Good news for music download site, Digirama, which has just added Universal to its roster of labels. This makes Digirama the first New Zealand site to offer music from all four majors: Sony BMG, EMI, Warners and Universal. Nice work, chaps.

We've always been fans of the site, as anyone who read >>FFWD's excellent though now slightly out of date feature in our October/November 2005 issue will know (limited copies still available for just $7.95!).

Our only query is why it has taken the labels so long to jump on board. Digirama's been open for business 17 months but when it started the site's only major label was Warners. Given the endless bleating from the record industry about illegal downloading, surely Digirama offered an option that would earn the music companies some money without too much effort on their part - presumably the infrastructure was already in place internationally, or Apple's iTunes Music Strores couldn't operate.

And speaking of iTunes, does Digirama's deal mean Apple will actually show us some love and open a store here? Don't hold your breath.

But then, thanks to Digirama, we don't need iTunes now, do we?

(editor's note: Digirama transfers files in the protected WMA codec, which is not compatible with iPods. However, all you have to do is burn your songs to disc and then import that disc into your iTunes program. Voila!)

More: www.digirama.co.nz

Posted by at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

IDG's Martyn Williams spied a digital photo frame that can receive images from camera phones at last week's SEK 2006 in Seoul.

The frame, developed by Samsung, has a 7-inch widescreen LCD with 800 x 480 pixels resolution. There's also 32MB of built-in memory and a card slot for SD, MMC or CompactFlash cards.

The device looks like other digital photo frames developed in the past few years, but a glance at its back reveals an Ethernet socket and that gives a clue to its network ability.

The network connection allows the frame to maintain a link with a server through which images can be pushed to the device. Two of South Korea's cellphone operators, SK Telecom and KTF, are offering the service to subscribers.

After taking a picture users send it via MMS from a handset to a telephone number associated with the service. Because users are required to register their photo frame and phone number in advance, the server can match the pictures to the correct frame and push the images. In a demonstration at SEK 2006 it took a few tens of seconds for the image to appear on the photo frame after being sent.

Both SK Telecom and KTF also operate portals through which images can be deleted or shared with friends who have similar frames. Anyone for a game of pissed up pictures in the pub smackdown?

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Shy, retiring software behemoth, Microsoft, looks set to branch out in new directions as it attempts to suck up every last cent of your discretionary dollar.

Bill's billions have now been aimed at the Apple-dominated portable music and video market, with Microsoft preparing to launch its own music download service, says the Sydney Morning Herald. According to the story (and a fair swag of unnamed sources "familiar with the plans" - hate that phrase), the company will also be releasing its own range of MP3/video players, as it seeks to tempt customers away from the market-leading iPod.

Although this seems a change in Microsoft's direction, it's really all of a piece with the company's push into converged consumer technology with such products as Windows Media Centre and the entertainment-centre-in-a-box marketing of the Xbox 360. And, of course, Microsoft already has a music software platform in the shape of its much-derided-but-actually-pretty-good Windows Media Player.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to build its own digital player, so we're not expecting that much from the first few products. We'll be very interested, however, to see how Microsoft gets on with its own version of the iTunes Music Store, particularly if it decides to open in NZ. Without the competition of iTunes (which Apple still can't be stuffed opening here), Microsoft would have a good shot at actually making some money in Godzone.

Microsoft is keeping shtum on pretty much all the details at the moment, so expect to see the first fruits of this labour some time after the company gets round to, um, planting the seeds.

Read the full Sydney Morning Herald story here (registration requ'd)

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Panasonic has announced its SDHC (Secure Digital HIgh Capacity) memory card and a compatible camera to go with it. If you're not familiar with SDHC, it's an updated version of the SD card format that extends the maximum theoretical storage capacity to 32GB from 2GB. Panasonic's first SDHC cards out of the gate are 4GB models. The SDR-S200, a compact digital movie camera with 3 CCD sensors, records directly to MPEG2. It has a 10X zoom lens and will be available in early July in Japan for around ¥100,000 (NZ$1400). There's no word on overseas sales.

