1999 - 2009, Ten years of AfterDawn
It has been ten years now since our site, AfterDawn.com, was launched back in June, 1999. To celebrate this event, I went through our extensive collection of news articles from the past ten years and tried to somehow summarize what has happened in the world of “digital entertainment” during our site’s existence — and what has happened to our site during that time. This can be considered as my personal “memoir” of what has happened to our site during the past ten years, and also serves as our “birthday
Pioneer begins shipping three new Blu-ray players
Pioneer has begun shipping three new Blu-ray standalone players, all three of which were introduced at CES in January.
The Elite BDP-23FD will include BD-Live support, “audiophile-grade” capacitors, and the company’s “Precision Quartz Lock System” which helps the player avoid all jitters during playback.The player also includes “48-bit color, 7.1-channel audio and RS-232 support” and will cost $599 USD.
The less expensive, $399 USD BDP-320, has the same Lock System, BD-Live and 48-bit color, but will lack special case design and some of the audiophile-grade features.
The low-end BDP-120 will retail for $299 USD and will remove the lock system and will downgrade to 36-bit color range. The player will also not include the 1GB of internal storage needed for BD Live and will rely on external USB storage.
VUDU adds HD Disney movies
VUDU has added 60 Disney films to its online movie download catalog, marking the first time those films are available online for purchase, legally, in HD.
The movies range from “No Country for Old Men” to “High School Musical.”
Competitors such as the mighty Apple iTunes only offers Disney’s catalog for purchase in SD and rental in HD.
The videos will be available in VUDU’s special own HDX format and in regular 720p, each with 5.1 surround sound.
Apple slashes price of iPhone 3G, updates firmware to 3.0, launches 3G S model
Apple had a busy day today at the WWDC 2009 event, revealing that they will be slashing the price of the lowest capacity iPhone 3G to $99 USD, launching an new iPhone 3G S model, and introducing the 3.0 firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The 3.0 firmware will be available on June 17th for free for iPhone users or $9.95 USD for Touch users. The most notable new feature available are the ability to purchase and rent movies, TV shows, music videos and audiobooks directly through iTunes right from the device.
Other features include the ability to shake the device to turn on shuffle in music playback and new parental controls that will allow users to limit App Store apps. Also notably, Safari will now include autofill and much faster JavaScript.
AT&T will also finally begin supporting MMS features such as picture and audio mail in “late summer.”
A couple of the new software features will only work on the new 3G S model, and those are specifically, support for voice control, new camera controls, video capture, electronic compass, hardware encryption of all data and Nike + iPod support.
The voice control allows for, as expected, voice dialing. The new camera features include “rapid shutter, low light, macro and autofocus, touch controls for automatic refocus, exposure and white balance settings.” The camera will also be 3MP.
Video capture will allow for trim editing and easy uploads to MobileMe and YouTube. The hardware encryption will encrypt all internal data, making remote wipes instant. The compass, well, shows what direction you are facing on a map display.
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Acer 3D laptop coming in October
Campbell Kan, Acer mobile computing VP has noted today that the computer company is currently developing a laptop with 3D display that will be available by the end of October.
The model will have a 15.6 inch display, and will recognize 3D movies natively. Users can also convert their standard movies into 3D. Kan was unclear about how 3D gaming would work. As with most current 3D displays, you will require stereoscopic glasses to view in 3D.
The notebook will also run Windows 7 which is set for a September release. Kan also noted there is a model being created that will not require special glasses but there is no timetable set for it as there are lots of developing setbacks.
Apple makes Safari 4 available
Apple has introduced the updated Safari 4 browser today, taking it out of public beta.
A few of the new additions, taken from the full updates page are as follows:
Full-Page Zoom
Zoom in or out on web content using keyboard shortcuts, Multi-Touch gestures, or the Zoom toolbar button for more comfortable reading. Images and graphics scale up while your text remains razor sharp, keeping the web page layout consistent as you zoom. To add the Zoom button to your toolbar, simply choose Customize toolbar from the View menu and drag the button onto your toolbar.
