Western Digital has introduced the WD TV Live HD media player featuring network capability and Full-HD 1080p resolution. The new WD TV Live HD media player makes it possible for anyone to play HD videos stored on USB and network drives, as well as Internet content from popular Web sites. The GUI is also souped up, with Video preview being new candy.

The network capability of the WD TV Live media player enables users to stream or transfer movies from PC or Mac computers or a network-attached storage device. The WD TV Live media player also allows users to stream rich content from YouTube, Flickr and Pandora.

“The media enthusiast community has embraced the first WD TV HD media player and given us tremendous feedback,” said Sharad Srivastava, Director, Director India and South Asia, Western Digital. “With the new WD TV Live media player we’re giving them what they asked for — network connectivity and Internet-content streaming capabilities — and offering them a simple way to enjoy all of their digital media and enjoy it on their HD TVs.”

Features of the WD TV Live HD Media Player include:
Full-HD 1080p video playback
Ethernet port for wired or WiFi connection to access files anywhere on the network to play movies, music, and photos from any PC or drive on a home network;
Two USB ports for seamless media playback from multiple USB drives and ability to access them simultaneously
Picture Transfer Protocol support to show photos and movies directly from digital camera or video camera
HDMI 1.3 port, composite video and component video output
SPDIF digital output

The WD TV Live Media Player is available through select distributors and retailers and is covered by a 1-year limited warranty. The MSRP for WD TV Live Media Player is Rs 10,500.

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Mobile handsets without the unique identification number, which helps authorities track users, will face disconnections by December 1, Indian Cellular Association (ICA) said on Wednesday.

The International Mobile Equipment Identification (IMEI) is a 15-digit code that identifies a handset and enables security agencies to track down users.

The department of telecom had recently asked the mobile operators not to allow calls to be completed on handsets without IMEI number.

Though there are no official statistics on the number of handsets without IMEI number, an industry guess was around 25 million, Pankaj Mohindroo, President, ICA said.

The Indian Cellular Association had begun a nationwide campaign to create awareness and prevent sale and purchase of such devices.

Proliferation of unbranded phone devices, without IMEI number or with invalid or cloned numbers posed a serious threat to national security as they could not be tracked, he said.

These devices are mainly sourced from China and are adversely impacting the organized mobile devices market apart from causing huge loss in revenue to the government, he said.

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Kingston Digital has announced the release of the SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive, the latest addition to its V (Value) family of solid-state drives (SSD). The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive claims to be one of the best and most cost-effective ways to accelerate any desktop’s boot, shutdown and application load times.

“The SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive offers instant performance enhancement coupled with reliability and lower power consumption at a fraction of the cost of a new system,” said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. “The 40GB Boot Drive is the latest offering in our V Series SSD line. It provides a low-cost upgrade solution that complements the installed hard-disk drive to extend the life cycle of existing desktop computers and workstations in homes and offices.”

Kingston SSDNow 40GB Boot Drive features:
Up to 170MB/sec. read 40MB/sec. write
2.5″ form factor; uses NAND Flash memory components
Supports S.M.A.R.T. – Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology
Three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support
Life expectancy of 1 million hours MTBF
The drive is also available with a bundle that includes cloning software, 2.5″ to 3.5″ brackets and SATA data and power cable extenders. The SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is designed for a desktop system to be used in conjunction with an existing hard-disk drive (HDD).

The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive has an MSRP of $115.00 (U.S.) and will begin shipping on November 9, 2009.

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In keeping with its brand positioning of ‘NEXT is What’, Samsung has strengthened its Omnia series with the launch of the Omnia II–GT I8000. The I8000 looks exactly like the Samsung Jet with a larger display.

Announcing the launch, Ranjeet Yadav, Director IT and Telecom, Samsung Electronics said, “Omnia II is designed to take user experience to the next level. It captures our vision to provide phones to the consumers which are not only great looking but provide even greater functionality and usability using latest technologies and messaging platforms”.

Based on Windows 6.1 platform, Omnia II is the Company’s newest full-touch screen phone that brings together style, multimedia and business performance in one device. Samsung Omnia II features an all new Intuitive 3D UI along with Samsung’s TouchWiz 2.0 UI.

Features include -
a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a480 x 800 pixels and 65K colors
3G (with HSDPA), EDGE/GPRS
Wi-Fi (DLNA supported)
GPS with A-GPS support
Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
5 megapixel AF camera with a Dual LED flash features Geotagging, face and smile detection
Stereo FM with RDS, Recording
DivX, XviD video support
TV Out
8GB internal memory and a microSD card slot

The Motion-enabled features include 3D photo Album, Video library, Music library, Browser bookmarks and FM Radio UI. The preloaded and downloadable online mobile Widgets deliver up-to-date information. With Samsung communities, the Omnia II lets users upload images and videos to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket and Friendster. Add to that, the phone’s high-connectivity functions including Wi-Fi and HSUPA capabilities mean that a user’s photos can be shared to their friends in no time.

The Omnia II is priced at Rs. 28,990.

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Yesterday the Internet was rife with rumors of a third person mode in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Today that rumor has been put to rest by the game’s creative strategist, Robert Bowling in an interview with gaming blog Kotaku.

“3rd Person is a new playlist mode in Multiplayer. So you can play your favorite playlists [or] game types, like Team Deathmatch just standard, or in Hardcore mode ([with] limited HUD and increased bullet damage) or in the new 3rd Person mode, which means you and everyone in the game is in 3rd person.”

So far it seems this addition has been getting mixed reactions. Some are stoked by it, while some are thoroughly disappointed.

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