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Sony announces new B-, E-, and S-Series Walkmans

The first sign of fall in CNET's San Francisco office isn't the turning of leaves--it's the ever-increasing waves of new product announcements. MP3 players in particular start cropping up in late summer, perhaps in an attempt to get a jump on Apple's typical September iPod announcement.

Creative got an early start with its new Zen players a couple of weeks ago, and now Sony is joining the fray. Today, the company announced a rev to its Walkman line of MP3 players in the form of the B-Series, E-Series, and S-Series.

The S-Series represents the top of the line and is arguably the most exciting of the bunch. This new Walkman, which is available in a gunmetal black finish, comes with the integrated noise-canceling capability found on the Sony NWZ-S710.

A pair of complementing, high-end earphones are included in the package, along with an accessory cable that allows the player to be used as a standalone noise-canceling module for use with other audio devices--a unique feature that's ideal for use with in-flight entertainment systems.

Sony has also added support for WMV video (including DRM files from the likes of Amazon Unbox), an FM tuner, and a separate podcast menu item for easier management of the content. In addition, the S Series is the first Walkman to feature a customizable interface that includes a variety of themes and the ability to set personal photos as wallpaper.

Perhaps the coolest feature, however, is the SensMe Channels function, which is a "smart" DJ that uses an algorithm to analyze songs in order to create custom playlists (up to 11) based on each track's speed, mood, and rhythm. Other features include a 2-inch color screen and a rated battery life of 40 hours for audio. The S Series, which is available in 4GB and 8GB capacities for $149.95 and $179.95 (respectively), is expected to hit online shelves in the next three to four weeks. … Read more

Photos: Intel forum in review--from Atom to Tolapai

Update with Dunnington and Core i7 photos, text.

The latest and greatest silicon and derivative products is what the Intel Developer Forum is all about. Moorestown, Tolapai, and Canmore are just a few of the chips detailed at IDF this week, while UrbanMax, new netbooks, and the first laptops based on the quad-core mobile processor were among showcased products.

Intel Chairman Barrett brought out Carnegie Mellon University's Johnny Chung Lee, who demonstrated how cheap, off-the-shelf technology--in this case a makeshift whiteboard--can go a long way. "To be interesting today, technology has to be the fastest, the best, the brightest, the lightest, but here you can see if you sacrifice a little bit of capability and performance for dramatic savings in cost, you can have a pretty dramatic impact," Chung said.

One of the more novel devices demonstrated was the 10-inch Intel UrbanMax a computer that can switch between a laptop and tablet. This by itself isn't groundbreaking because tablet PCs from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba already do this. The novelty is the size and design: it is smaller than an ultraportable--like the Toshiba Portege--yet is designed like an oversize mobile Internet device such as Compal JAX 10. When configured as a tablet, the keyboard is hidden but can morph into a laptop by sliding out the keyboard, which tilts the screen.

An Intel official demonstrating the device said that "UrbanMax is an innovation platform from Intel. This is a product-ready concept." UrbanMax uses "Montevina" Centrino 2 small form-factor (SSF) silicon. SSF chip packaging is used in the MacBook Air and results in lower voltage and smaller size than typical Intel low-power mobile processors.

It is interesting to note that major PC makers have adopted Intel concept designs in the past. Last year, Intel offered a ultra-thin laptop concept design that was eventually adopted by HP for its Voodoo Envy 133 notebook. … Read more

Kodak announces cheap new digital photo frame

Kodak just announced a new entry-level model in its Easyshare P-Series line of digital photo frames. The news here is that at $79.95 the P520 is pretty inexpensive. But as one might expect from a sub $80 frame, it's on the small side at 5 inches.

This model, like the 7-inch P720 has touch-sensitive buttons on the border of the frame. The press release says, "With the touch sensitive Quick Touch Border, and with its unique scrolling feature, you can easily navigate through your images by simply sliding your finger across the frame border." Sexy stuff. … Read more

DisplayLink now optimized for Intel-integrated chipset

DisplayLink--which makes technology that allows multiple monitors to be connected to one computer through USB--announced this week that it's now optimized its technology for the Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family for desktops and notebooks.

