Wrist Dreams - Watch Lovers Portal

If you are like KSN's Editor in Chief, Howard Carson, and you like watches ... then Wrist Dreams is the site for you. It is a blog which is aimed squarely at folks who have a fascination with time pieces. The blog is slickly put together and is well worth a visit. I found several time pieces I'd love to own...

Sony Ships Vaio TP1 MPC

Sony have finally shipped the first units of their Living Room PC. The cool white unit looks like a supersized battery and with no hd based drive in it it might as well be ... OK I'm being a bit harsh, but I've come to expect more from Sony expecially with the fact that you can get the PS3 with a Blu-ray as standard. The TP1 is basically a nicely packaged Core 2 Duo machine for your living room. It comes equipped with 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 300GB 7,200RPM SATA hard drive, dual-layer DVD writer, ATSC / NTSC TV tuner, GMA 950 integrated graphics set, and HDMI / DVI / VGA outputs. Sony have also provided an integrated 4-pin FireWire connector, audio in/out, four USB 2.0 ports, Memory Stick/SD slots, 802.11b/g, and Vista Home Premium. The TP1 starts at $1,599.99, and for that price They'd better rethink the lack of a HD Drive.

Logitech Wave Keyboard

Logitech have announced a new ergonomic keyboard in the form of the "Wave" the curvilinear keyboard comes in a cool black and looks like it would indeed be very comfortable to use ... though I'll save my final thoughts on this unit until I've had a chance to try one. The Wave is available in both wired and wireless editions and is set to be priced around the $90 mark for the wireless with mouse combo. It should hit stores sometime in August.

iPhone Proves Expensive.

Over at TG Daily, Wolfgang Gruener has posted an interesting article about the iPhone which more than any I've read exposes the real problem with the iPhone. I'ts worth a read and shows just how silly Apple and AT&T are being with their greed. Which will lose Apple many fans ... We all figured AT&T were a big mistake, and given the figures that wolfgang has cited many peeps will undoubtedly drop AT&T as a service provider and opt to wait for something which can unlock the iPhone. Pop on over and have a read ... TG Daily.

Shuttle SG33G5M XPC - SFF HTPC

Yeah, talk about a lot of letters. Basically this is a Small Form Factor Barebones based Home Theatre PC with a lot of features. At around $400 it is one of the coolest looking Shuttles I've seen yet. I have an earlier model which I swear by, and with all the features found in this new unit I'm very tempted to upgrade. The unit sports HDMI output, remote control and VFD display included. This Vista-ready SFF PC supports Intel’s Core[TM] 2 Quad, Core[TM] 2 Duo E6000/E4000, Pentium Dual-Core E2000 series and Celeron 400 series processors. The unit also supports up to 4GB of DDR2-800 memory in dual-channel mode. With HDMI output which supports the playback of copy protected HD content through HDCP visuals and sound are sent digitally over one cable. Specs are as follows: Intel G33 Express / ICH9DH chipset Supports Intel® Core[TM] 2 Quad, Core[TM] 2 Duo E6000/E4000 series, Pentium Dual-Core E2000 series, Celeron 400 series with socket 775 and FSB 1333 Max. 4 GB Dual Channel DDR2 800 (OC to 1066 MHz) 1x PCI-E X16, 1x PCI Gigabit LAN 2x Firewire, 6x USB 2.0 3x SATA2, 2x eSATA 8-channel audio with Dolby® Digital Live! and DTS® Connect DX9 ready Intel GMA3100 graphics with HDMI incl. HDCP Infrared remote control, VFD display 250 Watt SilentX power supply 310(L) x 200(W) x 185(H) mm The Shuttle XPC Barebone SG33G5M should be released in the next few weeks and with a recommended retail price of around 330 Euros, VAT not included.

Second Generation of Hybrid HD Drives

LG announced the upcoming release of 2 second generation HD Drives. The Hybrid HD DVD/Blu-Ray players are the GGW-H2LI and the GGC-H2LI are priced at around $500 and $400 respectively. Unfortunately for us Europeans these drives are US only models ...

