Samsung develops worlds smallest DVD player called P-Theater. This prototype unit weighs only 0.9 kg and has measurements of 20 cm long, 16 cm wide and 5.5 cm thick. The P-Theater can be connected to a regular TV or projection TV for use in the home. The player can also play music CD's. Samsung Electronics invested 1 billion won ($ 1.1 million US)to develop the P-Theater prototype. The DVD player will be available in the second half of next year. Here is the press release.
Fujitsu releases a new 15-In TFT LCD monitor using breakthrough MVA technology. Unprecedented image quality, widest viewing angle and fastest response time in the industry. The product is priced at $2,930 US, and it will ship in early December. Not exactly a breadthrough in price! The monitor supports a resolution of 1,024 x 768 in 16 million colors, and shows almost no distortion when displaying pictures with a resolution less than 1024 x 768 because it uses a microchip that compensates for image quality. Here is the press release. IBM Is To Announce 1.1 GHz CPU
In the lawsuit 3Dfx alleges that NEC and VideoLogic:
Here is the press release.
State of the art in audio processing by ESS Technology called the Maestro-1. A single chip capable of an amazing 500 MIPS with its DSP Wave Processor, able to deliver 64 separate channels of high fidelity sound. The Maestro-1 maintains full DOS legacy audio compatibility with the SoundBlaster standard over the PCI v.2.1 bus. This chip makes efficient use of the PCI bus by being able to deliver two 16-bit 44.1 KHz channels of sound while only using less than half of one percent of the bus. This chip also will relieve the host CPU in processing DirectSound and DirectSound3D so that the host CPU can do other processing. Videologic is offering a sound card in November called SonicStorm for $99 US that will be using the Maestro-1. In the 4th quarter of 1997 ESS Technology will be offering a version of the Maestro-1 called the Maestro-3 which will be able to do modem processing along with the audio processing.
Core Design, the company in England that is responsible for Tomb Raider, is going to produce 3 games for the Saturn 2. This information is a bit preliminary as Core has not confirmed this openly with any announcements. There has been news by Core already that the Tomb Raider series is exclusive to Sony for their Playstation game console. So we wonder what future games will Core produce for Sega's new super console? Hopefully something along the line of Tomb Raider. Visit Core Design.
"On Dec. 20, 1996 Honda Motor Co., Ltd. in Tokyo announced the development of the first robot capable of decision-making according to terrain conditions.The battery-powered robot, with two arms and two legs, is capable of changing direction according to conditions, as well as climbing stairs or slopes. It also can balance itself automatically if pushed, and keeps itself upright according to the angle of a slope." Check out other info and quicktime videos of the robot in motion: Honda Introduces "Human" Robot. Sega Seeks Developers For Saturn
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The boys at Id software have released the Quake II test demo onto the world. Worker's productivity the world over comes crashing down.
The latest news in optical media relating to DVD. Pioneer Electronic Corp showed a DVD enhanced player that can store up to 15 GBytes on one side as oppose to 4.7 GBytes for current generation DVD players. This player will have the capacity to store a movie in HDTV resolution of about 1920 by 1080 pixels. Pioneer wants to have this player on the market by the year 2000 using a blue laser(400nm) as the optical pickup device. The article is here. Here is a great site with lots of DVD news: DVD info.
The Cassini space probe left today onboard a Titan IV rocket in a 7 year voyage to the planet Saturn. This 3.4 billion US dollar mission will be the most expensive probe in NASA's history and the last big project to the planets as NASA now has a overall objective that smaller is better. "This mission's objective is a four-year, close-up study of the Saturnian system, including its atmosphere, the magnetosphere surrounding Saturn, those rings, its many icy moons and the large moon, Titan," said Wesley Huntress, NASA's associate administrator for space science. I will provide additional details on the mission when the space craft arrives in orbit around Saturn on July 1st, 2004. Do not forget to tune in here. Check out NASA's website. 200 MByte Floppy Drive
VLIW Processor From Matsushita
ThrustSSC sets the first supersonic World Land Speed Record 763.035 m.p.h Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA
BootNet has an article on a new memory technology called "Enhanced Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory" (ESDRAM). Will this high performance memory be the next standard for the PC? Get the details of this new memory type here: ESDRAM Speculation Begins On Playstation
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Check out GameFan for information by someone that goes by the name of Lee Tang. Seems he has the lowdown on a new console system by Sega. Specs are quite different then the ones we have been hearing lately. Here is the article: The Sega System...That Never Was? Speculation On Playstation 2
OpenGL Drivers Available For PowerVR
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Microsoft announced its new embedded OS platform, Windows CE 2.0. The operating system is designed to empower a variety of computing appliances, including set-top boxes, DVD players, Handheld PCs, and smart phones. Windows CE 2.0 includes support for 32-bit color displays, international character sets, LAN connectivity, printers, ActiveX, Java, and more. It is available for licensing by OEMs in third-party products and embedded systems. |
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