It's a sad day when Sony makes a computer called the "VAIO type R."

Anyway, three new desktops:

-VAIO type V, which apparently uses some special TV video processor making TV higher quality
-VAIO type R, comes with a dual layer DVD+R drive
-VAIO type HX, a compact desktop

Just in case you want to record 7 channels at the same time for a week, Sony has just the product. Well it's a PC too so I guess it's not a complete ripoff. Ripoff? Sony hasn't even presented the price yet. I'll take a guess though, and say...$9000? Just a guess.

I didn't call this an "MP3 player" because it really isn't - you have to jump through SonicStage.
Still, it's 20GB, has a touchpad, a color LCD, and looks pretty damn cool.

Thought I'd post this here, because there doesn't seem to be any other news today. This is all I've got for you so far. I'm probably going to go back and translate something from yesterday.
There is an exhibit currently going o­n at Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20040429/scej.htm

Sony claims to be the industry's first company to offer an official dual layer DVD+R drive. As you would expect, it can also write DVD±R discs at 8x.

Those of you who don't know about Sony's QUALIA line of products are missing o­ne of the best examples of capitalism I've ever seen.

Basically, you pay Sony an exorbitant amount of money for a seemingly normal piece of hardware...and then call yourself Sally. I'm really not sure who would buy these.

These new products are no exception. We've got the Qualia 017, a $1700 MD player, then the Qualia 010, a $2400 pair of headphones.

I guess you've seen this already, but I thought I'd post the link to the recent Press Release from Sony about their paper Blu-ray disc.
Here's the press release, in English.
More details are to be announced at the Optical Data Storage 2004 conference being held from April 18th to 21st.
Impress Watch article in Japanese.

Here's a quick rundown:
-DSC-T11 with 2.5" LCD, 5.1MP
-DSC-W1 with square design, 5.1MP
-DSC-P100 with double the battery life of the P10, 5.1MP
-DSC-P73 with 3x optical zoom, 4.1MP
-DSC-P43 "entry model" with 4.1MP

More information o­n each camera inside.

Sony improves the write speeds of the 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, and 128MBx2 sticks, updating all of them to current standards.

I think this is the first time I've reported o­n car navigation systems, but these certainly deserve attention. They have a 30GB hard drive, can play back all sorts of multimedia files, and and two of the models have "XYZ Motion Street Guide," o­ne of the sweetest navigation features I've ever seen. Plenty more information and images inside.