Samsung is finally ready to launch the SC-HMX10, its first ever high-definition camcorder. The SC-HMX10 (pictured) heads a trio of camcorders previewed at CES way back in January that will all be available from September in the US.
The SC-HMX10 records to 8GB of internal flash memory, which is at least an increase to the frankly laughable 4GB announced at CES. Samsung claims this is enough to shoot a feature-length opus at the highest quality setting. Thankfully, memory can be expanded with an SD or SDHC card for stretching your epic beyond the 90-minute mark. The SC-HMX10 utilises a 1/6-inch CMOS sensor, and features HDMI output and a 10x optical zoom. The 69mm (2.7-inch) LCD screen will be of the touch-sensitive variety. It will be out in the US in September for $799 (£400).
Samsung has also announced the SC-MX10, a tapeless camcorder that will record video straight to SD card. You can keep track of the action on a 69mm (2.7-inch) widescreen LCD. You can also get right up close and personal with a humongous 34x optical zoom. US price will be $299 (£150).
Finally, the SC-DX10 gives you three recording options. Write your video to DVD-R, internal memory, or SD/SDHC cards. With a paltry 4GB onboard storage you may well have to use all three. Once again, you call the shots with a touchscreen. The SC-DX10 will cost $549 (£270).
Considering there are 100GB camcorders out there, 4GB or 8GB internal memory on these camcorders seems pretty measly. But at this more affordable price point, writing to widely available and ever-cheaper SD cards is officially a good thing, and the flexibility is there to shoot footage in hi-def or for the Web.
Halo 3 has smashed all records by becoming the biggest entertainment launch in history, ahead of blockbuster movie releases like Spiderman 3 and well-hyped novels like the final Harry Potter book.
So, $170 million. That's a lot of money. Want to know what it looks like? It looks like this:
- 100 Bugatti Veyron cars - the most expensive car in the world
- 8 properties like the new LA home of the Beckhams
- 56 million Big Macs
- 12 struggling football teams like Queen's Park Rangers
- 11,3333 of the most expensive M&Ms, which accompanied Paul Allen into space (although there is only one, so that *strictly speaking* isn't in your budget)
- 113,333 of the world's most expensive cocktail (although there are only 15 servings left, so this is actually impossible too).
$170 million - harder to spend than Brewster's Millions.
Corsair's Flash Padlock gives users the confidence of having a hardware-secured lock to protect their data on an USB drive. Featuring auto-lock hardware security, Flash Padlock is the best way to secure your data while on the go. This prevents any unauthorized access or “Brute Force” attack to the data on Flash Padlock. Users can program in a PIN, much like they do for an ATM machine, to lock/unlock their data. An easy to use keypad in conjunction with lock/unlock indicator lights makes the Flash Padlock highly intuitive to use. Lastly, the Flash Padlock is fully plug-and-play, and requires no software or drivers to work properly.
Features:
* Auto-Locking – Self locking after removal from computer
* Customizable PIN – Set your own PIN and make it easy to remember
* Easy to Use – Direct keypad access and indicator lights make locking/unlocking simple
* Plug and Play – Hardware based security works without installing or running software
* Platform independent – Works on Windows, MAC and Linux platforms without the use of software
Home cinema, also called home theater, seeks to reproduce cinema quality video and audio in the home.
Technically, a home cinema could be as basic as a simple arrangement of a television, DVD, and a set of speakers. It is therefore difficult to specify exactly what distinguishes a "home cinema" from a "television and stereo". Most people in the consumer electronics industry would agree that a "home theater" is really the integration of a relatively high-quality video output with surround sound.
Today, "home cinema" implies a real "cinema experience" and therefore a higher quality set of components than the average television provides. A typical home theater includes the following parts:
1. Input Devices: One or more audio/video sources. High quality formats such as HD DVD or Blu-ray are preferred, though they often include a VHS player or Video Game Systems. Some home theatres now include a home theater PC to act as a library for video and music content.
