According to The New York Times, Google is teaming up with Intel and Sony to come out with a new product called Google TV.  Planned as either a set top box, or as software and parts built into certain TV sets, Google TV will be an open source platform that uses a version of the Google Android mobile operating system platform and the  Google Chrome browser to allow users to browse various Internet applications directly from their televisions.

While some services such as this already exist, they have been limited in what Web services they deliver; the new Google TV platform will be open to any developer that wishes to work on it which means it would be like an application store for mobile devices.  You could see things such as YouTube or Hulu being delivered to your television, as well as being able to check your Twitter stream and Facebook wall with just a few clicks directly from your couch without needing a laptop or tablet computer.

Logitech has also been tapped to develop a remote control with a miniature keyboard that will allow users to type out messages without clicking some form of online screen.

There is no word when we might see this hitting the market place, but sources familiar with the situation say that the project has been under development for several months now, and this appears to be a high priority project for all the parties involved.  If I was a betting man, I would say this holiday season might see the first releases, and at the latest I would say the technology will debut to the public at the Consumer Electronics Show in Jan. 2011.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Google Coming To Your Television Via Google TV

Marvel Entertainment, formerly known as Marvel Comics, has teamed up with RTC23 to release a line of LCD and LED high definition television sets.  Each unit is themed around a different famous Marvel character, and will show their name and images of them on the frame, and will also show pictures of the character during the start up process and on menu pages.

The TVs, which can also double as computer monitors, come in sizes of 22, 32, 42 and 55-inch  for the LCDs and 40 and 46-inch versions for the LED.  Some of the characters also come with options for different colored bodies  like the yellow one shown here also comes in blue and black.

Depending on model and size, prices range from $339 to $1989.

While this is cute and kinds funny, call us old sticks in the mud if you must, but isn’t the performance of the television more important than the comic book character slapped on it?  We know nothing about the quality of the RTC23 units, but we just can’t see the point in the garish colors, and won’t you get bored with seeing the same images of the characters over and over again?  Our suggestion would be, as always, look at reviews and shop for quality over some gimmick that seems rather pointless to us.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Marvel Comics Branded HDTVs Invade Your Living Room

Panasonic 3D TVs will be hitting the shelves at Best Buy on Wednesday for around $2500.  The question is if you even need this technology in your life?

Personally I see 3D as a fad.  It has come and gone over the years, and while it may be nifty to go to a 3D movie from time to time, do you really want to have to wear those glasses all the time you’re in your own home?  (and, by the way, your $2500 only gets you one pair of glasses, so be ready to pick up more sets)  You know how some people have gotten headaches from watching Avatar?  Imagine doing that every night while you watch television?  No thanks.

When you add in th fact that people are still in the adoption process of HD TV sets, this was not the time to introduce a whole different set of technology.  Even if you have an HD TV already, you haven’t had it that terribly long in most cases, are you ready to plop down money again so soon for a technology that will be even more limited?

While the home electronics industry seems to think we’re ready for this, and I simply say we aren’t.  I have no desire to sit around with glasses on in my own home on a regular basis just to watch TV.  Thanks, but no thanks to all of the electronics companies that are so excited about this, but it just isn’t for me.  And, honestly, I think the electronics companies are going to find I’m not alone.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

3D Televisions Hitting Store Shelves In The USA This Week

TiVo has unveiled its latest home DVR devices, and they’re going to do a lot more than just record your shows for you now.

Known as HD Series 4 and as TiVo Premiere, the new set top DVRs are adding Internet connections to deliver even more content to your TV than the shows you choose to record. Both the TiVo Premiere (320 GB hard drive) and the TiVo Premiere XL (1 TB hard drive) will be able to deliver content from Netflix Watch Instantly, Amazon Video on Demand, Blockbuster on Demand, YouTube, Pandora and more.

Both units will have 1080P outputs and feature expansion slots for additional storage.  The Premiere will for $299 and can record up to 45 hours of content in HD recording, while the Premiere XL will sell for $499, record up to 150 hours of HD content and adds THX certification.

Both devices will include Ethernet ports, but if you want to go for a Wi-Fi connection, you will have to purchase a $90 dongle.  Also, there will be a Bluetooth enabled QWERTY keyboard released later in the year you will need to buy separably.

One of the biggest additions, and one I have wanted for ages, a meter will show you how much hard drive space you have left at any time.  Thank goodness!