Vista Update Soon

Reports at several sites on the web are indicating that there will most likley be a much needed update released for Windows Vista in the near future. Trusted Reviews are suggesting that a beta of the update will ship this month with an official roll out in november. Here's hoping...

Flybook VM

Flybook have released their latest "laptop", the Flybook VM which looks less like a laptop and more like workstation but shares the small form factor of Flybooks other products. The 12.1” VM notebook features an unusual extendable double-hinged arm on which the monitor can be slid up by 2.3” allowing it to be positions for a more optimal viewing experience. It looks like a nice piece of kit, but at $2699 it pales in both performance and features when compared to more established brands. Still, it does indeed look cool.

Dell Launch New & Cooler Laptops

Dell have taken a page out of Sony and Apples product design books, with the launch of several new models of Laptop. Their Top-of-the-Line XPS M1330 looks like a top class sleekly designed machine, and one worthy of the XPS moniker. It has clean lines, is relatively light (under four pounds), and with a magnesium shell and brushed aluminium accents, is a sexy piece of kit. It currently comes in three colors: Tuxedo Black, Pearl White, and Crimson Red. The M1330 has a starting price of $1,299. You can even get one of the first solid state hard drives in this baby. The SSD offered is available for a $600 premium and is only 32GB. The built-in video camera option is a free upgrade so look for it (thanks to Digital Trends for this tip). Other new models are their new Inspirons, which come in three sizes: the 14.1” 1420 , the 15.4” 1520/21 , and the massive 17" 1720/21 . The "21" postfix in the name indicates the model is AMD based. The XPS is definitely the most stylish of the new line and worth a look if you're a fan of Dell...

Samsung Prices Dual Format HD Disc Player

Samsungs BD-UP5000 'Duo HD' unit which will have Certified HD DVD and Blu-ray playback, and which will be fully 1080P compliant, has been tentatively priced at around the £800 mark. This Unit will support online extras for HD DVD and Blu-ray via an Ethernet port and can output movies at 1080p in a cinema native 24 frames per second and can scale all the way up to 60fps for faster videos. I don't need a crystal ball to guess that there will be a price war, possibly bringing the price down even more.

Spotlight on . . . Filter Forge

I am a big fan of the work being done by third party Photoshop plug-in creators and have a sizable collection of plug-ins. Filter Forge is a tool for producing and applying filters and procedural textures, and a whole lot more besides. Filter Forge comes in three versions, a $99 Basic edition provides unlimited access to the filter library but cannot create filters. The $199 Standard edition allows photographers and graphic artists to create their own filters including effects, textures, distortions, patterns, backgrounds and frames. The $299 Professional edition was designed with the needs of 3D-content and game creators in mind, providing support and features useful in architectural visualization, 3D rendering and design and includes support for bitmaps as large as 65,000 x 65,000 pixels, 16 & 32-bit images, and floating point-based file formats such as OpenEXR and PFM. I was extremely impressed by the performance and the range of filters available via the online filter library. Once accessed and downloaded you can transport your filters with relative ease. You have access to well over 2,000 filters and textures. Core features and technology include support for Dual Core CPUs, HDRI Images, 8, 16 & 32-bit image modes, floating point file formats and a really useful smart anti-aliasing feature which uses anti-aliasing only where and when it is needed. The creation of filters is facilitated via a visual node-based editor which is both extremely powerful and quite easy to use once you get your head around the concept. Filters are created visually by connecting components in a flow diagram to combine effects and functions. Available components include Brightness / Contrast, Channels, Gradients, Noise, Color Adjustments, Distortions, Patterns, Curves, Curve Operations, Image Processing Controls and so on. More than just a single effect tool, Filter Forge really has no equal. It is a library of effects and treatments that work as both a Photoshop plug-in and as a standalone application. I found Filter Forge both powerful and easy to use. This is one tool any imageer, artist and photographer should have in their toolbox. Highly recommended. The full Filter Forge review can be found here.