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When a new technology comes on the scene it often sparks a format war. It's logical that the big players will push their proprietary technology as the market standard so they can recoup some of the money they've spent on R & D. It happened with Beta and VHS, HD-DVD and Blu-ray and more recently with active-shutter glasses for 3D TVs. Now Panasonic has teamed up with XPAND, the company behind a line of Universal 3D glasses, to create a new "universal standard" for 3D active-shutter glasses called M-3DI. But although there are a few companies on board, a number of big players are yet to sign up.  Read More

Set to hit Europe in May, Philips' gorgeous new Fidelio SoundSphere docking system consists of two curved speakers with an alien-pod vibe (especially with the eye-like tweeters on top) and a docking cradle that caters for Apple devices but also includes an auxiliary input to feed in audio from other players. The inclusion of Apple's AirPlay technology also means that music can be wirelessly streamed from an iTunes library over a home Wi-Fi network.  Read More

Logitech has announced that its veteran digital 5.1 speaker system, the highly regarded Z-5500, is to be retired and replaced by a newer model at the end of the month. On the face of it, the upgrades to the new Z906 system appear to be purely cosmetic. It offers similar specs to its ancestor but loses out slightly on the total RMS output, although Logitech says that it will still shake your house. The system benefits from multi-source simultaneous digital and analog input, wire-free remote and room-filling Dolby and DTS surround sound technology.  Read More

Warner Bros. is hoping to leverage the popularity of social networking juggernaut Facebook by becoming the first Hollywood studio to offer movies directly through the site. Facebook users will be able to purchase and rent titles from the Warner Bros. catalog using Facebook Credits and play, pause and resume the movies through their Facebook account for up to 48 hours from the time of purchase. An initial test offering of The Dark Night to fans who “Liked” said movie on Facebook can now rent the title through the movie’s official Facebook page, with additional titles to be made available in the coming months.  Read More

Anyone who thought making the switch from their old 4:3 analogue TV to a 16:9 widescreen digital model would mean the end of unsightly black bars at the top and bottom of the picture will likely have discovered otherwise – particularly if they also picked up a Blu-ray player along with the new TV. With most movies filmed in the wider 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 and many of these now available on Blu-ray, cinephiles are once again faced with the choice of viewing the entire image with black bars, or zooming or stretching the image so it fills the entire screen. The new Cinema 21:9 Gold Series LED TV from Philips solves this dilemma with its 21:9 aspect ratio allowing widescreen movies to be displayed in all their glory.  Read More

As digital media streamers go, the Prodigy from Xtreamer appears to be something of a jack-of-all-trades. The budget-friendly box can store its own content in a wide variety of formats, connect to external drives or wirelessly hook up with a computer. It has a dedicated internet browser specially tweaked for TV, can play Flash media and will work with Apple's AirPlay technology. There's USB 3.0 and HDMI wired connectivity, and audiophiles will appreciate the lossless audio options, while movie buffs get treated to full 1080p high definition playback ... but it's the new Flash GUI that's said to be the real vote winner.  Read More

French media player specialist Archos is the latest to offer a modern take on the bedside radio alarm clock. Rather than wake you with a simulated sunrise or other mood lighting, the Arnova's alarm can be set to your favorite internet radio station or web TV channel. Users can load audio, photo or video files directly to the device's internal memory or via SD cards, wirelessly stream content from a computer via uPnP, and feed in tunes from an external MP3 player.  Read More

TDK has announced the release of its Life on Record range. The new line of premium audio gear includes two- and three-speaker Boomboxes and a 360-degree Sound Cube. Each member of the line-up mixes retro styling with modern functionality, and even allows users to plug in an electric guitar or microphone for some play/sing-along fun.  Read More

Sweden's Marten is well-regarded for its high-end speakers and takes a fair amount of pride in their audiophile-pleasing performance. So it comes as no surprise to learn that the company has decided that the only way to ensure optimum sound for its products is to create its own amplifier. Introduced at this year's CES, the M-Amp Mono Power Amplifier uses a new technology called Adaptive Modulation Servo (AMS) that's said to provide a wide bandwidth, really low audio distortion and high power output.  Read More