2. Processing Devices: Input devices are processed by either a standalone AV receiver or a Preamplifier and Sound Processor for complex surround sound formats. The user selects the input at this point before it is forwarded to the output.
3. Audio Output: Systems consist of at least 2 speakers, but can have up to 11 with additional subwoofer.
4. Video Output: A large HDTV display. Options include Liquid crystal display television (LCD), video projector, plasma TV, rear-projection TV, or a traditional CRT TV.
5. Atmosphere: Comfortable seating and organization to improve the cinema feel. Higher end home theaters commonly also have sound insulation to prevent noise from escaping the room, and a specialized wall treatment to balance the sound within the room.
Component systems vs. Theater-in-a-Box
High-quality home cinemas are assembled from component pieces purchased separately to provide the best combination of equipment for the cost. It is possible to purchase home theater in a box kits that include a set of speakers for surround sound, an amplifier/tuner for adjusting volume and selecting video sources, and sometimes a DVD player. Though these kits often pale in comparison to a custom-built home cinema, they are inexpensive and easy to set up; one needs only to add a television and some movies in order to create a simple home theater.
Dedicated home theaters
Built-in shelves provide a place for movie decor, DVDs, and equipment. Note the component stack on the right, where the audio receiver, DVD player, secondary monitor, and video game system are located.
Some home cinema enthusiasts go so far as to build a dedicated room in the home for the theater. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates sound and provides the potential for a nearly ideal listening environment. These installations are often designated as "screening rooms" to differentiate from simpler installations. This idea can go as far as completely recreating an actual cinema, with a projector enclosed in a projection booth, specialized furniture, a piano or theatre organ, curtains in front of the projection screen, movie posters, or a popcorn or snack machine. More commonly, real dedicated home theatres pursue this to a lesser degree. Presently the days of the $100,000.00+ home theater is being usurped, by the rapid advances in digital audio & video technologies, which has spurned a rapid drop in prices. This in turn has brought the true digital home theater experience, to the doorsteps of the do it your selfer, often for less than what you would expect to pay for a low budget economy car. Current consumer level A/V equipment can meet and often exceed in performance what you would expect to experience at a modern commercial theater.
Backyard theater
In places that have the proper outdoor atmosphere, it is possible for people to set up a home theater in their backyard. Depending on the space available, it may simply be a temporary version with foldable screen, a projector and couple of speakers, or a permanent fixture with huge screens and dedicated audio set up poolside. Due to the outdoor nature, it is quite popular with BBQ parties and pool parties.
Some people have built upon the idea, and constructed mobile drive-in theaters that can play movies in public open spaces. Usually, these require a powerful projector, a laptop or DVD player, outdoor speakers and/or an FM transmitter to broadcast the audio to other car radios.
1950s and 1960s home movies
In the 1950s, home movies became popular in the United States and elsewhere as Kodak 8 mm film (Pathé 9.5 mm in France) and camera and projector equipment became affordable. Projected with a small, portable movie projector onto a portable screen, often without sound, this system became the first practical home theater. They were generally used to show home movies of family travels and celebrations but also doubled as a means of showing private stag films. Dedicated home cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing commercial films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the very wealthy, especially those in the movie industry.
Portable home cinemas improved over time with color film, Kodak Super 8 mm film film cartridges, and monaural sound but remained awkward and somewhat expensive. The rise of home video in the late 1970s almost completely killed the consumer market for 8 mm film cameras and projectors, as VCRs connected to ordinary televisions provided a simpler and more flexible substitute.
1980s home cinema
The development of multi-channel audio systems and laserdisc in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home cinema. The first known home cinema system was installed as a sales tool at Kirshmans furniture store in Metairie, Louisiana in 1974. They built a special sound room which incorporated the earliest quadraphonic audio systems and modified Sony trinitron televisions for projecting the image. Many systems were sold in the New Orleans area in the ensuing years before the first public demonstration of this integration occurred in 1982 at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois. Peter Tribeman of NAD (USA) organized and presented a demonstration made possible by the collaborative effort of NAD, Proton, ADS, Lucasfilm and Dolby Labs who contributed their technologies to demonstrate what a home cinema would "look and sound" like.
