Archive for the ‘Net TV’ Category

The Gadget Show Live: 3view's Wii-like remote

OK, so I’ll admit that television remotes aren’t exactly the most exciting tech products. But 3view’s newly announced Wii-like remote for its HD and Internet-connected set-top box is still noteworthy.

And although I already new of its existence after my recent visit to the company’s offices, I got to actually see the product up front at last week’s The Gadget Show Live. The remote feels really comfortable in the hand and its motion sensor and cursor-based operation should be a perfect fit when utilizing the Opera-powered web browsing capability of the 3view set-top box. It won’t come as standard, however, but will be an optional extra I’m told.

Video after the jump…

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The Gadget Show Live: Hands-on with the new Flip MinoHD

In our review of the original Flip MinoHD, I was critical of the point-and-shoot camcorder’s tiny 1.5 inch viewfinder/screen, which made it fiddly to frame shots accurately. The fact that it has a 4:3 aspect ratio despite shooting in 16:9 widescreen, reduced the visible preview even more.

It seems that Cisco – makers of the Flip – have been listening. The newly revamped Flip MinoHD, which I got a hands-on with at last week’s Gadget Show Live, has a 2 inch screen with very little letter-boxing. It also sports a much nicer body, with the back utilizing aluminum, and also adds up to double the storage (8GB) and a HDMI port for connecting to a High Definition television.

The software remains largely unchanged I’m told, and it’s not clear if the company has added any image stabilization, which was another complaint of mine. But hey, you can’t have everything.

Video after the jump…

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I is back (from the Gadget Show Live 2010)

As is becoming a tradition at last100, I was away for the best part of last week at The Gadget Show Live (2010) in Birmingham, UK and generally taking a bit of time out to recharge my batteries, or at least that was the idea.

Aside from clocking up multiple Foursquare check-ins and quite a bit of mileage, I got to check out some of the latest consumer tech, which compared to last year’s show, was a little underwhelming. It just seemed that there wasn’t much new – and a lot of products were noticeably missing in action (Apple iPad anyone?)

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Review: SeeSaw bouncing between back-catalogue and catch-up TV

SeeSaw front pageSeesaw is a UK-only video on demand service, which has its origins in the ill-fated Project Kangaroo, whose technology was bought up by transmission company Arqiva. The service was launched with new branding as “SeeSaw”.

SeeSaw’s revenue currently comes from unskippable advertising that appears before and in the middle of programmes. However, premium content is said to be coming to SeeSaw later in the year. SeeSaw is limited to residents of the UK only, but on their FAQ pages, they state that viewers do not need a TV license.

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iPad reviews are in – PC Mag sums up Apple's device in 4,000 words [video]

It was just the other day that I was mocking a recent claim by PC Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff that what made the publication different from competing tech sites and blogs was its testing ‘labs’ used to conduct product reviews.

“Who needs a lab?”, I scoffed.

I get to review plenty of gear where my lounge, bedroom or local coffee shop is my ‘lab’. A mobile phone or netbook, for example, can be reviewed almost anywhere. It’s not the environment that counts but how knowledgeable and thorough the reviewer is and what products he/she has used for comparison. Or at least, that’s what I’d hope.

Putting all of that aside, however, PC Mag has put out today the best iPad review so far. It’s easily the most thorough – at 4,000 words – and, as Dave Zatz points out, hasn’t suffered from the print-length restrictions that plague the coverage of the Pogues, Walt Mossbergs of this world, never mind their perceived closeness to Cupertino. PC Mag gives the iPad a lab score of 4.5/5 😉

PC Mag have also produced a nice video review, which I’ve embedded right after the jump.

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3view set-top box – Freeview HD, PVR and Internet TV

Over at TechCrunch Europe I’ve written about 3view, a UK startup which is about to launch a new Internet-connected set-top box. The two headline features of the device are support for Freeview HD, the free-to-air terrestrial high definition service rolling out to British households this summer, and Sky Player, the satellite broadcaster’s IPTV service.

The 3view set-top features twin DVB-T2 HD tuners and a 500GB hard drive for PVR capability. Ethernet is used to connect the box to a broadband connection.

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Hello iPad, surfing the web while watching telly up 35%

This one is from the bleeding obvious department but it’s noteworthy nonetheless.

The Nielsen Company’s latest Three Screen Report, which tracks consumption across TV, Internet and mobile phones, says that in the last quarter of 2009, Americans’ simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter.

“Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV”, notes the report.

Now I won’t regurgitate the other stats (see the table below) but I will point a finger at the likely culprits: Laptops, or more specifically Netbooks, and handheld devices such as the iPhone and other smartphones, and let’s not forget the iPod touch. Along with social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) giving rise to the virtual watercooler viewing experience.

The same ‘couch computing’ craze likely behind Apple’s decision to release a tablet computer, the iPad, now and in its particular form-factor.

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Once again Hulu can't tell the difference between a web browser and a web browser

Kylo-420x236It looks like they’ve done it again.

Hulu, the US-only video-on-demand service, has reportedly blocked Kylo, a newly released web browser, from accessing its site.

The crime? Being too damn TV-friendly. It’s a story reminiscent of the Hulu/Boxee fiasco.

As Dave Zatz described it: “Kylo is a custom Mozilla app designed for couch-based content consumption. Assuming you have a computer connected to your television.”

In other words, it’s basically a Mac/Windows web browser, just like any other, except it has a UI that’s somewhat designed for 10-foot operation in front of the telly.

That’s a no-go for Hulu it seems.

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Windows Phone 7 to get some Netflix streaming and XBox Live gaming action

2010-03-15mixappspWhen Engadget Editor-In-Chief Joshua Topolsky says something is game changing I tend to take notice. That’s how he described developments in the Windows Phone 7 world (previously Windows Mobile) in reference to a demo given at today’s MIX10, Redmond’s developer conference.

Specifically, Topolsky was referring to a Netflix streaming app (Watch Instantly) powered by Silverlight running on Microsoft’s latest mobile OS, along with support for XBox Live gaming.

Both moves clearly demonstrate that Windows Phone 7 series is the Zune phone that many have been wishing for. It’s also evidence of how the company plans to exploit what is arguably its strongest consumer brand – XBox – to give its mobile OS and the third-party hardware that will be running it, fresh impetus. Much needed in the face of so much competition from the likes of iPhone, Android, Palm, BlackBerry and Nokia.

A video of Netflix on Windows Phone 7 is embedded after the jump…

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VOD service Vudu to become Wal-Mart's child

vuduAfter rumors circulated in January that US retail giant Wal-Mart was eying the video-on-demand service Vudu, the New York Times is reporting that it’s a done deal. Still no official word from either company but Dan Rayburn via one of his sources says the ink has dried and that’s good enough for me. It’s also an interesting end to a pretty long story:

Vudu started as a feisty silicon valley startup, unfashionably entering the consumer hardware space with its own set-top and accompanying HD video download store. Whilst its offering received good reviews based on the UI, movies were relatively expensive, as was the box itself, and I was always skeptical that consumers in great numbers would pay for hardware just to enter the store. The Vudu box was a one trick pony, providing a store front to the company’s content, or that’s how it felt to me. Competing consumer set-top boxes seemed to offer a lot more.

Eventually, Vudu opened up a little, supporting services other than its own, and lowered the price of its entry level hardware, but that still didn’t seem to be cutting it.

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