Aliph introduced a new Jawbone Bluetooth headset today, exclusively available at AT&T retail stores and at the Jawbone website (http://www.jawbone.com). The new Jawbone headset features military-grade NoiseAssassin technology which supposedly transmits ten times better voice clarity than competing headsets or roughly 90% less noise. The NoiseAssassin technology utilizes the patented Voice Activity Sensor (VAS) to “literally feel” and distinguish your speech. Built-in digital signal processing algorithms then remove noise from the captured sound to help improve clarity.

Other key features include:

• Two streamlined buttons operated by touching the outside shield which control all functions on the headset
• Weighs just 10 grams
• Made with premium materials including medical grade plastic
• Three sizes of earbuds
• Four earloops that can be worn on either ear
• Two sizes of soft stitched leather earloops
• two sizes of slim earloops

The new Jawbone headset is available now for $129.99.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Jawbone, Aliph, Bluetooth Headset, AT&T

Those new Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue notebook PC series which were announced back in March are now available for purchase here in North America. The new Aspire Gemstone Blue notebooks feature the market’s first 18.4 inch and 16 inch notebook form factors and deliver full HD capabilities.

Key features of the 18.4 inch Aspire 8920 include:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500
• Intel(R) PM965 Express chipset
• 1 or 2 hard disk drive, up to 320GB each
• Integrated Blu-ray Disc drive or 8X DVD Super Multi double-layer drive
• 18.4-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution Acer CineCrystal display
• Discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GS or NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS
• 6-in-1 card reader
• Express Card/54 slot, HDMI port with HDCP support
• 802.11a/g/n WLAN, Bluetooth, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem, integrated webcam
• second generation Dolby Home Theater
• Prices start at $1299

Key features of the 16 inch Aspire 6920 include:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500
• Mobile Intel PM965 Express chipset
• Hard disk drive up to 320GB
• Integrated Blu-ray Disc drive or 8X DVD Super Multi double-layer drive
• 16-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution Acer CineCrystal display
• Discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS
• 6-in-1 card reader
• Express Card/54 slot, HDMI port with HDCP support
• 802.11a/g/n WLAN, Bluetooth, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem, integrated webcam
• second generation Dolby Home Theater
• Prices start at $849

Technorati Tags: Acer, Aspire Gemstone Blue notebook PC series, Aspire 8920, Aspire 6920

LG Display has announced that they have succeeded in developing the world’s largest 6 inch elliptical and 1.4 inch circular shaped LCDs. The 6 inch elliptical LCD measures 78.8 mm in height and 131.4 mm wide while the 1.4 inch circular LCD measures 35.5 mm in diameter. Both displays support up to 262K colors and feature a 160 degree viewing angle. Pretty cool but where can you use such technology you might be wondering? A number of different applications actually including digital photo frames, watches, instrument panels in cars, planes, home electronics, phones, portable devices, .. you name it! LG Display will be showing off the elliptical and circular shaped LCDs at the 2008 Society of Information Display exhibition between May 18th to 23rd.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: LG Display, Elliptical LCD, Circular LCD

Microsoft announced that it has sold over 10 million units of the Xbox 360 console in the U.S. - making it the first current generation console to hit that mark here in the U.S. At a global level, Microsoft has sold over 19 million units of the Xbox 360 console. Of course now that the Xbox 360 is the first console to hit 10 million unit sales, Microsoft is going to leverage this sales data as much as possible. The previous two consoles to hit 10 million unit sales first were both from Sony - the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. We all know what these consoles achieved of course - each console was the overall sales leader for their respective generation of console systems. As a result, Don Mattrick, Senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft stated the following in the Microsoft press release:

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry.”

Of course it’s still far too early to call Microsoft the overall winner in the next generation console wars, but it does have a sizable lead over the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii.

One other interesting stat - Microsoft now has over 12 million Xbox LIVE subscribers around the world - making it easily the leader in this department. The 360 also has 16 platinum game titles that have sold more than 1 million units - two times the number of platinum titles for the Wii and 16:2 over the PS3.

Microsoft did have a year head start over it’s competition with the Xbox 360 but then again, let’s not forget that the PS2 had a fairly significant head start over the original Xbox console too (no one seems to recall that fact these days!). Congrats to Microsoft on this achievement.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, 10 million units

Thinking about upgrading to a 120Hz LCD HDTV set? Well if you wait a tad bit longer, you might just want to wait for the upcoming 240Hz displays from Samsung. According to CrunchGear, the upcoming new 240Hz Samsung displays feature “Blue Phase” technology and should look absolutely amazing. Given how much my jaw drops when I view a 120Hz display with Blu-ray 24p content, I can only imagine what a 240Hz display will be like. Yes.. I’m eagerly awaiting to upgrade my 60Hz 1080p LCD HDTV now… or at least at some point in the future.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Samsung, 240Hz, LCD TV, HDTV,

Here’s another projector to consider - this time it’s from the folks at Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America and it’s called the XD211U data projector. Designed for business and educational markets, the XD211U features native XGA resolution, DLP technology from TI, and a new DDP 2230 DMD chip with BrilliantColor.

