From kborn at neurosaudio.com Thu Aug 18 21:13:53 2005 From: kborn at neurosaudio.com (Kathryn Born) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:13:53 -0500 Subject: [Neuros-gamma-group] Neuros Newsletter - August 2005 Message-ID: <5EC7EB573FF6D044AF060EE3D1B3525F182FE0@nasrvdc01.neurosaudio.com> About Neuros Much has happened over the last few months, hence this longer update. We recently convinced some wonderfully crazy people to invest in us and our community. This is helping us to more aggressively develop new products and build our team. We've been very active behind the scenes, as will be apparent when we post some of the exciting changes and improvements we've made on our website in the coming days. The first big change is we had to say goodbye to our good old "Neuros Audio, LLC" company name. Now that we've added portable video products to our existing line of portable audio players, this just didn't work anymore. We rolled with the times and are now officially Neuros Technology International, LLC. Our ambitious plan is to leverage our unique open-source and community approach to develop and market the best portable media devices on the market. Of course, we can't do this without you. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to get involved, and, once more, we count on you to spread the word about Neuros and help us build an even stronger community. The Neuros 442: The Portable Digital Powerhouse The Oldsmobile 442 was a muscle car that had a 4-speed transmission, a 4-barrel carb and dual exhaust. Thus the name 442. Our latest product is a personal multimedia player with a 40GB HD, a 4" screen (roughly) and a dual core processor. Thus the 442, the muscle car of personal video players. The Neuros 442 has composite video inputs and outputs. You can record directly onto the units internal Hard Drive, or enter it via the unit's SD memory card slot. Our Recorder I (see below) is the perfect companion for the 442. The Recorder I can stay home to do scheduled recordings of your favorite TV shows onto an SD card while you are on the road with your 442. This would give you the content creation power of two Neuros 442s, without the extra cost. The Neuros 442 will be released as a Gamma product on woot.com shortly. This, once again, means a six-month, no-questions-asked return period so you can try it out with no risk and also be covered if you want to upgrade when we release our open source version of the 442 some time around the end of the year. So with the open-source version coming in a few months, why would we release a non-open-source version now? And, probably more near and dear to your own hearts, why would you buy it? There are a couple of reasons. First, our beta testers have already had a few weeks to play with it, and they love it. We wouldn't want to deprive you of the same opportunity they had to get a helluva player for the money today. You can see for yourself what they have to say when we post their comments for your review on our website in a few days. Our second reason for this early release is you gamma testers complain, call customer service, get cranky, return the product and ask for refunds. You even fill out product satisfaction surveys. This is just the type of feedback we need to make future versions of the 442 even better at launch. As a gamma user, you will have the opportunity to influence the development direction of the next generation of 442 from the ground floor. If this sounds appealing, look for the 442 to appear on Woot, or you can pre-order now to be guaranteed to be included in the woot sale whenever it happens (we'd tell you exactly when now, but the Woot people would have to kill us if we did). Get in line, though. We have only a limited amount of gamma units available! Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder As you may have already seen on our website, Neuros introduced a handheld digital recorder in February on Woot. As easy to use as a VCR, the "Recorder I" records from any video source (TV's, VCR's, camcorders, DVD players, etc) onto either SD or CF memory. It's ideal to get video content on your PDAs, Smartphones, Portable Media Players, PC, and, of course, your 442. You can order it now from our web-site. We made the mistake in our initial marketing of advocating the Recorder I for playback on large screens and, as a result, have been roundly roasted by a couple of reviewers who tried to use it in that way. Hey, live and learn. That's what we're all about. We're now here to tell you that the resolution of the Recorder I is optimized for small screens, and, as you will see when we post quotes and reviews from a number of happy Recorder I owners, it works great when used in that way. A second version of the recorder, the "Recorder II" will be released in the fall. It also accepts input from any video source but records onto CF or Sony memory cards, making it perfect for bringing video content onto the Sony PSPTM. Hopa! The gamers who had the stamina to read this far just woke up! You read it right, the new recorder will give you the ideal complement to your beloved PSP. It will also have some upgraded features (higher definition, wide screen format detection and more files formats like DivX and QuickTime) and will be available in the fall. Wait, did you say "Wiki"? www.theneuros.com Well yes. Special thanks to Justin, beloved member of the Neuros family, who made it happen. The Wiki will take troubleshooting and idea sharing to a new level. It's a massive array of community-populated information about the products, and we tend to put the big news (like the 442) on the Wiki before it hits the main Neurostechnology.com site . Think of it like a beta for the website. So have at it! Neuros III Joe and his team are making progress on the N3. The decision was made to use the TI DM320 and Linux as the platform.The launch date has yet to be determined, we will keep you updated. That is it folks. Thank you for your support and make sure to visit our revamped website in the next few weeks. As always we welcome your comments and feedback. Warmest Regards, Neuros Team Neuros Technology International, LLC (formerly known as Neuros Audio, LLC) P.S. We're having another party pretty soon, so stay on the list. But if you really want to split, unsubscribe by going to go to http://lists.neurosaudio.com . If you need help, contact us directly at kborn at neurosaudio.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.rdwarf.com/pipermail/neuros-gamma-group/attachments/20050818/a11b8ac3/attachment.htm