In the spirit of justice for all, we look at some web doings: Apple smacks down the iPhone skin for Windows Mobile, rumors of an HD-DVD encryption crack appear to be true and MySpace's default friend account (with 148,000,000 names in it) is hacked in a phishing scam. Plus: Bloggers get paid? In Monkey Bites.

Filed under: HDTV, Laptops, Media PCs, Storage

Seeing how HD DVD burners are still quite a new idea for the desktop set, you can imagine our delight at discovering Toshiba's new Qosmio G30 laptop, which sports the elusive drive within its portable frame. Well, almost portable. At 10.6 pounds, we're not sure any mortal lap -- not to mention tray table -- could support this thing, but we really expected nothing less the first time around. The 17-inch display rocks it True HD style at 1920 x 1200, plus if you get bored with your selection of HD DVDs, there's always the analog and digital TV tuners to keep you entertained. Other specs on the G30/97A include a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, 1GB of RAM, dual 160GB HDDs, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics with 256MB of RAM, and just about every kind of connectivity you could think of -- USB 2.0, Firewire, PCMCIA, ExpressCard/54, multi-card reader, 802.11a/b/g, gigabit Ethernet, modem, VGA, S-video, S/PDIF and HDMI. Of course, in li...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

LG already told us that its new dual format player would be available in the first quarter of 2007, but we are surprised that we are already receiving unconfirmed reports from Best Buy employees that the date is going to be February 4th. Apparently the BH100 is already live in the company's system, according to our tipster. This isn't as surprising as seeing it on Best Buy's website almost instantly after the announcement, but we're still wondering what LG plans to do if the DVD forum disaproves its lack of support for HDi. We understand that rules are rules, but it's hard to imagine the DVD forum suing the only company to make a standalone player other than Toshiba.

[Thanks, Derek] 
Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring gam...

HD DVD group gets the support from the Adult Film industry Sony and Toshiba are heading the two groups promoting their own next generation storage format. Sony is the force behind the Blu-Ray format while Toshiba has their own HD DVD format. Sony has somewhat in lead when it comes to support from the major movie studios [...]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Just when every patient, fence-sitting individual finally rejoiced that a single unit was being introduced to solve the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray dilemma, we had a hunch things wouldn't be perfectly peachy. Sure enough, the BH100's dirty little secret could keep the machine a secret altogether, as it reportedly won't be able to claim HD DVD-compliance (and consequently, hit shelves at all) without support for HDi. Playing a bit of favorites, the player provides the goods to show off those BD-J extras just fine, but users hoping to experience the lovely bonuses requiring HDi would be sorely disappointed. According to BetaNews, the player cannot receive the necessary thumbs-up from the DVD Forum with such a void in its makeup, and even suggested a very dark, unwanted result could end up happening, you know, like the BH100 getting the axe. Nevertheless, we certainly hope LG gets on the ball and throws in the (scarcely used thus far) HDi support, or else ...

Still deciding whether to make the jump for Blu-ray or HD DVD? We asked this bull-riding nymph for her advice on which format to support. Her suggestion? Watch the video. – Louis Ramirez

Still deciding whether to make the jump for Blu-ray or HD DVD? We asked this bull-riding nymph for her advice on which format to support. – Louis Ramirez

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Storage

You know how we were all waiting on someone to figure out where AACS was hiding those dagnab private keys? BackupHDDVD seemed to work as advertised, but it needed access to the hard-coded "Volume Unique Keys" that unlock the encryption of each HD DVD disc. Well, the friendly folks at Doom9's Forum finally tracked down that elusive key in memory, and have already started leaking keys for a few HD titles, including nerd-fave Serenity (which has quickly made its way to the torrents), Peter Jackson's King Kong, and the ever-popular 12 Monkeys. It's still unclear at this point how HD DVD's key-revocation technology will affect HD DVD players and their users, and currently there a few playback issues with the ripped HD movies, even on fast machines. Still, it sounds like the hackers won't have too much trouble replicating their success, even if they lose a few ripped keys or even HD DVD players in the process to big bad MPAA, and we'...

Filed under: CES, Meta

Congratulations, both you and we made it through Engadget's first ever dual CES / Macworld consumer tech bonanza -- and boy, was it a week to remember. Between Vista's coming out, to a format-unifying Blu-ray / HD DVD hybrid player, to a, um, humble cellphone, we were all up in CES's and Macworld's grill. Not only to bring you, our wonderful, loyal readers the very latest scoops though, it was partly because honestly we just couldn't stay away -- not even for a second. It was a long, amazing week for the ravenous tech obsessed (don't you worry, it's not over yet since we'll be continuing to roll out the last of our coverage over the next couple days), but we really hope you feel like we delivered the goods. Either way, we'll see you next year -- and every day in between.

Number of posts to Engadget Classic: 525 and counting...
Number of posts to all Engadgets (including crossposts): 765
Number of lost gadgets: 1
Number of ...

Anyone who was planning on buying LG's hybrid high-def player may wanna sit down for this one. As we reported from CES, the BH100 fully supports Blu-ray discs, but since it lacks support for HD DVD's iHD, you can't an HD DVD's interactive menus, you can only see the movie straight through.
So as a result, the DVD Forum might sue LG for falsely using the HD DVD logo and for falsely saying that their hybrid player plays HD DVDs when in fact it doesn't play them the way they were intended to be played. Microsoft was also a bit miffed at LG for...
not giving them a heads up before announcing the BH100. So it looks like LG's baby won't see the light of day, which is a damn shame. Both sides have valid points—we just hope they manage to work something out because all this does is make me wanna stick with my old school DVDs even more. – Louis Ramirez
LG Hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD Player Cannot Be Sold As Is [BetaNews]