Samsung YP-K5: MPFreedom to share
MP3 PlayersSamsung unveiled a flash-based MP3 player, which it reckons could take the iPod nano crown, at Berlin's IFA 2006 trade show. The YP-K5 boasts a gang of new features, most notably a set of integrated speakers. These speakers slide away from the main body of the unit via a slick hinge mechanism, allowing the YP-K5 to be used as a mini ghetto-blaster -- great news for those who like inflicting their music on innocent commuters.
When you're not annoying passengers from the back of the bus, you can use it in a hotel room, or when sunbathing on the beach. The speakers don't sound amazing, but they'll be loud enough if you're somewhere reasonably quiet and are better than the integrated speakers on most mobile phones. Thankfully Samsung also includes bass-enhancing in-ear headphones to let people enjoy music in the privacy of their own head.
The YP-K5 has an FM receiver, so will work as a radio as well as an MP3 player. It has a touch-sensitive four-way control pad for scrolling through files, which gives it the look and feel of the LG Chocolate K800 phone. It's nowhere near as cool or intuitive as the iPod scroll wheel, though it's surprisingly accurate and responsive once you get the hang of it -- which takes just a couple of minutes. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: Will chumby become the ultimate bed mate?
GadgetsIf you've never wanted to cuddle your computer, chumby probably isn't for you. At its most basic it's a bedside radio, but it's also an interesting exercise in community development. Chumby comes with a screen hooked up to a circuit board, runs a cut-down version of the open-source operating system Linux and links to the outside world through Wi-Fi. And there's not much else besides -- no keyboard, no disk drive, no expansion slots.
The whole thing is based around an open-source community development model. You can't even buy one yet, but if you can persuade chumby's keepers that you've got some good ideas, they may send you one. You can be a programmer, a hardware hacker or someone who likes to design cases -- they want to see it sprout a thousand different covers. Cover it in glue and glitter, Chumby Industries implores on its Web site. Open it up and reprogram its electronic guts. Let's see what we can do. Continue reading...
Photos from IFA 2006: Toshiba demos its HD DVD players
Home CinemaThe centrepiece of Toshiba's stand at IFA 2006 was the area promoting HD DVD. Toshiba announced the European launch dates and pricing for two players, the mainstream HD-E1 and the more upmarket HD-XE1. Visitors to the show were able to see the players in action, compare them to standard DVD players and find out about the first batch of titles. Continue reading...
IFA 2006: Toshiba announces HD DVD players for Europe
Home CinemaToshiba has announced launch dates and prices for the first stand-alone HD DVD players to reach Europe --Â the HD-E1 and HD-XE1. This follows the US launch of the HD-A1 and HD-XA1 players back in April.
Speaking at a well-attended press conference at IFA 2006 in Berlin, Olivier Van Wynendaele, Toshiba Europe's deputy general manager for HD DVD products, described the HD-E1 and HD-XE1 as second-generation players. They are notably slimmer than the US players, which have been criticised for their boxy design. The HD-E1 will be available from mid-November, for around 470, while the higher-end HD-XE1 will go on sale in December and cost around 700. Toshiba is expecting to send 10,000 units to Europe in the initial shipment, with more to follow as required.
Both of the European players can output from HD DVD discs at 720p or 1080i, and the more expensive HD-XE1 can also output in 1080p. They are backwards-compatible with existing DVDs and CDs and will upscale DVD output to 720p or 1080i, and to 1080p in the case of the HD-XE1. Since the DVD Forum is still making up its mind about region coding for HD DVD, the first two players will be region-free. Continue reading...
IFA 2006: HDTV, Blu-ray vs HD DVD and all the new gadgets
TelevisionsCrave has just come back from IFA 2006, the Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin, Germany. 'Funkausstellung' means 'radio show', but IFA has moved on since the first event in 1924, when 180,000 visitors examined the first valve radio receivers. Today IFA is a consumer electronics show covering six main areas: television and entertainment, personal computer and games, sound and car media, digital imaging and digital music, personal communication, and satellite, networks and cable. It claims to be the world's largest consumer electronics trade show, although the International CES in Las Vegas might dispute that claim (CES wins on exhibitors, hosting 2,700 to IFA's 1,200, but IFA gets 245,000 visitors to CES's 150,000).
The biggest story at this year's IFA was the continuing evolution of hi-def television (HDTV). With 70 per cent of LCD televisions sold in Europe now carrying the HD Ready logo, and the total number of HD Ready sets in Europe expected to reach 9 million by the end of 2006, manufacturers are now promoting bigger screens, televisions capable of 'Full HD' (ie, with a panel resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels) and sets that support 1080p. Competition between Blu-ray and HD DVD has also moved to the next phase, with players for both formats due to go on sale in Europe before Christmas.
