Iomega Rolls Out 250GB Leather-Wrapped eGo Hard Drive

VIA Introduces EPIA M700 Mini-ITX Motherboard

Daily Mailbox

Microsoft To Expand List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office

Panasonic Develops World's First Single-Chip Signal Processing LSI for Blu-ray Disc Players

Silicon Power Releases DDR3-1066 2GB SO-DIMM Modules

Iomega Rolls Out 250GB Leather-Wrapped eGo Hard Drive

Iomega Corporation today announced the new Iomega eGo Leather Portable Hard Drive, its new luxury gadget and storage device.

Beneath the leather exterior is a USB-powered 2.5" hard drive that comes with a license for EMC Retrospect HD software for automatic backups, scheduled backups, or on-demand backups.

Iomega's DropGuard technology protects the eGo Leather Drive from accidental damage caused by drops of up to 51 inches (129 cm).

The Iomega eGo Leather Portable Hard Drive is compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 or higher and with Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. EMC Retrospect HD backup software is available for download for PC only.

The Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive, USB 2.0, 250GB Brown Genuine Leather is now available worldwide for $149.95 (U.S. suggested retail).

Source: Iomega Corporation

VIA Introduces EPIA M700 Mini-ITX Motherboard

VIA Technologies today announced the VIA EPIA M700 Mini-ITX board, the first to feature the VIA VX800 chipset, for digital signage and retail display systems.

Available in two skus, the VIA EPIA M700 uses either a 1.5GHz or fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7 processor, depending on system performance, size and thermal requirements, and supports up to 2GB of DDR2 system memory. The VIA EPIA M700 leverages the multimedia performance of the VIA VX800 unified chipset with its VIA Chrome9 HC3 integrated DirectX 9.0 graphics core and up to six-channel VIA Vinyl HD Audio surround sound, while the VIA Chromotion video engine provides hardware video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DivX video, plus a VMR capable HD video processor.

The VIA EPIA M700 boasts two PCI-Express based Gigabit LAN ports to facilitate wideband data transfer for large video and other files over networks.

As well as a front panel DVI port, pin headers for an additional DVI or HDMI port through a daughterboard are also included, as is support for 18-bit TTL displays. Digital video input is available through pin headers supporting CCIR–656/601//transport stream video, and there is also an S/PDIF connector. The VIA Vinyl VT1708B HD Audio codec supports up to six high definition channels with a 192kHz sampling rate.

Storage includes both an IDE port with a shared Type I Compact Flash port, 2 SATA II ports and up to 6 USB 2.0 ports, two through onboard connectors. Data protection is assured with the integrated VIA PadLock Security Engine and the onboard MFX-01 module.

VIA EPIA M700 Mini-ITX board samples will be available in early June.

Source: VIA Technologies

Daily Mailbox

Microsoft To Expand List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office

Microsoft will expand the range of document formats supported in its flagship Office productivity suite.

The 2007 Microsoft Office system already provides support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel and Office PowerPoint. With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.

When using SP2, customers will be able to open, edit and save documents using ODF and save documents into the XPS and PDF fixed formats from directly within the application without having to install any other code. It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007. To also provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office (Office XP and Office 2003), Microsoft will continue to collaborate with the open source community in the ongoing development of the Open XML-ODF translator project on SourceForge.net.

In addition, Microsoft has defined a road map for its implementation of the newly ratified International Standard ISO/IEC 29500 (Office Open XML). IS29500, which was approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in March, is already substantially supported in Office 2007, and the company plans to update that support in the next major version release of the Microsoft Office system, code-named "Office 14."

The company has also announced it will be an active participant in the future evolution of ODF, Open XML, XPS and PDF standards.

Source: Microsoft

Panasonic Develops World's First Single-Chip Signal Processing LSI for Blu-ray Disc Players

Panasonic has developed the world's first Blu-ray Disc player-specific single-chip signal processing LSI (product number: MN2WS006), in response to the latest BD standards (BD-ROM standards version 2, profile 2). This LSI combines a front end to read the signal from the BD, and a back end to convert this into AV data. Samples of this LSI will begin shipping in June 2008.

This product features the following characteristics.

• Complete support for the latest BD standards, and functions including dual-screen simultaneous video playback, high-quality audio playback, and network compatibility achieved on a single chip.
• Creation of a single chip for the signal processing system, through use of cutting-edge microprocessing, allows for 50% reduction in mounting surface area and 25% reduction in power consumption, compared to current Panasonic products.
• Application of the new-generation UniPhier platform developed originally by Panasonic enables customers to achieve higher-quality software improvement with shorter interval.

This product has been created using the following technologies.

• Multi-standard video decoding technology to enable video playback for BD, DVD, and CD media, and standards including MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and VC-1; high-quality audio playback compatible with lossless coding; and dual-screen simultaneous video playback including high definition video, and a high-performance and high-speed graphics engine technology which enables not only 2D graphic processing but also 3D graphic processing or curved surface drawing.
• Unified memory architecture technology reducing about 45% of major semiconductor parts (including external memories) together with integration of LSIs into a single chip using 45-nanometer process technology.
• New-generation UniPhier platform technology making it possible to reuse the 75% of software assets of BD recorder, and enabling us to improve our development efficiency by three times as a result of concentrated development for function improvement only.

Up to now, in order to construct BD players with conventional BD LSI, separate front end and back end LSI were required, in addition to seven external memory chips. Since the BD market is now expected to grow rapidly, it was necessary to rationalize the signal processing components in order to realize better functionality and appeal to the hot-selling zone of LSIs.

Source: Panasonic

Silicon Power Releases DDR3-1066 2GB SO-DIMM Modules

Silicon Power releases its new 204-pin DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM memory modules featuring ASR (Automatic Self-Refresh) for improved temperature and power consumption reduction. Silicon Power's DDR3 1066 SO-DIMM is currently available in 1GB and 2GB capacities.

The new modules comply with JEDEC standards, operate at CL7 timings and default 1.5V, and are backed up by lifetime warranty.

Source: Silicon Power

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