gadgetPhreak Gadget News Blog. Futuristic Gadgets and Portable Electronics

October 16, 2006

Ainol rolls out NES-playing V1000 portable media player

Filed under: V1000,ainol,emulation,emulator,flac,lossless,nes,pmp — Darren Murph @ 8:35 am

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Emulation-packed PMPs are becoming a dime a dozen these days, but Ainol‘s V1000 manages to add a few impressive touches to the media-playing side of this two-faced device. The landscape oriented unit sports a sleek, silver enclosure with a simple five button control layout, and boasts a 2.5-inch QVGA display, 400MHz ADI Blackfin processor, and the ability to give every retro gamer his / her fill of NES emulation. Aside from the obvious Mario love, it supports AVI / MP4 video playback at 30 frames per second, and plays nice with MP3, WMA, and FLAC audio formats on the musical side. Handling all those audiophile-approved lossless files is the 512MB / 1GB of internal storage, while the addition of an SD slot ensures room for that bulging ROM collection. Although details concerning battery life, availability, connectivity, and price aren’t yet available, we’re sure these handy all-in-ones will be popping up in China’s gadget shops real soon.

[Via The MP3 Players]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

September 16, 2006

Odna’s VX737 NES-emulating media player

Filed under: emulation,nes,odna,pmp,vx737 — Donald Melanson @ 5:28 am

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It won’t give you as many retro-gaming options as the GP2X, but if you’re satisfied with a little classic NES action as a break from your daily grind, Odna’s upcoming VX737 PMP looks like it should suit you just fine. Of course in addition to emulating that massive library of 8-bit goodness, the PMP will also handle MP3, OGG, FLAC, and WAV audio, as well as AVI, MPEG-4 SP, XviD, and DivX video, which you can view on the player’s 2.5-inch QVGA screen. What’s more, it appears that Odna’s “inspiration” knows no bounds, with the VX737 sporting a curiously familiar menu system so you’ll feel right at home (check after the break). On the storage tip, you’ll get 512MB built-in, though there’s no mention of an SD slot or other means of expansion; there’s also no word on pricing or availability, but as with oh so many of these foreign products, it seems safe to assume that we won’t be seeing this reaching our shores anytime soon, lest they get their asses sued by a tag team of Sony and Nintendo.

[Via Anything But iPod]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

September 11, 2006

GamePark poised to release “XGP kids” handheld

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Many people look upon GamePark’s GP32 handheld console as a revolutionary product in the world of videogames — it was, after all, one of the first platforms to actually encourage homebrew and emulation — and now DCEmu is reporting that the company is poised to launch what it’s calling the GP32′s successor, the “XGP kids.” Shaped more or less like a tiny PSP, this new model is the third in the XGP lineup (following the original XGP and XGP mini), none of which should be confused with the similarly-named GP2X (this latter console is manufactured by GamePark Holdings, a company composed mainly of disgruntled ex-GamePark employees). Although not all its specs will be revealed until September 16th, we do know that it will be powered by a 140MHz ARM processor (probably overclockable), sport a 2.2-inch, 220 x 176 LCD, feature 8MB of RAM and 2MB of flash memory, and support USB 1.1 file transfers, but unlike the GP32, will eschew the old school SmartMedia slot for more modern SD cards. The best part here is the anticipated price (according to Wikipedia, at least); unlike the $300 XGP, $230 GP2X, and $150 XGP mini, the XGP kids is expected to slide in at under a C-note — $75, to be exact.

[Via DCEmu]

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July 13, 2006

Ninjapass allows flash cart-less homebrew on Nintendo DS

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If you’ve been waiting around for an easy way to play homebrew swag on your Nintendo DS or DS Lite, then prepare yourself for the stealthily-named Ninjapass. Like a handful of other solutions already on the market, this device lets you load up your games and play them directly from the DS cartridge slot — no flash cart required. There’s only 64MB of onboard memory, but you do get passcard functionality to boot content from the GameBoy Advance slot, along with a multi-game menu, convenient system for saving games, and bundled USB 2.0 adapter for hassle-free file transfer. The Ninjapass is currently available to pre-order — it will ship when “stock arrives” at an unspecified date — for $52, or a little less if you order in bulk.

[Via DS Fanboy]

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June 29, 2006

Gamepark Holdings releases GP2X breakout board

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Good news for GP2X owners: Gamepark Holdings (not to be confused with Gamepark, makers of the similarly-named XGP) has just released a breakout board that will turn your handheld console into a fully-functional, albeit underpowered, home PC. The board plugs into the EXT port on your device and features audio and video outs for hooking up an external monitor and sound system, four USB ports for attaching keyboards, mice, and joysticks, and RS232 and Jtag connectors for reflashing your firmware or running a debugging script on software you've developed. Although the kit -- available now for just $46 -- can be employed to create a home DivX or digital audio system, it will probably be most widely used in building emulation cabinets around the open-source, Linux-powered player.

[Via DCEmu]
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April 6, 2006

Parallels provides XP-on-Mac in virtual machine

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While it
probably won’t get nearly as much hype as href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/05/boot-camp-lets-macs-run-windows-officially/">Apple’s Boot Camp, the new
beta of Parallels Workstation could actually prove to be more useful for Mac owners than the Apple boot manager.
Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for Mac OS X creates a virtual machine on an Intel-based Mac, allowing the owner to
install any guest OS compiled for X86, including Windows XP, Linux or MS-DOS (hey, why not?). This could allow Mac
users who need to run an occasional Windows app to do so without having to reboot first — though they’ll need enough
RAM and processing power to run both OS X and the virtual machine simultaneously. While other apps, including
Microsoft’s Virtual PC, have offered similar functionality for Power PC Macs, they required processor emulation,
seriously undermining performance. By contrast, Parallels Workstation (available as a free beta) is said to provide
"near native" performance, which might be enough for users who need to run Visio, Project,  or one of
the many other Windows-only productivity apps — though gamers will probably still want to use Boot Camp and keep just
one OS running at a time.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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