PowerColor A300M-E1394: µATX motherboard on ATI RADEON 9100 IGP

ESI introduces new products at Winter NAMM 2004

Our Hardware Museum: Mystery #13 solved

Aerocool Chameleon: your cooler will turn red if hot

FujiFilm FinePix S20 Pro: F700 + S7000

Fujifilm officially unveils FinePix S3 Pro digital camera

2.40GHz and 2.60GHz Intel Pentium 4 with 400/533 MHz FSB are finished

Xbox Crystal Pack: semi-transparent and exclusive

MIPI Alliance: standartization reaches mobile devices

PowerColor A300M-E1394: µATX motherboard on ATI RADEON 9100 IGP

CP Technology announced its new PowerColor A300M-E1394 motherboard on ATI RADEON 9100 IGP (RS300) + IXP150 chipset for Pentium 4 processors.

µATX PowerColor A300M-E1394 solution has 2 x DIMM sockets for up to 2GB of dual-channel DDR 266/333/400, AGP 8X slot, 3 x PCI slots, 5.1-channel AC´97 codec, dual-LAN (Realtek 8100c/8110s), 2 x IEEE1394 ports. The integrated graphics core is RADEON 9200 supporting up to 128MB of shared RAM.

ESI introduces new products at Winter NAMM 2004

ESI (Ego Systems Inc.) introduced several new products at Winter NAMM 2004 held in Anaheim, CA from January 15, 2004 to January 18, 2004. The newly introduced products included FireWire solutions and whole new MIDI keyboard controllers.

Here are some brief introductions of ESI´s upcoming product line.

NeON and A ON, two 25 touch sensitive compact Audio/MIDI keyboard controllers. The NeON/A ON provide 25 keys plus 16 function buttons, 8 assignable wheels and knobs. NeON/A ON provide 2 channels of analog I/O that supports up to 24-bit/96Khz audio quality. Both of NeON and A ON also provide MIC Input and Hi-Z Input port(s). NeON connects to the host computer via USB and A ON via FireWire.

QuataFire 610, the ultra-portable solution for audio professionals on the go. QuataFire 610 provides 6-in/10-out in a 1/3 rack unit that offers quality up to 24-bit/192kHz audio. Features include two front panel mounted combo connectors that can be switched between MIC, LINE and INST inputs. The MIC preamps are equipped with switchable +48 volt phantom power, individual input gain controls and a headphone output with its own monitor level volume. QuataFire 610 also features 2-in/2-out MIDI and a coaxial S/PDIF I/O. Front panel: 2 Combo [XLR & 1/4"] jacks for inputs 1&2, MIC/LINE switch, INST. (Hi-Z) switch, +48V phantom power switch, Input Gain control, Headphone output with Headphone volume control. Rear panel: RCA type connectors for analog inputs 3&4 and outputs 1-4, S/PDIF coaxial I/O, 1/4" jacks for Analog outputs 5-8, MIDI 2-in 2-out.

JULI@, a PCI based 2-in 2 out audio & MIDI interface for Windows-based systems. Juli@ provides 24-bit/192kHz recording quality with S/PDIF digital I/O and 16 channels of MIDI. Juli@ is equipped with the RCA (Unbalanced) and the TRS (Balanced) connectors at the both end of its switchover head unit. You can select a connector option with easy step. +3.3V and +5V compatible PCI unit will allow you broader compatibility, even for the MAC G5 plan to support in future. Juli@ supports ESI´s EWDM driver technology for enhanced stability and performance.

Our Hardware Museum: Mystery #13 solved

We naturally congratulate all of you who sent us the answers. And here are the correct ones:

ABIT Siluro GF3Ti200, GeForce3 Ti 200, 64MB DDR, 175/200 (400) MHz

Diamond Edge3D (NVIDIA NV1) 2MB

Manli Savage XP (Demo board from Computex 2002)

Aerocool Chameleon: your cooler will turn red if hot

Such an original cooling system was released these days by Aerocool. The idea of glowing cooler itself was bound to be realized for indicating something, e.g. air temperature — this precisely is accomplished in Aerocool Chameleon — from 26°C to up to 33°C the fan changes its color from blue to orange.

Cooler specs are:

• 80x80x25mm size
• Sleeve bearing
• 2000rpm min, 3500rpm max.
• 21.5-36.4 CFM
• 20.3-36.40dBA

FujiFilm FinePix S20 Pro: F700 + S7000

In addition to FinePix S3 Pro mentioned in our today news Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. introduced its FinePix S20 Pro model with the Super CCD SR. It´s such a "hybrid" of F700 and S7000 models. For sale FinePix S20 Pro will go on in March with MSRP of about $1000.

Brief specs:

• Plastic body
• 1/1.7" Fujifilm SuperCCD IV SR, 6.2Mp effective photoelements (3.1Mp effective R-Pixels and 3.1Mp effective S-Pixels)
• 2832x2128, 2016x1512, 1600x1200, 1280x960 resolutions
• JPEG (EXIF 2.2), CCD-RAW image formats
• 640x480 / 320x240 @ 30 fps Motion JPEG (AVI) movies w/sound; length limited by media capacity
• ISO 200, 400, 800 (not for CCD-RAW), 1600 (not for CCD-RAW, only at 1.2Mp and 3Mp resolutions)
• Fujinon Super EBC 6x zoom lens (like in S7000), 35-210mm in 35mm equiv., F2.8-3.1
• 30-1/10000s shutter speeds (1/1300-1/10000 manual, Fast mode)
• 50cm to inf. (35-135mm zoom) and 90cm to inf. (135-210mm zoom) Normal focusing distance; 10-80cm Macro, 1-20cm Super Macro
• -2EV to +2EV, 1/3EV increments exposure correction
• Up to 10-frame bursts at 4.5 fps
• NTSC/PAL, USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, A/V-out interfaces
• xD-Picture Card, Compact Flash Type I/II (Microdrive) media, up to 2GB
• EVF, 235K pixels
• 1.8" (118K pixels) LCD display
• Powers from 4 x AA batteries or optional AC-5VHS AC adapter
• Weighs 500g w/o batteries
• 121x82x97mm size

Camera image — DCResource

Fujifilm officially unveils FinePix S3 Pro digital camera

Today, in a week before PMA (Photo Marketing Association) that is to take place in Las Vegas from February 12 to 15, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. officially unveiled the long-anticipated Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro digital camera.