Over the course of three days, retailers, manufacturers, and members of the consumer electronics press were exposed to the first "home like" experience of combining a high quality video source with multi-channel surround sound. That one demonstration is credited with being the impetus for developing what is now a multi-billion dollar business.
1990s home cinema
In the late 1990s, the development of DVD, 5-channel audio, and high-quality video projectors that provide a cinema experience at a price that rivals a big-screen HDTVs sparked a new wave of home cinema interest.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 : Gamiong Zone
Star Wars Battlefront II improves upon the blockbuster multiplayer original with new space combat, playable Jedi, and never-before-seen environments straight out of final Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith film.
The game features an all-new single-player experience that takes players through an epic, story-based saga where every action the player takes impacts the battlefront and, ultimately, the fate of the Star Wars galaxy. The sequel features improved flight control, complex space combat that allows players to board enemy capital ships and battle to take over flying command posts or sabotage the ship to be used against the other faction, increased total online player numbers, and memorable multiplayer encounters in 12 new locations.
Optical Mouse & Skype Phone Combo
This Mouse Combo features a VoIP Skype Phone and a fully functional mouse for convenience and for fun. Plug this into your computer, and see how much great a product that this really is, and with no MOQ and fast delivery, this Computer Accessory is a perfect drop shipping item or gift.
When closed, the mouse works like any other with the dial in the middle functioning as a scroll wheel.
The clever stuff happens when a call comes in.
The user can then flip open the mouse to reveal a functional phone, with the mouse-wheel being used to adjust the volume. Pressing the scroll wheel mutes the call.
The built in echo cancellation feature should guarantee decent call sound quality, and finishing the call is as simple as flipping the mouse-phone shut.
A potential problem might arise if you wanted to use the mouse when you’re on a call, but we think you can just switch to speakerphone mode. Or maybe not (the translated press announcement goes on about ‘knitting machines’ so it’s a bit vague).
Being a Sony product, the Sony VN-CX1 looks to please groovy feckers, offering the mouse in 5 trendy colours to match their shade of laptop/shirt/nail varnish.
Manufacturer Specifications
128x64 pixel LCD screen with backlight
Only English supported
Connect with USB to your computer
1000 DPI optical sensor
Crystal clear audio with 16bit 48 KHz sampling rate.
Also compatible with Internercalls, SparVoip, NetAppel, poivY,
VoipDiscount, VoipCheap and WebCallDirect
You have yet to be bitten by the electronic book spiel and by the looks of it, the rest of humanity is hardly on fire to hop aboard on the e-reading train either.
That doesn’t stop some companies making some really interesting breakthroughs though in the e-reader market. This skinny 6.7in reader from Seiko Epson crams in a stunning 1600 x 1200 pixel resolution, which is a big deal for such a small display. The display itself measures just 3mm thick and a single battery has enough juice to display 1400 pages. Here’s some specs:
- Terminal measures 180x120mm (B6 size)
- Thickness: 3mm
- Weight: 57g
- Contrast ratio: 8:1
- Reflectivity: 43%
- Redrawing time: 0.7s
- Battery: one CR1220 button cell battery (1'400 screen redraws)
2.5 Inch Screen Wireless Receiver/MP4 Player + 4 Mini Cameras
Price: US$226.00
Description: Wireless Receiver/MP4 Player + 4 Mini Cameras.
