HD-DVD may be going down for good

Rumors of an impending HD-DVD death note have been rampant since the Warner Bros. defect. And according to a recent article from Home Media Magazine, there are fresh updates that Toshiba is about to throw in the towel after endless waves of setbacks. This is despite the Japanese company's last-ditch efforts to revive the ailing HD format such as a US$2.7 million Super Bowl ad and aggressive US HD-DVD player price cuts.

If the Sony-led Blu-ray camp has its way with a landslide victory, early HD-DVD adapters will have no choice but to relinquish their expensive players as an HD-upscaling DVD kit. Not exactly a paperweight, in our humble opinion, though they will have to fork out even more good money to switch over to the competing format. If you're a red camp supporter and hope to chip in your 2 cents' worth about saving HD-DVD from biting the dust, here's an online petition to sound out the Hollywood movie studios and content providers.

We're just wondering what's stopping Microsoft from throwing in more monetary carrots to win back the hearts of the defectors. Come on, you guys should have a lot more reserve than those mere millions.

Via Engadget

Rinspeed to debut submersible sQuba in Geneva

Rinspeed, a boutique automotive design company, plans on blowing away the upcoming Geneva auto show with its sQuba concept, a car that swims underwater, drives autonomously on land, and is emission-free. The car, based on a Lotus Elise, uses an electric motor to drive the wheels on land, plus two other motors to drive propellers underwater. According to Rinspeed, it uses a laser system to detect obstacles ahead so that it can drive itself. Rinspeed released video of the sQuba, showing that it really can swim underwater.

Sound familiar? James Bond's Lotus swam underwater in the 1977 movie, The Spy Who Loved Me. Of course, that was movie magic. The sQuba can float on the surface and--when the driver floods the open-top cabin--the car will submerge. Rather than sinking to the bottom, it can travel through the water at depths up to 10m. Along with its rear propellers, it has small water jets on the sides. Yes, the occupants will get wet, but an integrated scuba tank means they can breathe. Rinspeed points out that the interior materials won't be harmed by contact with salt water, although your tuxedo probably won't fare so well.

Look for our coverage of the sQuba and other cars at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show, starting March 4.

Via Crave CNET

A secret to drying clothes? Liquid

Clothes dryers are the second biggest hog of household energy, according to the Department of Energy. Most are so similar in terms of power hunger that the Energy Star label of efficient appliances doesn't even mark dryers.

By this fall, however, consumers could enjoy faster, greener, and safer clothes dryers that draw half the power of conventional models, according to Hydromatic Technologies Corporation.

Its Dryer Miser technology would dry garments 41 percent more quickly without shrinking as much or stinking them up with the odor of burnt lint, said Michael Brown, the inventor and company president.

He plans to sell the Dryer Miser in the fall as a US$300 retrofit kit that he says could be added to existing dryers in 20 minutes by a technician. Up to 40 percent of dryers from Whirlpool, the top brand in the market, as well as others, could be converted.

The company is also working with a large European appliance manufacturer to integrate the technology into a scratch-built dryer model.

Liquid is the key ingredient to drying clothes more quickly, according to Brown.

"We used NASA and MIT engineers to prove the technology is an oxymoron and (that) I'm not a moron," said Brown.


Read more »

BenQ MID spotted at MWC

When we caught wind of the BenQ Mobile Internet Device, via jkkmobile blog, which was showcased at the Mobile World Congress, we were furious. How did our senior reporter manage to miss such an important announcement? We were just getting ready to give him the carpet beater treatment a la Casino Royale when we remembered that the huge scale of the show would have required him to instant clone himself several times over to cover every booth. Moreover, no one expected a laptop companion to launch at one of the largest mobile exhibitions of the year.

But back to the topic in hand. The 4.8-inch device is based on Intel's Silverthorne processor on the Menlow platform. We like the fact that the touchscreen resolution is 1,024 x 600, which means that almost all Webpages can render fully without side scrolling. However, this also means you may need to squint while reading text on the small screen.

But the highlight of the BenQ MID is really the shake control. It is likely that this feature is based on a built-in accelerometer that detects motion and pegs them to certain shortcuts. Running on Red Flag Linux, the Wi-Fi radio is boosted with HSDPA connectivity and an integrated Webcam.

So while we have kind of forgiven him for missing out on this device, that won't stop us from giving him the blanket party treatment when he returns to office next week.

» Mobile World Congress 2008 show report

Nokia E71 spied in Sydney

With the world's eyes on the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it seems like we may have missed a particular enterprise handheld--the E71. Not for CNET Australia's Joseph Hanlon, though, as he was lucky enough to see a "secret" comparison picture of the E71 with the E61 at the Showcase Nokia event held in Sydney recently.

Information is usually scant at this stage although the handset is purported to come with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSD expansion card slot, QWERTY keyboard, 3.2-megapixel camera and onboard GPS.

I think one of the reasons we are excited about this upcoming device is because the E61 had been one of the best smart phones of its time. Even though its successor--the E61i--didn't bring much to the plate besides the inclusion of a camera module and better build quality, it offered users who wanted a camera on their handheld an alternative to choose from. And what better than to have it on an already successful device.

There hasn't been an official announcement of the E71 yet, but I'm sure we aren't too far away from seeing it. More details to follow once we have them.

Via CNET Australia

» Mobile World Congress 2008 show report

Update from source: The picture of the E71 is a photoshop mock-up of the E71 created by a Mobile Review user, which is very similar to the actual handset we saw in a photo at the Nokia showcase event.

Picture credit: AvWijk

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