Digital Gadgets

Canon announces DC100 - The Super-Slim DVD Camcorder

Canon expands its DVD camcorder line-up with the DC100 DVD model. This new entry-level DVD camcorder provides consumers with an affordable, high quality solution for recording precious memories. With its 25x optical zoom lens, Widescreen HR (High Resolution) recording and 2.7-inch Widescreen display panel, the DC100 model expands ease of use and enhances the affordability of video for entry-level users.

“For consumers who enjoy using video as a medium to capture life’s most precious moments, the DC100 DVD camcorder delivers excellent video quality in a compact package,” said Yukiaki Hashimoto, senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Imaging Group at Canon U.S.A., Inc. “The DC100 DVD model incorporates all the original Canon technology and features that deliver excellent video quality for family and friends to cherish for years to come.”

The DC100 DVD model records directly to a DVD, allowing consumers to easily put a disc into their home DVD player and watch home movies, from the comfort of their living rooms. The Canon DC100 camcorder accepts the three-inch DVD-R/-RW discs, which can store up to 60 minutes of video (120 minutes on a double sided disc) and are compatible with many home DVD players, both old and new.

Canon chose the DVD-R/-RW format to ensure high compatibility with a range of DVD players and drives. Because it is a digital format, consumers can easily locate scenes without having to rewind or fast forward, create play lists of favorite scenes and are even able to do some quick editing.

The DC100 also comes with Widescreen High Resolution (HR) 16:9 recording, which means you can enjoy full-screen videos on your widescreen TV at home. Canon’s Widescreen HR is technically superior to that of its competitors. The display is a 2.7-inch widescreen panel that perfectly complements the Widescreen HR capability. It records sound in Dolby Digital Stereo.

All in all, a great combination of features for a movie-theatre like experience. What’s more you get all this in one super-slim package.

Few of the features are a surprise for the latest addition in this relatively new line of Canon DVD camcorders. The DC100 has a 25x optical zoom, true 16:9 widescreen shooting, and a 2.7- inch widescreen LCD. The camcorder will also offer popular features such as auto slow shutter, variable or preset zoom speeds, and the usual gamut of automatic and manual controls. This camcorder does lack a card slot, and instead records stills directly to DVD. All other models in the DC line save to a MiniSD card.

The Canon DC100 DVD camcorder will be available at the end of April 2006 for an estimated selling price of $499. Canon will debut the DC100 DVD camcorder in its booth during the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) exhibit in Orlando.

Mobile phone windows “world’s smallest” in AXiA markets A308

The HTC Tornado Smartphone might be just a touch smaller than the 0.8×1.9×4.5-inch AXIA A308 PDA phone, but that didn’t stop the Malaysian manufacturer from marketing its product as the “world’s smallest PDA Phone on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 featuring Wifi connectivity.”

Malaysian manufacturer AXIA is claiming to have the “world’s smallest PDA Phone on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 featuring WiFi connectivity,” in their new A308 device.

Fifth Media Sdn. Bhd. announced the launch of the world’s smallest PDA phone running on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, AXIA A308.

Measuring only 0.8 x 1.9 x 4.5 inch in size, the handset offers a lot of power thanks to a 416MHz Intel CPU and comes with a 2.2 inch QVGA LCD, 1.3 megapixel camera and miniSD slot.

At 0.8×1.9×4.5-inch the phone is a tad larger than the HTC Tornado Smartphone, but the A308 goes for full PDA functionality with its 2.2-inch QVGA LCD.

In terms of connectivity, AXIA A308 is a quad-phone featuring GSM, GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth and WiFi. “Its compact size and built-in WiFi will set this device apart as a business tool” is the opinion of Bernard Bowiz, Chief Technical Adviser of Fifth Media Sdn. Bhd.

Despite its diminutive stature, the AXIA A308 still manages to pack in the goodies. High speed data transfer is easily addressed with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, IrDA, and EDGE compatibility, and the 416MHz Intel CPU is quite nice as well. Other features include an integrated 1.3 megapixel camera, 2.2-inch TFT LCD touchscreen, and miniSD expansion.

Along with the WiFi, AXIA has crammed in Bluetooth, EDGE, miniSD, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a pleasantly fast 416MHz Intel CPU. Looks good to us, world’s smallest or not.The first AXIA PDA Phone, the A108, was well received when it was introduced last year at the CeBIT exhibition. AXIA A308 is the latest model of the series of PDA phones which combines the familiar form of a regular phone with full PDA functions.

As of yet, no exact pricing or launch information has been made available, but more deets should surface when AXIA makes a more official showing at this month’s CeBit show.

Julius Grohe, Fifth Media’s Director of Global Sales states: “There are no devices currently in the market that delivers on the AXIA A308’s unique proposition of being a compact PDA Phone with WiFi capabilities. Furthermore, the pricing of the AXIA A308 will make the device very attractive.” (Krishana Raghav)

Apple iPod Hi-Fi speaker System

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Hi-Fi during today’s special event at Apple’s Cuperinto headquarters. [Live coverage] The high-end speaker system delivers “breathtaking acoustic performance and room-filling sound unlike any other speaker system designed for the iPod in an innovative, all-in-one design.”

Apple iPod Hi-Fi. We’d heard this was coming, and it’s caught our attention namely because it’s Apple’s first true foray into the iPod accessories market, along with their new leather iPod cases.

