Technology in your hands.

The latest firmware for Sony’s Playstation 3 has added powerful audio features. In addition to an updated interface, the firmware 2.30 adds DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio features for Blu-ray movies.

“We are extremely pleased that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) is adding the full spectrum premium DTS-HD Master Audio codec into the PS3 so that more than 10 million owners of one of the best selling computer entertainment systems can have the best sounding, most efficient and flexible audio technology available system as well. DTS-HD Master Audio is fast becoming the must-have feature for high definition entertainment enthusiasts,” said Brian Towne, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Division at DTS.

In late February, Sony announced two new BD-Live (Profile v2.0) ready Blu-ray players, priced at $400 and $500. The BDP-S350, which will ship sometime in the summer for $400, will feature 1080p24/60 output via HDMI, one Ethernet port and decoding of 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD…

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Having conquered HD DVD, the Blu-ray camp is now bumping up player prices as it capitalises on its position as the only successful high definition disc format in the market.

Figures from market-watcher GfK, which monitors sales and market trends across all major retailers, show average Blu-ray player prices rose five per cent in February compared to January…

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Nintendo’s Wii game console outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by 3-to-1 in Japan in March but its DS handheld machine fell behind the PlayStation Portable for the first time in six months, a game magazine publisher said.

Nintendo, creator of such game characters as Mario and Zelda, sold 265,542 units of the Wii in the five weeks to March 30, compared with 81,579 units of the PS3, Enterbrain said on Friday…

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There is a ton of interesting information in the documents that have been released as part of the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit.

There’s the juicy e-mails that show Microsoft caving to pressure from Intel and lowering the graphics requirements to get the Vista Capable sticker. There’s also Dell outlining all of the problems it had with Microsoft in getting Vista to market as well as with its many readiness programs.

For those that want to give the full documents a read, the Seattle Post-Intellingencer has posted the complete PDF files of the documents, linked to from this blog by Todd Bishop.

Another area that got some notice this week was the inordinate number of early Vista crashes that were attributed to Nvidia, according to a list from early 2007. Nvidia was cited as causing nearly 30 percent of early Vista crashes (the exact time of the report is not listed), while Microsoft itself was to blame for nearly 18 percent. Intel and ATI each accounted for about 9 percent of crashes, according to the documents…

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AMD demonstrated its first 45nm processor designs at the giant CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany this week and said it is on track to release 45nm processors in the second half of this year.

Intel made the move to 45nm late last year and in the process switched its manufacturing process, dropping the silicon dioxide that gave the Silicon Valley its name and instead using hafnium oxide. This reduced leakage in the chips and lowered the heat they gave off in the process.

AMD has its own high-k metal gate technology via its semiconductor partner IBM. However, it is not going to the new hafnium design with these processors, at least not initially…

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Apple wants the iPhone to become a business email gadget - and a portable video game machine that might also help users manage their health records.

To help fuel that transformation, the company is teaming with a prominent venture capital firm to offer $US100 million to lure developers to the iPhone to create the next generation of applications.

Cupertino-based Apple unveiled new software on Thursday that reflects its intensifying effort to court business customers and placate third-party developers who want to build iPhone applications but have been locked out. A beta version of the free software update went out Thursday; the full version will be available in June.

With the announcements, Apple is foraying beyond the consumer mobile phone market while simultaneously supporting innovations for the phone that could spur sales. But not all developers will be happy with Apple’s approach, since the company will retain tight control over what programs go on the iPhone…

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A new silicon chip developed in Melbourne is predicted to revolutionise the way household gadgets like televisions, phones and DVD players talk to each other.

The tiny five-millimetre-a-side chip can transmit data through a wireless connection at a breakthrough five gigabits per second over distances of up to 10 metres. An entire high-definition movie from a video shop kiosk could be transmitted to a mobile phone in a few seconds, and the phone could then upload the movie to a home computer or screen at the same speed.

The “GiFi” was unveiled today at the Melbourne University-based laboratories of NICTA, the national information and communications technology research centre.

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The high definition disc format wars could be over after reports revealed that the main backer of HD DVD, Toshiba, is preparing to fall on its sword.

The move would mean consumers won’t have to worry about choosing a format that could eventually become obsolete. But the reduced competition could eliminate incentives for the rival Blu-ray camp to keep prices low.

A Toshiba source, speaking to Reuters, confirmed earlier reports that the company was planning to concede defeat as early as this month.

Earlier, a report by Japanese public broadcaster NHK said Toshiba would soon discontinue all HD DVD production and close factories in Japan. It estimated the move would cost Toshiba hundreds of millions of US dollars.

It follows a series of defections to the Blu-ray camp by major US retailers, which came on the back of already disappointing sales and movie studio support for HD DVD.

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Researchers are cannibalising the Sony PlayStation 3 console and other gaming hardware, turning them into low-cost supercomputers to model pharmaceutical molecules and black holes, the weekly New Scientist says.

The PS3 console uses a Cell chip, made by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, that comprises a central processing unit and eight slave processors and can run on the open-access Linux operating system.

The chip is prized by chemists and physicists because the kinds of calculations required to make high-quality graphics for games are similar to those used to simulate reactions between particles, ranging from the molecular to the astronomical.

University of Massachusetts astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna has strung together 16 PS consoles to simulate gravity waves that occur when two black holes collide, the British magazine says.

Another innovation is a graphics processor made by NVIDIA that boosts gaming-image quality in personal computers.

By using the C programming language to run the chip, University of Illinois chemist Todd Martinez found he could run calculations 130 times faster than on an ordinary PC.

His is now calculating the energy of the electrons in 1,000 atoms, which add up to the size of a small protein…

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Texas Instruments Inc said on Monday it would demonstrate a prototype cell phone based on Android, the highly anticipated mobile phone operating system being built by Web search leader Google Inc.

The U.S. chip maker said the phone it will demonstrate at the Mobile World Congress trade show has “one button access” to key applications such as Web browsing, e-mail, messaging and video, making it easier for consumers to use such features.

The device will also allow for the integration of different applications, a capability mostly limited to desktop computers. For example, a real estate agent could combine information from its database with mapping software to let customers easily locate properties on the go, TI said.

The prototype handset will run on TI’s OMAP850 phone processor, which includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth short-range wireless connectivity…

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