Now Thats Just Damn Cool

Samsung Develops World’s First three-inch VGA LCD

Nomad05 writes “Samsung announced this week it has developed the world’s first three-inch VGA LCD panel that “directly meets industry interface standards for digital still cameras.” What this means is that future LCD screens on digital cameras will allow multimedia to be viewed at a resolution of 640×480. Presently, a majority of camera LCDs only display multimedia at a resolution of 320×240 — significantly lower in quality than Samsung’s new LCD. In layman’s terms, expect significantly brighter, more detailed LCD displays, which will enable you to review your photography more thoroughly after you take an exposure. This innovation will make it easier to spot blurry images and ensure your photo is framed properly. “

Gotta Love Cheap HDD's

Hard Drive Price War Coming

Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins says a price war in the hard drive business industry is a possibility. Seagate is the world’s largest hard drive manufacturer and are in direct competition with companies such as Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba. On Wednesday, Watkins said “If pricing doesn’t drop for us, it’ll be an upside.” Seagate is expecting stiff pricecutting from its competitors through into 2007.

Seagate believes that despite the aggressive price cutting from competitors, the only gains they are receiving are minor. Watkins indicated that their competitors are getting volume units and share, but it’s lousy share. Watkins said that Seagate gains more share because of product quality,reliability and support rather than heavy price cutting. Watkins alsonoted that Seagate’s competitors are cutting prices so much, it erodes into the profitability of its competitors.

Seagate acquired its largest competitor, Maxtor, earlier this year andannounced that it would cut the company in half. Seagate mentioned that despitethe job cuts,it would keep many of Maxtor’s enterprise level product lines and services. Seagate also made several announcements of its own so far this year, including a 300GB, 15,000 RPM, perpendicular Cheetah and 1TB NAS productsunder the Maxtor brand name.

Atthe moment, Seagate is one of the few companies that are not under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is currently investigating more than 80 companies for stock-option manipulations and back-dating practices that give huge financial gains to executive level employees. Watkins indicated that he was confidentabout his company’s business practices, saying “we have a very rigorous stock-option grant program. It’ssuch a rigorous process. We feel confident.”

DailyTech

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Please Be True

MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo rumors persist

If there’s anything we’ve learned about Apple, it’s that when Stevie J. takes the stage, expect the unexpected. This time, unfortunately, the unexpected took the form of significantly fewer real announcements than had previously been prognosticated by man; still no iPhone (figures), still no iTunes movie support (same); neither were very surprising, but we were really taken aback when Apple didn’t give their MacBook Pros some Core 2 Duo processor upgrades, being that every other laptop manufacturer has either done it or is lining it up. So, be that as it may, it should come as no surprise that the Commercial Times is supposedly reporting Asustek and Quanta are prepping to ship somewhere to the tune of 200,000-300,000 MacBook Pros and MacBooks with Core 2 Duo as of next month. Will it happen? Well, Apple is due for fall consumer product announcements (last year’s was in October), so this is one we’re not counting out.

Ok I Want One!

Stephen Johnson’s Coffee Table PC

Just face it, Stephen Johnson has a cooler coffee table than you. While you’ve been busy finding large and colorful books full of puppies and/or Oprah Winfrey to stack on top of yours (OK, maybe that’s just us), Stephen Johnson has been building the “ultimate” Media PC inside of his mod-inspired table, and it looks pretty darn sweet. The Coffee Table PC is featured in this month’s issue of T3 magazine, and includes a TV tuner, a 160GB HDD, a special LCD for displaying the weather, and is liquid cooled to keep things nice and quiet. There’s also WiFi for streaming your media wirelessly, but the £2500 starter pricetag ($4765 US) is enough to send us scurrying back to the relative safety of our collection of kitschy books.

Ahh NVIDIA Sweetness

NVIDIA Do-It-Yourself Quad SLI Launched

Spinnerbait writes “Today, NVIDIA will be releasing their Forceware v91.37 drivers and with them will be officially endorsing Do-It-Yourself Quad-SLI. HotHardware has put together an article detailing the steps necessary to assemble and configure a high-end Quad-SLI rig, and they give some thoughts regarding XHD Gaming and its associated costs. Those of you that are hell-bent on gaming ultra-high resolutions (1920X1200 or 2560X1600 for example), along with the highest available image quality, might want to give one of these setups a look.” Before making a purchase I would recommend building that water-cooled credit card first.

All You Ever Wanted To Know About The Apple Intel Mac Pro

Mac Pro: What you need to know

How does Apple’s new Intel-based Mac Pro differ from its PowerPC-based predecessor? Why is Apple only offering one standard configuration of its new desktop? And how does the Mac Pro’s performance-per-watt affect its design? To get to the bottom of these questions — and others — Jonathan Seff and Jason Snell have spent the days since the Mac Pro’s release familiarizing themselves with the last piece of Apple’s Intel puzzle.

Oooo Now We Are Talking

Dell has Core 2 Duo laptops in the wings?

A few spicy tidbits have been showing up on Dell’s websites pointing to some Core 2 Duo releases sooner rather than later. Their UK website lists Core 2 Duo versions of their XPS M1210, M1710, M2010 and Inspiron e1705 and e1505 laptops, while the US support site mentions a BIOS update to allow current owners of those laptops to upgrade to Merom processors. So far there isn’t any official word from Dell on any such upgrades, and you’ll have to call up Dell in the UK to try and finagle those Core 2 Duo models, but it seems like Dell fans aren’t going to have to wait too long to get some of that next-gen Intel action.

Color Me Impressed

Nikon’s D80 finally official

Ok, alright already, we get it, the Nikon D80’s officially real. We’ve been waiting for this one for the last few weeks, but by now any real mystery about the device has surely gone up in smoke. So, what’ve we got? The D80 features a 10.2 megapixel (uh huh) DX format CCD, Nikon F lens mount, 3D Color Matrix Metering II, 11 area autofocus, 0.18 second bootup, 80ms shot response, and… apparently an SD slot? (from the release: “Images are processed instantly and recorded quickly to the inserted SD memory card.” (This is the first time we’ve seen an SD slot appear in a high end DSLR in, well, a while.) Then there’s also the 3fps rapid fire shots, and 2.5-inch LCD; elsewise there’s the AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED lens (and we thought Samsung had rough product names) being released for the camera, with a 4.3x zoom and Vibration Reduction II OIS. Though the camera doesn’t yet appear to have a release date and price, the lens is going to be available worldwide in October.

Ooo Shiny

HD DVD for the Xbox 360

Microsoft demonstrate the company’s HD DVD drive built for the Xbox 360.

Now That's Just Sexy

Casio’s EX-S770 ultraslim camera

Casio’s rounding out that expanded lineup of fairly capable portable and ultraslim consumer cameras today the last of their three new 7.2 megapixel shooters. Their highest end 17mm thick $380 EX-S770 features 3x optical, a bright 1100cd/m2 2.8-inch display sure to kill that battery right quick, VGA MPEG-4 movie recording, in 16:9, anti-shake DSP, and “PHOTO TRANSPORT,” a method for moving photos from your PC to your camera for informational and entertainment purposes (gee, whoda thunkit?). Not too dissimilar from their $300 21mm thick EX-Z700 (with a 2.7-inch LCD), or their $250 EX-Z70. All feature that Casio eBay mode (for taking high detail, low res pics, we assume?), and should be shipping in September.