Hewlett Packard (HD) just announced the delay in release of the HP MediaSmart Home Server in order to allow Microsoft to fix and make improvements to the Windows Home Server operating system. This comes as a normal reaction to the announcement that Microsoft will be delaying the publishing of Windows Home Server. According to HP, the expected delay is of “75 to 120 days”. This makes the server available late fall, just in time for the holidays.

HP MediaSmart Home Server was supposed to be released at the home theater trade show CEDIA on the 5th of September in Denver. Price and availability thus remains unknown. July saw Microsoft releasing Windows Home Server for manufacturers, giving them the go ahead for bringing different hardware products to the market, including the HP MediaSmart Home Server. According to Joel Sider, Microsoft senior product manager, the first wave of WHS should be available by early October.

HP, Iomega and Gateway were among the companies that Microsoft worked with in order to build home servers under different brands. According to Microsoft, an update on the condition of the Windows Home Server should be available on the product’s official blog tomorrow.

The Microsoft Windows Home Server Press Preview in Berlin saw Medion launching their new MD 90110 Home Server. Without further ado, here are the specs:

• AMD RS-690/Intel 945GC chipset
• AMD Sempron 64 (AM2) or Intel P4 LGA 775 processors
• MicroATX motherboard
• 1 GB GDR 2 at 533 MHz
• eSata HDD
• 2Tb of maximum storage with 4 X 500 GB plus Raid Support
• Slots: 1 X eSATA, 4 X USB 2.0 and 1 X Gigabit Ethernet
• Internal hard drive bays that are screwless for easy expansion
• Server Re-installation recovery button
• 4 Hard Drive LEDs plus 1 LAN LED
• Easy media streaming through PacketVideo Connect Software

The systems will be sold in two choices: Basic and Premium and users will have the option of getting AMD or Intel processors. The given variations are:

• AMD Basic: AMD Sempron 1200LE 1.9GHz plus 2 x 250Gb SATA Hard Drives
• AMD Premium: AMD X2 BE 2300 2.1GHz plus 2 x 500Gb SATA Hard Drives
• Intel: Intel Mobile Celeron plus 2 x 500Gb SATA Hard Drives

Medion also made public the fact that they are working on transcoding software for their home servers. This will allow users to view large resolution photos on the server and lower resolution on a mobile phone. On the long run this saves money, time and bandwidth. Price is still not known but the announced shipping date is October 2007.

Apple launches its own video downloads service in UK. This means that fans of different US TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Lost will be able to download episodes. The start marks 28 series available for users and the company is promising more will come soon. Apple will charge iTunes customers with £1.89 per episode.

BBC and Channel 4 currently offer such services but the problem is they are catch-up offers. Anything bought via iTunes can be kept. The content available from Apple iTunes stores can be watched on widescreen TV (thanks to an add-on peripheral Apple TV), normal TV sets and iPods. The same video download service was launched in the US two years ago and it had mixed success. Mark Mulligan, an analyst for JupiterMedia declared:

“Video content in the US has clearly not been as strong as music in terms of both the breadth and depth of what is available and in terms of how much is being sold. It is a natural partnership and UK companies have shown a willingness to experiment with online video distribution but a lot of questions remain over things such as usage rights and how to differentiate content”

Although such an addition to the UK iTunes store is important, music will still be the number one revenue bringer. A partnership with Channel 4 and BBC is the right way to go for Apple. It will be interesting to see how things will go.

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) recently announced the creation of code-reducing technology that is to be used for the company’s next generation microprocessor, which is expected in 2009. The new extension offered for the x86 instructions set is named SSE5. This specification maximizes the efficiency of applications running because it reduces the number of instructions needed to get to a given result.

1999 was the first year in which SSE was introduced and stands for streamind SIMD extension. SIMD (single instruction multiple data) is the instruction set for the x86 architecture. SSE5 is designed to increase software performance thanks to using special instructions that can operate on multiple pieces of data at the same time. SSE is very important for software performance. It is just as important as multi-core processor technology and co-processors according to AMD. The difference implemented by SSE5 might not seem impressive. It increases the number of operands an X86 instruction can support from 2 to 3. This move can increase speed a lot but only some RISC architectures can allow this capability.

AMD made SSE5 available for developers through its web site. The implementation of the new technology is expected to come in combination of the next generation processor core by AMD, named Bulldozer.

Emtec’s new 2 GB C230 Portable Media Player has been released but it is not that special. We have a 2 GB unit that comes with a 2.2 inch color display and an expansion slot that supports SD and MMC. This is useful as users tend to want more than 2 GB of storage space. C230 supports all modern flavors of Windows, features USB connectivity and can play MP3, MPEG4, WMV and AVI with the possibility of viewing JPEG files as well. A headphone jack is of course available and a rechargeble Li-ion battery is responsible for the device working. To sum it all up, if you want the basics of a portable media player, the C230 is perfect. If not, you will not like it at all. Purchasing the device on Amazon is cheap and you can aquire it for just $110