News for Friday, 13 April 2007

Following Toshiba with its first dual format BD and HD-DVD compatible video player, Samsung announced the future availability of its dual format standalone player, the BD-UP5000.

Samsung’s Duo HD player (BD-UP5000) will fully support both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats and their interactive technologies, HDi and BD-Java.

Historically, Samsung has been part of the HD-DVD alliance, so one could consider the move as a smart way to avoid loosing sales of HD Video players.
If the price remains unknown, the BD-UP5000 should arrive in shops by the end of the month.

Hitachi-LG announced the availability in Europe of the first new 20x Multi DVD burner drive with Security Function, known as GSA-H55N. Beside its technical specifications and among them burning DVD at 20X, this burner features a technology enabling the user to secure data and content by controlling the access to the stored data (password protection). In addition, the Security Function also allows the user to verify data authenticity thanks to a digital signature; it also detects altered data and verifies data integrity and readability. The expected retail price in Europe should be 59€.
It remains unclear if this burner will require a dedicated application for the Security function, and if so will this application be available for Mac OS. Let's hope that its 20X burning speed will allow users to save more time when burning a DVD than the miserable 15 seconds measured when moving from 16x to 18x with the Pioneer DVR-112.

Clubic tested the new "iPod nano killer" released by Sony, NW-A800.

The NW-A800 is based on flash memory, and its user interface as well as its amazing battery lifetime have positively impressed testers. However, the USB transfer speed is 5 time slower than the one measured with an iPod nano, and the companion application supposed to be an iTunes-like developed by Sony is far from being equal to the original.
If this product might be unbalanced, the competition is getting everyday tougher, and it is time for Cupertino to upgrade all iPod models to maintain the design, innovation and user-friendly gap between iPods and their competitors.

LaCie announces the availability of a new 26" Widescreen LCD Display for professional users.

This display, with its wide 25.5" H-IPS panel with 1920x1200 resolution for displaying two A4 pages at full size, supports 95% AdobeRGB and 98.5% ISO-coated color space,providing a better match between captured, displayed and printed colors.
Such a top-quality monitor has a price: 1999€ (VAT excluded), including the blue eye pro calibration software and the LaCie easyHood. A bundle with the LaCie blue eye pro colorimeter will also be available for 200€ more.
The product is expected to hit shelves by the end of April.
PS: Specifications of this panel let us think that it might be the same one used in the NEC LCD2690WUXi.