* SKU: Baby-Monitors-938B4X801
* Highlight Features:
* 2.4GHz 4-channel palm wireless mobile AV receiver
* AVI format MPEG-4 wireless AV recorder, with real-time clock display
* MP3, MP4 player, picture browse supportable
* Cabled AV recording and TV function supportable
* 882*228 high-definition 2.5 inch TFT LCD display screen
* Inbuilt with 128MB memory block, MMC, SD card, U disc, mobile HD memory, reading and writing supportable
* OTG and 2.0 high-speed USB interface supportable
* Support the connection with the display so as to play and record programs
* Inbuilt with high-capacity polymer lithium battery, 5 h continuous play time
* Dimension(cm): 10.5*7.3*2.8
* Camera
* Picture sensor: 1/3" OmniVision COMS
* PAL: 628*582 / NTSC: 510*492
* Horizontal rolution: 380Line
* Visual angel: 54º
* Min illumination: 3Lux/F1.2
* Frequency: CH1=2414MHz; CH2=2432MHz; CH3=2450MHz; CH4=2468MHz
* Open distance: 100M
* Power supply: DC8V/200mA
* Operating temperature: -10 ~ +50 deg
* N.W: 210g
Price: US$220.00
Description: Digital Video Camera 8.0M Pixel CCD Digital Video Camera with MP3/MP4, 2.5-inch LCD, Resolution: Fine 8.0 Mega-Pixel Hardware Interpolation. Imaging sensor: 1/2.5” SONY 4.1 Mega Pixels CCD sensor. Internal Memory: 32MB FLASH. Movie: 10x digital zoom.
* SKU: Digital-Camcorders-C8010
* Imaging sensor: 1/2.5” SONY 4.1 Mega Pixels CCD sensor
* Resolution: Fine 8.0 Mega-Pixel Hardware Interpolation
* Internal Memory: 32MB FLASH
* Memory Card Slot: SD Card (MMC compatible) (card not included)
* Sensor sensitivity: AUTO, ISO 100, 200, 400 equivalent, user definable
* Focus Range: 0.2cm ～ ∞
* Still image: Formats: JPEG (EXIF), DCF, DPOF, Direct Print(DPS)
* Resolution: VGA, 2M, 4M, 8M(firmware interpolation)
* Quality: Fine, Normal
* Movie clips: MPEG-4(AVI, ASF, MOV), 640x480 pixels, 30fps / 320x240 pixels 30fps
* Audio: Support music audio famart (MP3)
* Zoom: 3x optical zoom
* Movie: 10x digital zoom
* Camera: 4x digital zoom
* LCD Display: 2.5-inch TFT High resolution (960x240pixels)
* Flash: 1.0~2.0m range
* Auto / off / auto with red eye reduction / forced / slow sync
* White balance: Auto / Sunny/ Cloudy / Tungsten / Fluorescent
* Exposure: -2.0EV ~ +2.0EV (in 0.3 EV STEPS)
* Self-Timer: Off, 2, 5 minutes( user definable)
* TV Out Format: NTSC / PAL
* Connector: USB 2.0
* Shutter: Mechanical and electronic shutter 2-1/1000s
* Setup Language: English /Japanese /Chinese- Simplified/ Chinese-Traditional /Korean
* Power Source: One 1700mAh Rechargeable Li-ion battery
* Operation OS: Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP
* Dimension: 130(W) x 57(L) x 70(D)mm
* Accessories
* USB cable & TV-Out Cable
* CD-ROM driver disc
* Li-ion battery x 1
* Shoulder Strap
* Camera Pouch
* User"s Manual
* Power cord
* Earphones
* Battery charger
Need for Speed Underground 2 tries to inject a story into your career mode using static-image cutscenes that pop up before some races. The effect is similar to what the Max Payne series does with its noninteractive sequences, though that game pulls it off much better than Need for Speed Underground 2 does. Dopey story short, you're sent off to a new town after getting ambushed by a rival racing crew, and you'll have to start from scratch with one car and a handful of races to get you going.
The biggest change made by this year's game is that the action now takes place in one large city. You're given free rein to drive around wherever you want, and you'll have to drive to races to drive in them. You'll also have to drive to different parts shops to customize your ride--in fact, you'll have to find most of the game's shops by cruising around the city, looking for the right type of colored lights. The game gives you an onscreen map, but shops don't show up until you've found them, and some races don't actually appear on the map, either.
