Yes, it's easily the worst name for a mobile device yet ( some branding wonk's uninspired contraction of "View the Next Technology" apparently) but the unfortunate name aside, this is quite a ground-breaking device.

With touchscreens all the rage, the Viewty follows suit, being free of any kind of physical keypad and offering both an iPod-like gestural interface and vibrational feedback for onscreen buttons. The screen is also a very generous 3-inches in size.

The really big news, however, is the 5-megapixel camera. LG has gone all out with this feature, endowing the camera with both auto and manual focus, a top ISO speed of 800 so you can get those boozy shots in bars and nightclubs, and 120 frames per second video that plays back in funky slo-mo. There's also a built in image stabiliser for the shaky of hand.

At a very hands-on demo this morning, I found the Viewty to be a very capable camera indeed, with excellent image quality and an amazing range of image capture options. The Panorama function was particularly well thought out, providing a semi-transparent section of the image you've just taken to help you line up the next one.

Another very welcome function for the MySpace generation is the ability to upload images straight to the web.

Finally, the Viewty is also endowed with Divx playback ability and a TV out port so you can rip or download a bunch of videos to a big memory card and then play them back on the Viewty itself, or a TV. Cool. Divx video conversion software is provided.

You can find more info at whatisviewty.co.nz

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Most of us predicted this weeks ago, and despite the entirely understandable (if not always polite) lamenting of HD DVD, this was virtually inevitable once the studios said "make it so."

Okay, so technically it's still a rumour (go Australian insider access) but word on the street is Microsoft's prepping a standalone Blu-ray player to...I won't say "replace" so much as "complement" it's existing standalone HD DVD player, though I'm betting the latter will only remain available until Microsoft clears stock.

If Sony's sales for January were in fact more Blu-ray video than software driven as I've been speculating, Microsoft releasing a Blu-ray player couldn't be more timely and demographically crucial. Sony's January numbers suggest consumers may be paying considerably more for a PS3 for the Blu-ray capability alone. Thus Microsoft needs to introduce the Blu-ray option it's been silently hedging all along, to take on Sony in a lucrative venue that's finally picked a winner.

Regarding rumours of an integrated Xbox 360 Blu-ray player: Microsoft's argument against integration ostensibly hinges on the HD battle moving online, and to downloadable content instead of physical discs. For casual, streaming, episodic content, this almost certainly makes sense.
But for videophiles like me, who'll probably need terabyte storage solutions and demand nothing less than Blu-ray-analogous HD sample playback, online HD looks like a battle that won't be starting en masse until we figure out how to quickly download or stream video that easily figures in the "dozens of gigabytes" range. Anyone care to guess how long it would take on the average 1.5 Mbps DSL connection to download Season Three of Lost, which ships on six Blu-ray discs?

How long before you can buy the rumoured standalone player? If it happens, sources say three months, i.e. May/June 2008 timeframe.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

After something of a hiatus from the New Zealand market, NEC has partnered with Renaissance Brands to get its personal computers back onto shop floors. Top brass back in Japan have decided it's time for NEC to make a big global push and leading the way is the company's Powermate hybrid PC, which is currently the top selling desktop in Japan.

An all-in-one design (like the iMac) with all the computer gubbins housed behind the 17-inch widescreen display, the Powermate is designed to be space saving and semi-portable with a flip-out stand, a carry handle, and a battery that allows it to be used without mains power for up to half an hour. The keyboard and mouse use wireless RF so you can operate the PC from a distance of up to 10 metres.

The screen has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels and uses dual lamps for stunning brightness. An outboard USB analogue and digital TV tuner is also provided.

Hot air is dissipated out the top of the machine for more efficient cooling.

Around the case you'll find a slot-loading DVD drive and a 13-in-1 card reader, and the Powermate will even charge USB devices when it's turned off.

Driving things along is an AMD Turion 64 X2 (1.6GHZ) processor with 2GB of RAM (expandable to 4GB) and a 200GB hard drive. An ATI Radeon X1200 card handles graphics.

Wi-fi 802.11b/g is provided along with Gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports and a Firewire port. Weight is 4kg.

The Powermate and other NEC desktops and laptops are available from Noel Leeming, JB Hi-Fi and Warehouse Stationery.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Apple today slashed the price of the 1GB iPod Shuffle to just $75. At the same time, a new 2GB model has been launched at $99 and will be available later this month.

iPod Shuffle requires a Mac with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later and iTunes 7.4; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2) or later and iTunes 7.4 or later.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

We don’t usually report on bike lights here at PC World but when we received the press release for Bicygnals — wireless indicator lights for cyclists — they looked too good to ignore. Besides, it's all technology isn't it?

