etc.; it will obviously support 1080p, though.
• Sorry, no price cuts on the Premium or Core packs.
• Xbox Live Marketplace will also begin vending content from New Line, Paramount, and Universal (and their properties).
  

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Sony Ericsson W910i Mobile Phone With Ultimate Features

The Sony Ericsson W910i is a gadget that has great looks and is available in red colour. The colour attracts people who visit the mobile showrooms to buy the handset. This handset works on 2G and 3G networks and it is also possible to carry it to different places due to the presence of GSM network. The dimensions of the device are 99 x 50 x 12.5 mm and it weighs only 86 gms.The display screen of the W910i gives a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and it supports 256 K colours. The user can watch videos and pictures on this screen and can remain entertained with fascinating games. The games are also downloadable from internet. The memory support of the gadget is useful for storing of these large files. One can also store ring tones and videos in this memory.
The mobile phone makes use of its WAP browser to surf the net. Wallpapers and screen savers can also be downloaded with ease. These when stored give a very lively look to the screen of the handset. The Sony Ericsson W910i gets connected with GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Bluetooth and USB port. This makes it easy for the user to share files with others. Bluetooth is the best way for transferring files wirelessly. Apart from these, the internet facility allows the user to send and receive emails. There is also messaging options such as MMS, EMS and SMS.
One can also remain entertained with the W910i due to the presence of its Walkman player that is supported by the Track ID music recognition. The mobile can also be used for photography purposes with the 2 MP camera capturing pictures at 1600 x 1200 pixels resolution. The camera can also be used for the purpose of video recording. There is also a secondary camera that can be used for the purpose of video calls. The FM radio serves with several entertaining programs. The mobile can be used for several hours after charging its battery. The Li-Ion battery is capable of giving 400 hrs of standby time and its talktime extend to 9 hrs

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Samsung pushes the HD quality envelope with new camcorder

Today at CES Samsung announced a new high definition flash camcorder, the SC-HMX20 ($999 MSRP).It has a 6.4-megapixel CMOS sensor that also has a stunning 8-megapixel still camera capability. It can also shoot what’s called super slow motion at 300 frames per second. Wow. That’s enough to help me with my golf swing or those overdue balloon bursting physics experiments for school.

The SC-HMX10 had an unconventional swivel grip design and touch screen LCD, the first manufacturer to rival Sony’s interface of choice, features continued on the new C-HMX20.
An SDHC/MMC card slot is built in to increase recording time. Samsung has implemented a 300fps slow motion feature that allows true slow motion capture of up to 10 seconds. This feature strikes a similarity towards Sony’s Smooth Slow Record function, which records three seconds of footage at 240fps. The SC-HMX20 has a 2.7-inch wide touch screen LCD display, another familiar Sony standard. The SC-HMX20 is PictBridge compatible and features Component, S-Video, Composite, and HDMI outputs.

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The Fascination Of Latest Game Consoles

As the name suggest, the latest game consoles are gadgets that enable people to play fascinating games. The consoles are useful for spending time whenever one is bored and want to spend a few moments of pure leisure and relaxation. The latest gadgets are fitted with WAP browsers so as to surf the net, which make them all the more attractive. One can download and store high definition games. Sony PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo have clearly left a mark on players, the world over.The latest consoles often come loaded with games in different genres that are very interesting as well as entertaining. The Play Station 3, for instance, has a graphic processor named as “RSX”. The device provides an environment that is interactive as well as impressive and offer experiences that never could have been imagined before.

The gaming consoles generate certain images and sounds and display them on a screen that is supported by an audio-video system such as that of a television. The hand held ones are small devices, wherein the speaker and the display are fitted together. One of my friend has been using a gaming console for a few months now. He finds it very entertaining and hassle free to use. He can carry it almost everywhere and never miss out on a chance of playing some of the best games.The latest game consoles have excellent battery support and that allows the user to play for long hours. The memory is also kept large so that the user can store a number of games. The screen is generally large and delivers graphics with a high resolution so that every icon becomes visible while playing. The whole affair becomes exciting and screen resolution soothes one’s eyes too.

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HTC Touch Diamond

The HTC Touch Diamond—iPhone Killer or just another Windows Mobile device? It kinda reminds me of a mini-iPhone. A couple of nice design features: the animated weather display (you can have up to six places' weather forecast bookmarked) makes me think of the widget on my MacBook; the click-wheel in miniature that lets you zoom in on the screen; and there's a very nifty little feature that automatically switches the phone onto silent mode when you lie it on its front. UI was much more attractive than I was expecting, but the touchscreen takes quite a bit of getting used to: it's sluggish to the touch, compared to the hot-butterish iPhone, but the HTC rep assured me that it's not a final version of the software, and everything should have been ironed out by the time of the European and Asian launches next month.

The HTC Touch Diamond specs are pretty similar and include:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Qualcomm MSM 7201A @ 528MHz
• 256MB ROM / 128MB RAM
• 7.2MB HSDPA / HSUPA (rev A EVDO for Sprint versions)
• 2.8″ VGA screen
• WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
• eGPS
• 3.1MP Camera with flash
• Front camera for video calls
• 4GB internal flash storage
• Accelerometer
• FM Radio
• microSD expansion
• 900mAh battery
• Dimensions:
• Diamond: 51×99x10.7mm

The main difference between HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro is the side slide QWERTY keyboard on the latter handset.

One interesting thing about both smartphones it’s their apparently pretty small 900 mAh battery, which seems strange coupled with more power hungry VGA displays. Especially compared with 1350 mAh battery in HTC Touch Cruise. We’ll have to see what tricks HTC has come up to give the new phones an acceptable endurance.

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ASUS Aura iPhone Look-alike

While not widely acknowledged, introduction of Apple iPhone seems to have sent a shockwave throughout cellphone industry and left major vendors scrambling to produce their own answer to it. Only LG seems to have had something at least a little bit similar to iPhone with their LG Prada KE850 phone. Other vendors were left churning out the concept phones on YouTube. And here’s another concept phone - Asus Aura, produced by Hungarian design company Egy Studio for Taiwanese vendor. It was clearly inspired by iPhone, although it has some interesting innovations addressing commonly mentioned shortcomings of Apple’s cellphone.
One of them is a movable navigation module with navigation buttons, another - a sliding QWERTY keyboard that should make text entry much easier. Other features of Asus Aura include - 3,9″ touchscreen covering the whole surface of the phone, 2 megapixel camera, microSD memory card slot, GSM, UMTS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. All of this in a 6mm thick package.
Unfortunately Asus Aura is just a concept so far and will stay that way probably a few years. With the dimensions of 97×49x6mm and total volume of 28 cc, Asus aura is several times smaller then what current HSDPA chipsets allow to be. But with Moore’s law and competition among communication chip makers in full swing, who knows? We might see it sooner.

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