Panasonic DMP-BD10: Blu-ray delight
Home CinemaPanasonic chose the Abbey Road Studios -- the spiritual home of The Beatles -- as the venue for the press launch of its first Blu-ray DVD player. Crave followed in the footsteps of the Fab Four across the famous zebra crossing and into the Abbey Road Studios, where we were greeted by several Japanese execs who proudly unveiled the DMP-BD10 Blu-ray player.
Panasonic showed us several film and music clips and we were incredibly impressed by the level of detail in the images and the sound quality. The DMP-BD10 uses P4HD picture-processing technology, which Panasonic claims enables the device to take full advantage of Blu-ray's high-capacity format by sampling more than 15 billion pixels per second. Continue reading...
Win one of two portable DAB radios
Digital RadioIf, like us, you spend your mornings squished against moist commuters in a metal tin, you're unlikely to be devouring great literary works on the way to work. We haven't yet learned how to read a book that is flush against our face, but we have learned the joys of DAB radio.
If you've not yet gone in the DAB direction, today could be your lucky day, as CNET.co.uk is giving away two PURE Digital PocketDAB 1500 radios. The PocketDAB 1500 is a great option for stressed commuters -- it's around the same size as a mobile phone, so it will fit into your trouser or jacket pocket, and lets you store up to 20 preset DAB and FM channels for easy tuning. Even if you're on a trip from Lands End to John O'Groats, the PocketDAB 1500 will keep going longer than you, with a battery life of around 24 hours.
Sony Ericsson Z610i: Mirror, mirror on the phone
Mobile PhonesLike tech magpies, the Crave team simply can't get enough of shiny gadgets. Fortunately, mobile phone manufacturers seem to have the same affliction and the latest gadget to pop up on our shiny radar is the Sony Ericsson Z610i.
The Z610i is a 3G clamshell phone that has a mirrored section on the front, with a hidden OLED display underneath. A floating text effect is created (similar to the display on the Sony NW-E003 MP3 player), which looks cool and uses up less power than a colour screen.
Completely smooth front sections are a popular design feature at the moment, with similar designs on Motorola's Krzr and LG's KG81 (aka Son80). However, while they look great, these surfaces tend to attract fingerprints, so be prepared to carry a cloth around with you to wipe it down. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: Phoning Private Ryan
Mobile PhonesThey weren't the first and they won't be the biggest, but Ryanair has made a big splash by announcing it will support in-flight mobile phones from next year, regulators permitting. Air France, BMI and the Portuguese airline TAP have also said they'll be doing this, but they lack the instinct for publicity that Michael O'Leary was born with.
He's also got an unmatched instinct for profit. Precise details have yet to be announced, but I confidently predict that calls will cost tuppence if you book them online a month in advance to someone you only vaguely know, 20 a minute otherwise. Words over two syllables long will cost extra, no sentence will be longer than five words total, and if you call someone in Paris you'll get put through to Normandy. Oh, and all the switchboard operators will only speak Basque. Continue reading...
Logitech MX Revolution: Hot new wheels
AccessoriesThe lovely chaps at Logitech recently sent us their new MX Revolution cordless laser mouse and we've been getting to grips with it. It's a sleek black son of a gun, with two wheels and its own charging dock -- extravagant for a mouse, dontcha think?
Well, no, actually. It might look like the sort of car a Premiership footballer would drive, but its new features are innovative and helpful. The most striking is the scroll wheel in the thumb position. This is a rubber-gripped toggle that works similar to Windows' Alt+Tab -- if you touch the toggle it opens a small window displaying all the applications and windows you have open, you can flip between documents by moving the toggle. To select a particular application you simply press in the toggle, or click the mouse button. Continue reading...
Canon Selphy ES1: Suitcase meets toaster meets printer
PrintersYou carry the Selphy ES1 like a suitcase, the cable retracts like the power cable on your vacuum cleaner, the cartridge slots into the side like a tape going into a VCR (remember them?) and the output pops out the top like toast from your toaster. And yet it isn't a suitcase, vacuum cleaner, VCR or toaster, it's a compact photo printer. The ES1 is designed to offer maximum convenience in a minimum amount of space, but the household appliances metaphor doesn't quite go far enough: it won't make you a nice cup of tea while you wait for your print to emerge.
The ES1 uses new all-in-one cartridges that contain both ink and photo-size paper. It's a dye-sublimation printer, so ink use can be accurately predicted -- if you buy a 50-sheet pack, you get the right amount of ink for 50 photos. Media comes in four sizes, ranging from credit card size (86x54mm) to postcard size (148x100mm) and prints have a glossy, water-resistant finish.
