UMAX PIONEERS NEW PRICE GOUGE

Jun 3, 2002 | hardware

Umax is one of the leading manufacturers of scanners. A week ago, they began charging for driver updates that previously had been available as a free web download. And prices are high – between thirty and sixty dollars. So if you own a Umax scanner and...

XBOX LIVE AND ONLINE GAMING

May 21, 2002 | games, hardware

The next hot market is online gaming – plenty hot already, but due for a big push in the next eight months. Many people are joining massive online worlds and investing oodles of time in their online characters. Everquest, Ultima Online, Asheron’s Call...

DATAPLAY – THE NEXT BIG THING (not)

Apr 20, 2002 | DRM, hardware

Miniature CDs will hit the market this summer, presumably with a heavy advertising blitz. The “Dataplay” discs look like CDs that are one inch across and come in a small plastic cartridge. They can store up to five albums, plus a bunch of computer data,...

RECORDABLE DVDS

Apr 10, 2002 | hardware

Most consumers have stayed away from recordable DVDs, since there’s a blizzard of competing acronyms representing different, incompatible media and disk formats. DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-RAM – it’s a mess, and it’s long overdue for one of the...

NEW STANDARD FOR RECORDABLE DVDS

Feb 18, 2002 | hardware

Recordable DVDs are available right now, but it’s a complete mess – DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and other “standards,” using different media, playing on different machines. It’s the same tangle of competing business interests that delayed the entire...

HOME ENTERTAINMENT HUBS

Jan 16, 2002 | audio, hardware, video

The home entertainment devices that will be hot next Christmas are taking shape. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, a new company demonstrated the MoxiMedia Center, which combines a cable or satellite TV receiver, a personal video recorder (like Tivo or Replay),...