IT SEEMS that the denizens in the lair of the Vole in Redmond have a bit of a sense of humour.

Last month a video turned up on the web which showed what would happen if Microsoft had been responsible for the packaging of Apple’s eyePod. During the process of the video, the package covers Apple’s minimalist presentation with so many words that you cannot see the product.

According to iPod Observer, a Microsoft spokesman has confirmed that the video was Volish humour and its packaging team made it.

It was supposed to be an internal video to highlight the challenges the outfit has and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding.

The video can be seen here, and Microsoft does not seem to mind if you have a laugh at its expense. More here

From The Inquirer

 

Leading the life of an Engadget editor, you don’t ever think you could come upon a rig or setup with too much screen real estate. Sure, you can overcompensate in any number of ways — like, say, too much drive space (what, you really need 8TB?) — but pixel acreage never struck us as one of them. Until now. Say hello to Virginia Tech’s 31 million pixel-pusher friends, their 24 display array “workstation” runs at 10240 x 3072. Apparently it takes 12 Linux servers running distributed computing software to operate, and can play Quake III at 15-30FPS. Well done, sirs, well done. We take it back, it’s not too much. It’s never too much.

[via Joystiq]

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From Engadget

German company AVM just announced their new FRITZ! Mini. This handheld device combines a cordless phone and music player with an information service allowing you to view news, weather, and sports reports on the color display. Not good enough, well the handset will also alert you to incoming emails and text messages though how they accomplish the latter is a bit unclear. See, the 802.11g WiFi enabled FRITZ!Box is the key, it acts as a base station and information hub for the Mini by streaming music, information, and both VoIP or fixed-line calls directly to the handset. It doesn’t appear though, that the !Box packs any storage it’s own damned self, but you can slip in a Memory Stick or connect any MP3 player with USB support for playback to the Mini. We’ll hunt one down on the CeBIT floor to see what all the hubbub is ok bub? Expected release in Q3.

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From Engadget

The new v10 media player, which features a T-DMB receiver, a 3-inch 480 x 272 display, USB 2.0, either 4 or 6GB NAND flash, integrated stereo speakers and support for MP3, WMA, OGG, H.264, WMV9, and DivX. Unfortunately it’s only a non-working prototype at the moment, but you can expect to see these hit the streets this summer in Asia and then launched at IFA in Berlin this September for the rest of world, likely sans DMB and that big telescoping antenna.

From Engadget

 

That 8GB thumb drive not doing it for you? Iocell has the solution, with the 16GB CellDisk, currently the largest flash drive available. Should be just the thing for creating that bootable XP flash drive you’ve been planning or for carrying around a couple of flicks from one PC to another. Of course, this won’t stay the world’s largest for long, and we’re fine with that. Bring on the terabyte thumb drives, and make it snappy!

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From Engadget

 

Looks like Mitac officially announced some new devices at CeBIT, though none exactly came as any real surprise: we were already well aware of the Mio P550, P350, and A701, and we’d heard about the Bluetooth-enabled and SD-expandable C710 and C510E, lower end C210, and media playing H610. But hey, here they are, and they’ll cost ya between €269 ($320 US) for the P350 up to €649 ($770 US) for the A701.

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From Engadget

We’re not exactly sure it sends the right signal when the first thing a display manufacturer talks up is a monitor’s base, but that’s what Samsung has chosen to highlight with the SM971P. The LCD display boasts (if that’s the right word) an asymmetrical base that allows it to rotate 180 degrees and tilt 65 degrees to adjust the viewing angle. Beyond that, the specs of the actual display aren’t bad either: 6ms response time, 1500:1 contrast ratio and 178 degree viewing angle. But, man, that asymmetrical base. Samsung, you’ve got a real winner with that one.

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From Engadget