This model is naturally to replace FinePix S2 Pro. It has body based on Nikon N80 (F80) and has a number of significant improvements, in particular, the new Super CCD SR.

FinePix S3 Pro brief specs:

• 12.3 effective Megapixel SuperCCD SR sensor produces images with 4256 x 2848 pixels; there are 6.17 million effective S-pixels and 6.17 effective R-pixels on this chip! (The SR sensor is designed to improve dynamic range in images. Let´s hope they take more advantage of the technology here than they did on the FinePix F700.)
• Rugged, polycarbonate body with Nikon F-mount
• 1.5X focal length conversion
• Shutter speed range of 30 — 1/4000 sec, plus bulb mode
• ISO sensitivities: 100/160/200/400/800/1600
• JPEG and 14-bit CCD-RAW modes
• 2 inch, 235k pixel LCD
• Lower power consumption; camera uses four AA batteries
• Flash sync port + hot shoe; flash sync speed of 1/180 sec
• New D-TTL metering system is compatible with all Nikon-compatible flashes
• CompactFlash Type II and xD memory card slots
• USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces
• PictBridge-enabled (as are all four of these new Fujis)
• Pricing and availability TBA

Specs — DCResource

2.40GHz and 2.60GHz Intel Pentium 4 with 400/533 MHz FSB are finished

After the Sunday announcement of 7 new Intel Pentium 4 processors and the consequent price cut didn´t bring any news about 2.40GHz and some 2.60GHz processor models, it had become clear: they are finished. Well, and today Intel officially launched the program of curtailing production and sales of 2.40GHz and 2.6GHz Pentium 4 with 400/533MHz FSB, both retail and OEM.

The program covers 2.40GHz Pentium 4 processors with 400MHz FSB (S-Spec SL6PM, D-1 stepping), 2.40GHz Pentium 4 with 533MHz FSB (S-Spec SL6PC, D-1 stepping), 2.60GHz Pentium 4 with 400MHz FSB (S-Spec SL6PP, D-1 stepping). Orders for these chips will be accepted until March 12, 2004. This isn´t related only to OEM 2.40GHz / 533MHz FSB and 2.60GHz / 400MHz FSB processors that will be still shipping for embedded appliances market and further supported by Intel Communications Group for Embedded Applications.

The reason of all this is more than natural: the transition to more up-to-date processors, nothing personal :) For more obviousness, here´s again the new Pentium 4 wholesale prices table (for over 1,000-unit quantities) published on Monday:

Xbox Crystal Pack: semi-transparent and exclusive

According to several large European distributors, in the nearest future Microsoft is to launch sales of its Special Edition Xbox with the original semi-transparent design — The Xbox Crystal Pack.

The Crystal Pack will include the console itself in a sky-blue semi-transparent body with a 20GB HDD and two similarly coloured joypads.

Xbox Crystal Pack will go on sale on March 6, 2004 with MSRP of $199. And here´s how it looks:

MIPI Alliance: standartization reaches mobile devices

Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance, created by ARM, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments ad exemplum Open Mobile Alliance or 3GPP for defining open industrial standards for hardware and software interfaces for mobile devices, grew membership to 39 companies.

The group that joined MIPI includes Toshiba, Intel, Motorola. The latter two that automatically joined the board of directors had been refraining from MIPI membership before exactly because the alliance was focused on TI OMAP promotion as a worldwide standard. Now I guess the MIPI purposes will be significantly extended. This is how MIPI Alliance envisions its role in defining standards for mobile devices:

According to the documents published at MIPI.org, the MIPI 1.0 was approved last year, while MIPI v2.0 — already this year. The list of issues which MIPI is focused on makes it clear that the standard covers almost all mobile device interfaces, from memory to information security:

In other words, standards reached this IT market segment as well. Pity, there is only general wording at the website and no documents are open for public access. However, it won´t be a surprise for me, if more details on the new standard will be disclosed in the nearest future, e.g. at IDF Fall 2004.

P.S. The complete list of MIPI Alliance members now includes: ARM, Agilent Technologies, ATI Technologies, Atsana, Austriamicrosystems, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Dice, Emblaze Semiconductor, Ericsson Mobile Platform, FASL LLC, Icera Semiconductor, Imagination Technologies, IMEC, Intel, Infineon Technologies, Marvell International, Mentor Graphics, M-Systems, Motorola, National Semiconductor, NeoMagic, Nokia, NVIDIA, OmniVision, Philips Electronics, Renesas Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Seiko Epson, Sendo, Siemens AG, Sony Ericsson Mobile, Symbian, Synaptics, Toshiba, Transchip Israel Research, TTPCom, Vimicro, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments.

Actually, considering that FASL LLC is the "offspring" of AMD and Fujitsu, and Renesas Technologies is backed up by Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, the list of members is even bigger. As you can see, the whole world is here, so we should expect the new standards rather soon.

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