Cardinals69News

Valuestar N VN790/BS – that’s the name of the 3D PC that NEC today announced for the Japanese market. The company’s faster than expected: just last month, NEC teased such a machine in Tokyo, saying it’s likely to ship by October 2010. But Japan will get the PC as early as next month. And it appears to be a pretty cool machine.

Buyers will get a 20-inch 3D screen with 1,600×900 resolution and a Blu-ray drive to view content (images and video) stored in that format in 3D. NEC says for DVDs, users will be able to switch between 2D and 3D. Needless to say, the machine accepts 3D content in other forms, too (3D pictures from Fujifilm’s 3D camera, for camera).

Spec-wise, NEC throws in a Intel Mobile Core CPU (no details yet), 4GB RAM (8GB max.), a 1TB HDD, 3W×2ch speakers, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit as the OS. The main unit is sized at 490×362×169mm and weighs 8.6kg.

The PC also comes with a pair of glasses (an extra pair will set you back $67), a remote control, an integrated TV tuner, and a wireless keyboard.

NEC plans to start shipping the 3D set at the end of next month (price: $2,450). The company hasn’t said anything yet about international sales plans.

Instead, here there’s an Intel Core i3 530 processor running at 2.93GHz (from Intel’s desktop range, rather than their notebook line-up), paired with GMA HD graphics, 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 640GB 7,200rpm HDD. In the side of the casing is a slot-loading Blu-ray player (that doubles as a DVD burner), while up front is a 1920 x 1080 23-inch widescreen display. Gateway are quoting 300 cd/m2 brightness, a 5ms response time and 1,000:1 contrast ratio. It’s certainly bright and reasonably crisp; meanwhile the touch system is very responsive and accurate, though Windows 7 Home Premium remains a less than finger-friendly OS. We wish Gateway had developed some sort of touch-pack customization that ran on top, at least for multimedia and internet access.

Connectivity, meanwhile, includes WiFi b/g/n, gigabit ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports – two on the side, four on the back – eSATA and HDMI, along with a multi-format memory card reader. We’re a little disappointed not to see an HDMI input – which would allow you to easily use the ZX6900-01e as a display with your games console – though the native 5.1-channel audio support is handy. Obviously you’ll need a suitable speaker system, though, since alone the ZX6900-01e only has a pair of average-performing 5W speakers for basic stereo. Happily the Blu-ray drive is pretty quiet in use, and so even the integrated speakers are enough to listen to movie soundtracks without straining your ears.

We used Geekbench to put the ZX6900-01e’s hardware through its paces, an artificial benchmark that gauges processor and memory performance. The all-in-one scored a very respectable 5313 altogether, surprising us in fact. That score also holds true for day-to-day use, with the Gateway proving responsive in pretty much everything we threw at it. With the integrated Intel graphics this probably isn’t the machine you’d turn to for video processing, but internet access – including playing 1080p HD YouTube content – together with local HD video playback and multitasking turned out to be a walk in the park for the ZX6900-01e.

Pc TV Tuner

The HP Pavilion Elite M9150F Desktop PC is the top of the line of HP's multimedia center desktops. It truly is packed with goodies and unlike Apple isn't going to cost you your first born. The competitiveness of the home entertainment industry, which has recently been fueled by the plummeting prices of HD televisions, has really stimulated fierce competition among computer manufacturers producing multimedia centers like this one. It is good news for us because we get better and better desktops and better and better prices. I'm going to let you know if this “elite” HP really lives up to its weighty title. Let's start with the basics.

Hardware:

Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600

Storage: 2 360GB hard drives yielding a total of 720GB (plus removable external hard drive bays for further expandibility)

RAM: 3GB (expandable up to a maximum of 8GB)

Graphics Accelerator: Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT graphics

TV Tuner: NTSC and ATSC

Optical Drive: HD DVD ROM, CD R RW with integrated dual layer DVD +/- Burner

Included: Remote, wireless mouse and keyboard

I love the options that the optical drives give on this desktop. It truly makes a statement with its high definition compatibility. The integrated TV tuner is another excellent edition allowing for you to be able to tap into Vista's multimedia abilities and essentially becoming a digital video recorder. You'll have plenty of room on the dual hard drives to collect a great deal of high definition programming. If you happen to run out of room you can use HP's proprietary external hard drive system through their included bays to just drop in more hard drives for space. This has truly been thoroughly engineered.

I would like to see a little more RAM, I know I'm getting greedy but with everything else maxed out it is a little disappointing to just see the 3 GB. Think of Vista as taking up a good deal of 2GB of RAM, it doesn't leave you much left over for your ancillary programs.