Previous systems with integrated graphics were only able to connect one additional display. Now via DisplayLink and with these new Intel-specific optimizations, users with PCs based on the Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family can easily connect to up to four monitors at once without the need to buy additional graphics cards. In addition, users who run four monitors on the Intel chipset … Read more

Olympus announces new point-and-shoot models

Bright colors seem to be the fashion for snapshot cameras this fall; in addition to the staid black and silver and omnipresent pink, like many other manufacturers Olympus is offering this pair in eye-searing red and blue as well.

Both ultracompacts incorporate 8-megapixel CCDs and have similar attractive designs, but quite different feature sets. The FE-360 incorporates a 2.5-inch LCD and a 36-to-108mm-equivalent 3x zoom lens; the FE-370 uses a 2.7-inch LCD and a 36-to-180mm-equivalent 5x zoom lens, plus adds sensor-shift image stabilization. The latter also features a bunch of this year's buzz technologies, including Smile Shot … Read more

Dell revamps Latitude line with new E laptop series

If you have a company laptop, chances are it's either a Lenovo ThinkPad or a Dell Latitude--both have universally recognizable designs, and are capable performers in both small and large businesses. This week, Dell is unveiling a fairly major revamp to the Latitude line with the new E series, anchored by the 15-inch Latitude E6500 and 14-inch E6400.

The most striking break from the traditional gray Latitude look is the new black brushed metal design, which promises to be thinner and lighter than the current versions. In a Latitude first, select models will also be available in Regatta Blue, … Read more

Mozilla Labs vetting user talent for new products

On Monday, Chris Beard, vice president and general manager of Mozilla Labs, posted a rather vague, yet optimistic, blog entry about opening up Mozilla Labs projects to the Web community at large. The move comes just a week after the company lost Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla VP of engineering, to Facebook.

Beard has coined it a "concept series" and included three videos of products and services currently at a the conceptual level and not yet ready for public consumption. Of the three embedded in Beard's post, the most buzz-worthy was the mobile version of Firefox, which surfaced two months ago. The other two are a little more out there, with a bookmarks visualizer and what is seemingly the most complicated-looking interface demo ever done by the folks at Adaptive Path for a project called "Aurora" which was unveiled last night.

To get involved, Beard is asking users to keep their ideas structured into one of three buckets:

Ideas It all begins with an idea. A sentence, paragraph, or even bullet-points kick-start the process. Ideas can be simple and non-technical. It should be easy for anyone and everyone to help shape the future of the Web. So throw your notions, inspirations, dreams and visions out to the community. Mockups Turn your idea (or someone else's) into an image, sketch or video. Words are great, but you know what they say about pictures. Mockups offer up a visual and communicate ideas in terms that are just a bit more polished and real. They draw the next person in, tempting them to pick up the concept and run with it. Prototypes A prototype is interactive. Feel, touch and play with developing concepts. Prototypes get ideas across by showing off the moving parts. They aren't always fully functional or pretty, but they're more than a static image or two. They're a dress rehearsal of sorts, with minimal programming. Make a prototype in HTML, Flash, or whatever puts things into action.

Mozilla is also using tags on popular Web services to let people post up their mockups, the first of which have already shown up on Flickr.

I've embedded all three concept videos below. The aurora one is in HD only if you watch it on Vimeo, so click here to see it in it's full-resolution glory.… Read more

2009 BMW M models get new nav system

Word is out that BMW's updating its high-performance M line of vehicles for the 2009 model year. Featuring a host of external tweaks, such as new taillight designs and exterior mirrors, the most noteworthy updates are the inclusion of the new iDrive across the M line, a competition package for the M6, a new hard drive-based navigation system, and what BMW calls ConnectedDrive.

On the performance front, the entire M line will see incremental power upgrades and suspension tweaks, but the M6 gets the biggest bump with the addition of an optional competition package. This primarily suspension package consists … Read more

Funding, bandwidth awarded to lay new series of tubes

It might sound very Noah's Ark, but this is not a joke: $12 million in government funding, as well as bandwidth from two research hubs, has been awarded to the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI), a project from BBN Technologies that literally wants to rebuild the whole Internet.

The funding comes from the National Science Foundation, and it's in the form of a three-year grant that will span about $4 million per year. More specifically, it's for GENI's "design and risk-reduction prototyping," and will involve contracting 29 university research teams. The Internet has … Read more