Compaq evolves new business range

From beige box to streamlined access device, this is the intended "Evo"-lution of Compaq's offerings for business users - the new Evo range. With the gradual retirement of its current commercial PC products - such as the Armada, Deskpro, iPAQ Desktop, Professional Workstation and Thin Client lines - Compaq has launched its new Evo range. It comprises Evo notebook systems, Evo thin clients and Evo workstation models. ...more

Computex 2004: Nvidia expects three-fold growth of media center shipments

Global media center shipments should reach six million units this year, up three-fold from two million last year, said Huang Jen-hsun, president and CEO of Nvidia, at Computex 2004. Demand for media centers is picking up, Huang said. Further growth is expected to come should prices fall to a lower level, he added. ...more

Apple to license FairPlay DRM for iPod?

Certain copy-protectd CDs may soon be compatible with iTunes and iPods, according to a report that Macrovision may be about to license Apple's FairPlay rights management software. If Macrovision is successful in gaining a licence from Apple, it would be able to include compressed AAC files alongside those encoded in Windows Media on CDs protected by its CDS-300 DRM software. Any agreement would make sense for Apple, as the deployment of copy-protection on CDs seems set to increase now that the software developers have overcome early teething problems that prevented many CDS from playing in computers. ...more

Epson res's up with bumper scanner

Epson announces world-first 3200x6400 dpi scanner. Espon has announced its Perfection 3200 PHOTO flat-bed scanner, which it claims is a world-first for a consumer-targeted device with a 3200x6400dpi optical resolution. As well as high optical density, the scanner offers 48-bit colour depth. ...more

Carrera Technology ceases trading

As reported last week, Carrera Technology has gone into administration. Since then many readers have reported that their attempts to buy the Carrera Octan M800, a machine that performed well in the current issue's Labs, has met with little success. An e-mail from Carrera's sales team notes that, "as we are no longer trading, our web-site has also been frozen. ...more