Speculative Loading
Safari loads the documents, scripts, and style information required to view a web page ahead of time, so they’re ready when you need them.
Nitro JavaScript Engine
Safari 4 introduces the Nitro JavaScript engine, an advanced bytecode JavaScript engine that makes web browsing even faster. In fact, Safari 4 executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1.
Cover Flow
Using Cover Flow, you can flip through websites as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays your bookmarks and history as large graphical previews, so you can pick out a website instantly.
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Epix to provide 720p streaming of major motion pictures
Three major motion picture studios, Lionsgate, Paramount, and MGM have jointly announced the launch of Epix, an HD online streaming service and HD TV station that will allow users to watch the studio’s films, for free, in HD.
This may sound similar to Hulu except there is no advertising, and you won’t see any charges. The service is bundled directly into cable subscriptions, and the movies will air before they even hit DVD, like a standard televsion PPV.
Emil Rensing, chief digital office at Epix, says the movies will also be available online in full 720p streaming, at EpixHD.com.
Arstechnica elaborates and says “the video is offered through Flash and is multi-bitrate enabled; the player checks the available bandwidth every ten seconds to see if a larger or smaller stream is required. Epix currently creates six different encodings of each film which range from full HD support all the way down to 500Kbps (cell phone quality). In our own test preview of Iron Man, video was the best we have ever seen in a mainstream streaming service.”
The only catch is that EpixHD.com will only be available to users who are subscribers to cable company’s internet and TV services. Chances are you already are though.
Next Nintendo console will be HD-compatible
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said this week that he believes that although high definition video has no “significant meaning” to users of the extremely popular Wii, the next Nintendo console will certainly be HD-compatible.
“If we have an opportunity to make a new console, it will probably support HD because it is now common throughout the world,” Iwata says. “However, as far as the Wii is concerned, we have not found a significant reason to make it HD-compatible at this time.
“What is the significant meaning to the users? I don’t think we should do it unless we find that reason. If we decide for other reasons to make new hardware, then HD is one of the things we would naturally add.”
Iwata also spoke out about the new Sony and Microsoft motion-based control systems.
“We don’t have any information about when they would introduce these things and at what kind of price,” he added. “Until we know exactly what they will do, it’s harder to understand what we would need to do.
“What Nintendo has to do is make software that takes advantage of the Wii MotionPlus and make efforts to make the public understand the benefits of the Wii MotionPlus controls. As the pioneer of motion-sensing technology, what Nintendo has to do is provide new surprises in the next and two years from now.”
PSP Go owners can download digital copies of games they own on UMD
Son has noted today that they will allow new owners of the PSP Go handheld to download digital copies of games they currently own on UMD, because the drive has been removed from the updated console.
John Koller, PSP hardware marketing director says Sony will create a “good will program” that he compared to “digital copies” that come with Blu-ray titles. The digital titles are free and allow users to playback the movie on portable devices or their computers.
“We’ll be unveiling that [program] soon [because] we actually think there’s a significant group that will be upgrading from the 1000,” Koller added. “In the past, we’ve seen a 20-25% trade-up factor, and I assume that’s going to be the case here. We’ve modeled that.”
There still may be a chance however that users will have to pay a small charge to receive the digital copy, as well as send in proof of ownership via a UPC cut out.
Nintendo launches black Wii, red DSi in Japan
Nintendo has launched a black colored Wii console in Japan today, marking the first time the console has been available officially in a different colorway then the standard white.
The console is available alongside a matching Wii remote, nunchuck and a Classic Controller Pro.
All the new hardware is priced the same as the current white colorway, and will go on sale on August 1st.
The company has also launched a special red DSi handheld, which will go on sale on July 11th at the same price as the current colored models. In Japan, those colors are white, black, pink, lime green and metallic blue.
New colorways have proven time and time again in Japan to boost sales, and Nintendo and Sony often use the technique when sales drop.