On paper, this whole open-city thing sounds like an interesting idea. Someone probably sat down and said, "Well, everyone likes Grand Theft Auto, and it has an open city, so our game has to have an open city as well. In fact, let's even make it so that different sections of the city are locked away until you progress to a certain point in the career mode." In practice, driving around the city is a real drag that keeps you out of the action longer than you'd like. The game also rarely takes advantage of the open city for racing purposes, staging a majority of its events on preset tracks, rather than attempting to go for a Midnight Club-like "get there however you can" feel. There's a menu in the garage that lets you jump to a handful of different events, but most races don't show up here, and none of the shops do, either, making it completely useless.
You'll start out in some pretty slow cars, so the racing isn't very exciting until you earn enough for a full set of upgraded performance parts. But once you've done so, the racing is fun and the cars handle well. The cars are fast, and things like turning, powersliding, and proper corning technique are easy to pick-up. Like in last year's game, there are a handful of different race types: Circuit races are long lap-based events, sprints take you from point A to point B on a set course, drag racing lets you live your life a quarter mile at a time, and drift races rank you based on how squirrelly you can get on the track. New in this year's game are the street X races, which are essentially regular races that take place on drift tracks. Outrun races take place in various parts of the city--you roll up behind another racer, tap a button, and then try to pass and outrun him or her. You'll also encounter a few races against the clock, in which you'll have to get from one point in the city to another before a photographer leaves the area. Make it, and you'll get to put your car on the cover of one of the game's magazines or DVDs for extra cash. The big new race type is the "underground racing league." These races are the sort of mysterious events where you'll see most of the game's cutscenes. They mostly involve some knucklehead breaking the lock on a race track and then swinging open a gate so your street-racing posse can race on a "real" track, though you'll also bust into airports and such, too. These races are essentially circuit races with racetrack scenery instead of cityscape scenery.
Though there are three different difficulty settings for the career mode, none of them put up a particularly good fight. As a result, most of the races simply boil down to getting in front of the opposition and then doing what you can to not make a mistake. Between nitrous boosts and drafting, gaining the lead isn't very difficult, and the game doesn't seem to employ any heavy rubber-band AI routines to retake the lead from you, so you can usually stay in front without any trouble at all. When you consider that it will take you about a minute to get in front, and that some of the circuit races can last six minutes or more, this means that a great deal of your race time is spent just cruising along, dodging traffic and not paying any attention to the other cars unless you screw up and get into a wreck. In the event that you do crash, regaining the lead usually isn't too tough, especially if you've purchased a nitrous-oxide upgrade, which shamelessly lifts concepts from the Burnout series, translating powerslides and near-misses into extra boost for your tank. The opposing cars will slow down quite a bit if they take a big lead, making them very easy to beat.
Need for Speed Underground 2's crashes are laughably weak. While high-speed collisions with other cars trigger a slow-motion, cinematic shot of the crash, the game doesn't model any damage at all. It's like you're watching two plastic car models bump up against each other, accompanied by the sounds of an actual car crash. While it practically goes without saying that modeling damage in a game with licensed cars is still a tricky proposition, that fact doesn't make these wrecks look any better. Fortunately, the game's car customization features somewhat make up for this lack of visual detail.
A big part of Need for Speed Underground 2 is the ability to customize your car's performance and appearance. On the performance side, you'll purchase parts that have been organized into stages, which gives the game an easy way to lock the better parts away from you until you're ready for them. While the parts fall into different categories, like engines, brakes, tires, and ECUs, the only thing you really need to know is that you need them all to win races. The visual enhancements are a little more involved and give you a little more leeway, but ultimately you'll need to trick out the look of your cars to proceed, as having a flashy car is the only way to get noticed and end up on magazine and video covers. Each set of parts has a number associated with it, and these contribute to a meter that sums up how many pieces of flair you've bolted to your whip. Spoilers, neons, vinyls, roof scoops, spinner rims, custom gauges, and even speakers for your trunk are just some of the available modifications, and they all help your car stand out. This is especially handy online, where you can show off your stuff to the world.
