April 25 - 1:55pm EDT   The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is launching the "Digital Backpack," which will allow visitors at the Freedom Center to utilize social networking technology, digital media production, and wireless computing in ways that empower them to create, "distribute and access a shared vision for freedom." The company has chosen Apple products to power the project: each pack contains an Apple MacBook Pro notebook computer, iPod classic with voice recorder, digital camera, HD digital camcorder and tripod. These perspectives are then captured as a digital movie, archived at the Freedom Center, and published to an iTunes channel that the Center is launching in May. [full story]

April 15 - 12:50am EDT   Blackmagic Design recently unveiled several new video interfaces at the NAB 2008 conference, the USB-based Video Recorder – available in consumer and professional versions – and a large scale 8U rack-mount SDI router. The Blackmagic Video Recorder offers consumers the ability to capture video directly to H.264 through component or S-Video onto their computer. The consumer USB Video Recorder sells for $120. [full story]

January 7 - 8:45pm EST   Toshiba recently unveiled several new lines of LCD TVs, portable and home DVD players, DVD recorders, and some LCD TV-DVD combo units. The AV500 series LCDs range from 19- to 42-inches in size, and feature a 720p HD image resolution. Dynamic backlight controls can adjust for deeper black levels, and the display is housed in a glossy black cabinet. LCDs in the AV500 series will range from $430 to $1300, and Toshiba expects to ship the various models between February and May. [full story]