Here we are, a media playing hard drive case that has a nice feature: the ability to function through Network Attached Storage.

CEATEC JAPAN 2005 is in full swing until like Saturday, I think. Not like I'll be flying all the way to Japan just to go to it, but that's fine -- we're o­n the internet! Of course, Impress Watch and ITmedia did a more than fine job of covering the event.

That's why this article is nothing but a gigantic collection of links to CEATEC JAPAN 2005 articles o­n each site!

As usual, if there is something in particular you want translated, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Here's an update to an article we ran nearly a year ago. JVC got a bit behind o­n the release of the W1000 digital wireless headphones, and even cancelled them. It appears they're back, this time in the form of the "W1500" digital wireless headphones.

Here is JVC's press release about the W1500, but I won't bother with it since they seem to be the same product as the W1000. They're o­nly a year late.

Sony has announced a new hybrid recorder that can transfer H.264 files to the PSP using a USB cable. You'll need firmware version 2.0 to play the H.264 files on your actual PSP, but it's nice to see Sony finally making something happen from this "Memory Stick Standard" they've been talking about all this time. Details inside.

Earlier this year, we translated an article about Sony's LF-X5 "LocationFree TV."

What happens if you take the "TV" out of that? You end up with the LF-PK1 "LocationFree," a box that serves up TV broadcasts over LAN and the Internet. If you've been looking for a way to watch Japanese TV programs outside of Japan, this could be the product for you as it requires no subscription. All you need is a buddy in Japan who is willing to setup o­ne of these boxes in their "mansion" and you're good to go. This could end up being the TV service for Sony's PSP that the company has been hinting at for some time.

More details inside.

We've seen a few similar systems in the past, but Onkyo has announced their own approach to the "wireless AV delivery" system. It's called the WL-TR100(B) and uses 802.11a.

To no one's surprise, Fox has announced they'll be putting content out in the Blu-ray format. They threw out some examples in the process -- the ones that stuck out for me are "Family Guy" and "24." Of course some of you would probably appreciate "M*A*S*H" in the lineup, too.

Impress Watch carries the full list of titles, in English. No (English) press release from Fox about this yet.

What difference does a 5.6MHz/1-bit amplifier make to audio quality? I have absolutely no idea, but it sure sounds fancy, doesn't it? That's the premise behind Sharp's new "Auvi SD-MX1" DVD/CD/MD component system.

This isn't exactly a product, but something rather interesting I came across while looking for news from this past week. At their announcement event for their new PDP-506HD, PDP-436HD, and PDP-436SX plasma displays, Pioneer showed the following slide:

The above photo, taken by Watch Impress, demonstrates just how far plasma displays have come in the past few years. The first row contains brightness and contrast -- as you can see, brightness for Pioneer's 50" plasma displays is 3.1 times what it was in 1997, and contrast ratio approximately 18 times better. Meanwhile, the next row contains power consumption, and you can see that it is down 29% versus the same set in 1997. The light emitting efficiency is 2.2 times better, and the actual weight of the set is down 25%. It's always nice to take a look back and see how far you've come, even if it's o­nly a period of 7 years.

Fuji Work is the first company to announce a realtime H.264 encoder. It features a Memory Stick Duo slot, and o­ne of its intended uses is with "portable game devices" such as the PSP.