Samsung has developed a 40-Inch OLED panel for TVs. 
The panel has a resolution of 1280×800, a contrast ratio of 5,000:1 , delivers a color gamut of 80% and is only 2 inches thick. OLEDs use less energy than LCDs and deliver better resolution. Samsung Develops World’s Largest 40″ OLED Screen
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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal has an article about the putative rebirth of the PDA, now seemingly renamed the ‘Hand-Held’. The piece states that sales of these types of devices have stalled and that manufacturers such as palmOne, Archos and Sharp are searching for ways to broaden their appeal. They seem to have settled on a 2-pronged approach : emphasize fun and de-emphasize productivity. 
Greatly improved storage capacity in the models from these manufacturers provides for more audio and video capacity and thus drives the ‘fun’ part . The Archos PMA 430 for example has a 30 GB hard drive, enough to record and play 120 hours of TV and 6,500 songs … whereas stuff like email, contacts and PIM productivity is barely mentioned on the Archos website. palmOne takes a similar tack by promoting its new LifeDrive Mobile Manager as being suitable for Music, Documents, Photos and Videos. The Hand-Helds Strike Back - by Pui-Wing Tam, Wall Street Journal – Wed May 18, 2005 Although not mentioned in the WSJ article, the Archos AV700 is waiting in the wings with a 7 inch screen and a massive 100GB disk drive. 
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Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 was unveiled last Friday. The gaming console contains 3 IBM PowerPC cores running at 3.2 GHz each, and a ATI Graphics Processor rendering 500 million triangles per second. Floating point performance peaks at about 115.2 GFLOPS … thus making the PS3 about 2x as powerful as the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 Fact Sheet .. product overview from Microsoft
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Nintendo, that other game console manufacturer, has released some details about its next-gen product, the Revolution. Its about the size of 3 DVD cases, will support Wi-Fi and have wireless controllers, 2 USB 2.0 ports and slots for DS memory cards. Not much other info was made available, other than the fact that the Revolution will play most previous-gen Nintendo games. Nintendo’s Compact Console Will Turn the World of Gaming on Its Side
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Sony announced their new PlayStation 3 game console today. 
The PS3’s CPU is based on the Cell processor, and is rated at 218 GFLOPS … which makes it almost, but not quite, a supercomputer. The graphics processor is by Nvidia and SCEI, and hums along at 1.8 TFLOPS. Benefits include improved photo-realism, a more accurate physics engine and better AI. The PS3 should make for quite a gaming platform. Sony PlayStation 3 product announcement.
Computerworld Singapore has released their list of the best gadgets for the month of May.
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The Samsung YP-MT6Z is a 1 GB MP3 player. OverclockersOnline has reviewed the product, and concluded that there’s nothing much to complain about. They liked the 1GB of memory and the FM tuner ; they were less enamored of the fact that the battery is not rechargable and that file transfer is sluggish. The reviewer intimates that the iPod Shuffle may well have cause for concern. Samsung YP-MT6Z review by Simon Lau
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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a brief review of some wireless Home Theater systems … the wirelessness involves doing away with those pesky wires that snake across your room to the rear speakers, by putting them on 2.4 GHz . In summary, they liked the Panasonic SC-HT930, saying that they were “impressed with the performance”. Runner-ups included the RCA RTD218, Samsung HT-DB390 and the Kenwood HTB-S610DV. These types of HTIBs are typical 5.1 surround sound systems, but now they’re partly-wired (the 3 speakers in the front), and partly-wireless (the 2 in the back of the room). The article includes anecdotes about interference from wireless phones : “I’d be on the phone and the speakers would just start going nuts”. The article makes note of variations on the wireless theme, such as the Bose 3.2.1 GS Series II, which bounces sound beams off walls, and the Sony DAV-FR10W, which uses infrared instead of radio. HT930 home page CNet’s review of the Sony DAV-FR10W - they give it 8 out of 10.
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The Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa Rangali Island has just opened the world’s first all-glass underwater restaurant. Called the Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, it sits 15 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean, on a coral reef. The menu reflects what you see. For reservations, call +960-4-50629 . 
Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa Rangali Island
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The awkwardly-named LifeDrive Mobile Manager is an leaked/unannounced/next-gen PDA from palmOne. The device will have a 4GB mini-disk, HVGA resolution and 2 radios – WiFi and Bluetooth. Pic courtesy of Amazon. Speculation is that it will be out this month and sell for $500. Rumor: LifeDrive - article at Palm InfoCenter palmOne website
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