Full press release after the break

INTRODUCING TIVO® PREMIERE, THE ONE BOX TO RULE THEM ALL
New Box Offers a Stunning New HD Experience That Blows Away Any Other Cable Set-Top Box

TiVo Opens Up the Box to Pandora Internet Radio, Maximizing the TiVo Music Experience

Alviso, Calif. March 3 -TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), a leader in advanced television services, including digital video recorders (DVRs), announced today the launch of TiVo® Premiere and TiVo® Premiere XL boxes. TiVo Premiere elegantly combines access to cable programming, movies, web videos, and music all in one box at a truly affordable price. TiVo Premiere is now the only way to unlock the real value of the HD television set, a box that is more powerful, compact, and energy efficient than previous generations. If the DVR changed your life, TiVo Premiere will change it again.

“It has never been this easy to get all your entertainment in one place, on the big screen, in HD, right at your fingertips. And the beauty of TiVo Premiere is that finding what to watch is just as fun as the watching the TV shows themselves. We accomplished it by using pictures and graphics to make the whole television guide experience come alive in a way that it never has before,” said TiVo’s President and CEO Tom Rogers. “TiVo Premiere is your new cable box, it’s your movie box, it’s your web box, and music box; it’s the one box that can give you access to almost anything you want, whenever you want it. We’ve taken millions of pieces of content and organized it for you in a way that makes so much sense you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.”

Why Premiere Is Revolutionary:

It’s the One Box: TiVo Premiere is your new cable box, movie box, web box, and music box; it’s the one box that gives you access to everything you want to get on your television and all with one remote. It’s a true one stop shop for entertainment.*

Broadband and Broadcast Integration: Premiere’s search functionality offers users the ability to find programs from many sources – whether it’s a digital premium channel from cable, a funny outtake from YouTube or a movie from broadband sources such as Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, or Blockbuster On Demand, plus options from the Web all brought together into one unified and simple experience.*

Browse Baby Browse: Premiere is at its best when you want to browse, discover and explore the almost infinite array of TV options. Every show, from every source, is organized by category or topic. With a full-screen menu that includes a rich display of movie posters & TV show logos for exploring, it’s simple to stumble upon interesting things to watch or record. Plus, consumers have never before had the option to browse by specific movie collections on their TV. For example, browse thru Oscar® Award winning movies or Emmy® Award winning television shows with one simple click of the remote.

Six-Degrees of Separation: Premiere will settle debates over “where have I seen that actor before?” far faster than a trip to the laptop ever could. Just click on a show or an actor and consumers will be able to view entire entertainment resumes and cast lists, quickly and easily. Before you know it you’ll find associations from one favorite actor to another that you never dreamed existed, fueling the discovery process even more and likely getting you hooked in the process.

Easy to Use HD Layout: We’ve kept the easy navigation, but significantly cut the number of screens you have to visit by utilizing the extra room high-definition affords. The experience was built for HD television sets and by creating a two-column and three-column layouts we reduce the number of screens, helping you to get to what you want more quickly.

Set-top box built on Adobe® Flash® Platform for the Digital Home: Premiere is built on Adobe Flash software, a pathway to future user-generated experiences and development opportunities, which have not been available before on a set-top box. Premiere is built on multi-core architecture that greatly facilitates future development of third party provided applications.

We Listened: By popular demand Premiere includes an on-screen disk space meter that shows how much room is left to record, a built in 30 second scan, and a new video window that lets you watch your favorite show while navigating the TiVo menus.

Room to Record: The TiVo Premiere box has up to 45 hours of HD storage space or up to 400 hours of standard definition programming capacity. And for those who want even more options the TiVo Premiere XL box holds up to 150 hours of high-definition or up to 1350 hours of standard definition programming.

Even More Content: A brand new relationship with Pandora means in the coming months, Premiere as well as TiVo Series3™ and HD DVR customers will be able to listen to their personalized Pandora radio stations on the best speakers in the house. A new relationship with FrameChannel brings the best of the web directly to the TV offering users access to nearly 1,000 content widgets of personal and commercial content, ranging from Tweets, photos and status updates to news, weather, sports scores and stock quotes. FrameChannel acts as a personalized channel on your television, transforming your TV into a constant stream of real-time news and information with the content that matters to you most.

Speaking about its strategic marketing alliance with TiVo that was announced last year, Mike Vitelli, President of the Americas for Best Buy, said, “This is an important step toward achieving our shared vision to transform the digital home entertainment experience and redefine customer service. Through TiVo we can continue to strengthen relationships and interact with our valued customers even after they leave our stores, which is invaluable in a rapidly evolving digital media environment. Cable companies do a great job of connecting customers to content, but TiVo takes the complete digital experience to the next level.”

