Hasta La Gadget!

Sony Ericsson has launched the Vivaz, a touchscreen 3G cell phone that captures high-definition 720p video, and also snaps photos with an 8.1-megapixel camera that includes face detection and geo-tagging.

The Vivaz features a TV-out for displaying video on an HDTV, YouTube compatibility, aGPS, and Wi-Fi. It measures 4.2 by 2.0 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs just 3.4 ounces, and also includes a 360-by-640-pixel 16:9 touch screen.

The Vivaz is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and tri-band HSDPA (850/1900/2100 MHz) device. It will hit the market sometime in Q1 2010 in “select markets.” If it follows recent high-end Sony Ericsson releases, that means the Vivaz will be available unlocked first, and possibly with AT&T later.

We seriously have to question the sanity of some of these high-ranking corporate types. Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America boss and fearless orator, has joined Andy Rubin of Google in claiming that his customers do not require a feature so prevalent nowadays that it has become close to a basic standard. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 are capable of streaming full HD movies from Netflix at no extra cost, Reggie has stated his belief that “there really is no loss for the Wii consumer” because “the vast majority” of Netflix streaming content isn’t HD anyway. Reiterating his longstanding, but never adequately explained, hesitance toward HD, Reggie has also claimed that the 26 million Wii console owners out there have voted with their wallets and will be quite happy to continue putt-putting along at standard def. Skip past the break to see him speaking his heresy with a straight face.

Continue reading Reggie Fils-Aime: Wii users don’t care for Netflix HD

Reggie Fils-Aime: Wii users don’t care for Netflix HD originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD and ATI have got yet another GPU contender under their sleeve, and this one’s got quite a one-two punch. The Radeon HD 5670 can boast DirectX 11 and Eyefinity support are for a suggested price less than one Benjamin Franklin. The usual suspects have weighed in on the card, and the consensus is that this is a “solid value” that outperforms its analogous NVIDIA GeForce GT 240. That’s not exactly an A+ grade, but we weren’t expecting it to go toe-to-toe with its older brothers costing hundreds of dollars apiece. AnandTech also points out that some DX11-compliant games (e.g. Battleforge, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) couldn’t pull off manageable framerates. Hit up the source links for more thorough analysis, and join us after the break for the official presser. One last word of advice, as noted by TweakTown: make sure the model you pick up uses GDDR5 (instead of GDDR3), as it could make a world of difference.

Continue reading ATI Radeon HD 5670 brings DirectX 11 and Eyefinity to the budget-minded market

ATI Radeon HD 5670 brings DirectX 11 and Eyefinity to the budget-minded market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember CES last year, when Creative debuted the Zii and — true to its marketing pitch — everything you know changed? Looks like the company (in the form of its subsidiary, ZiiLabs) is teaming up with ARM this go ’round to further blow minds with its new SiVO Digital Home Platform. Harnessing the newly released Zii Labs ZMS-08 (not to mention ARM’s 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor), the digital media hub boasts 1080p HDTV playback, 3D graphics, support for all your favorite media (including H.264, H.263, XVid and DivX, WMV9/VC1, MP3, WMA8 lossless, AAC-LC, and FLAC), web browser, Adobe Flash Player 10, and Adobe AIR. If you’re an OEM, ODM, or just a huge fan of Stem Cell computing, you’re in luck — this bad boy is making its debut this week in LV. PR after the break.

Continue reading Zii Labs and ARM team up for SiVO home media devices

Zii Labs and ARM team up for SiVO home media devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We love Windows Media Center but without access to our favorite HD content it just isn’t that interesting. So obviously we got excited when we first learned that Ceton planned to release a PCI-E card that would allow us to record four HD shows at once with a single CableCARD, but the question has been, how much? Now we knew it’d be cheaper than the $1200 that ATI would charge us for four digital cable tuners but according to Dave Zatz the yet to be announced price is $399. In addition, he has learned that Steve Balmer will demo the card in the big CES keynote Wednesday — which of course we’ll be covering live. This leads us to believe that there might be some other good news for Media Center fans, and since we’re dreamers, we’re hoping for some new Extenders for Media Center.

Ceton’s quad CableCARD tuner for Windows Media Center gets a price originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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