News for Jan

The TechTV appointed panel of product evaluators selected winners according to their innovative appeal, usability, usefulness, and affordability. The Creative Prodikeys won for the Home Audio category, which evaluated consumer stereo and surround sound systems for the home, including speakers, receivers, amplifiers, tape, CD players, and more.

"This is our first major participation in the Consumer Electronics Show and we are able to draw huge crowds to our booth. The Creative Prodikeys demonstration area has been jam packed with people since the show began. There is a large amount of interest about all of our products at our CES exhibit," said Sim Wong Hoo, founder and CEO of Creative, and inventor of the Prodikeys. "Everyone at the show is talking about how easy and fun the Prodikeys makes it to create and share music. We are very excited to win this Best of Show award with our new category of interactive music entertainment."

The world's first PC keyboard and music keyboard all-in-one, the Creative Prodikeys is a full- featured, ergonomic 104-key PC keyboard integrated with 37 touch-sensitive music keys and easy to use music controls. The integrated design gives users the convenience to work and play music on one keyboard.

Priced at only US$99.99 and packaged with a free Sound Blaster sound card, the Creative Prodikeys includes comprehensive software that allows users to play, learn, create and even record and save music in digital audio formats. Be it jazz, dance or pop, users of all ages - novice to professional - can play music with the Impress, Easy Play, Learn and Perform modes.

The TechTV award for the Creative Prodikeys was announced on Saturday, January 11, 2003 at a gala awards ceremony at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the show is taking place. CES attendees, show finalists, TechTV staff and talent, judges, and a host of media gathered at the event to witness the unveiling of this year's winners. Additional information on each of the winners can be found at www.techtv.com/ces. Additional information on the Creative Prodikeys is available at www.prodikeys.com.


ESS Technology Announces Digital Video Recorder Platform
Major customers to ship products in Early 2003
by www.esstech.com January 10, 2003

leading provider of silicon solutions for digital video and digital home entertainment systems, announced today that they have secured multiple design wins at major consumer electronics manufacturers for their digital video recorder (DVR) platform.

The DVR platform combines a fully functional DVD player, hard disk drive (HDD), and advanced ESS MPEG encoding silicon and software to offer a complete digital home entertainment system. This platform provides consumers with the ability to record, pause, and replay live TV, record and playback digital audio music and digital photographs, and simultaneously play DVD’s.

“This DVR platform is another example of ESS’s commitment to be a leader in the growing digital entertainment market. We are excited with the acceptance of our new technology by our customers. Today, we are able to announce that we have over ten major design wins in Japan, Korea, and China and we expect to have revenue from this new product beginning in early 2003.?stated Patrick Ang, executive vice president and chief operating officer at ESS Technology.

M-Audio Revolution Soundcard based on VIA Envy24HT wins Macworld Best of Show
M-Audio's new high end consumer soundcard based on the VIA Envy24HT Audio Controller provides award winning 24-bit resolutions, 192kHz sampling rates, and 7.1 multi-channel performance.
by www.via.com.tw 14 January 2003

"The launch of the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 has been met with tremendous excitement, and this award confirms that consumers love the performance and features that this soundcard delivers," commented Jason Ivan, Director of Marketing for M-Audio's Consumer Division. "In integrating the VIA Envy24HT, the Revolution 7.1 is the first soundcard able to bring unparelleled levels of 24/192 support, and 7.1 audio channels to Mac as well as PC users."

Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco's largest annual technology event and the world's most comprehensive Macintosh OS event, took place during January 6-10 at the Moscone Center. This year, Macworld brought together more 325 exhibitors to showcase the latest hardware and software for creative professionals, educators, consumers and Mac enthusiasts.

"VIA is thrilled with our partner's success, and it is very gratifying to see our audio solutions finding acceptance across computer platforms," commented Richard Brown, Director of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "M-Audio has done an excellent job with the Revolution 7.1, combining extremely high performance with wide audio support like Sensaura and SRS Labs' Circle Surround II?technology, that formulates into a new breed of consumer soundcard."

As the PC extends further into home entertainment applications, audio is taking on an increasingly important role for consumers. Enabling the next wave of audio content, the VIA Envy24HT sets a new level of audio performance for the PC, fully supporting the latest audio content such as DVD-Audio and the new Windows Media Audio 9 Professional.