“We are proud to be leading the cable industry in the adoption of this groundbreaking approach to advanced television. TiVo will bring a whole new way for our subscribers to experience television with TiVo’s DVR and broadband television offerings,” said RCN President & CEO Peter Aquino. “I’m very pleased to report that based on our field test results, we will begin to roll out TiVo as our primary advanced box in all of our markets, one by one, in the second quarter of this year.”

Coming in May, a new TiVo Wireless N adapter, that allows for faster downloads and faster streaming of content, at speeds that are especially helpful for multi-room viewing (MRV) transfers. Coming later this year, consumers will also have access to a groundbreaking, slide-out QWERTY TiVo remote. The compact peanut shaped remote gives a faster experience, especially when utilizing text entry. With Easy plug n’ play installation, extended range utilizing Bluetooth and backlit programmable buttons the remote will quickly become a must have accessory.

TiVo Premiere Box Specifications:
TiVo Series4™ architecture
Supports digital cable, high-definition digital cable, antenna (ATSC) and Verizon FiOS
Outputs: HDMI, Component video, Composite video, Optical audio, Analog audio
Video output modes include: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Inputs: CableCARD™ support, Cable coax, Antenna coax, Ethernet
Ethernet connection, USB 2.0 ports (2), E-SATA support for external storage
TiVo Wireless N and G Network Adapter support
ENERGY STAR® certified
320 Gigabytes
Records up to 45 hours of HD programming or up to 400 hours of standard-definition

TiVo Premiere XL Box Specifications (all specs not listed are the same as above unless noted)
One Terabyte storage
Records up to 150 hours of HD programming or up to 1350 hours of standard-definition
Backlit, programmable, and learning remote
THX®certified, ensuring optimal audio and video reproduction and enables seamless integration with other THX components
TiVo Premiere XL box is the first HD product to feature THX® Optimizer™, a video calibration tool that lets users fine tune color, black levels and other settings to improve picture quality. Hailed by critics for its ease-of-use, the exclusive THX Optimizer for TiVo Premiere XL box is found in the My Shows menu of the TiVo service. A pair of THX Optimizer Blue Glasses, designed for adjusting Color and Tint settings, is included with the owner’s manual.
TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL boxes will be available in retail nationwide in early April. They are also available for pre-order today at tivo.com for $299.99 and $499.99 respectively.
*TiVo service is required and sold separately. Cable and Netflix subscriptions required for cable and Netflix programming, respectively and are not included in TiVo service subscription. Additional fees may apply for other broadband content. Broadband programming sources subject to availability and may change without notice.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

TiVo Adds Internet Content In The TiVo Premiere

Netflix has announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that it has new partnerships with Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba and Funai (the CE maker behind the Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania and Emerson brands in the US) according to NewTeeVee.  It is Netflix’s objective to get its streaming ability into every device possible as the company is spending over $600 million a year on postage, but streaming a film only costs around $.05.

To give you an idea of just how important this is becoming to the company, it has now agreed to a 28 day delay window on offering DVD new releases from Warner Brothers.  This means that for the first 28 days after a film comes out on DVD, it will not be available through Netflix.  In trade for this agreement, which the studios wanted due to sagging DVD sales, Warner Brothers has agreed to add more of its older titles to the streaming service.  So, basically Netflix has just said it can be bought off by the studios on the DVD side so long as the streaming portion gets something out of it.  Very interesting.

Kinda makes you wonder how much longer Netflix will even bother with stocking DVDs at all.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Netflix Popping Up In Every Device This Year

While at my office today, working away without a cloud in the sky and … the power goes out.  Not your normal power blink, but the hour long variety.  Luckily I have my two main computers on a battery back up and it gave me enough time to save all my work, close my programs and shut my computers down in the proper fashion so that there was no damage.

Considering what a vital part of our lives computers have become, at home and at work, an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) should be a part of anyone’s setup.  You don’t need a huge one as all you need is a few minutes of power to get your work saved and the computer shut down in the proper fashion.  If you’re on a laptop,  this is of course not an issue, but if you are using a desktop, this is a must.

As with any major purchase you need to research your options, check reviews and remember, one of the most important aspects, is remember the more you plug in to the device, the faster the battery will drain when you need it.  Make sure that you have at least five minutes of time, so divide the amount of time the device will provide by the number of items you will plug into it and make sure it comes out to at least that long.

