The Writers Guild of America strike is officially on, thanks largely to disputes over payments from DVD sales and content delivered through the intertubes. [NYT]
Microsoft and ESPN have struck a deal to sell NCAA basketball and football games, the X Games and shows like Madden Nation in the Live Marketplace. Standard-def NCAA games are $3; HD versions run $4.50, and they go live “within 48 hours” of the end of the game. ESPN content is $2 for standard def and $3 for HD. [Yahoo!/AP]
Hong Kong’s Amex Digital has just released a GPS-enabled cellphone. The handset sports the common candy bar form factor, measures 114mm x 49.8 mm x 17mm, houses dual speakers, annoys you with a 2.5mm phone jack, has a 1.3MP camera, supports miniSD expansion and has a 2.4 QVGA TFT LCD.
At long last, you can go order the eagerly awaited HP MediaSmart Server, running Microsoft’s lovable Windows Home Server software. It’s up at Amazon, Best Buy, CompUSA, and Circuit City, though Amazon is the only one offering any kind of discount from the $750 (1TB) or $600 (500GB) list prices. We’ll give you more on the MediaSmart server when we get a unit, and see how it differs from the Norco DS-520 system-builder setup Chen reviewed last week. In the meantime, here are the other big news items:
A survey of business smartphone users has declared those using BlackBerries to be the most satisfied. Palm and Samsung offerings both drew in second place. The main six areas that were surveyed included OS, physical design, ease of operation, audio quality, battery life and utility feature set. RIM excelled in areas concerning battery life and OS efficiency. The Palm Treo’s keyboard managed to bag some plus points, as did general voice quality of devices running the Windows Mobile OS. The survey went on to predict the future of the smartphone market:
Official reports from Sharp indicate the company is set to invest heavily in thin film silicon solar cells in the coming year. The production shall take place at Sharp’s Nara Prefecture plant in Japan. Sharp currently stands as the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer, but is not meeting the growing demand.
Form, function, or a little of both? Here’s a sleek keyboard that keeps plenty of both in mind. A diamond cut dark brushed aluminium plate forms the basis, and while the keyboard claims some ergonomic features (flat key caps, extended wrist rest, three-height stand) it looks fairly stock standard compared to true ergonomic boards.
Some nice features you find here are the two USB 2.0 ports, plus an audio chip for auto-transfer of audio signal via USB, so you can plug headsets straight into the keyboard. I had no idea audio I/O over USB was a problem on a keyboard port, so if that is true then this is a good point.
I get the feeling that, as sexy as this keyboard is looking, as soon as keyboards start delivering this sort of vibe, Apple will be just about to announce a major rethink of the Mac Pro chassis and the whole world will be going gaga over their next industrial design metaphor. They went flat plastics to translucent coloured plastics to brushed metals… what’s next? Hot anodised metal colours? ‘Retro’ beige boxes or wood cabinets? Whatever the case, right now this does look pretty smart and it is on the market at $89. [Actiontec, the local outlet]
Road gamers who have the scratch they need to buy an insane SLI / PhysX enabled notebook might not be all that happy with the sound performance they have been getting out of on board speakers – there’s only so much air small speakers can push. So the arrival of these cans from Creative could be music gunshots and shell casings to the ears.
The Creative Aurvana X-Fi Noise-Cancelling headphones will do what any headphones do, but now you also get the X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio technology in the mix too. Fancy name, but what’s it mean? There’s an intelligent ‘Crystallizer’ engine to replace missing areas of compressed audio, plus the critical ‘CMSS-3D’ surround speaker system every hardcore freako gamer demands.
A nice touch is the on-board controls for volume as well as independent on-off for noise cancellation, the Crystallizer engine, and the CMSS-3D. Two AAAs will run the headphones for nine hours, but they’ll run without any of the special features if the batteries are dead. Every set comes with an iPhone-compatible extension cable (though it sounds like it extends your cable to 3m – not very ‘on the road’ friendly?), plus airline adapter. $399.95 is the Xtreme price point. Specs after the jump.
Looking to grab a rare pokémon and Chreish Ball for that ever expanding Pokédex of yours? As part of promos for the new Pokémon movie (oh, lord, another one befouls our cinemas) which stars the “mysterious” Manaphy, from 7-13 November you can take your DS into any JB Hi-Fi to grab the download for nix. All you need is a DS, a copy of Diamond or Pearl, and a Pokédex. If you’re having problems, we’ve been told staff will be able to assist. Or you can make absolutely sure of what you’re meant to do by checking this page at Nintendo’s site.
For the details freaks, Manaphy has an ‘exclusive’ move called Heart Swap, which switches healing effects with other Pokémon. What this means in practice beats me — maybe an ‘in the know’ reader will share some thoughts. I figure most people who play Pokémon get seriously hooked, so if that means you, make sure you use this one week window to catch another for your collection. You don’t want this gap in your Pokédex, do you? DO YOU? [The official Manaphy website]
