multimedia
Amazon.com has the Blue Raven MediaMate 7040 Portable Multimedia Player 40GB for $339.99, after $230.12 savings.
Promising, but far from perfect
vPost's free-to-try application aggregates your multimedia into one interface and makes it easier to share and post online. You'll be able to attach up to five separate media files--up to 1.5MB--including audio and video clips, photos, text notes, and files stored on your internal memory or SD card. That makes it a contender for serious sharing and social networking junkies, especially with convenience tools like the Favorite button, which lets you automatically route a multimedia bundle in a click to a preset e-mail address (including the CC and BCC lines, you can squeeze out three). There's … Read more
vPost: Send multimedia bundles from BlackBerry
vPost, which launched this week for BlackBerrys running version 4.5 and 4.6*, is a free-to-try application that aggregates your multimedia into one interface and makes it easier to share and post online. (*A version for the Storm is due later this month.) You'll be able to attach up to five separate media files--up to 1.5 MB--including audio and video clips, photos, text notes, and files stored on your internal memory or SD card.
At a lifetime purchase of about $10, the application seems a bit steep for something that can be accomplished, albeit slower, using the … Read more
Innovative USB-recording interfaces at NAMM
I didn't imagine there was much room for innovation in USB-recording interfaces, but at the 2009 NAMM show--the annual convention for buyers and sellers of professional music gear (read: music gearhead paradise)--a couple of companies introduced some new takes on this very prosaic, but necessary, piece of gear.
For the uninitiated: A recording interface is the bridge between your musical output and your computer. You attach it to the computer, then plug your instrument (or multiple instruments, or output of a mixing board) into it, and voila. There are countless types of interfaces at all levels of price and complexity, but for home musicians who just want a quick way to get their musical ideas down on their hard drives, an inexpensive USB interface is the way to go. M-Audio is probably the best-known brand at this level, although Tascam and Edirol (part of Roland) are somewhat common as well.
Gateway releases new MD series notebooks
Leveraging the style of Gateway's MC Series notebook PC, the new Gateway MD Series notebook line delivers cinematic mobile entertainment and mainstream performance to consumers on a budget. The MD Series sports a 16:9 aspect ratio and high-definition 15.6-inch wide-screen display at a 1,366x768-pixel resolution. With its HDMI 1.3 media connection, it lets consumers connect to a display device for enjoying high-definition video and audio through a single cable. The MD series has the option for dedicated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics with DirectX 10 support and 512MB of dedicated memory.
In addition, the … Read more
PCNation has the BUFFALO - LINKSTATION LIVE NAS 1TB SATA WEB ACCESS MULTIMEDIA STOR SERVER for $214.40, after $215.59 savings, plus free shipping.
Nikon debuts hands-free media center for your head
Has Nikon gone into the portable entertainment space? Come December 12, the camera manufacturer will be unleashing two multimedia playback headsets that mark its entry into a brand new genre.
The Media Port UP 300 (4GB) and the higher-performance 300X (8GB) work in tandem with Apple iPods and come with built-in Wi-Fi capability. Demo corners have apparently been set up in Tokyo for passersby to try out the headgear, which comes with a built-in screen for video playback/streaming and Web surfing. If this smacks of the Apple-friendly Myvu Crystal video playback glasses, you're not far wrong.
Despite this … Read more
Amazon.com has the iAUDIO I7-16RD 16GB Portable Multimedia Player for $139.46, after $20.53 savings.
ScreenPlay TV Link takes out the PC middleman
For those of you who want to play your multimedia files on a TV without the need to hook up it up to a PC, Iomega has a solution for you.
The ScreenPlay TV Link is a small Post-it-sized box that connects to your TV via a composite, component, or HDMI connection. You can plug any USB (FAT32 or NTFS format) drive into the device and access all of its content through an easy-to-use on-screen interface.
We were also very impressed with the various file types the TV Link is compatible with. On the audio side, you can play MP3, … Read more