Quanta and ooVoo have announced that they have teamed up to “produce the first plug-and-play, real-time, high-definition video chat and messaging system” for HDTVs.
Citing the continuing growth in HDTV sales and the huge popularity of chat and instant message programs the companies say the product will “easily turn a laptop computer, HDTV or desktop PC into a high-definition chat screen.”
Quanta Research Institute, the research Center for the world’s largest laptop maker would develop the hardware, while it would be ooVoo’s job to work on the interface and any related software. In the end the two companies hope to develop technology that “would allow users to plug the product into an HDTV source and the Internet as easily as they would a webcam.”
The technology would utilize the H.264 codec for video Compression meaning that users would need at least “512kbps of Bandwidth for one-way 720p video feeds at 30 frames per second,” which should not be an issue for anyone with DSL or cable, or better.
Result for: desktop pc
Dell has announced that it has signed an agreement with Universal Music Group to offer either 50 or 100 DRM-free songs bundled with new PCs sold by the vendor.
The price is a nice discount as well with 50 songs costing $25 USD and 100 songs costing only $45 USD in addition to the price of the laptop or desktop PC.
A couple catches however are that the bundles aren’t available on Dell XPS One desktops, Inspiron Mini 9 laptops, or on systems selling with Linux distributions or 64-bit Windows XP or Vista.
All the music will be in MP3 form and DRM-free and can be played back on any portable player. The current library is somewhat small but Dell says it is looking to expand.