To achieve the 199x133mm footprint, Canon has had to develop a novel paper-feed mechanism that pushes the paper out the bottom of the printer, pirouettes it through 90 degrees and then sucks it back in. The paper passes up and down through the printer as each layer of colour is applied, then emerges at the top. It's all mildly entertaining, at least for the first two or three prints, but after that you'll want to retreat to the kitchen for the aforementioned cuppa. Continue reading...
Motorola Rokr E2: It's out... kind of
Mobile PhonesCrave is still recovering from the disappointment of the Motorola Rokr E1. The much-hyped phone, which was launched last year, didn't live up to its promise of making mobile phones more music-friendly -- particularly as the pre-installed iTunes software only held 100 songs. Its design was also disappointing and didn't meet Motorola or Apple's usual standards.
Because of this, we haven't been holding our breath for the upgraded version -- the Motorola Rokr E2. When the E2 was announced earlier this year, we weren't sure if it was going to overcome its predecessor's problems. After waiting over six months for any news on the E2, it looks like Motorola finally launched it yesterday. But it did so very quietly and only in Malaysia and Singapore, it seems.
Unlike its predecessor, the E2 uses Motorola's proprietary MP3 player, rather than iTunes. The phone runs on Linux, features the Opera Web browser, a 1.3-megapixel camera and an expandable microSD (aka TransFlash) slot. It also has an FM radio and a 3.5mm port so you can use you own headphones. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: Philips goes off the wall
TelevisionsPhilips is pleased with itself. It's been ten years since it displayed the first prototype 42-inch gas plasma TV, which was just 100mm thick so could be "hung on the wall like a painting". At last, say our Dutch friends, the TV has been liberated from the corner of the room.
Reality was never Philips' strong point. It seems to have missed the point that flat TVs -- although successful -- are still being snuggled away in the corner of the room. A TV is nothing like a painting: paintings don't move, they increase in value the older they get, and they don't stop working two years after you buy them. Once you've hung your plasma TV on the wall and watched it for ten minutes, it's worth a hundred quid less, you've got neck ache and the wallpaper behind has started to peel from the heat. Then there's the cabling -- it's always missing in publicity shots, but is liable to hang across your living room like the lighting at a Marrakesh souk. Continue reading...
Crave Podcast 11: Kids with phones 
CNET UK PodcastIt's a funny old world where children who can barely cross the road expect to have their own mobile phones. Rory Reid, Chris Stevens, Andrew Lim and Rupert Goodwins debate the merits of mobile youth in the latest Crave podcast.
Along they way they also examine strange mysteries such as Paris Hilton's new found business role on YouTube.com, consider the merits of the robot hose for firefighters and try to get their heads around a science project to develop unusually happy mice.
For all this and more download the latest episode from the Crave podcast home page. -MP
Etymotic ER6i iPod headphones: straight to your brain
AccessoriesIf you own an iPod or indeed any MP3 player then having the right headphones is essential to getting the best sound quality. Don't make the mistake of thinking that once you've spent over 150 on an MP3 player, any old pair of headphones will suffice.
Indeed, there are headphone manufacturers who are so aware of this problem that they're designing specific headphones for specific MP3 players. The Etymotic ER-6i headphones are designed for use with an iPod and produce fantastic audio quality even in loud environments. This is achieved by using sound-isolating technology and flanged ear tips (pictured) that almost touch your brain. You can use foam tips instead if the flanged ones scare you.
Quite why you'd want headphones that almost touch your brain only becomes evident when you push the flanged tips into your ears. They seal up your ear canal like a cork and the sound hits you like a herd of buffalo. The bass sounds like bass, not like a flea punching the inside of your ear, and the treble is clear and doesn't remind you of a dying cat. Continue reading...
Canon HV10: Smaller than your average hi-def camcorder
Hardly a week goes by without someone announcing the world's smallest, lightest, thinnest consumer tech product. Last week we brought you the slimmest slider phone, the Samsung D900, and this week we present the smallest HDV 1080i camcorder -- the Canon HV10 (pictured right; click to enlarge). Measuring 56 by 104 by 106mm and weighing 440g, it's much smaller than your head, but probably heavier than your heart.
The HV10 is aimed at consumers who want to record hi-def home movies that'll look impressive on an HD Ready LCD or plasma television. It's a compact, single-chip device that captures widescreen 1080i video and records it onto standard MiniDV tapes. It uses a CMOS sensor, as seen in Canon's digital SLRs, and has a 10x optical zoom lens with optical image stabilisation. A new Instant AF autofocus system aims to speed up focusing, since the greater resolution of high definition makes any errors more obvious. Continue reading...
