Xdock loaded
Creative Labs’ Xdock can stream audio wirelessly from an iPod to remote speakers and improve audio quality by cleaning up messy digital noise.
The $200 dock has standard and optical audio-out connections for playing music on powered external speakers. The dock uses two technologies to improve the audio: the X-Fi Crystalizer, which cleans up compressed audio, and the X-Fi CMSS-3D, which simulates surround sound. The dock plays video and pictures on any TV through an S-video connection.
By connecting to dedicated $100 receivers, sold separ- ately, the Xdock can send audio up to 100 feet from the base station. The Xdock can transmit the same song to any number of receivers, or each receiver can play a different song. The dock includes a remote control.
X-Fi, Creative Labs’ proprietary method for transmitting media wirelessly between devices, uses its own standard and does not depend on Wi-Fi or any other in-home networking technology.
The Xdock charges iPods and has an auxiliary input for other MP3 players. It will be available next month. – John Biggs, The New York Times
Child’s play
A new form of edutainment software has arrived in the form of JumpStart World, an educational theme park for Windows computers that can replenish itself with new content.
Three versions – for kindergarten, first grade and second grade – can be purchased for $20 in stores next month or downloaded now from jumpstartworld.com.
JumpStart World is stocked with chatty characters eager to suggest a challenge. There are dozens of well-crafted math and reading games – children throw pies at circus clowns holding vocabulary words, or race up a beanstalk by solving math problems that could have come straight out of a workbook.
Parents can arrange to have the program send detailed progress reports to their e-mail address, or subscribe to new content downloads for $8 a month.
The designers mixed in some smart features to keep things interesting, like seasons that change and the ability to display your child’s artwork or digital photos on the park’s billboards, and a parade to celebrate your child’s birthday, if you choose to disclose it when registering. – Warren Buckleitner, The New York Times
