C-760 UltraZoom — another Camedia Olympus

Albatron: motherboards for Pentium 4 EE and Prescott core; something about capacitors

Transcend unveils USB/FireWire case for 2.5" HDDs

Intel Dothan shipments officially moved to Q2

VIA VT6421: PCI Serial ATA/IDE controller with RAID support

AIWA USB Audio and digital cameras to be selling in February

C-760 UltraZoom — another Camedia Olympus

Olympus introduced another Camedia model, C-760 UltraZoom, that has 3Mp CCD with 10x optical lens. The model has traditional capabilities, including automatic and manual modes and USB 2.0 interface.

• 1/2.7" CCD, 3.34Mp (3.2Mp effective)
• 10x optical lens
• 11 elements in 7 groups, 2 aspherical elements
• 45.6mm filter diameter
• 6.3-63mm focal range (42-420 mm in 35mm equiv.)
• F2.8 (wide) / F3.7 (tele) max. aperture
• 3x digital zoom
• 0.6m (W) / 2m (T) to inf. Normal and 0.07-0.6m (W), 1.2-2m (T) focusing distance, 3cm Super Macro
• EVF, 240K pixels
• 1.8" LCD, 110K pixels
• 16-1/1000s exposure range
• ISO 50/100/200/400, automatic or manual
• Automatic (TTL iESP2) or preset (7 programs) white balance
• Up to 12 frame bursts at 1.4 fps and HQ quality
• JPEG, uncompressed TIFF formats
• QuickTime Motion JPEG movies, WAVE audio (46s at 320x240 @ 15 fps for a 16MB xD-picture Card)
• 3200x2400, 2048x1536, 2048x1360, 1600x1200, 1280x960, 1024x768, 640x480
• Li-Ion LI-10B battery
• AC adapter, USB 2.0, Audio/Video output (PAL/NTSC), Mic connectors
• Size 104.5x60x68.5mm, weight 280g

Albatron: motherboards for Pentium 4 EE and Prescott core; something about capacitors

On the background of closing volume shipments of Prescott-based Pentium 4 processors Albatron Technology disclosed information about its system boards to be marked Prescott Ready hereafter. This means that boards already in production passed Pentium 4 EE and Prescott core compatibility tests and had BIOS upgraded. The company states that users of boards listed, but purchased before the "Prescott Ready" can also have BIOS upgraded.

And the list of Albatron´s "Prescott-Ready" includes:

• Intel 875P + ICH5: PX875P, PX875P Pro
• Intel 865PE + ICH5R: PX865PE Pro ll
• Intel 865PE + ICH5: PX865PE, PX865PE Pro
• Intel 848P + ICH5: PX865PE Lite,PX865PE Lite Pro

At the same time, Albatron spread some very interesting materials related to the quality of electrolytic capacitors. It´s hard to at once understand the hidden meaning of the statement that "Albatron... avoids problems that some manufacturers previously suffered due to low-quality electrolytic capacitors causing the electrolyte leakages motherboard damage. And Albatron... still uses electrolytic capacitors >1000µf with low ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) made only in Japan by SANYO and Panasonic".

I wonder is it a hidden accusation of other companies using "non-Japanese" "capacitors? Or maybe we should soon witness another "capacitor scandal" aroung some manufacturer? Now I have only questions, though still it might just be an inoffensive marketing trick to distinguish proprietary solutions.

Transcend unveils USB/FireWire case for 2.5" HDDs

Transcend Information unveiled a USB2.0/FireWire case for 2.5" HDDs. There are three models available:

• Just case
• Case with 40GB HDD
• Case with 80GB HDD

There´s actually another model supporting USB only (in three versions as well). Interfaces fully meet the USB2.0 and FireWire (IEEE 1394A) specs providing 480Mbps and 400Mbps respectively along with the power.

Intel Dothan shipments officially moved to Q2

Today we got to know that Intel officially moved the release of new-generation 90nm Dothan-based Pentium M processors to Q2 2004. According to Reuters, this was stated by Paul Otellini at the press conference dedicated to the analysis of preliminary business results of Q4 2003.

According to validation tests, Dothan needs additional honing of chip circuitry before the chip is ready for volume production.

So, according to the latest information, Dothan should appear between April and June in the new stepping. At the same time, Intel confirmed that shipments of 90nm Prescott-based Pentium 4 for desktop systems was launched in Q4, so we should expect them in retail soon I guess...

VIA VT6421: PCI Serial ATA/IDE controller with RAID support

If you want to move to Serial ATA hard drives, but you motherboard doesn´t support this interface, you can try a new PCI card on VIA VT642 chip from VIA Technologies.

Besides Serial ATA support, VT642 has a number of other advantages like Serial ATA RAID and can be controlled via PCI and Cardbus (PCMCIA).

VIA VT6421 Serial RAID features the DriveStation technology and supports up to 2 x Serial ATA and 2 x IDE devices in RAID Level 0, Level 1, JBOD. Other specs include:

• Works under Microsoft Windows 9X/ME/NT4/2K/XP, most Linux cores
• 33MHz PCI 2.2
• 1 Ultra ATA-133 IDE channel for 2 devices
• ATA PIO mode 4, multi-word DMA mode 2, UltraDMA mode 6
• Compatible with ATA/ATAPI-6
• Serial ATA 1.0
• Firmware upgradable
• 0.22µm CMOS
• 128-pin PQFP, 14x20mm

AIWA USB Audio and digital cameras to be selling in February

Sony introduced a digital camera and a family of USB Audio solutions that should be selling in February under the AIWA brand. USB Audio stands for the new category of portable music players to which you can upload music via USB 2.0.

In particular, one of the first will be AZ-RM256 MP3 player with 256MB storage.

As for digital cameras, according to Japanese PC Watch on February 1 the company is to start selling the new 2Mp AZ-C7 model for about ¥25000 ($235). The price should depend on the internal Flash memory capacity. Other features include F/2.8 aperture, 42mm focusing range in 35mm equiv., 10 min. focusing distance, 1.5" LCD, optical VF, int. flash. Sized 95x23x76mm, AZ-C7 weighs 127g.

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