electronics info

Oppo has begun its week by launching the lowest-cost Blu-ray player in what’s normally a high-end line. The BDP-80 is similar to the BDP-83 but drops the secondary video processor, moving all work to the main decoder; it sheds 24p DVD upscaling in the process. Slightly older DACs as well as the absences of IR and RS-232 (serial) ports also help separate the BDP-80 from its earlier but more expensive predecessor.

The player is still fully capable of all modern Blu-ray features and carries both an Ethernet jack and 1GB of internal memory to support BD-Live. It can still play Blu-ray movies at 24p without pull-down conversion and carries an HDMI 1.3 output with support for 36-bit color on matching TV sets and receivers. Non-disc formats are still an option and range from simple audio and photos to video formats like AVCHD (H.264), whether it’s stored on a disc or on an attached USB drive.

Oppo is already taking orders for the BDP-80 and puts it at a comparatively low $289 versus a much higher $499 for the older BDP-83.

Just to be extra safe, many IT professionals prefer to wait until at least the first Service Pack for a Windows version before implementing it into their departments. The reason is that the first massive wave of users will already have hit the OS to clear out any possible bugs and compatibility issues.

Now that Windows 7 has settled in inside consumer homes after the considerable marketing push from retail, attention is turning to Microsoft’s next step in development. ZDNet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes claims to have reports that Windows 7 SP1 is already undergoing testing and has seen several lists of post-RTM build numbers.

There haven’t been any word on what major changes, if any, to expect other than the inclusion of all patches and fixes released to date and the likely inclusion of USB 3.0 support.

At this point, it seems that the work on the first Service Pack is more of a green light for business and enterprise users to consider Windows 7 rather than a true major boost to the OS.

As for when we can see this first Service Pack roll out, IT Chuiko claims to have sources at Microsoft that point to a June 2010 release for testers, with the final version slated for September 2010

It’s just business, says U.S. Government.

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U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, said that the U.S. government will be staying out of any negotiations that Google may have with China following the hacking incident.

Huntsman did acknowledge that Americans are likely to feel very strongly in the Google/China incident due to the differences between American and Chinese policies on free speech.

“This is an issue that impinges upon probably one of the most important of all the issues that we stand for as a country and that is freedom of expression, freedom of speech and Internet freedom,” he said, according to Voice of America news.

Since this is a business matter, however, the U.S. government will keep away from Google’s dealings in China.

“This is an issue that will play out for some time between Google and Google’s partners here in China and the Chinese government, and they will make whatever decisions Google feels is appropriate.  That won’t be influenced by the United States government,” Huntsman said.

While Google’s decision to pull out of China due to censorship pressures is one that must be made by the internet firm, the U.S. government is concerned about computer hackers based in China who are attacking U.S. computers.

“It has been ongoing for a long time.  It is deeply disturbing.  It is being discussed in appropriate channels,” he said。

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