Also: 2G bytes of music on a tiny audio player; Sprint, Sanyo debut new multimedia phone; Movie clip extractor now available for Windows
If you like using your computer for making VoIP calls but don’t like using a headset, the Solo Conference microphone from Phoenix Audio Technologies might fit the bill. The USB conference microphone is available for about $200, and connects directly to a PC for use in softphone VoIP and Webconferencing applications.
The system includes echo cancellation, noise suppression and equalization features. Multiple participants can join an online conference at the same endpoint without using a headset, Phoenix says. A small form factor also means the device takes up very little desktop space.
More details are available here .
2G bytes of music on a tiny audio player
PNY Technologies last week launched a new Vibe digital audio player, which supports MP3 and Windows Media Audio files, and can store up to 2G bytes of files. The player will cost about $300 and is scheduled to be available in the second quarter.
The device features a sliding faceplate that exposes and protects the control panel, and a backlit LCD screen. In addition to playing MP3s, the Vibe includes an FM radio and voice recorder, and can double as a regular USB-based memory storage device. It operates on a single AAA battery, and provides up to 12 hours of continuous play, PNY says. Other Vibe players are available in 128M-, 265M- 512M- and 1G-byte capacities.
Sprint, Sanyo debut newmultimedia phone
Sprint and Sanyo last week launched the MM-5600 multimedia phone, which lets users listen to music (MP3 and unencrypted advanced audio coding files), take photos, and view video at rates of up to 15 frames per second. The device includes a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash, digital zoom and video recording functionality. It is scheduled to be available mid-March for $430 (or $280 after rebates).
The phone also includes a miniSD memory card (16M bytes) for storing photos, music files or videos, and comes with an adapter to let the card transfer data to Secure Digital-compatible devices. With larger miniSD memory cards (at least 128M bytes), users can shoot up to 90 minutes of video, Sprint says. With an included USB cable, the device can be used with the memory card to act like a key-chain storage device and transfer them to the PC.
Other features include a 2.1-inch internal color display, a 1.1-inch external color display, support for Sprint PCS Ready Link (walky-talky service), speaker phone, voice recorder, WAP 2.0 browser, Java (J2ME) download ability, Short Message Service, e-mail support and voice-activated dialing. The phone’s standard battery can support up to 3.4 hours of talk time and up to 10.5 days in standby mode.
Movie clip extractor now available for Windows
Miraizon announced last week that its DVD movie clip extraction software, Cinematize 2 , is now available on the Windows platform. The software lets users extract audio or video clips off unencrypted DVDs (most commercial DVDs are encrypted, though) and save them in a format compatible with standard multimedia editing tools. This lets users create new content from current DVDs, the company says. Originally available on Macintosh only, the new version can be downloaded for Windows systems for about $60 (free trial version available) at the Miraizon Web site. A packaged version of Cinematize 2 for Windows is scheduled to be available later this year.
In addition to extracting movie content, the software can extract still pictures by extracting specific short segments, the company says. Audio content support includes PCM, AC-3, MPEG, DTS and SDS, and video support includes PAL, NTSC, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. Clips are compatible with multimedia editing tools from companies such as Roxio, Nero, Microsoft, Adobe and Apple.