Posted by at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Okay, so you thought the 8-megapixel images your digital camera creates take up too much room on your hard drive? Then spare a thought for the astronomers who will be using devices powered by the new 100-megapixel CCD developed by DALSA Semiconductor. The new sensor will be used by the Astrometry Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory to determine the positions and motions of stars, solar system objects and the establishment of celestial reference frames. Details here ...

Posted by Bruce Buckman at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Panasonic has joined the race to grab a stake in the higher-margin D-SLR market with the announcement of the DMC-L1. Based on the Four Thirds image sensor format invented by Olympus, the 7.5-megapixel DMC-L1has a metal body, a big 2.5-inch LCD and will boast the first interchangeable Leica lens designed specifically for a digital camera. This 14-50mm (35mm equivalent 28-100mm) lens features optical image stabilisation and the DMC-L1 is endowed with a supersonic vibration system to shake dust from the image sensor when changing lenses.
Find out more at the global Lumix site: http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/lumix/

Posted by at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Acer has launched its first laptop computer with an HD DVD drive at the Computex trade show in Taiwan.

The laptop joins Acer's high-end Aspire 9800 range and features an impressive 20.1-inch LCD screen. The screen is a monitor-class panel of a type not usually found on laptops, so it delivers an image equivalent to a desktop monitor, said Trisha Pan, a product marketing director at Acer.

The downside to using such a large panel is the computer's overall weight. It's close to 8kgs, which is several times that of a standard laptop. It additionally pushes up the size: The machine measures 48cm by 35cm by 6cm.

"It's definitely not for portable use," said Pan.

The computer also features twin 120GB hard disk drives, NVidia GeForce 7600 graphics, a TV tuner and support for various audio technologies including Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect.

To date, only a handful of laptop makers have announced models with HD DVD. One of the first was Toshiba, which is a major backer of the format. Its machine went on sale in Japan in May. Fujitsu is planning to begin selling an HD DVD laptop soon.

Acer said its support for the HD DVD format isn't exclusive. The company is planning to launch a laptop with a Blu-ray Disc drive but hasn't yet decided on timing for the machine.

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Dell has announced several new entertainment-oriented products, including its unique XPS M2010 desktop, first shown in concept form at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

The new XPS M2010 features an adjustable 20.1-inch widescreen display (WSXGA+), a full-sized, detachable Bluetooth keyboard with gyroscope-enabled remote, integrated 1.3MP webcam, a slot-loading DVD drive, and eight built-in speakers with a sub woofer. The hinges that support the display double as handles allowing the system to be semi-portable.
The XPS M2010 will be powered by up to 4GB of dual channel DDR2 memory and Intel Core Duo processors, up to and including the 2.16GHz T2600 chip. Graphics will be served up by an ATI 256 Mobility Radeon X1800 graphics controller. More specs may be found at Dell's US site.

Dell also announced its new M1210 laptop. Starting at 2kg, the M1210 features a 12.1-inch widescreen display (with 1280-by-800 resolution) and a magnesium alloy frame. It will use Intel Core Duo processors, and you'll be able to decide between either integrated graphics or an optional 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 graphics chip.
Also optional will be an audio-visual package that includes an integrated webcam, Skype VOIP and video chat software, noise-isolation ear buds, and embedded mobile broadband.

Also included in the announcement is the high-end gaming and performance desktop, the XPS 700, which supports NVIDIA Quad-SLI graphics, AGEIA PhysX physics accelerators and the latest Intel dual-core processors.

Posted by at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Looking keen for the start of the World Cup, a couple of hired fans are gaga over Samsung's SGH-P900 handset that supports the T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) standard. Germany's Debitel network will be testing the mobile digital TV service during the World Cup.
The phone has a 2.2in screen that can be swivelled through 90 degrees into a horizontal position for viewing. The screen has QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels). Other multimedia support includes MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 standard video and MP3, AAC and AACplus standard audio files. There's a 2-megapixel camera thrown in for good measure and it also includes Bluetooth, USB and PictBridge printing support and can record broadcasts to the 128MB of internal memory.

Posted by at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )