Mega Stick 256 and PN54GBT: MSI´s novelties at CES 2004

ATI announces RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition at MacWorld 2004

Samsung SGH-X600: 9.4MB memory and photoflash

SanDisk unveils 2GB Memory Stick PRO cards and extends MS Pro Duo series

Casio unveils 5Mp QV-R51 digital camera

Thermaltake Giant III: more cooling for graphics cards

SanDisk extends Cruzer USB series with Cruzer Micro, MP3 Companion, etc.

DVD+RW Alliance: 16x DVD+R standard before the end of 2004!

Essential details on NVIDIA and ABIT severance

Mega Stick 256 and PN54GBT: MSI´s novelties at CES 2004

At CES 2004 in Las Vegas MSI introduced its latest novelties, including Mega Stick 256 MP3 player and 11g + Bluetooth Combo Interface Panel, PN54GBT.

Mega Stick 256 can work up to 14 hours with a single AAA battery and features LCD for track navigation. Of course, the device can be used as a USB drive.

Mega Stick 256 specs:

• Automatic switch-off
• Upgradable firmware
• 256MB Flash
• MP3/WMA support
• Digital FM tuner with memory for 10 stations
• FM broadcast recording
• Voice recorder
• Language learning feature

PN54GBT looks like the regular 5.5" optical storage drive with the LED panel to show you the signal strength (two variants on the photos).

ATI announces RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition at MacWorld 2004

At MacWorld 2004 that is now taking place in San Francisco ATI announced RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition for Power Mac G5 systems.

RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition has 256MB 680MHz DDR (double the memory of RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Edition which is on the photo). The GPU clock speed is 380MHz. The card has ADC and DVI connectors.

The model should be available in North America later in January for about $470.

Samsung SGH-X600: 9.4MB memory and photoflash

Samsung released its new SGH-X600 mobile handset featuring 9.4MB of integrated memory and the flash for its built-in digital camera

Of these 9.4MB X600 has 600KB for Java games, 80KB for each multimedia message (MMS). The memory can also contain up to 200 SMSes and up to 1000 phonebook entries.

SGH-X600 specs:

• 900 MHz GSM / 1800 MHz DCS
• 640õ480 CMOS digital camera, rotates horizontally
• Multi-shots, Flash & Night shooting modes
• UFB display, 65536 colors
• Java MIDP 1.0.3 / CLDC 1.0.3; WSP SAR for application downloads
• Honey ball, Go! Hamster, and Bowling bundled Java games
• WAP 2.0 (Openwave 6.1, WSP Stack Only)
• 40-tone polyphony
• Memo, Calendar, ToDo list, Clock, Alarm, Calculator, Conversion, Timer, Stopwatch
• Li-Ion 900mAh battery
• 102x42.5x19.9 mm size (with a usual battery)
• 80 g weight with a slim battery
• Cool Grey, Metallic Blue, White Silver, Indigo Blue body colors

SanDisk unveils 2GB Memory Stick PRO cards and extends MS Pro Duo series

SanDisk introduced 2GB SanDisk Memory Stick PRO media and extended its MS PRO and MS PRO Duo series with 128MB cards that are now stand out of other SanDisk solutions due to blue bodies. If you remember, Memory Stick PRO is a joint development of Sony and SanDisk intended for higher-capacity storage cards for digital cameras, video recorders, PDA, etc.

SanDisk Memory Stick PRO are to arrive for sale in February with capacities of 256MB to 2GB priced $100 to $1000. SanDisk´s Memory Stick PRO Duo cards will be available in Q1 2004 with MSRP of $105 (256MB) and $225 (512MB).

Photos taken from PC Watch

Casio unveils 5Mp QV-R51 digital camera

CASIO unveiled another digital camera for its QV series, QV-R51, that differs from the previous models primarily by Stack MCM (Multi-Chip Module) technology that enables to high density chip mounting.

Camera specs:

• 1/1.8" CCD, 5.25Mp (5Mp effective)
• 2560x1920, 2560x1712, 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1280x960, 640x480 resolutions
• JPEG (EXIF 2.2), movies at 320x240 @ 15 fps (up to 60s)
• 3x optical zoom, 39-117mm focusing range (in 35mm equiv.), F2.8-F4.9
• 4x digital zoom
• 60cm to inf. Normal focusing, 10-70cm Macro
• 4-1/2000 s exposures
• ISO 50-400
• Optical VF
• 2.0" LCD, 354x240
• Powers via DC outlet or USB 1.1 (mini-B)
• 88x61x33mm size, 168g weight

Thermaltake Giant III: more cooling for graphics cards

Thermaltake Technology announced its new cooling system for high-end graphics cards — Giant III.

Giant III bases on Giant II and is almost identical to such Zalman solutions, as ZM80. The Giant III differs by a dual heatsink fan (vs. the single of Giant II) and a blower for cooling the construction in general. The bundle also includes copper fins for memory modules and fan speed controller (occupying 1 x PCI slot on the back panel).

For sale Giant III cooling systems should arrive in February 2004.

SanDisk extends Cruzer USB series with Cruzer Micro, MP3 Companion, etc.

SanDisk announced Cruzer Micro USB storage and Cruzer Micro MP3 Companion (player) that can be mounted around this new storage.

Initially Cruzer Micro series will include the three models of 128, 256, 512 MB capacities. These novelties shipments of which are expected to start in February should cost $65, $90, $160, respectively. The MSRP of MP3 Companion sheduled for shipments to March will make about $50.

Now a little about the specs: MP3 player´s AAA battery provides about 7 hours of operation. The model features a backlit LCD for displaying traditional tag information.

Cruzer Micro will be bundled with CruzerLock data encryption software.

By the way, today the company also announced the Cruzer Titanium USB drive and extended the Cruzer Mini series with 512MB and 1GB models. The capacity of Cruzer Titanium is 512MB, shipments are expected in mid-January with MSRP of $200. The device should provide 13MB/s write and 15MB/s read speeds. It´s size is 20.3x76.2x7.6mm.

DVD+RW Alliance: 16x DVD+R standard before the end of 2004!

CES 2004 that is now taking place in Las Vegas was selected by DVD+RW Alliance to showcase its single-sided dual-layer DVD+RW/+R media and report the successful development of 16x DVD+R.

For the sake of justice I must note that CES 2004 exhibits supporting recordable single-sided dual-layer DVD+R were initially introduced as far back as in last October at CEATEC in Tokyo. The method of recording and playing dual-layer DVD+R is simple and known since dual-layer DVD-ROM: the second layer is accessed by optical refocus. Still the speed in case of this dual layer is only up to 1õ. But there´s full compatibility with DVD Video in place. The total capacity of such a disc is therefore increased from 4.7GB to 8.5GB. The drives supporting single-sided dual-layer DVD+R are expected in the market already this Spring.

Before the end of 2004 they also plan to widely promote the 16õ DVD+R recording. To do this, according to DVD+RW Alliance, the media rotation speed might be increased to 10,000rpm. Here we get closer to the physical media limits, so the 16õ should become the maximum for this standard. Anyway currently DVD+RW Alliance is thinking over the final specs. The standard approval is expected early this Autumn, so the first 16õ DVD+R media might appear in the market in Spring 2005.

Essential details on NVIDIA and ABIT severance

There´s still excitement about our yesterday news regarding the severance of NVIDIA and ABIT. If you remember, it doesn´t mean that having broken off with NVIDIA, ABIT is going to join the ATI camp. The reason instead was the "irreconcilable management differences".

Today NVIDIA provided essential details on this theme. Actually, the partnership with ABIT in the field of NVIDIA-based graphics cards is ended unambiguously.

As for the nForce motherboards partnership, ABIT is still the leading NVIDIA´s partner in both development, and joint promotions.

As you can see, there´s not much to comment again, as ABIT hasn´t yet introduced its latest graphics card roadmap, and I´d rather not append the last-year indirect comments of third parties. In other words, while it´s clear about motherboards, it´s totally dim about graphics.

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