Connectivity:

WiFi (for connecting to your local wireless network)

1 Ethernet port (to connect with a cord to your LAN)

6 2.0 USB ports (to connect to most peripherals like mice, digital cameras, printers etc.)

2 Firewire ports (use these to transfer data quickly between two devices like a digital camcorder and your PC)

1 VGA (to connect to a typical monitor)

1 S-Video (connect to a projector)

1 DVI (connect to some monitors or some televisions)

1 HDMI (for connecting to a HD television)

The connectivity is superb. It has everything I want to see to be able to act as a receiver in my living room. The HD outputs will go to televisions and the audio outputs will handle a 5.1 sound system. The firewire ports allow you to input your own video and the power of the M9150F really make this a viable option for video editing. At about half the costs of some of Mac's Pro series I'm fairly certain a lot of consumers will be looking at HP's Elite series pretty hard.

At $1148 right now I wouldn't expect to see it drop too much lower anytime soon. It is a good deal at this price and will make about anyone happy. It is a very robust desktop with a lot to offer.

PC and component maker Manli has apparently introduced a new model called the Manli M7 Series in Italy which packs a 12.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core CULV processor. I say apparently, because that’s what Notebook Italia is reporting, but according to the Manli web site, the M7 is a 10.1 inch netbook with a 1024 x 600 pixel display and an Atom N270 processor.

I’m not sure if this just a naming mixup, but I certainly hope that the notebook featured on Notebook Italia is real, because it looks like a nice little system. It measures just under an inch (25mm) thick and has a 6 cell, 6 hour battery. It will reportedly be available in February with a choice of Linux, Windows XP, or Windows 7.

The laptop has 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and optional Bluetooth 2.1, 3G, and a digital TV tuner.

via Netbooked

Who is trying to face down Apple’s anticipated tablet this spring?

Here’s a partial list covering tablets from larger hardware companies like Dell and HP, along with lesser-known devices and a few e-readers. The pricing details and public launch dates aren’t available on all of these yet, so we’ve provided what we know and linked to deeper reviews.

HP’s Slate computer
This video demo shows the HP tablet that runs on Windows 7. HP is also reportedly building another based on Google’s Android OS. When Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer demoed it on-stage at CES, he was spare with details and used it to read a book using Kindle software. Using the touchscreen, he swiped through the pages, then went onto Amazon, where he purchased and downloaded another e-book.

OpenPeak Tablet powered by Intel Atom chip
Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini showed off a tablet using an upcoming Atom chip dubbed “Moorestown” during his CES keynote speech. It’s a prototype with no firm dates for launch.

HP’s tablet-laptop hybrid, the TouchSmart tm2:
This kinda qualifies. It’s a fourth-generation touchscreen laptop with a swivel 12.1-inch screen that can be turned into a tablet. You can enter things with your finger, full-size keyboard, or a digital pen. It has a capacitive multitouch display that recognizes multi-finger gestures such as pinching or swiping and an aluminum case with a Riptide engraved illustration. (See Dean Takahashi’s full take on HP’s lineup here.) This laptop starts at $949.

Dell
It has a five-inch display and is supposed to complement (not be a substitute) for a conventional PC. The small size may hurt the product in the long-run, since it duplicates the feel of a smartphone instead of an actual tablet computer. The more promising features seem to revolve around connecting multiple tablet users at once — users will be able to swipe and send pictures to other tablets, or connect tablets to play games together.

ICD’s Vega
The Android-based Vega specializes in home scheduling and other basic functions and will come to the U.K market later this year with T-mobile. We covered the first appearance of the Vega back in November. Developed by Seattle-based Innovative Converged Devices (ICD), a mobile computing engineering firm, the Vega includes features that make it a solid in-home device, suited for the average family kitchen, including a 15-inch touchscreen, NVIDIA Tegra 250 mobile web processor, full HD 1080p video playback, 3G, Wi-Fi and a T-Mobile SIM card. The carrier hasn’t released pricing. (We did a longer take on the device here.)

Marvell-based Alex Reader
This dual-screen reader from Spring Design runs on a Marvell processor and has not one, but two different kinds of displays. The smaller screen is an Android tablet while the other is an electronic paper display with an LCD. It comes out next month retailing at $399.

Skiff
This is an e-reader, not a tablet. It’s an 11.5-inch device comes from a company backed by newspaper and magazine publisher Hearst Corp. It’s got a 1,600-by-1,200 pixel resolution, which is enough to view an entire page of The New York Times up-front, according to Engadget.