Key features of the XD211U include:

• Weight of six pounds
• 3000 hour lamp
• 2200 lumens of brightness
• auto-search feature for automatically recognizing video or data input sources
• Removable control key pad which also acts as a remote control
• Security hook
• Five segment color wheel (R,G,B,W,Y)
• 2000:1 contrast ratio
• Instant Shutdown
• Easy setup
• White intensity
• 1024 x 768 resolution
• Measures 11.9 x 4.1 x 8.7 inches and weighs 6 lbs

The XD211U has a suggested retail price of $1595 and is available this month.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Mitsubishi Digital Electronics, XD211U Projector

Epson introduced a new multimedia projector this week in the form of the EX90. The six pound projector features 2600 lumens of white and color light output, XGA resolutions, and Epson’s latest 3-Chip LCD technology. The EX90 has a street price of $899 and has the following key features:

• Epson 3LCD technology
• 2600 lumens
• HDTV ready (720p and 1080i)
• 5 second quick start up
• Epson Instant Off
• A/V Mute Slide
• Simple setup and flexible positioning
• 1.2x power zoom and auto keystone correction
• Includes carrying case

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Epson EX90 Multimedia Projector

Ever wish you could put together your own gaming notebook? Now you can with the new OCZ Technology Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Gaming Notebook Program. With this program, users from all sorts of backgrounds can put together a system that ultimately is usable for gaming applications. The OCZ DIY program gives consumers the ability to customize notebooks starting from what amounts to a barebones system.

According to Eugene Chang, Product Manager of OCZ Systems Solutions, “With the OCZ Do-It-Yourself Notebook initiative, OCZ empowers with the resources like validated component guides, documentation, tech support, and a warranty to allow consumers to configure and build a true gaming notebook with the exact specification that matches their unique requirements.”

OCZ claims that users will get the following with the OCZ Do-It-Yourself program:

• Customization - users select the OS, CPU, memory, and storage of choice
• Value - users save money by purchasing components individually through sales, rebates, etc. Plus there’s no markup for labor costs
• Craft - users get to build their notebook from beginning to end and personalize the outcome

The first OCZ DIY Gaming Notebook kit features an Intel Core 2 Duo platform with support for the latest 45 nm processors from Intel. It’s got a 15.4 inch screen and comes with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU. The full specs are as follows:

• 15.4 inch WXGA display with glossy finish
• Intel PM965 Chipset + ICH8M
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB DDR2 video memory
• PCIe 16x
• 8X DVD+-R/RW + 4X Dual Layer Combo
• Built-in HD Audio Codec
• 3D Surround Sound
• Integrated Touchpad
• A4 sized keyboard
• 1 Lithium-Ion battery

All you need to add is:

• Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• Memory (up to 4GB)
• Storage (2.5 inch HDD/SDD)
• OS

It’s a pretty interesting idea and perhaps compelling IF the price is right. Considering notebooks with decent performing processors are now hovering around the $600 dollar price range, it’s going to be hard for the typical consumer to warrant spending anything more than say $250-300 dollars for the kit. What do you think?

[Check out the product page]

[Check out the press release]

Technorati Tags: OCZ Technologies, Do-It-Yourself DIY Gaming Notebook,

Think Apple is overlooking the Intel Atom processor? Think again! At a 40th anniversary Intel event held in Munich Germany, a German Intel executive confirmed that the Atom processor was going to be used in an upcoming Apple iPhone device. This tidbit came from a German ZDNet article here which I got machine translated. Here’s the excerpt from the machine translation output:

“Under an Intel-Events for the 40. Birthday of the company in the Munich BMW-world has Germany’S managing director Hannes schwaderer today confirmed what has for some time as the Internet rumor so: namely, that it is a iPhone with Intel’s new atom-chip . The device was somewhat larger than the current variant, schwaderer. This is not on Intel-Chip, but the larger display in the new iPhone.

Thus confirmed rumours in the Middle of April Switch-to-a-Mac have been published. The new jobs will probably be iPhone with a display resolution of 720 times 480 during the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), the Apple from 9 to 13 June in San Francisco, organized the public.

But they will also continue with the current iPhones design. The launch of equipment, the UMTS dominate, should be imminent, since the latest version without UMTS Support in many countries already sold out and is no longer ordered. Further information on the new iPhone devices found in the article UMTS, GPS and exchange it will look iPhone 2.0. ”

Soo.. if you are to believe this Intel executive and this article as a whole, we’re looking at a possible new device class coming from Apple - something more in line with Intel’s Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform perhaps? A device with a 720 x 480 resolution and an Intel Atom processor could very well challenge devices like the ASUS EeePC and the HP Mini-Note. Heck.. I’d rather carry that device than the iPhone - IF it had phone capabilities as well!

[Check it out via News.com]

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Atom, Intel, Germany

VIA Technologies announced a new Pico-ITX motherboard today called the VIA EPIA PX5000EG. The PX5000EG features the 500 MHz VIA Eden ULV processor which has a maximum power draw of just one watt! The board is ideal for applications and environments that are space constrained and heat-sensitive. The PX5000EG measures 10 x 7.2 cm and includes both LVDS/DVI and VGA support, integrated 5.1 channel sound, 10/100 Ethernet, IDE/SATA drive support, and up to six USB ports and a COM port.

VIA Technologies is also running a contest called the “Naked Pico Challenge” over at VIA Arena where you can get a chance to win a VIA ARTiGO Pico-ITX Builder Kit. They’ll have a VIA EPIA PX5000EG board running under full load without any cooling whatsoever. All you need to do is guess how long the board can take the strain. Check out VIA Arena for more info.

Other specs for the VIA EPIA PX5000EG include:

• Fanless 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor
• Supports up to 1GB of DDR2 memory
• VIA UniChrome Pro II IGP 3D/2D graphics
• MPEG2/4 and WMV9 hardware decoding acceleration
• Pin support for LVDS, DVI, and VGA
• Onboard IDE and SATA connectors
• Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet
• PS/2 keyboard and mouse
• Multimedia connector to support external TV out
• Video capture port interface
• LPC interface
• Audio connector for line out, line in, mic-in, S/PDIF in and 5.1 channel audio output

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: VIA Technologies, EPIA PX5000EG, Pico-ITX,