Iomega unveils 500GB HD multimedia drive

Not long ago the idea of adding 500GB of storage space to a home media system was unthinkable to the average consumer, unless one was willing to pay ungodly sums of money. What a difference a couple of years make.

Iomega is releasing its "ScreenPlay HD Multimedia Drive" at that half-terabyte mark, a considerable leap from the 60GB capacity of its last generation. As storage technologies continue to drop in price--the new ScreenPlay is selling for around US$200--it's positioned to compete with a growing number of products such as LaCie's LaCinema Premier, which was described in CNET's 2006 review as "essentially a big hard drive with audio and video outputs and a remote control" that can work with the TV while bypassing a computer or the Internet.

The new ScreenPlay drive works much the same way but, like many other devices in this age of high definition, also includes an HD "upscaling" feature to provide higher video quality where possible. As fellow Craver David Carnoy cautioned recently, however, it behooves consumers to do their homework on this technology because it can be a dubious distinction depending on how well the TV processes video.

Via Crave CNET

New iMacs arriving next week?

Apple could be getting ready for the advent of the educational buying season with new iMacs.

So says GeekSugar, which has a post up Thursday claiming Apple's about to tweak the all-in-one iMac desktop. It doesn't sound like much of an overhaul, just a speed bump to Intel's latest Penryn processors used by the MacBook and MacBook Pro and a larger hard drive, with no major design changes expected. Apple hasn't updated the iMac since introducing a new design for the lineup last August.

The current quarter is a prime buying period for K-12 school systems, said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer on Wednesday's earnings call. A slightly faster and larger system--at around the current price point, according to GeekSugar--might induce some to take the plunge.

Tuesday tends to be New Apple Product Introduction Day, so we'll probably know if new iMacs will soon grace Apple's store shelves by then.

Via Crave CNET

Google Hot Trends now in Singapore

Google Trends is one of the many products from the search giant meant to analyze the Internet, giving you an idea of what people are searching for. A subset of this is Hot Trends, which narrows down the results to a specific country. This started with the US and then India, and now, Singapore is the third country to have the Hot Trends feature.

Hot Trends Singapore lists the fastest rising queries on Google Singapore. This is not based on volume alone, but on the rate of increase of the search term. This makes perfect sense as top searches rarely ever change, with common queries like "weather" and "sex" taking up top spots all the time. We had a look at the trends from today and found queries like "waste paper" and "raffles place ghost" taking up positions in the top five. Unsurprisingly, searches for results of the American Idol singing contest aired in Singapore on Wednesday night also featured prominently.

For those living in Singapore, we know how people here love to queue up for food just because they see a long line at a stall. With Hot Trends Singapore, well, you can apply the same thinking to surfing the Internet: "I’ll look at what he's looking at!"

Let us count the ways to skin a mouse

We've heard of glamor studios dishing out free makeovers when you purchase the full package. Now, from Men to Mice, Microsoft Hardware is likewise offering a similar cosmetic freebie for selected mice (from S$59) and Wireless Laser Desktop kits (from S$129) that you purchase from now till June 30. Just know that this is only for Singapore, where customers will get to choose from eight Digiskin decals which include visuals from Halo 3, racing designs and the usual airbrush artwork. The entire skinning process should take about 30 minutes, done on the spot by a machine that ensures air bubble-free workmanship. Unfortunately, if you want your very own design, you'll have to fork out the usual S$12 rate, plus bring your own JPEG. Rats!

Microsoft starts pushing out Vista SP1

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is beginning automatic distribution of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the first major update to the year-and-a-half-old operating system.

The company finalized the Vista update in February, but has held off until now pushing it directly to individuals.

Starting Wednesday, the company will start sending it to Vista users who have Windows' automatic update feature turned on. However, the company cautioned that not everyone will get SP1 immediately.

"While Microsoft is beginning automatic distribution today, it's important to note that customers might not see the update download right away since Microsoft is distributing the service pack in phases to ensure a seamless download experience," the company said in a statement.

Vista SP1 was made available for download to customers last month. Service Pack 1 doesn't add much in the way of new features, but rather is a collection of changes designed to fix bugs and improve performance, as well as address competitive concerns raised by Google over Vista's desktop search system. Microsoft also changed how its antipiracy mechanism works with SP1.

The release of Vista SP1 via automatic update is the second milestone this week for the Windows team. On Monday, Microsoft announced it had finished work on Windows XP Service Pack 3. That product will be available for download next week, Microsoft said, but won't start being pushed out via automatic updates until summer.

Via CNET News Blogs

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