Asus
Another netbook-tablet hybrid here. It’s two pounds and one-inch thick. It comes with a TV-tuner, GPS and should be out in March.

Cydle M7
This Korean electronics company entered the Tablet fray this month with a $199 Android-powered device. It has a seven-inch resistive touchscreen and should come out in the spring. (See Engadget’s slightly longer take here.)

MSI
MSI has built a 10-inch Android tablet that’s based on one of the new chips Nvidia showed off this week and has a capacitive display, which is very responsive. (Engadget has more here.)

Notion Ink
Here’s another Android-based tablet from Notion Ink. It’s on a 10.1 inch Pixel Qi display (which is what Apple’s version will reportedly run on). It comes with GPS, a digital compass, an accelerometer and even water sensors. There’s a three-megapixel camera that comes with autofocus and can record video. There will be a 16-gigabyte and 32-gigabyte version. (Slashgear has a longer take on it and Engadget tests it hands-on here.)

Compal
This is a seven-inch tablet that runs on Android 2.0. Engadget gave it a pretty horrible review, complaining about the lack of GPS and Bluetooth. It also has a resistive, rather than a capacitive touchscreen, which makes it less responsive to touch.

Next Story: At last: Real photos of the Apple tablet Previous Story: The irony of Scott McNealy’s goodbye note

Pc TV Tuner

It wasn't very long ago when the only way to watch TV was with your television set. The content that you got to view was homogenized programming that followed a recipe designed to appeal to the “average viewer.” If this describes your situation, then it is time for you to discover some of the pleasant perks of 21st-century technology. Read on about the four different methods of watching television on your computer.

1) Did you know that there is a huge amount of old TV shows, movie classics and documentaries free for your viewing in the public domain? The public domain has content with expired copyrights and can be viewed or even sold by anyone. Try looking for this material on a search engine using phrases containing “public domain” plus “film” or “video”, etc. If you give the search a fair amount of effort, it shouldn't take too long to find lots of these “golden oldies”.

2) If you wish to watch the TV programming of your television set on your PC, it can be done with very little fuss with a USB TV tuner. This device is external to your laptop or PC and can be readily connected to your computer and TV set. This external arrangement is very different from that of the TV tuner card which must be installed inside your PC. Signals from your TV's output ports are transferred to the USB TV tuner input ports. The modified signals are then transmitted to your laptop or PC via its USB port. A feature common to most USB TV tuners are that TV shows can be paused, fast forwarded, rewound, and saved to your PC hard drive. Many USB TV tuners can also burn TV shows to DVD. Prices: $50 to $200.

3) Want to know a guaranteed way of getting a DVD quality image when viewing a movie on your computer? Answer: insert a DVD into your CD-ROM drive! To do this, you must download the appropriate media player with this capability. You can get one for free at Realplayer.com. Look for and click the “Get it free” button. Follow the directions after this. When you have finished with the download and installation, insert a DVD. Then start the player, open the “play” menu and click “Play CD or DVD”.

4) A popular approach to watching TV on the computer is using BitTorrent networking to download a video or movie onto your computer for free. BitTorrent networking is a sort of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing system and is a common way to download movies and music. A movie that is downloaded is first broken up into several parts and distributed to the people in the network who want the movie. Everyone then supplies each other with the parts of the movie that the other doesn't have. The process has to start with a complete file to begin with. The person who supplied that complete file is said to have 'seeded' the download.

In order to download movies in this way, you need to install something called bitTorrent client software. Although there are a lot of client software available, my preference is BitComet which has been around for a few years and is free. The next step is to search for a movie using a torrent search engine such as torrentz.com. Enter a search phrase that is related to your movie such as its title. You will arrive at a page of search results. Click on the most relevant link. You should then see the movie title as well as a 'Download Torrent' link or button. Click on the link or button to start the movie download.

When finished, you should allow others to share your file by becoming the 'seed' that initiates yet another download session for other people. This is done by allowing your client software to continue running for a couple of hours.

Please note that this description is rather minimal since a thorough description is beyond the scope of this article. Also bear in mind that downloading copyrighted movies is illegal. People using peer-to-peer networks for illegal downloads have been prosecuted.

Hopefully this article has given you some idea of what is possible with a computer and a fast Internet connection. The amount of content out there is enormous. I'm speculating here, but I would imagine that it would take years of continuous viewing to consume all that is freely available. Be warned that it can get very addictive and can have a devastating effect on your personal productivity.