Now, what are you waiting for?  Start looking for one before your next power outage!

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Battery Backups Are An Essential Part Of Your Computer Set Up

There have been people that have come up with ways for you to wise USB ports into a wall outlet, but it looks like someone has finally just decided to manufacture them.

Available from FastMac for delivery in early 2010, pending approval on its safety, the TruePower UCS Power Outlet With Built-in USB Ports will offer you two standard three-pronged outlets along with two USB ports.  These will pop into any existing wall outlet you have with no special wiring required, and you will then be able to charge your iPod by just using the USB cable, and free up another electrical outlet for something else.

The outlets are a bit on the expensive side at $9.95, but how much would it cost you to buy a power strip or hire an electrician to come in and run a whole new outlet?

Here are the technical specifications on the outlet:

Specifications:
Input voltage: AC 100 to 240V 50/60Hz
USB input current: 80mA
Output voltage: USB: DC 5.0V 600mA
Operation temperature: -15 to 45 Degrees Celsius
Relative humidity: < 95%
Air pressure: 86 to 106kPa

The one place I would love to see these take off, but I know it will never happen? Hotels. Imagine no longer having to travel with chargers, just USB cables. Oh the joy that would bring to me.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

USB Outlet Can Help Eliminate Need For Chargers

According to TV By The Numbers, TiVo has released information that is has suffered its largest ever quarterly loss of subscribers. The total number of lost subscribers for the quarter ending Oct. 31st, the DVR service lost 314,000 subscribers.

This has been a trend for the service since Jan. 2007, but the extreme jump in loss was surprising seeing as they only lost around 46,000 subscribers the quarter previous.  This new loss brings the company down to 2.76 million total subscribers, or only about 8 percent of the estimated total 38 million DVRs in U.S. households.

It seems that the company is now making the majority of its revenue from licensing its technology to other companies, or actually suing companies such as Dish Network for stealing their intellectual property.

It will be interesting to see how long TiVo can survive as a hardware manufacturer with this sort of drop in business, or will they just finally give up and just go the licensing route?

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

TiVo Suffers Worst Subscriber Loss Ever

The Roku Box has gained a reputation as the easiest way to get Netflix Streaming and Amazon Video on your TV, but seeing as both those are premium services it did limit their potential customer base somewhat.  Later on the company added MLB.com for out-of-market games, but again that was a premium service, so what were they going to do to start to lure customers who don’t use those services?

Enter the Channel Store.

Roku Boxes can now stream content from:

• blip.tv
• Facebook photos
• Flickr
• FrameChannel
• MediaFly
• MobileTribe
• Motionbox
• Pandora
• Revision3
• TWiT.TV

While none of these services will give you the breadth of content something like Netflix Streaming will, there is some solid entertainment in this line up. Pandora alone, one of the leading music discovery sites, could keep you dancing in your living room for hours on end.

While there is no official word on what this might mean for the future, this sure has the feel of being a “first wave” of content.  In other words, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see them adding many more channel partners in the very near future.

Roku is one of the top items for me this coming Christmas, and it may have just jumped to the #1 spot with this news.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Roku Adds Free Online Media Streaming

Following the Red2Blu promotion Warner Brothers ran a few months ago that allowed HD-DVD owners to swap their copies for Blu-ray, the company is now allowing consumers to do the same with their DVDs in the new DVD2Blu promotion.

As the name implies, consumers can go to the DVD2Blu website, choose from a list of over 50 movies that they have on DVD, mark the ones they wish to exchange (up to 25), pay for them and then mail in their DVD discs.  Prices for the Blu-rays range from $7.95 to $9.95, which sounds like a bargain, but is it really?  As the Consumerist points out, when they checked the prices of the movies against buying them off a site like Amazon, you are saving between $2 and $7 per movie, but the selection is rather lackluster.  For instance, where are the Harry Potter movies?  They are on both DVD and Blu-ray, yet they aren’t in this promotion.

There is also the illusion that just because something is on a Blu-ray disc it will have better picture quality, but with the improvements in DVD upconversion on so many players now, unless the source video was shot on HD, you are going to have a hard time telling a difference.

While the Red2Blu promotion made sense for those of us who had chosen HD-DVD, which eventually lost the format war, this offer doesn’t make quite as appealing.  Personally I won’t be partaking in it, but if you are desperate to switch to having everything you own on Blu-ray, go for it.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Trade DVDs For Blu-Ray Copies