Nokia N73: Is this the best N-series phone so far?
Mobile PhonesEarlier this year Nokia launched a bunch of new N-series phones, or 'multimedia computers' as Nokia would like them to be called. One of those multimedia computers was the N73, which has recently been commercially launched in the UK. We're not altogether sure what Nokia is trying to do with the N series -- we miss the days when Nokia focused on easy-to-use, simple handsets.
However, it seems the N73 isn't as scary as we thought and combines cutting-edge features with a compact design. The handset measures a pocket-friendly 49mm wide, 110mm tall and 19mm thick and weighs 116g. It has a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, a large and bright colour screen, 3G connectivity, a VGA camera on the front for video calls, Bluetooth, infrared, an FM radio, WAP browser and an expandable miniSD slot. It also has built-in stereo speakers so that you can listen to your MP3s in the park or annoy commuters on your journey home. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: August in technology stinks
GadgetsIt doesn't matter what sort of science-fiction you like, you can't out-weird the real world when it's in one of its moods. This week, the solar system has been invaded by three dwarf planets -- one named after a cartoon dog, another after a warrior princess -- while Logitech has launched a mutant mouse with seven controls and -- get this -- a motor to spin the scroll wheel for you. Decadent? If the Romans had IT, that's the sort of thing they'd be fiddling with even as the barbarians lobbed rockets across the Tiber. Watch out, is all I'm saying.
Or take nose recorders. "What's the silliest gadget you can imagine?" asked editor Michael Parsons, as we despondently scanned a news agenda that seemed to centre on pink PlayStations. "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Ear plugs that transform the voice of everyone you talk to into a variety of farmyard animal sounds? A nose recorder that senses what you smell, records it on a hard disk and plays it back to you later?"
Canon EOS 400D: Another SLR hits the 10-megapixel mark
With Sony launching the 10.2-megapixel Alpha DSLR-A100 and Nikon announcing the 10.2-megapixel D80, Canon's 8.0-megapixel EOS 350D and 8.2-megapixel EOS 30D were starting to look underendowed, at least in the resolution department. Not any longer, though -- Canon has gatecrashed the double-digit party with the EOS 400D, a 10.1-megapixel dSLR that looks set to take over from the best-selling 350D.
The 400D is similar in size and weight to the 350D, but has been significantly upgraded in other areas. As well as the increased resolution, it offers a larger 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD and more autofocus points. It also has the Picture Styles first seen on the EOS 5D, making it easy to adjust the sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour to suit your subject.
The most significant new feature is the EOS Integrated Cleaning System, which makes its debut in the EOS 400D. Like similar systems seen in Olympus' E-series SLRs and Sony's Alpha DSLR-A100, it's designed to deal with the problem of dust getting on to the sensor when you change the lens, resulting in grey blobs on your photographs where the light can't get through. Canon's system aims to reduce the amount of dust entering the camera, repel dust particles using an anti-static coating on the sensor and then remove any dust that does settle by vibrating the sensor when you turn the camera on (if you're in a hurry to take a picture, pressing the shutter button cancels the cleaning cycle). There's also a software-based Dust Delete System which can be used to map the locations of any stubborn particles and automatically remove them from your photos when you load them into Canon's Digital Photo Professional application. The Integrated Cleaning System is untested as yet, but if it works, it'll be a significant step forwards for Canon. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: How to punish a boy spammer
MP3 PlayersBombarding your ex-employer with five million spam emails sounds like a criminal offence worthy of harsh punishment -- the electric chair perhaps? But yesterday the 'Boy Spammer' David Lennon, who was 16 when he electronically snubbed his former bosses, has been told by a judge that as punishment for his crimes he can't leave his house between the hours of 12.30am and 7am on weekdays, and between 12.30am and 10am on weekends, for two months.
Call us communists, but isn't little Lennon most likely keeping these hours anyway, honing his reflexes in Doom 3, or, Zeus forbid, Grand Theft Auto?
Lennon's punishment sounds more like a re-enforcement of the existing social habits of the geek-gamer demographic than a curtailing of his freedoms. How many kids would actually find this curfew changed their daily behaviour? With the streets awash with axe murderers, terrorists and paedophiles, staying in and playing games seems like a quite reasonable response. Given that our kids are growing up as stay-in gamers, the Boy Spammer's curfew is no more punishment for the blighter than sentencing a boy caught speeding to two months on a race track. Continue reading...
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