Need for Speed Underground 2 is online on the PS2, PC, and new to this year's game, the Xbox. The online mode is pretty straightforward, letting you set up races in any of the game's race types, and it also features a free run mode, in case you just want to cruise around the city with other players. As you'd expect, the online mode works well over an average broadband connection, even with a full six players in a race. The game also does a good job with statistics and rankings, which can help you find evenly matched races. You can also limit races to cars of a certain rank, or just open it up and let people take their career-mode vehicles onto the track. The GameCube lacks online play, and to add insult to injury, the already-shaky frame rate gets a little shakier when you play in the GameCube version's splitscreen mode.
While Need for Speed Underground 2 is attempting to emulate an illegal scene of "underground" street racing, the game really tries to drive its product placement down your throat. Things like billboards on the sides of the roads aren't too bad (though with an ad for a financial service popping up on some signs, you have to wonder who EA's target audience for this game is), and the occasional real-life fast-food joint does its part to make the city feel a little more realistic. But basing the game's whole onscreen display around the logo for a cellular phone service provider crosses the line. Sorry, but there's nothing "underground" about forcing a bunch of non-car-related corporate logos on people. The game's hokey dialogue also adds to the counterfeit feel. The overzealous script is constantly throwing poorly placed slang at you, having Brooke Burke use her teleprompter voice to tell you that "you've got to be racing tight," constantly calling you "dawg," or being very careful to always call your money "bank."
Graphically, Need for Speed Underground 2 looks good, unless you're talking about the GameCube version, which has a wildly unstable frame rate that really gets in the way of the action in some races. But in the other three versions, the car models are sharp and the city looks fine. For the most part, the game keeps running at a smooth frame rate, even in the later stages, when you're moving much, much faster. But at the same time, it isn't quite the effects show that the last game was. You still get nice little effects, like the shaky camera used to show drag races, but the blur effects are much less pronounced now, which is too bad, because they were really well implemented last year. Now, you get blurring at very high speeds or when you kick in the nitrous oxide, but more would have been better. Like last year, the PS2 version is the heaviest on the effects, though the overall look is still a little subdued. For the most part, the different versions of the game look very similar, with the Xbox and PC versions allowing for slightly higher visual fidelity than the PlayStation 2 version, and the GameCube version bringing up the rear, but ultimately the only major differences come down to the GameCube version not having online support, the Xbox version's analog triggers being the best control scheme for the game, and the PC version not playing very well with the keyboard controls (you'll need at least an analog gamepad if you're planning on playing this game on the PC).
The game's sound rises above its lame dialogue and poorly delivered speech. The engine sounds aren't quite as deep or as throaty as you might like, but the game is great at changing the sound of your car as you purchase upgrades. Also, things like the whoosh of wind when you fly under an overpass really help sell the game's sense of speed.
Musically, Need for Speed Underground 2 is all over the place. The schizophrenic sounds start with the game's lead song, which is a remix of The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" done by prominent rap producer Fredwreck. Snoop Dogg joins Jim Morrison on the vocals here. For some people that will be blasphemy, but the remix sounds pretty good. The part that ruins it, though, is that Snoop is rapping about the racing--Need for Speed is specifically mentioned in the lyrics. Again, if you're going to have a game with "underground" right in the name, showcasing a song that does double duty as both an ad for the game and as an extreme case of exploitation of an old favorite probably isn't the best idea. Other songs on the soundtrack include "Lean Back" by the Terror Squad, "LAX" by Xzibit, and tracks from Sly Boogy, Felix Da Housecat, Paul Van Dyk, Cirrus, Ministry, Queens of the Stone Age, Mudvayne, Helmet, and more. This is a textbook case of a soundtrack that tries to appeal to too many different audiences and ends up not including enough of any one style to please anyone. Xbox users won't be able to fix the problem, either, as the game doesn't contain custom-soundtrack support. However, you'll be able to at least turn off tracks that you don't like.
