MARCH 2004 MAXIMUMPC 19
Quick Start
Fanless Power Supply
The concept of the quiet PC began to gain real respect over- Rest assured: In 2004, bleeding-edge PC builders will
be gunning for the silent PC. We certainly are. The Phantom
power supply from Antec represents a gigantic leap toward
powerful PCs that don’t sound like garbage disposals.
The Phantom sports a completely fanless design. In fact,
the entire casing is a heatsink of sorts that attaches directly to
the power supply’s internal heatsink in order to channel ther-
mal energy out and away from the guts. The moody-looking
350W PS also includes over-temperature and under-voltage
protection, which is typically found only in server power sup-
plies. The unit will be available soon for $170.
Dual-Layer Recording
Waiting for Blu-Ray optical disc recorders? Don’t bother. They’re
still a “boutique” item with little to offer the average Joe in terms
of usefulness or affordability. But dual-layer recording? Now you’re
talking. Burners that can write to both a semitransparent and an
opaque layer on a single disc have been demonstrated using both
major recordable DVD formats (DVD+R and DVD-R) at speeds up
to 2.4x. Verbatim plans to launch dual-layer media by the end of
spring. Pioneer has hinted that dual-layer burning to DVD-R may
be possible with only a firmware upgrade, but we’ll believe that
when we see it.
Eyetop Centra Portable Display
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show brought us
our first hands-on demonstration of Eyetop’s Centra
Display ( http://www.eyetop.net ). We were devastated by its
coolness. One side of the not-as-silly-as-you-might-
expect glasses have an embedded projector that casts
a floating 320x240 display onto the lens of one of
your eyeballs. Pictured is the original Eyetop design—
the company was extremely uptight about letting us
photograph the new Centra model as it was a proto-
type. Expect it this spring for around $400.Creative Portable Media Center
In his book The Tipping Point , Malcolm Gladwell
explains how a simple concept becomes an epidemic
word-of-mouth phenomenon. Creative Labs’ Zen
Portable Media Center may be the “tipping point” for
portable video. Based on Microsoft’s Portable Media
Center OS, Creative Labs’ device is extremely light,
with a bright, sharp display in a casing that can be
easily held in one hand and stored in a back pocket.
Scheduled for release “later this year,” we’ve heard no
official word on the maximum resolution of the device.
Nor do we know much about what kind of digital
rights management the Zen Portable Media Center will
impose on users.