Musical Fidelity has released details of its new M1 SDAC. This new amp builds on the success of the award-winning M1 DAC and uses parts from the M6 DAC, the M1 SDAC is a DAC, preamp, headphone amp and aptX Bluetooth receiver in one.

Set to retail at £799, the M1 SDAC has a selection of inputs: two digital coaxial inputs, one digital optical input, one AES/EBU balanced input, an asynchronous USB input and two RCA analogue inputs.

The digital coaxial, balanced and USB inputs all accept music files up to 24/192, while all the digital inputs are internally upsampled to 24/192.

There’s a coaxial and an optical output, too, plus an analogue-to-digital converter within the DAC section, allowing a digital output for any input.

Also on board are the aptX Bluetooth and headphone amplifier modules. The Bluetooth receiver is Musical Fidelity’s V 2.1 aptX receiver, which accepts up to 24bit/48kHz files.

Based on Musical Fidelity’s previous audio hardware, this hopefully should be a gem, and having Bluetooth apt-x is excellent.

Sky’s Sky Go service which allows users to stream content based on their Sky subscription will from this week, for £5 per month, Sky will allow up to four users to download on-demand movies and TV, including exclusive content. Each download will last for a month, but you will be free to download as much as your device can hold.

Sky claims that more than a quarter of its 11 million subscribers use Sky Go already, and believes that Sky Go Extra is the first mobile TV subscription service in the UK and Ireland to offer Hollywood movies to download and watch offline. The WiFi-based platform is Sky’s attempt to capitalise on the success of its on-demand offering.

The Sky announcement will increase the pressure on services such as Netflix and Lovefilm, who do not have access to the same content that Sky secures exclusively from movie studios, as well as the programmes it makes itself.
Sky claims that it offers around 70 of the top 100 films, around six months after their cinema release, and that this is more than its rival subscription services combined.

Question is just how much can you really view on your portable device and would you be tempted.

Microsoft has launched Windows 8 and Windows 8 phone. It has come out with iPad killer hardware, but unfinished software and an App Store with poorly built apps.

On the phone front, Nokia has hinted or indirectly threatened it may consider android.

So where does this leave Microsoft. Well firstly it really needs to sort it’s software out and fast. If it doesn’t it will slip into a business only orientated world living off patent fees and business. Similar to what has happened to IBM.

But I hear you shout, it has Xbox. Yes it does. But consoles are a dying breed. The sales are down mainly due to gaming on smartphones. So what does this mean for Microsoft. Well, it really needs to get its Windows phone and Xbox games sorted. That is being able to play Xbox type games on their phones and on their phones only to create a unique selling proposition.

In the technology world, Bill Gates once said, it only takes 18 months for a top company to go out of business due to the fast changing environment. I don’t think Microsoft will go this way, but it might end up being a business to business only company.