The iPod Hi-Fi, which can be powered from a wall socket or by six D-cell batteries, features an integrated iPod dock and is controlled by the 6-button Apple Remote. It’s available starting today for $349.

We did get a good listen in some of the rooms Apple set up on campus to demo the sound in a “real world” environment (our fav was the teenager’s space, replete with dirty laundry strewn about), and yup, it sounds pretty good.

Compatible with all dock connector iPods, the Hi-Fi charges your iPod while docked and offers Tone Control, Large Album Art mode and volume mirroring on fifth-generation iPods and iPod nanos. You know how we wish it was, well, a little less iPod-centric for being a regular old piece of consumer electronics and all, but hey, you know how they play the game. The device also features molded handles, a removable front grille, touch-sensitive volume control buttons, a built-in power supply (no external power brick), and a 3.5-mm auxiliary input. The Hi-Fi measures 17.0” x 6.6” x 6.9.”

“iPod Hi-Fi has been designed and engineered by Apple to deliver unrivaled sound quality, realistic sound imaging and optimal audio performance,” the company says. “its clean, all-in-one design features a unique isolated enclosure system that includes two custom designed wide-range speakers and a tuned, ported bass system, minimizing vibration while maximizing sound quality and allowing users to listen to their favorite music as it was intended with amazing sound clarity and rich, deep bass.”

So how’s the thing feel? Well, let’s be straight up, the Hi-Fi is heavy. Like, way too heavy to want to carry with you to the cabana or the beach, as they described you might despite its alternate six D-cell power source. Click on to see some more shots!

Apple also today introduced new Intel-based Mac mini computers. Available in a 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo processor configuration and a 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo processor configuration, the new systems feature Apple’s Front Row media software and a new music, video and photo sharing feature that uses the company’s Bonjour wireless networking technology. The new Mac minis start at $599. Of course, there is a big difference between satisfying the faithful’s wildly unreasonable expectations and prancing around on stage just because you know you can get people to watch. Was the media event a waste of time or were expectations just too high? It is left as an exercise for the reader to categorize Tuesday’s revelations.

Gamepark announces redesigned XGP and surprise XGP Mini

Added phosphor effect, similar to z26. Useful on ROMs which alternate sprites from one frame to another, resulting in an annoying flicker. When using phosphor mode, a pixels colour is mixed with its previous value, resulting in a blended image that doesn’t flicker, emulating the phosphoresence effect on a real television.

Added ‘pp’ developer commandline argument to set the “Display.Phosphor” property, and ‘ppblend’ to set the amount to blend pixels in phosphor mode. Also added ‘Alt p’ key to enable/disable phosphor effect while ROM is emulated. By default, phosphor mode is only used when necessary, as specified in the stella.pro file.

Since the open-source GP2X handheld gaming console has earned itself quite a devoted little following, we’re sure that several of you will be excited to learn that Gamepark (but not Gamepark Holdings, who had split off to release the GP2X) has released photos of two upcoming models that may or may not pack the same PMP and emulation goodness — these may be geared towards the commercial market — into slightly different packages.

Renamed ‘cheetah’ commandline argument to ‘cheat’. Added per-frame cheatcodes (4 characters long), which are evaluated each frame. Added cheatcode GUI, where cheats can be named, edited, saved, etc.
Cheat codes are now saved to stella.cht file and are automatically reloaded when Stella starts.

First is the the redesigned XGP (Extreme Game Player) handheld, which ditches the swivel screen design that we once opined “looks a bit like the bastard child of a PSP and a Sidekick,” for a more traditional Game Gear / Lynx / Nomad-type form factor, while one-upping the GP2X in screen size (4-inches vs. 3.5), the addition of a DMB TV receiver, and a little standard known as WiFi.

Improved ‘joymouse’ functionality. While in GUI mode, any axis will simulate mouse movement, and any button will simulate a mouse click. So the GUI can be completely navigated without a mouse. Improved CommandDialog and LauncherDialog wrt joymouse functionality. These dialogs are used more than any other on devices without a mouse, so joystick axis movement switches between GUI objects, rather than simulating the mouse. This leads to much faster selection of objects.

The real surprise, though, was the XGP Mini, an obvious rip-off of homage to the Game Boy Micro, which like the GP2X and XGP, sports an SD slot and 64MB NAND memory, but 32MB less RAM than the 64MB found in its brethren.

Added mapping of multiple SDL joystick axis to Event Mapping. Added joystick hat support, and mapping of multiple hats to Event Mapping. Added remapping of paddle emulation to the keyboard or joystick axis (the mouse is still used by default for paddles). Related to this, use more precise analog values when analog axis are mapped to analog-type events (such as paddles).

Treat joystick events as other types of controllers based on the virtual port entry in stella.pro. This means that mappings for a joystick will emulate other devices when necessary. Added ’sp’ developer commandline argument, which sets the “Console.SwapPorts” property and swaps the arrangement of the virtual ports. Useful for games like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where the joysticks are normally swapped. Added ability to set which Stelladaptor device emulates which virtual joystick port (’sa1′ and ’sa2′ commandline arguments, which accept ‘left’ or ‘right’).

Although release dates are unknown for either model, the XGP will supposedly retail for around $300, while the XGP Mini (pictured after the break) will cost $150.