Home Entertainment
For the last few weeks, there has been a ripple of a rumor that Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) was about to release a new product, and now the company has come clean and revealed its new PM1 bookshelf speaker. Designed by Morten Warren's Native - the same people responsible for work on the iconic Zeppelin docks - the new mini-monitors have been veritably crammed with high-end audio technology including a newly designed tapering tweeter, new bass/midrange driver dampening technology, and a shake-resistant internal structure known as Matrix. Read More
Nintendo Wii U faster than PS3 and Xbox 360, but no Blu-ray on board
Nintendo has announced that its Wii U gaming console will not feature a Blu-ray drive, and will instead stick to a proprietary disc format. Patent fees related to the technology are too high, the company explained. The Wii U will, however, compete with existing consoles in terms of hardware - it is equipped with a customized CPU from IBM and a GPU from AMD, and is rumored to be 50 percent faster than PS3 and Xbox 360. Read More
While advocates proclaim the superior immersive qualities of 3D, the current crop of 3D TVs can actually have the opposite effect on many people by giving the impression of peering into a box filled with tiny - albeit 3D - people. Design and advertising firm NAU proposes a different solution with its latest concept dubbed the Immersive Cocoon that looks to provide the sense of immersion without the 3D. Read More
Voice interface has been on the market for some time, but probably never on such a large scale as announced by Microsoft on Monday during its E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference in Los Angeles. Improvements soon to be brought to Xbox Live include much more live TV and full YouTube access, all easily voice searched via Kinect and the Bing search engine. There's also something for mixed martial arts fans. Read More
While details of Sony’s PlayStation Vita came as no surprise at Sony’s E3 press conference, the announcement of a PlayStation branded display raised a few eyebrows. At 24-inches, the full HD 1080p, edge-lit LED LCD 3D display is aimed specifically as PS3 owners without the space or cash to go with a big screen 3D-capable TV. In addition to 3D, the display also comes with a two-player feature that allows two different images to be sent to two different players at the same time. Read More
According to Bose, only one third of homes in the U.S. have a home theater system, leaving the majority relying on the decidedly average speakers built into many TVs. While the major TV manufacturers generally try to market their products in terms of picture quality - be it blacker blacks, 3D capabilities or the latest and greatest image processing engine - audio performance seems to take a back seat. Bose has taken a different tack for its first entry into the TV market by putting audio performance front and center - or rather, rear and center - with its VideoWave entertainment system that integrates a 7.1-channel surround sound system and amplifier into the rear of a 46-inch LCD TV. Read More
Google TV has not received quite the warm welcome that was hoped for, in spite of sterling efforts from Logitech, Sony and Boxee. While the search giant makes upgrades to the service for Android 3.1 and readies it for Android Market, Geniatech is offering what it says is the first Android-embedded set-top system for HDTVs. The company says that as well as offering full 1080p high definition video decoding, its Android TV can also act as a digital media player, digital photo frame, games console and internet browsing platform. Read More
Combining lighting with audio by using a light socket to power a wireless speaker is a two-in-one approach that appears to be gaining traction and this latest example - the Sound of Light speaker - grabbed our attention on both the functionality and aesthetic fronts. The Sound of Light system uses a Texas Instruments 2.4 GHz Purepath Digital Signal Transmitter to set up a wireless link between an audio device such as an MP3 player, smartphone or tablet and up to four speakers within a 300 ft range. Read More
Elgato has just released – or to be technically correct, re-released – the latest addition to its line of digital TV tuners for PCs and Macs. The HDHomeRun is a rebranded dual tuner that has been sold by SiliconDust for nearly five years now and also sold in its previous incarnation by Elgato since mid-2007. The device has however received an update and is a little smaller and sexier than the original model, but still offers PC and Mac users the same ability to watch and record HDTV over a local wireless network. Read More
Toshiba has announced details and a release date for its new flagship 55ZL1 HDTV. The new model will be the first to be powered by a new CEVO-ENGINE, which replaces the company's Cell-powered models. The CEVO-ENGINE is essentially a stack of Cell multicore processors in the form of a seven-core processing unit that provides the processing grunt for such features as 2D to 3D conversion, 3D depth control, HDD video recording, Auto Calibration, and a face recognition feature that will switch to your personal settings after identifying you using the 55ZL1's integrated camera. Read More
