Car audio systems toying with MP3
Call it Napster meets Henry Ford.
The race is on to market in-car audio systems that will end the behind-the-wheel fumbling for cassette tapes or CDs by storing and playing files in the MP3 format.
Current offerings include a $1,999 in-dash player capable of storing up to 1,000 hours of music enough to drive round-trip from Los Angeles to New York City more than 10 times without listening to the same song twice.
Other systems, like Visteon Corp.'s MACH MP3 in-dash player, above, are capable of playing up to 10 hours of MP3-formatted songs stored on CD. It will be available on the company's Web site within the next few weeks.
In-vehicle digital audio isn't expected to catch fire immediately. But many see the technology as a vogue item for "early adopters" tech-savvy consumers willing to pay extra to be on the cutting edge, before prices make it affordable to the masses.
Updated Game Boy to hit stores soon
Nintendo Co. is out to prove that Mario doesn't need super-sophisticated computer graphics to sell.
Game Boy Advance, the revamped version of the Game Boy portable video-game machine, is set to hit U.S. stores June 11 for $99.95.
That's just in time for summer vacation for the target market children.
Mario, the red-capped acrobatic plumber, jumps, runs and catches gold coins the same as ever on the Game Boy Advance. But the monitor can now show 32,000 vivid colors, far more than the 56 of Game Boy Color, which was released in 1998.
Compared with the latest offering from rival Sony Corp. PlayStation2, which delivers dazzling three-dimensional images with a powerful 128-bit processor the 32-bit Game Boy Advance offers just the basics.
Kodak introduces new-fangled film
Scientist Bob Wyman and a team of Kodak scientists recently introduced a new Kodak Max 35 mm film.
Kodak says it's the most versatile 400-speed film it has developed. Based on company testing, up to 25 percent of the pictures taken with the new Max film will be improved compared with pictures using
100- and 200-speed films.
Microscopic silver halide grains give the new Kodak Max 35 mm film its ability to record light and produce a picture. Wyman, above, uses a microscope to magnify each silver halide grain 10,000 times.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.