Axion says it's shipping the company's latest portable DVD system. Designed primarily for use in the car, although it comes with both AC and DC adaptors, the new AXN-6079 includes a small DVD player and two seven-inch widescreen LCD screens.
Complaints about scratched iPod nanos are giving way to solutions from Apple and other parties. First there are those three Apple-branded iPod cases in Italian leather. Tug a little ribbon and your iPod slides out gracefully. Cases are available for the 60GB, 30GB, and nano. The $99 pricetag may raise an eyebrow among the hoi i-polloi but clearly Apple is lunging for the carriage trade here. Meanwhile NYC retailer J&R is selling iPod nanos that have been put through a custom hardening procedure described this way: "Each custom colored iPod goes through a thorough process of cleaning, painting, protection and curing before it is ready for use. The protection comprises of the unique X2 scratch resistant liquid plastic coating. It's applied right after the painting process and cured with ultraviolet light, to achieve superior scratch resistance and clarity. The final product has a finish that won't fade or crack!" The price for a treated 2GB nano is $265 or $66 more than list.
04/05/2006 On Monday I heard that later this week Mitsubishi will be showcasing some rear-projection TVs based on Texas Instruments' digital micromirror (DMD) DLP technology.
Downloads for movie collectors—as opposed to renters—are finally happening in a big way. Warner-owned Movielink, until now just a download-rental service, now offers 300 titles for download-ownership from six major studios. CinemaNow offers another 75 titles worth of ownable bits from three studios. Pricing, unfortunately, is actually higher than Amazon disc purchases, but hey, it's a start. The coolest permutation—alas, for Brits only—is Download to Own from Universal Pictures and Lovefilm. For one price you get two downloads, one for a PC and one for a portable media player—plus a hard-copy disc—all for one admittedly stratospheric price. Even if none of these schemes appeals to you now, it's clear that movie downloads are now a viable option for library builders, and it's only a matter of time before they go high-def. Blu-what?
Podcasts, those audio recordings of your innermost thoughts that you share with every Internet-connected person on the planet, are easily done with a hodgepodge of hardware and software. But they're most easily done with M-Audio's Podcast Factory ($180), which has everything you need to record and edit your podcasts and post them as MP3 files on podcasting sites.
HD Movies Free on Cable "Free" and "cable" don't usually go together. Yet about 80% of Comcast households are being offered a sprinkling of high-def video-on-demand movies free each month. April titles will include Cliffhanger, Desperado, and The Fifth Element.