MOVE OVER, IPOD?
No one wants to carry two devices when one will do, so could the appearance last week of the first mobile phone with a built-in hard drive spell the beginning of the end for the Apple iPod and its ilk?
The Samsung SPH-V5400 has a 2.5-centimetre hard drive that provides 1.5 gigabytes of storage for MP3 audio or MP4 video. Though this falls a long way short of the iPod Mini鈥檚 4 gigabytes, the drive will allow far more music to be stored than the circa 100 megabytes generally available on cellphone memory cards. And higher capacity drives will doubtless follow.
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The phone also has a short-range FM transmitter, making it possible to play MP3 tracks on a nearby stereo by relaying the music on an FM channel 鈥� though this is illegal in many countries.
BLU-RAY WARNING
If you are thinking of spending nearly $4000 on one of the new high-definition Blu-ray video players currently on sale in Japan, be warned. It will not play the mass-market Blu-Ray movie discs promised for the system鈥檚 worldwide launch date in 2005.
The 13 companies in the Blu-ray Disc group, led by Philips and Sony, have finally set the standard for Blu-ray movie discs, some 16 months after Sony started selling a Blu-ray recorder. The specifications are different enough for the discs to be incompatible with these old machines.
鈥淲e have asked retailers to explain that today鈥檚 recorders won鈥檛 play Blu-ray discs released next year,鈥� says Yukinori Kawauchi, who heads Sony鈥檚 Blu-ray team. 鈥淢ost have been bought by fanatics who understand the situation.鈥�
AN SUV WITH SURROUND SOUND
While most people make do with simple stereo for their car鈥檚 sound system, Land Rover is aiming go several steps further with a seven-channel audio system for its 2005 Range Rover.
The new model of the sports utility vehicle, to be unveiled at the Paris motor show next week, comes with 14 home-theatre-quality speakers. The sound for the rear speakers is digitally delayed relative to the sound coming from speakers at the front to create a psychoacoustic illusion that 鈥� regardless of where you are in the car 鈥� the dialogue or vocals always come from the front of the car, while background music and sound effects seem to swirl from all around.