Originally released in the UK last year, Bicygnals have now made their way to New Zealand where we reckon they’ll be warmly received by those endangered creatures commonly known as commuter cyclists. $119 buys you a set of front and rear lights, except these ones go beyond the call of duty by including integrated orange indicator lights to alert motorists to your turning intentions. The rear lights connect wirelessly to the front set saving you the hassle of running pesky wires around your bike. Not only do they make a cyclist that much more visible, but they also eliminate the risks inherent with making hand signals (unsteadiness caused by taking one hand off the handle bars or worse, getting your arm taken off by a passing bus).

Being an Auckland cycle commuter myself, I’m keen to try these out. Of course installing indicators on my bike may be a lost cause given the fact at least half of Auckland’s drivers don’t seem to know what their indicator lights actually do. Still, the lights look cool, in a Star Trek kind of way. And I want some.

Posted by Scott Bartley at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Lenovo has a super-slim rival to Apple's MacBook Air on the way in the form of the ThinkPad X300.
Like the Air, the X300 has a 13-inch widescreen display and a full keyboard and comes with a 64GB solid state drive (no hard disk option is offered).
However, it sounds as if Lenovo listened to the Air's critics and left in what Apple left out. The X300 has a DVD drive, a removable battery, three USB ports and an Ethernet jack.
Wi-fi is included as standard but you can also trick the X300 out with a built-in cellphone modem and GPS.
Lenovo has stuck with the usual boring black ThinkPad design, but the X300 is still less than an inch thick. Weight is 1.4kg.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Well, not officially of course, but according to posts on the www.freeviewshop.co.nz forums, TVNZ has, in the past day or two, begun broadcasting TV2 in glorious 720P high definition via the yet-to-be-launched Freeview digital terrestrial service (the one you only need a UHF aerial to receive since it’s broadcast from land-based towers as opposed to, er, space-based satellites).

This is part of ongoing trials and tests that all the networks are running in the lead up to the launch of the new Freeview digital terrestrial platform. Because it is just a trial there’s no telling how long TV2 will be up and running in 720P, indeed, prior to this all you were likely to see over DVB-T was short test loops of HD video and a bunch of other, similarly mundane footage. For now at least, TV2 is up and running. If you have a suitably equipped PC (you’ll need a DVB-T tuner card and the appropriate software to go with it), drop us line here and let us know how it looks and what kind of hardware/software set up you’re running.

Posted by Scott Bartley at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

You may never have dreamed of owning a lizard skin laptop but if you have you'd better be quick. Sony is bringing in just 55 Vaio CR notebooks encased in real fake brown lizard skin leather. It even feels like leather.

But while this Vaio might be a party on the outside, inside it's all business with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.10 GHz) providing up to 800MHz FSB and a generous 3MB cache memory, the latest Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN and Mobile Intel GM965 Express Chipset.

The inbuilt motion eye camera has some clever applications to add more personality to your web chat and the VAIO offers a suite of editing and playback software including Adobe Premiere & Photoshop Elements, VAIO Movie Story and VAIO MusicBox.

The CR has a 14.1-inch Clear Bright LCD screen and a weight of 2.5kg.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Apple has doubled the capacity of the iPod Touch allowing new customers to spend $150 more and get twice the storage for music, movies, pictures, and podcasts than available with previous models. Introduced today, the 32GB iPod Touch sells for $749.

Pricing on existing iPod models stays the same. But if you're in the market for a new iPod Touch, spending $150 more to double your capacity is a reasonable deal.

Of course the larger capacities may rile some existing iPod Touch users as was the case when Apple dropped the price of the iPhone.

Could this be seen as another stab at the early adopters? Of course that was not Apple's intentions, but that is an obvious consequence of an upgrade of this magnitude less than a year after the initial release. But it's okay, early adopters, pull that knife out of your back and listen to what Apple has to say is the reason for the upgrade.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod and iPhone product marketing said in the release, "For some users, there's never enough memory." This is definitely true, especially with music collections shifting completely digital, but Greg, it still stings for those of us who picked up a 16GB iPod Touch merely months ago to have a new bigger and better model become available.

It's kind of funny to think about it, but who would have thought the world would get so upset over a product improvement? Isn't that what companies are supposed to be doing?

Travis Hudson

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )