Unfortunately there are no test photos, so we don’t know what the Google H840 looks like. The report suggests it was tested with a USB-connected Dell monitor, though that’s presumably to access either the LCD’s USB hub or its memory card slot, since that particular model doesn’t support video input over USB.

Anything else is, at this stage, speculative, though given the launch of Google Play Music All Access this past week at I/O, some sort of Sonos-style streaming box would seem an obvious guess. That could be hooked up to a set of external speakers or alternatively have onboard speakers and amplification.

Google isn’t the only company tipped to be working on a streaming media device. Earlier this month, it was rumored that Amazon’s hardware lab is developing a wireless audio adapter which could be used with its own cloud music locker service.

The Google H840 would presumably be a more focused device than the Nexus Q, which was unveiled at I/O in 2012 and then swiftly killed off as market feedback proved uncertain. The orb-shaped streamer was intended to funnel YouTube videos, music, and other content direct to a TV, with communal playlist control from multiple Android-powered phones and tablets.

However, a combination of high price – partly because Google intended it to be manufactured in the US – and confusing purpose meant the Nexus Q project was axed. Earlier this week, it was confirmed that Google would not be officially supporting the streamer with the All Access subscription music jukebox service.

The H840 (its H2G2-42 product code a combination of the fan abbreviation for Hitchhiker’s Guide and the “meaning of life”: the number 42) looks to be the second attempt at the market, though when Google will actually unveil it officially remains to be seen.

VIA: TabletGuide

280W of that comes from the class D amplifier in the subwoofer, which automatically adapts its output to the shape and size of the room. Each of the satellite speakers gets 140W to play with, and tips the scales at 800g. Formed from pressure-treated aluminum – in fact 170 tons of pressure is involved – they can be fitted with a choice of six colored fabric fronts.

The subwoofer body comes in white only, though the top fabric section can be switched out to match with your decor. Hooking up to a B&O surround-capable TV is a matter of plugging in the A/V multi connector, but you can also use an A/V receiver and any other brand of TV or projector.

Since you might not want to hide the vase-like sub under a table or behind the sofa, as per many blockish rivals, B&O includes a “positioning dial” which can quickly set it to the right sort of settings for whether it’s in the corner, against a wall or bookcase, or in the middle of the floor. There’s also peak volume protection, so that none of the cones burst from unexpected highs.

B&O says the BeoLab 14 surround sound speaker system is on sale globally this week, priced at €2,995 ($3,855).

Today’s announcement for expansion comes after Aereo recently unveiled new streamlined plans for its service, which would get rid of daily and annual plans in favor of two simple monthly plans. $8 per month would land you 20 hours of DVR storage space, while $12 per month will give you 60 hours of DVR space, which is 20 hours more than the previous $12 plan.

Aereo has been the center of a controversy since the launch of its streaming service. The company has been drawing criticism since users don’t need a cable subscription to watch broadcast television, as they can watch television on their mobile devices using Aereo’s service, which takes broadcast antenna signals and converts them into internet signals that the streaming app can digest.

Needless to say, Aereo has been sued multiple times by television networks, and the company already won in appeals court once. Plus, the lawsuits aren’t stopping the company from expanding its service to more cities. Aereo will launch service in Boston tomorrow, with Atlanta coming roughly a month later. The company plans to expand to 22 more cities in 2013, including Miami, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Detroit, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Those are just some of cities that are planned to get the new service, with more to come in the future if the lawsuits don’t take down the company first.

Aereo has taken some heat from networks ever since the launch of its streaming television service over a year ago. Both CBS and News Corp. (owner of FOX) have taken aggressive steps in order to get Aereo banned, calling the company’s actions illegal, since they’re supposedly stealing broadcast antenna signals and using them for their own gain financially. It’s a sticky situation, indeed, and we’re not sure how much longer Aereo will be able to stay up, but if the courts are in favor of Aereo, broadcasts networks will need to think of a new strategy to retain viewers.

Just as Microsoft fashioned a dual-recording camcorder that can simultaneously capture a regular shot for the central screen, and a wide field-of-view counterpart to project around the TV, the BBC created a similar rig using a huge fish-eye lens. That secondary content is projected backward from the viewer, reflected off a curved mirror, and onto the walls and ceiling.

“We already know the human eye has much better vision in the center of your focal view, for things like detail, and colors, and shapes,” Sheikh explained of the concept behind the system, “and in your periphery you’re much more concerned with things like movement.”

However, while Microsoft’s IllumiRoom research uses Kinect to interact with objects in the room, creating a digital 3D map of furniture and then animating it to match on-screen video or gaming, the BBC’s system is a little less advanced. The projection system the BBC relies upon makes no differentiation about the surface it projects onto, and there’s no real-time processing taking place.

That fits in more with the BBC’s primary purpose of its unnamed system: for more immersive multimedia consumption, rather than something interactive like games. Nonetheless, the team has found that – with some careful planning of shots – it’s possible to create a far more interesting viewing experience that’s arguably less gimmicky than 3D.

For instant, while filming the 2011 movie Broken, they discovered that the “surround video” was much more successful when characters were running toward the audience, with the camera tracking back, rather than when following them.

More recently, an animated short called Kill Mode has been created to demonstrate the BBC tech, which will be shown off at the Sci-Fi London Festival this coming weekend. There’s no talk of commercializing the system at this stage, however.

Although watchlist functionality has been present for Netflix US on-demand subscribers for some time, the ability to create a playlist has been largely absent outside of that country. In the UK, for instance, Netflix lacks the ability to create a “My Queue” list, despite regular requests from users.

Now, though, LOVEFiLM users in the UK and Germany will be able to line up a number of shows to watch, with the list synchronized across all apps and sites that are logged into the same account. There’s also a new homepage layout, which includes a “last viewed” widget with details on what was last played, what device played it, and what viewing point was reached, making it easier to resume.

Otherwise, there’s new search functionality and an updated recommendation engine, and LOVEFiLM has tweaked the UI in general to make things easier to navigate. The new PS3 app is available now, though LOVEFiLM hasn’t said when exactly those with other internet-connected devices will get it.

News of the incoming closures was tipped by emails sent to Italian subscribers, Telefonio reports, warning them that the store would no longer be available after May 15. Existing purchases would still be available to watch and re-download, according to the message.

HTC confirmed the part-shuttering in an official statement. “As we continue to deliver new content for HTC Watch, we’ve made the decision to focus our efforts on markets with the highest engagement” a company spokesperson told us. “After May 31, we’ll discontinue support for HTC Watch in countries with less application traffic.”

Those countries consist of Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands. According to HTC, access to Watch will no longer be possible in those locations after May 31.

Of course, Watch isn’t the only media download option HTC device users have to choose from. Google’s own Play store has a video section, where movies can be purchased and downloaded, for instance.

The Microsoft Research team responsible for IllumiRoom is currently using a standard projector with a wide field of view, and a Kinect for Windows sensor bar, though any commercial implementation would probably be designed to sit on a coffee table. Automatic room calibration is included, projecting various patterns and sequences which map the outline of the TV, furniture, and the room’s geography in 3D; future iterations could even identify and track moving objects, such as people, as they move through the projection.

Once the layout of the gaming arena is understood, IllumiRoom’s real magic can begin. Various implementations are proposed, from fully extending what’s on the TV to greater fill the room – making for a more immersive environment – to picking out specific elements to highlight them, such as weapons fire that escapes from the primary display. By changing how physical objects in the room have their own textures projected, furniture could be made to ripple and wobble, change color or desaturate, or have their lighting adjusted.

Alternatively, the IllumiRoom system might just expand on the theme of the current game: having virtual falling snow spread across the living room, perhaps, building up on the actual furniture. The three possibilities, Microsoft Research suggests, are “negating”, “including”, or “augmenting” real-world objects: either digitally masking them, allowing them to remain visible, or adding to them with projected graphics.

“Ideally, IllumiRoom would be directly integrated into a next generation console and new games would be designed for IllumiRoom from the ground up. We envision an API that enables triggering illusions, changing surface appearance, controlling room lighting, inserting objects into the physical environment, etc.” Microsoft Research

While the best result would be if games natively supported, and integrated, IllumiRoom functionality, the system could also fashion a suitable AR scheme by analyzing gameplay in realtime, similar to how Philips’ Ambilight system tracks on-screen colors and matches them with its periphery of multicolor LEDs. The developers also suggest that audio cues could be used, such as triggering a ripple of the surrounding projection whenever the system hears a gunshot sound.

There’s also potential for how IllumiRoom could work with non-game content, such as movies and television; the team fashioned a prototype extended field-of-view camcorder – in effect pairing a standard camcorder with one that has a wide FOV – with the main screen showing the core video and the IllumiRoom projector showing the peripheral footage.

“Can a grenade from the latest Bond film explode in your living room? How would such content be authored? It would be im- portant to investigate how the movie director should deal with the fixed nature of a film and the randomness imbued by the system adapting to the user’s living room” Microsoft Research

Unsurprisingly, there’s still no (public) talk about how IllumiRoom tech and Microsoft’s Xbox ambitions might work together. As it stands, the current projection system relies on a PC for its brain, though it’s worth remembering that Kinect itself started out as a proof-of-concept peripheral, and only later evolved into an Xbox 360 add-on.

[via The Verge; via CHI 2013; Thanks Zak!]

The flat OLED TV is priced at 11 million Korean won, and went up for preorder in January 2013 with shipments beginning the following month. As for this flexed variant, it will command a 50-percent premium, with LG pricing it at 15m won, or around $13,500.

Beyond the privilege of being at the cutting-edge of hardware, LG says early-adopters of the new TV will benefit from some technical advantages too. Because of the curved screen, the company claims, the distance from all points of the TV to the viewer’s eyes are the same, reducing distortion and blur. That also has an effect on 3D, LG says, with a better quality image than a flat screen can manage.

As for the design, the 55EA9800 is embedded in a carbon fiber reinforced clear plastic stand which weighs in at 17kg, with a minimum thickness of 4.3mm. LG has used transparent thin-film speakers, too, spreading the TV’s audio abilities across the front of the stand but without spoiling the looks.

Samsung, meanwhile, is yet to announce availability of its own curved OLED set, which it also demonstrated back at CES in January. Each of the TVs runs at 1080p Full HD resolution, which means that if home entertainment fans want Ultra HD resolution, they’ll currently need to stick with LCD technology. However, that’s likely to be a gap LG is looking to fill; the company announced it would invest more than $650m into OLED production this year.

Roddenberry Entertainment and Wikia have announced a partnership to launch an online community portal called the Trek Initiative. The Initiative plans to give the millions of Star Trek fans around the world the place to talk and learn more about everything having to do with the Star Trek series and universe. The platform will also give fans a place to share local community projects and view exclusive content.

When the new Track The portal launches, it will have lots of Roddenberry content including a recording of a commencement speech that Gene Roddenberry gave in 1976. That particular speech spans 55 min. and during the speech, Roddenberry discussed the future of the human species and more. The portal will also offer fans images that haven’t been seen before from Gene Roddenberry’s personal life and from the set of various Star Trek movies and television episodes.

Gene Roddenberry’s son, Rod Roddenberry, also promises to offer blog content for the site giving insight into the motivations behind the Trek Initiative and to give fans perspective from inside the family. The Trek Initiative will also serve as a gateway for all sorts of Star Trek content on the web offering links to various Star Trek websites.

[via Trek Initiative]

The XBMC Media Center software the TV stick runs is a free and open source software media player platform and entertainment hub that specifically designed for use in the living room. The user interface of the software is designed to be controlled from 10 feet away. The Nighthawk TV stick itself uses the same SoC is found inside the Raspberry Pi.

That means you can run open-source software that is supported by the Raspberry Pi in a smaller package specifically designed for the TV. The device doesn’t have any internal storage of its own relying on microSD cards of up to 32 GB in capacity. The Nighthawk has integrated Wi-Fi and features a powered USB hub allowing for the connection of external hard drives or other accessories.

Hardware inside the Nighthawk includes the Broadcom BCM2835 SoC. It also has a 700 MHz processor, Broadcom Video Core IV GPU, and 512 MB of memory. It supports the upper the full HD resolution video. The device can be controlled using a wireless mouse, smartphone, or tablet. It also supports DLNA and AirPlay. The project is seeking $40,000 and has 55 days to go. So far, it has only raised $80, but it has just launched. A pledge of $80 will get you a Nighthawk TV stick with a 4 GB memory card.

[via indiegogo]

DirecTV’s existing apps – for iOS and Android – are both in line for the update, which is due to come down the line sometime over the summer. They will also retain the existing placeshifting-style streaming abilities, which already allows viewers to view searched-for shows either on their phone or the TV, or indeed to browse search results on the TV screen using the app as a touchpad for navigation.

The difference, however, will be in how those search terms are entered. Rather than an on-screen keyboard, DirecTV will accept natural spoken queries – the company apparently demonstrated things like “search for comedies with Adam Sandler” in addition to requests for recent sports games by team – in addition to filtering with channel, actor, genre, and time.

One possible addition to what DirecTV is referring to as “open beta” functionality is room for promotional content. The updated app features speech bubbles which, by default, make suggestions as to possible searches subscribers might want to make. However, DirecTV has confirmed that the same UI is being considered for including adverts, presumably including pay-per-view movies and other on-demand content.

Speaking to a TV rather than navigating with a remote is something several manufacturers are trying to perfect, though the results have been mixed so far. Several models from Samsung and LG’s ranges include the functionality, with microphones integrated into the remote controls, while Apple’s long-rumored Apple Television has been tipped to use Siri for its control system.

Amazon says that it’s Originals programs made up 8 out of 10 of the most streamed episodes across the entire video service following their Friday debut. Amazon says that customers have been rating the original programs very highly with 80% of all reviews ratings shows at four and five stars. That 80% four and five star review is after “thousands of customer reviews” according to Amazon.

Amazon is asking subscribers to continue submitting feedback because the feedback will help them determine which of these pilot episodes to turn into full series. Amazon hasn’t offered up any details on exactly how many people streamed their Originals pilots. There is also no word so far on which of the pilots are in contention for being picked up as a series.

“For the past year the Amazon Studios team has collaborated with some of the best actors and writers in Hollywood to produce top-quality shows. Now we’ve handed the remote to our customers to hear what they think,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “In just a few days the pilots have received thousands of helpful and sometimes hilarious reviews. Keep the feedback coming—and help us decide which pilots will be turned into full series.”

One thing I’ve never seen Amazon mention is how many of these programs than it might pickup to be turned into a full series. It’s unclear if Amazon is only looking for one show or if several or even all of them have a chance if viewers really like them. I’d wager with the expense of putting together these pilot episodes, every show that proves popular enough will be picked up.

[via Amazon]

The company wouldn’t be drawn on exactly how large or small the new models would be, only referring to the 85-inch “entry level” S-Series set currently available. That leaves plenty of room for those with smaller rooms to find a model to fit, though whether they’d have sufficient space to make the most of the high resolution remains to be seen.

There’s also the question of content, something which even Samsung concedes that is significantly lacking unless you’re relying on upscaling. Broadcast UHD shows aren’t expected until 2016 at the earliest – Samsung pointed out that the decoding and tuner standards aren’t settled upon yet, which means they can’t yet build them into the TVs with any confidence – while physical content will probably land in 2015.

Streaming or downloading might be the answer, though it’ll demand a fat internet connection. Again, though, there are issues surrounding that, not least the fact that the HEVC codec likely to be used – the successor to the MPEG4 codec currently prevalent – isn’t yet standardized for UHD 3D at 60fps.

In short, “currently there is no television which is compatible with the upcoming UHD standards” Samsung admitted, its own included. However, the firm is relying on its Evolution Kit to fill that gap down the line, a slot-in box that will add an upgraded processor, graphics chip, connectivity and more, bringing older sets up to speed with technology released after they’ve gone on sale.

So far, though, we’ve only seen Evolution Kit plans for the 2012 range, granting them the same specs as the 2013 line-up; it’s unclear how far back Samsung will retroactively be polishing old products. We’ll be at IFA 2013 in September to find out how the new size Ultra HD sets slot into the new range.

Both of the products use Harman Kardon’s high-current, ultra wide bandwidth amplifier design for audio performance. The receivers are also designed to support the latest high-definition audio and video sources featuring eight HDMI inputs each that support 3-D compatibility. Those HDMI inputs also support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats.

The 2700 is a 7.1-Channel surround sound receiver with 100 W per channel. Its eight HDMI inputs support 3-D, Deep Color, CEC, and Audio Return Channel. Other supported features include Dolby Volume and EZSet/EQ technology. The receiver is also DLNA certified and features integrated Ethernet capability. It also supports Apple AirPlay for streaming content directly from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod. The receiver also supports 4K video pass-through and upscaling. The MSRP for the 2700 is $799.95.

The 3700 is a network AVR that offers 7.2-channel surround sound with 125 W of power per channel. It has integrated Wi-Fi and supports AirPlay capability. Since the receiver has built-in network connectivity, it can be controlled by an app that is available for Apple or Android smartphones and tablets. The receiver supports 4K pass-through and upscaling. It also features eight HDMI inputs and a pair of HDMI outputs. The 3700 also supports multizone functionality and carries an MSRP of $995.95.

[via Harman Kardon]

Logitech Harmony overview:

The Harmony Ultimate’s Bluetooth means that those who rely on their Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii to access Hulu and Netflix will be able to control that from their universal remote. There’s also integration with Philips hue LED lights, preset color patterns of which can be included in a Logitech macro. That means you can turn on your TV, load up Netflix, and change to your “home entertainment” lighting scheme with the touch of a single button.

That button can be physical – all of the Harmony Ultimate’s keys are backlit, and together the remote can control up to 15 devices from over 225,000 brands – or on the 2.4-inch color touchscreen with haptic feedback. Logitech also throws in a charging station and online setup. Two IR mini blasters are included in the box.

Logitech Harmony Ultimate demo:

As for the Logitech Harmony Smart Control system, that relies on your existing Android or iOS smartphone for the hardware, and can replicate the functionality of up to eight devices with a single app. Channel favorites and swipable shortcuts for volume, channel, FF/RWD, and play/pause/skip are included, and Logitech includes a Harmony Hub which communicates via WiFi with the phone app and in turn controls A/V hardware and consoles using IR and Bluetooth.

You can also use the app if you buy the Harmony Ultimate, pairing your phone with the Hub that comes with that remote.

Logitech Harmony Smart Control demo:

Logitech’s Harmony Ultimate remote is up for preorder now, priced at $349.99, and expected to ship in the US and Europe come May 2013. The Logitech Harmony Smart Control, meanwhile, is priced at $129.99 and is also available for preorder with an estimated May release.

Alternatively, those without an existing PayPal account will be able to set up a new one directly from their TV, using LG’s MagicRemote to gesture through the menus. From that point on, the account can be optionally left logged-in, remembering payment and shipping details for each subsequent purchase.

According to LG and PayPal, the possibilities for integrated payments are far broader than just buying the odd on-demand movie or smart TV app. Instead, they see a more complex and engaging advertising strategy evolving, where smart TV viewers can buy physical products without putting down their remote, or donate to charity campaigns with a single click.

In addition to the three markets where PayPal on smart TV has already been switched on, the service will arrive on 2013 LG models in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia starting this month. Broader availability will follow on after that.

The set-top box also supported number of apps including Netflix and several others. The coolest part about the device was the unlimited storage space for DVR recordings. Rather than using an internal hard drive, the Boxee TV stored your recorded TV shows on the cloud using a service that cost $14.99 per month. Boxee has now changed the name of the set-top box calling it the Boxee Cloud DVR.

Other than the name change, the set-top box is the same $100 device combining live TV with cloud DVR functionality. All those apps, including Netflix, are still available. One nice introduction along with the name change comes a free tier for the cloud-based DVR service and the previously $14.99 per month unlimited service is now $9.99 per month.

There are caveats with the free basic service. One of those caveats is that your recordings expire in 90 days. The worst of the limitations for the basic service is that you’re limited to only five hours of DVR playback per month and you can only watch on your TV. The $9.99 monthly service offers recordings that never expire, unlimited DVR playback, and the ability to watch your content on the TV, computer, tablet, or smartphone.

[via Gigaom]

Fans are getting more Arrested Development than they were expecting, too, with Netflix upping the episode count from the last announcement. Back in January, the on-demand media company said there’d be fourteen in this fourth season.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the new season will be a prequel to the Arrested Development movie, and will see one character take center-stage in each episode. A preliminary list of guest stars has also been confirmed, including Ben Stiller, Conan O’Brien, and Kristen Wiig.

However, beyond season four the future looks dim for the hit show. Netflix has already said that there are no plans for a fifth season, partly because, according to CEO Reed Hastings, it is “extremely difficult to get the cast together.”

Arrested Development originally aired on Fox between 2003 and 2006, but was cancelled after poor ratings. Netflix stepped in instead in 2011.

To be able to use the Epix application on your PS3, consumers have to be an authenticated subscriber to a participating cable or satellite company. However, the streaming application is offering a two week free trial to get people try the app and the network now and weekly free preview movie titles. That means if you download the app, even if you don’t have a cable subscription to Epix, you will be able to watch some content.

Cable subscribers who have access to the network and authenticate will be able watch over 3000 movies including some new releases. Those new releases include some very popular films such as The Avengers, Skyfall, The Hunger Games, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, and more. The streaming application will also offer access to exclusive and original content from the television network.

The original content that will be offered via the app includes the network’s Original Concert events, documentaries, comedy specials, and championship boxing events. Epix says that in the future will also be offering a free movie or special event each week to PlayStation Plus members who download the app. Cable subscribers who do have the network as part of their subscription package can use the application at no additional cost.

[via Epix]

The device is designed to play music from CDs, download a digital track, online content, Internet radio, and supports your home entertainment content as well. The device will make sound from your movies, video games, or TV sound better. The Sneaky DSM is designed for you to connect your pair of speakers directly to it and then connect the device to your home network.

The audio streaming devices designed to work in conjunction with an application that runs on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop allowing you digital content to be accessed and controlled from your smart device. The streaming box has a built-in Ethernet port, RCA analog phono input, one S/PDIF RCA phono input, three HDMI inputs, and a single TOSLINK input.

Audio output can be via one of the three HDMI ports or two high quality four-pole Neutrik Speakon speaker connections. The device supports the audio format you prefer including FLAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, MP3, WMA (except lossless), AIFF, AAC, and OOG. The device has two channels with 33 W of power in stereo or four channels with 33 W of power when bi-amped. The Sneaky DSM is available in black, silver, or white for £1,750.

[via LINN]

That had been the subject of a lawsuit – and subsequent appeal – by copyright holders angry that Cablevision was hosting a copy of their movies and TV shows in the cloud without separate licensing. Cablevision argued (and won on the argument that) it was not a video-on-demand service, given it was recording individual copies of broadcasts for each user, and only if they had initially requested that recording.

Aereo’s system, the appeals court decided [pdf link], works in the same fundamental way. A copy per user is stored, rather than a single master from which all broadcasts are shown, and it is not a public broadcast.

“When an Aereo customer elects to watch or record a program using either the “Watch” or “Record” features, Aereo’s system creates a unique copy of that program on a portion of a hard drive assigned only to that Aereo user. And when an Aereo user chooses to watch the recorded program, whether (nearly) live or days after the program has aired, the transmission sent by Aereo and received by that user is generated from that unique copy. No other Aereo user can ever receive a transmission from that copy. Thus, just as in Cablevision, the potential audience of each Aereo transmission is the single user who requested that a program be recorded”

In fact, the appeals court compares the Aereo system and the precedent set by the Cablevision ruling in-depth, with particular emphasis on the fact that each user has dedicated access to a specific Aereo antenna. The minutiae of the 1976 copyright act – and the fact that the current media technology landscape differs significantly from the “environment of 1976″ – also gets investigated.

One member of the appeals court, Judge Chin, disagrees with the overall ruling, describing Aereo’s system as “a sham” and arguing that the antenna array is “a Rube Goldberg-like
contrivance, over-engineered in an attempt to avoid the reach of the Copyright Act and to take advantage of a perceived loophole in the law.” However, his opinion won’t provide much solace to the broadcasters, who now face a supreme court battle if they want to stop Aereo’s service.

That service could well get a kick thanks to today’s appeal court ruling. The cloud of litigation had reportedly been a thorn in Aereo’s expansion plans, which include chatter of a deal with AT&T and/or DISH. That could see Aereo service bundled with AT&T broadband plans, insiders claim.

[via The Verge]

Launched a little over a year ago, Aereo basically takes free-to-air TV content and rebroadcasts it as an internet stream. Subscribers are charged a fee – from $1 a day, for the commitment-averse, or through monthly or annual plans – for DVR functionality as well as access to two tuners for simultaneously watching and recording content.

However, even before it launched, Aereo was in the broadcasters’ legal sights. An initial lawsuit claiming the service broke laws by re-encoding content using its tiny antenna clusters was seen off, but the war is by no means over. A ruling in the appeals court is expected imminently, though a final settling of the arguments could be years off.

That uncertainty is apparently giving some potential partners pause for thought. According to the insiders, DirecTV considered partnering with Aereo, but opted not to after reviewing the legal situation. Dish Network, meanwhile, is another potential suitor, having already denied plans to buy Aereo, but conceded that it is following the service with interest.

As for AT&T, no confirmation was given, but sources say the talks are around AT&T selling broadband and/or mobile broadband that would be paired with Aereo service. Meanwhile, Aereo has supposedly approached a number of cable channel providers – at least two others, the sources say – in order to pay for access to select content, though no deals beyond the initial Bloomberg TV agreement have been inked.

One of those streaming applications that can be downloaded is a free offering called Popcornflix. Many of the streaming offerings that Roku offers require a monthly subscription and rental fees, but Popcornflix offers content for free. Last summer we talked about the service and the fact that it hit 400,000 users via Roku.

Now approximately 9 months later the streaming movie service has announced that it has reached 1 million downloads on the Roku platform in the US. The service is also available in the UK and Canada via Roku devices in those countries. Popcornflix promises access to hundreds of films including theatrically released titles and independent films with top Hollywood actors.

The service has movies available with actors such as Brad Pitt and many others. Users of the service can search for films by title, actor, director, or browse movies in genres. Popcornflix is an ad supported film network so viewers will have to view some ads.

[via Popcornflix]

The manufacturer says that the dongle converts standard televisions into a smart TV allowing access to all sorts of entertainment content. The device offers over 150 Indian TV channels live or as video on demand. The device supports 11 different Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Oriya, Gujarathi and Bhojpuri.

The dongle isn’t something you walk into your local store and purchase alone. It’s part of a bundle available in the US to the customer that includes the dongle at no cost. The customer does have to sign up for a three-month, six-month, or a yearly subscription package for entertainment content.

The TV dongle supports streaming video, streaming music, and allows users to access the Internet on the TV to view things like Facebook and more. The TV dongle also has a memory card slot allowing users to watch their own videos, view photos, or listen to music. The device also supports checking e-mail and surfing the web directly from the TV. The service costs $59.99 quarterly for the basic package and the most expensive package goes for $129.99 quarterly. Yearly or six-month packages are available on all services as well.

[via YuppTV]

Toshiba says that the new line of products features a “new design identity,” which includes rounded corners, brushed metal, gloss finishes, and a minimalist aesthetic that makes the new products simple and easy to use. Toshiba says that the new design for its 2013 products will go right along with any modern and contemporary look in a home.

The new 9-series Ultra HD range comes in flavors of 84-inch, 65-inch, and 58-inch screen sizes. Also in the new lineup are 4-series, 6-series, and 7-series lines of new televisions. The 4- and 6-series are the companies new entry models for 2013, which are basic smart TV models that come in either 32-inch or 50-inch screen sizes.

The 7-series is a new line of 3D-enabled smart TVs that come in 40-inch, 50-inch, and 58-inch flavors. As for the new Cloud TV platform, there’s not a lot of information about it at this point, but it’ll essentially be a service that includes a handful of apps, as well as the ability to share content between multiple devices in the home.

Toshiba also announced three new Blu-ray players, all of which look more or less the same design-wise, but are slightly different from one another. They feature built-in WiFi, 3D playback support, smart TV functionality, including access to YouTube, Netflix, etc., and the design of the new players compliments the new range of televisions nicely as well. No details on pricing or availability, but we should be seeing these new products on the market very soon.

“When we began planning the SUB product, our estimates showed that the Matte SUB would cost less to produce than the gloss SUB” a company representative said today. “During the manufacturing process, we determined that this was not the case. In addition, the gloss finish has been well-received by our customers and continues to be in high-demand.”

So as to keep to its original commitment to owners, however, Sonos will offer a “very limited quantity” of the matte-finish version over the next two weeks. On sale until supplies run out, or April 2, whichever comes first, the $599 subwoofer is functionally identical to the glossy SUB only with the different finish.

Sonos is already selling the SUB through its own store, priced at $599/€599/£499, but says that Amazon and Best Buy will also be offering it in the US and Canada eventually. Local dealers may also have “limited stock” too.

The no-cost upgrade is available for customers who have a Sky+HD set top box connected to broadband service. While the on demand service will allow users to catch up on episodes of current programs that they missed, it will also offer a wide variety of catalog programs. Older shows available to download from the library using the on demand service include The Inbetweeners, Shameless, Spaced, Father Ted, The IT Crowd, and This is England’88.

Sky says that Channel 4 is also the first terrestrial network to offer its programs on Sky Go. Sky Go is the Internet and mobile TV service offered from Sky. Starting on Monday Sky Go users are able to enjoy Channel 4 and More4 their laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Sky says content from E4 and Film4 will be available in the future.

Content from Channel 4 for Sky customers that subscribe to Sky Go Extra will also be available to download for watching off-line. The ability to download the shows means that users can watch them off-line when no Internet connection is available or on the go without being subject to data charges. Film4 HD will also be coming to the Skyline up in September.

[via Sky]

The Intel MSRD is a partner project to Intel’s own Web TV plans, detailed earlier this year, which will see the company launch its own on-demand streaming service later in 2013. That system is expected to use viewer-tracking as well as other, more traditional control systems; an onboard webcam will monitor the general demographics of the current viewer – age bracket, gender, etc. – and tailor advertising content and suggestions based on that data. SlashGear saw a demonstration of the technology back at Mobile World Congress.

It’s unclear if the MSRD will include the same camera technology out of the box. Intel has so far confirmed that it will include the Atom CE5300 dualcore SoC, complete with hyperthreading and virtualization, 3D/2D graphics encoding, an H.264 B-picture hardware encoder, and integrated power management, along with DBV-T2/T/C broadcast and media sharing stacks, and the aVia media player, already available for Android.

Intel’s own system will likely be built on the same technology, though with the company’s own tailoring to suit its Web TV intentions. The firm hopes to license out the MSRD reference design as a software and hardware shortcut for cable, home entertainment, and other providers hoping to enable things like second-screen interaction with tablets and smartphones, pay-TV, and media streaming.

Well, Nintendo, we don’t believe it.

After a sub-par launch, we’ve watched the Wii U collected dust on store shelves across the U.S. Developers, while trying to stay nice about it, are obviously starting to become concerned that the console won’t hack it. And all Nintendo president Satoru Iwata can do is apologize for not delivering better results in the fourth quarter.

Huh?

Now, I’ll freely admit that I’ve never run a major company and I’m sure there will be an awful lot of Nintendo fans lined up to tell me that I don’t know anything about running a game business, but it’s about time the company and all of its supporters hear the truth: without some major changes, the Wii U is doomed.

What Nintendo needs to do first is cut the price of the Wii U. Yes, I know that the company will likely post lower-than-expected financial results over the next year or so because of the reduced price, but at least some customers will jump at the chance to buy the cheaper device. And as history has shown, the more hardware that makes its way into consumer homes, the stronger the software library. And when a stronger software library comes along, a more successful platform results.

Nintendo is looking down the barrel of a major, major threat. Sony is planning to launch a PlayStation 4 later this year that will come with far more firepower than its device. The Xbox 360’s successor, unofficially known as the Xbox 720, will take advantage of the momentum its predecessor has passed on. By all measure, the Wii U’s competition is looking to have a better chance of succeeding than Nintendo’s console.

Of course, don’t tell Nintendo fans that; they’re still clinging to the Wii’s success. Nintendo fans say that the Wii was doubted by nearly everyone, and after it had some time to attract customers, it was an outright success.

However, I think those people tend to be suffering from revisionist history. The Wii was doubted by many, but after it was actually shown off to consumers before its launch, demand skyrocketed. And the console wasn’t readily available to customers for years. In other words, the Wii is an entirely different beast. And it’s one that cannot – and should not – be compared to the Wii U.

Aside from a price cut, I’m not sure there’s much else Nintendo can do but hope that things turn around. The Wii U is being ignored, casual gamers couldn’t care less, and parents – the true Wii U buyers – are looking at the price tag and laughing at Nintendo for even thinking it would pay that much for what is essentially an HD Wii.

It’s unfortunate, but I’m starting to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Nintendo’s console business.

TiVo has been talking about the idea for some time now, even announcing the Mini – albeit as the IP-SBT – back in mid-2012. As well as pushing live and recorded TV around the home, the Mini also supports Pandora and Spotify for streaming audio, and allows for recordings to be scheduled (including Season Pass).

You can also pause playback on one TiVo and resume it on another, handy if you’re moving around the house and want to keep watching the same show.

Over at Zatz Not Funny they’ve already been getting to grips with the TiVo Mini, and while it earns an eventual recommendation – if you’re a quad-tuner Premiere owner already – it’s not a completely clean sweep. Coming in for the biggest criticism is the extra service fee TiVo levies: if you buy the Mini for $99.99, you’re also looking at $5.99 per month to actually keep it working.

TiVo does offer a “lifetime service” deal, but that pushes the extender to $149.99 (we’d still opt for that ourselves, given you’d be saving money after the ninth month). Meanwhile, there’s no Netflix streaming, something you get even on a fifty-buck Roku box; TiVo would rather you use YouTube, Hulu Plus, or XFINITY On Demand (if you get it where you live).

The absence of wireless streaming is likely to be the biggest fly in the ointment at this stage, with rival placeshifting boxes using 802.11n to push up to HD content around. Even the original Premiere has to be hooked up over ethernet, not wirelessly. If that fits with your home entertainment installation, you can buy the TiVo Mini from today.

It was previously tipped that Harrison Ford would be reprising his role as Han Solo. Carrie Fisher has now confirmed that she will be returning to reprise her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars Episode 7. We still don’t officially no what the next film will be about, but there have been rumors swirling that the movie would focus on the children of Han and Leia.

With both Ford and Fisher now attached to the film, these rumors are looking more and more factual every day. Fisher confirmed her involvement in the project during an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated. She was asked during the interview if she would be returning as Luke Skywalker’s sister, and she simply stated “yes.”

The only outstanding character from the original trilogy that was heavily involved in the storyline is Luke Skywalker himself. So far, Mark Hamill hasn’t confirmed that he will be returning for the film. Considering that Hamill has had nothing major to his credit since the last Star Wars film, he would be rather crazy to refuse to participate if asked.

[via Aceshowbiz]

Hardware

There are a couple of key form-factor elements you know you’re getting with a speaker-bar, though Sonos does try to put its own spin on the concept. They’re generally long and narrow, intended to go under or above your TV, and to separate the left and right speakers by as much as possible to broaden the sound stage.

So, the PLAYBAR Is a reasonably handsome slab of matte silver aluminum and black fabric, fairly heavy at 11.9lbs (though a single person can still lift it and move it around), and with holes on the back integrated into rubber feet for either wall or table positioning. It’s not as long as some speaker-bars we’ve seen, at 35.43 inches across, but it’s fairly broad at 3.35 x 5.51 inches. Physical controls are limited to the familiar cluster of Sonos buttons – mute, volume up, volume down; all flanking a white status LED – on one end of the bar.

On the back, in a recessed panel, are the ports: two ethernet connections, an optical audio input, and a power socket. Conspicuous by its absence is HDMI – Sonos tells us it views the TV itself as the hub for multimedia control, and so the PLAYBAR Is intended to focus solely on audio not source switching duties – as well as the aux-in analog input you get on the PLAY:5 speaker. In the box, Sonos includes a power cable, a flat ethernet cable, and an optical audio cable. All remote duties are handled by the usual Sonos apps.

Inside, there are a total of nine speakers, each with its own Class-D digital amplifier. Three 1-inch titanium dome tweeters are spread between the outer edges and the center, while six 3.15-inch aluminum cone midrange speakers fill the remaining space; there’s no onboard subwoofer, though you can wireless connect a Sonos SUB if you want more low-end.

That’s not the only cleverness inside, however. Sonos has fitted the PLAYBAR with an accelerometer so that it knows which way up it’s placed: that means it can automatically figure out if it’s on the wall – with the “top” facing out – or sitting flat, and adjust the equaliser settings automatically. There’s also a pass-through IR system, which repeats your TV remote’s commands in case the TV’s own IR receiver is blocked in some way. The PLAYBAR can also learn the volume commands from your existing remote, so that you don’t have to dig into the app just to tweak the audio when you’re in the middle of a film.

Setup and Use

Sonos has built a reputation around not only great audio quality but ease of setup, and the PLAYBAR is no different. You’ll need to be using the latest versions of the apps for iOS or Android since they add support for the PLAYBAR’s unique features, but otherwise adding it – whether to a new or an existing Sonos system – is a matter of hitting the mute and volume up buttons on the bar itself and waiting for the app to recognize it. That can be done over a WiFi connection (as straightforward as plugging in power and the TV audio cable, though you’ll need to have at least one Sonos speaker or BRIDGE hooked up to your router via ethernet) or with a wired connection to your router. The second ethernet port can be used to pass through the internet connection to another device.

Like a regular Sonos speaker, you can assign a name (such as “TV Room”) to the zone; however, there are also some new steps to the setup. Starting with the TV turned off, you can first optionally add a SUB to the PLAYBAR, and/or a pair of PLAY:3 units for use as rear surround speakers. If you choose to, they’ll still be available for regular music duty, only they’ll also be preset as the default home cinema set too.

After that it’s a case of turning on the TV and waiting for the PLAYBAR to start piping the audio through. Sonos recommends digging into your TV’s settings to disable its onboard speakers, and then guides you through registering the remote you’ll be using to adjust volume – probably the TV remote, but it could be for your Blu-ray player or cable box. In our test system, that was as simple as pressing the volume up button on the remote, and the PLAYBAR automatically recognized its volume and mute controls from that point on.

If your remote isn’t recognized, however, Sonos guides you through teaching the commands to the PLAYBAR, a process which takes about nine button presses. Cleverly, the speaker-bar’s new found skills aren’t kept to itself: it sends the new settings back to Sonos’ servers, where they’re bundled into the firmware catalog for future PLAYBAR units to choose from. That all happens transparently to the user, of course.

Just as setup is different, so there are some new options in the settings page once you’ve got your PLAYBAR hooked up. There are still bass and treble adjustment sliders, and a “loudness” switch, in the equalization page, but not the balance control you have on standalone PLAY zones; however, you do get a new audio delay control, which helps match up lip-syncing. We didn’t have to make any adjustments to that ourselves.

You can turn off the IR signal light and the IR repeater, if you prefer, as well as run through the remote control setup again. There’s also the autoplay options: whether the PLAYBAR will automatically switch over to the optical audio input when the TV starts making sounds (rather than continuing to play music) and, separately, whether the PLAYBAR automatically leaves whatever group you have it set to when autoplay happens.

Sonos has been clever with how it manages connectivity and shared use, given that the PLAYBAR will likely be relied upon both as a TV speaker but also as a music system. Inside, there’s not one but two wireless chips: one 2.4GHz chip for hooking up to the regular SONOSNet 2.0 peer-to-peer network joining all PLAY units together, and a second 5GHz radio for directly connecting with a SUB and/or PLAY:3 pair for home cinema duties (though not PLAY:5 speakers, since they lack the 5GHz support).

By including this second chip, Sonos avoids any latency introduced by piping rear audio or bass track data through your home network, as would normally be the case for multiple PLAY speakers. It’s vital when you’re dealing with multiple speakers playing the same content, since any lag will be instantly noticeable. We set up a pair of PLAY:3 speakers for use as the rear surround set, and could observe no delays in the soundtrack.

As long as autoplay is turned on, when you turn on your TV the PLAYBAR automatically switches over to that source. That includes leaving any group you have it currently playing music in. If you subsequently try to add the PLAYBAR to a PLAY speaker group, or add tracks to its playlist via the app, it will pop up a message warning that doing so will stop the TV audio in that zone, and ask if you actually want to do that. One small frustration was that the PLAYBAR didn’t subsequently rejoin the music group once we stopped using it with the TV; we had to manually add it back in.

Performance

Simple setup would be for naught if the PLAYBAR didn’t sound any good, but happily that’s not the case. Sonos has tuned the speaker-bar in two distinct ways, it says, for music and for TV/movies, and we were impressed by performance in both.

For music, the PLAYBAR offers much of the experience we’re familiar with from the PLAY:3 and PLAY:5, only with added grunt. The natural balance of treble and bass are very similar to those of the smaller PLAY units, which helps it slot neatly into a multi-speaker system, but there’s a healthy bump in power that meant the PLAYBAR could easily match a PLAY:3 set to roughly half volume, while the bar was dawdling down at less than 25-percent.

Midrange sounds have the warmth and breadth that we’re used to from the company’s kit, while trebles have an eager sparkle that makes vocal tracks shine. Complex instrumentals didn’t get lost, with the PLAYBAR’s dynamic EQ automatically keeping things spread across the bar in a way belies the all-in-one nature of the system. Even at high volume levels, there was no buzzing or rattling from the PLAYBAR itself, and there’s a welcome absence of distortion even up to neighbor-infuriating levels.

If there’s any criticism to be made, it’s one that most speaker-bars share: bass tends to come in third compared to treble and mids. That’s definitely not to say the PLAYBAR disappoints in the low-end – it’s tight and aggressive, and probably more than sufficient if you’re living in an apartment – but those looking for the full audio experience will probably be tempted to throw in a SUB, whereupon they’ll find great lashings of bass that manages both precision and exuberance.

It’s movies where that could be most useful, though the PLAYBAR does very well on its own for TV sound. The stereo separation and the 45-degree angle of the speakers means left and right audio is clearly distinguished, the PLAYBAR using a combination of positioning and EQ to bounce audio from the walls. In fact, the onboard computer is crunching 24m calculations a second, Sonos says, to figure out how each sound wave created by each of the nine cones interacts, adding and subtracting those waves to emphasize explosions, make musical soundtracks more enveloping, and allow speech to pierce through everything.

Throw in a couple of rear PLAY:3 speakers, meanwhile, and the experience is all the more impressive. The PLAYBAR is tremendously capable, turning its hand to a variety of movie styles. The rumbles and ominous groans of Prometheus were rich and hauntingly sonorous, while The Dark Knight and Transformers put the surround system through its paces and showed how precise the rear set could be. We noticed no issues with lag or delay.

All that DSP means Sonos can add a couple of new features you wouldn’t normally get on a PLAY speaker: Night Sound and Speech Enhancement. Toggled on or off through new buttons in the “Now Playing” section of the controller app, Night Sound aims to make the PLAYBAR more accommodating to those who like to watch movies while everyone else is asleep. In short, it compresses the audio, dampening louder sounds like explosions and gunfire, and enhancing quieter sounds like speech, so that all can be heard without forcing you to hover over the volume control like a hawk.

It works surprisingly well, though you’ll obviously miss out on some of the original zeal of the soundtrack. As for Speech Enhancement, that operates in a similar way, though leaves the louder sounds untouched. Instead, it simply emphasizes the frequency range of the human voice, lifting speech out of the rest of the audio.

Since it’s a Sonos system, there are some less obvious, but no less neat, things you can do. By grouping the PLAYBAR with one or more other PLAY speakers, for instance, you can pipe your TV’s audio around the home: useful if you want to keep an ear on the news or a concert you’ve been watching. Alternatively, you could start a slideshow on the TV, and accompany it with a playlist of Sonos-streamed audio, whether from your own collection, from internet radio stations, or from on-demand services like Spotify and Pandora.

Wrap-Up

Sonos took its time creating the PLAYBAR, and that consideration shows both in how it sounds and how easy it is to setup and use. Certainly, at $699/£599/€699 it’s expensive when compared to a regular speaker-bar. You can find those for a couple of hundred, after all, though their audio performance may not match up to the PLAYBAR’s beautifully balanced sound. Still, you’re not just getting one product, but two: a speaker-bar for your TV and another zone in your Sonos system, certainly more than equivalent to a $399 PLAY:5.

The magic of the PLAYBAR is how straightforward it is, and how few compromises it demands. You don’t need to be familiar with Sonos to actually use it: in fact, once you’ve set it up, you could feasibly never turn on the Sonos app again, and merely use your regular TV remote. The only messages in the app are concerned with pairing the PLAYBAR back in with music groups; TV playback takes priority. That makes it highly family-friendly, essential if you don’t want a less-technical partner to get frustrated.

Still, our own experience with Sonos is that its simplicity means that even the most gadget-averse soon come to recognize its charms, and the PLAYBAR has that appeal in spades. The audio performance for both music and movies is excellent, and even if you don’t pair it up with rear PLAY:3 speakers and a SUB (which can certainly get expensive, at nearly $2k to outfit a room with the whole set) you’re still getting excellent sound. Superlative performance, ease of use, and multi-room flexibility? Even at $699 it’s enough to make us fall in love with the Sonos PLAYBAR.

The HomeSync box itself is the size of a couple of stacked DVD cases, finished in metallic-effect plastic, and with nothing on the front bar an LED indicator. On the back, meanwhile, there’s a microUSB port, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI output, and an S/PDIF digital audio output, along with an ethernet port. Inside there’s a 1.7GHz dualcore processor, together with a 1TB hard-drive, 8GB of space for apps the like, 2GB of RAM, and WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz) plus Bluetooth 4.0.

That hard-drive is used for local storage, including offloading content from your phone or tablet, though as you’d imaging the HomeSync is also set up to stream from the cloud. It integrates with the AllShare app on Samsung mobile devices, too, for one-touch streaming, though we had a little trouble getting a Galaxy Note II to push photos and video directly to the connected TV.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is running under the hood, with a customized UI to suit the living room environment. An app on your Samsung phone turns it into a wireless keyboard and remote – the display can either be used as a traditional trackpad, or you can physically wave the phone around to move the on-screen mouse cursor – with NFC used to easily pair handset to STB.

From then, you can use screen mirroring, push Full HD content wirelessly through the HomeSync box to your TV, or use local software such as the gallery, video player, and YouTube player. Samsung tells us that you should be able to install any app in the Google Play store too, including Netflix, though we weren’t able to test that since the Netflix app itself wasn’t offered in the regional store the demo hardware was set to.

Up to eight individual user accounts will be supported, each with its own locked-down section of the 1TB drive. Those hunting more local storage will be able to use the USB 3.0 ports to add external drives.

Samsung says the HomeSync will hit the US in April, though is yet to confirm pricing.

In Vodafone’s demo, two screens showed the two perspectives involved: the upper screen would be the TV in the viewer’s home, while the lower display showed what the camera – a simple Logitech webcam – saw and calculated. While facial recognition and tracking is already commonplace, particularly in cameras, Intel’s refinement is to gage attention too: if you’re not actually looking at the screen, instead engrossed in your phone, book, or tablet for instance, it won’t include you in the count of overall viewers.

Initial identification is almost instantaneous, though the system takes a few seconds of prolonged attention in order to identify gender and other details. Once that happens, the box overlaid on the user’s face – which tracks around as the viewer moves in the frame – turns either blue for males or red for females. Meanwhile, other graphics show more specific demographics, such as age bracket, and track historical viewing trends.

Vodafone had a playlist of three commercials for the system to cycle between, and depending on the split of male and female attention, as well as other factors, would choose which to queue up next. For the viewer it’s all seamless: there’s no sudden jump to new content, simply a selection of adverts that they might well be more interested in than the regular network choice.

The system isn’t perfect. We had trouble being recognized while wearing glasses – the camera simply didn’t flag us up as a viewer – and Vodafone told us that people with bald heads could also confuse things, with Intel’s computation unable to figure out gender. As for the inevitable privacy concerns, Intel has already said that it will be fitting a shutter mechanism to its STB, allowing coy subscribers to block off the view of the camera altogether.

Vodafone couldn’t tell us specific details about the Intel system, nor indeed confirm or deny whether this particular implementation would find its way into the eventual Web TV device. Still, this certainly fits in with what the chip company has described. Intel Web TV will launch sometime in 2013.

Soon, DVRs entered the marketplace and everything changed. My cable company provided me with a DVR, allowing me to record a show at a given time. Best of all, it was recorded on a hard drive, so I didn’t need to worry about using my tapes. The transition was incredible, and it was something that I thought could never get better.

[Image credit: Steve Garfield]

But then things got better. Each year, it seemed better software kept coming to my cable company’s DVR, and with a few upgrades here and there, the device seemed to work better. I even bought a TiVo and realized just how well that product worked.

But now things are different. Perhaps it’s because I’m spoiled or because I’m asking too much, but my DVR today sucks. And what’s worse, just about every DVR I’ve used is downright awful.

For a few days last week, my Motorola DVR has not recorded a single show, despite the fact that I have set it to record several series. Then suddenly, just yesterday, it started recording my shows as if nothing happened. It was a hiccup, my cable company said, and something that was worked out.

As happy as I am to see the fix, I know I’ve been in this position before. The DVR works well for a while and then suddenly, stops. In some cases, that means my hard drive gets filled up extremely quickly, despite the fact that I have only five shows saved. And when that happens, it doesn’t take long before shows I recorded have been deleted.

When my hard drive is functioning properly, I find that my series recordings get screwed up. And if I want to record too many shows at once, the DVR software doesn’t seem to follow the rules I’ve placed for hierarchy of importance.

I’ll freely admit that my TiVo, which is in another room, works much better than my cable company’s DVR. But even that product has its issues. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the tuning adapter I need to have connected to the device stops working and my TiVo doesn’t record anything. I’ve also had TiVo delete shows I haven’t watched for, well, some reason.

I’ve come to the unhappy conclusion that DVRs, in far too many cases, are simply disappointing. And over the last few years, I haven’t seen the kind of improvements that would make me believe that the companies are trying to improve things.

Worst of all, I know I’m not alone. Just Google “DVR problems” and you’ll find millions of people suffering from the same woes as me. And each one of them has discovered that, as many complaint calls as they make, nothing changes.

So, I think it’s time for something new. The DVR is far from perfect and perhaps moving away from even satisfactory. DVRs suck. And unfortunately, I’m forced to live with them. That sucks, too.

Of course. First, let me tackle that last and most ridiculous point. It’s not a PlayStation launch if they didn’t show the hardware, right? No, that’s completely wrong. What is the hardware? It’s a box with a gaming computer inside and a bunch of ports on the outside. It should look reasonably attractive sitting underneath my television, but if it doesn’t I’ll just hide it behind something else, like my Xbox. It should be slim enough to fit in my cabinet, but my receiver is pretty big, so I don’t mind a little heft. Since the Xbox 360, design has become more important, as gamers realized they could have a console that wouldn’t offend the sensibilities of non-gaming spouses; but if this is a priority for you, you’ve gotten your priorities screwed up.

You know what I really want from my PlayStation box? I want it to play really freaking awesome games for the next 6 years. Every time I turn it on, I will spend exactly 5 seconds looking at the box and 30 minutes to 8 hours looking at the content it blasts onto my TV screen. If the box protrudes hairy tentacles and screams obscenities at me every time I turn it on, I can live with that if the games are good. If the ports are covered with Man-O-War tentacles that sting me every time I plug in a controller, I’ll buy some ointment and keep playing. If reaching into the box is worse than pushing my arm into the foul and stinking moist womb of Beelzebub’s mother, who the heck cares if it plays games that make me forget the horrors of my life and the cruelty of my own impending mortality for more than 15 minutes!?

If you care so much about the box, you are the problem with the games industry: style over substance.

For disclosure sake, my day job is with Samsung Mobile, so I know a thing or two about launches. As a former tech journalist, I covered Apple events and Nokia events, so I’ve seen the best and worst a launch event can be. But launching a phone is very different. The problem is that the tech press has grown accustomed to fast-paced phone launches. Every 4 weeks the coolest phone you’ve ever seen hits the market. The tech press is spoiled. They want cool hardware design, which is much more important with a phone. They want a full explanation of the device in 30 minutes or less. They want to leave the press room and walk into a store to buy it (or at least walk into their Brooklyn apartment to review a sample unit).

That doesn’t just mean that our press is jaded. That means you don’t have to say as much with each phone launch. You don’t have to detail every feature. You can build on what the audience already knows. You can highlight the new and confirm the old.

A phone is a very personal device. You will touch and caress it for the next two years. You will tell it your secrets, share your relationship photos, and stick it in your pants. When you buy it, you expect to know much of what it can already do.

Sony is not selling you the hardware. You need the hardware to play the games, but for the first year or so, Sony will lose money on the hardware. A lot of money; maybe a couple hundred dollars per console. Where do they make their money? Games. The money comes from the games they make internally and the licenses they sell to EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard and others.

So, when Sony hosts a launch event, they aren’t selling you on the box hardware. The box is a necessary evil to get you to buy and play the game. If you only bought the box and watched Netflix and never played any games, Sony’s PlayStation division would be out of business in this generation.

Games are a hard sell, especially when they cost $60 a piece, brand new. They cost as much to make as a Hollywood blockbuster, and like a hot movie they make most of their money in the first week they are available. What’s worse, the movie producers make a ton of money months later when the movie goes to DVD, but game producers don’t see that kind of profit. Why should Sony ever support used games with the economics of the gaming market already tilted so heavily against them?

At a PlayStation launch event, Sony needs to prove that a 20-60 hour game on unproven hardware is worth 4 to 6 times the price of a movie ticket. How can you possibly fault them for showing 2 hours of game previews? Sure, the jaded press in the audience will get bored, but diehard fans will pore over those previews for 7 months until the console is in stores.

Go ahead, Sony, be proud of your launch event and ignore the critics. Every one of them is a fan. They all lusted over at least one of those games, and lamented the beloved titles you didn’t show, but probably will at another 2-hour event at E3. The same press will complain again there, because it’s their job to by cynical; but they’ll be first in line to buy one. In the end, it’s not about the event, or the box. It’s all about the games.

But seriously, Sony, enough with the updates. Just let me play the game and forget that the rest of it – the box, the controller, the world – exists, even if it’s only for 30 minutes.

But all of that debate and all of the talk about the success or failure of devices like the Wii U make me question what the future looks like. We’re expected to see more game consoles hit the marketplace in the next year or so, and Steam is also planning to enter the fray. Add that to OUYA and the possibility of Apple gaming, and it becomes clear that the console market will only grow in the coming years.

All of that growth in the number of consoles might sound nice to gamers. But what if I told you that the future – the ideal future – would not rest on more game consoles, but on less?

The way I see it, a single, universal console should dominate the future.

I know I’m not the only person to ask for a universal game console, but I think it’s for the best. In order to get the most out of our gaming experiences, we’re forced to buy several devices costing hundreds of dollars. From there, we need to buy extra controllers and sign up for Web-based services. And that’s all before we even buy different games for the consoles.

In a world I’d like to see, all of that would be stripped away. We’d have just one new console to buy every few years and the top game publishers in the world would deliver titles for that device. We’d only have to buy one set of controllers and sign up for one online-gaming experience.

Industry observers might reason that such a scenario would actually hurt the gaming industry. After all, we’d be spending a lot less cash in that scenario than the current one, they say.

But is that really true? By saving all of the cash on hardware and online services, we might be able to dedicate the same amount of money to the games themselves. All of the savings would increase spending across the software market. The result? The possibility of an even stronger game industry.

Of course, which company would actually deliver the console is up for debate. Some might say that Nintendo is the best option, since it’s been building consoles for years. Others might suspect that Microsoft or Sony could get the job done. Even Apple might be a candidate.

The nice thing about a universal console is that it really doesn’t matter which company builds the hardware. In my dream world, gaming goes back to, well, gaming, and does away with the obsession with hardware.

The game industry needs to change. And it needs to realize that the console wars need to go. If they do, we all win.

This machine works with an ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Motherboard with the ability to connect to your peripherals with Thunderbolt. Attached you’ll find a lovely Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor (3rd gen, of course, Ivy Bridge it is), and 16GB DRR3-2133 memory. Your setup in its out of the box form will work with an NVIDIA GTX600 series graphics processing card and will be more than ready to take on all next-generation games throughout 2013 – and beyond!

You’ll find Intel 520 series solid state boot drives in this amalgamation of greatness along with up to three 2TB Hard Drives configured to be tough in RAID 5. Each system works with Windows 8 Pro and is ready and willing to act as your premiere home theater controller. The Raptor MultiPlex works with Digital TV tuners able to work with up to 4 recordings concurrently.

You’ll also be working with S/PDIF out for High Definition 9.1 Channel audio and will be able to play Blu-rays at 1080p via PowerDVD12. Most of these options are also upgradable – pick up an NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti, 670, or 680 if you’re feeling like you want to break out with the nicest of the nice. The base price for this setup is $1,849 USD, and you’ll be able to upgrade across the board straight from the Velocity Micro online shop – go big!

Chatter of such a system broke last year, with Intel supposedly looking at categories like age and gender to split up its viewership. Using the same sort of face-identification technology as we’ve seen on ultrabooks as well as smart TVs from Samsung, the Intel system would provide content owners and advertisers with far more useful information as to who, exactly, was consuming their shows and commercials.

As Intel sees it, the current recommendations system services like Netflix use is too blunt to be particularly effective. That’s because it works on a per-screen basis, not a per-viewer basis: everything watched by all users of a single Netflix account is combined to generate the newest suggestions, for instance, even if different members of the household have broadly different niches they individually prefer.

Intel’s system, however, would be more precise in its targeting than that. By using the Web TV STB’s in-built camera to watch the viewer as the viewer watches content, it can ascertain more accurate demographic details and tailor connected media to the right person at the right time.

Although the technology for individual identification exists, previous rumors around Intel’s tracking implementation suggested it would take a broader-strokes approach than that. Rather than logging specific members of the household, the Intel-powered STB will merely look at general demographics – i.e. membership of certain age brackets, gender, etc. – that, though a step away from exact tracking, would still unlock considerably more data than the current viewership methods. However, Huggers did say that viewers would be able to use the camera to log into specific accounts, implying far more accurate identification.

Intel’s eventual hope is that the extra information will encourage content owners to unbundle their collections of channels, something the industry has historically been reluctant to do. That won’t be the case from day one, however. As Huggers said during AllThingsD‘s D: Dive Into Media conference this week, “there are opportunities to create a more flexible environment [but] I don’t believe the industry’s ready for unbundling.”

Huggers also recognizes that Intel will face an uphill challenge trying to reassure viewers that a camera pointed out at them isn’t a privacy issue, though the physical shutter to optionally turn off the feature should go some way to helping with that. The Intel Web TV system is expected to launch sometime in 2013.

[via The Register]

The company’s reluctance to extend itself beyond musical speakers has been down to a fear of losing focus: the audience is still dedicated music lovers, Sonos says, but concedes that many in that audience also love films. Meanwhile, while display technology has advanced hugely, skinny flat-panel TV sets have squeezed speakers into something of an afterthought, thus opening the door to hardware like the PLAYBAR.

All-in-one speakers aren’t new, of course, but PLAYBAR does some things differently. That starts with setup: there’s wireless onboard, for the easiest way of connecting, but you also get a pair of ethernet ports on the back for wired networks (and for passing the connection through, say, to your smart TV, or being the first node hard-wired to your router for an overall Sonos installation). Otherwise there’s just power and an optical digital input – no HDMI, since Sonos expects the TV to remain the “brains” in charge of switching and managing media – along with the usual three physical buttons for mute and volume up/down which are on one end of the bar.

When you first set up, the PLAYBAR can learn the volume buttons on your favorite remote (whether that be for your TV, your Blu-ray player, or your set-top box). Out of the box there’s presets for the popular brands/models – most users will just have to press the volume-up key for the PLAYBAR to recognize it – but there’s also a nine-key-press learning mode for new sets. Cleverly, Sonos collects up those programming settings and updates them across all PLAYBAR units, meaning the next user with the same remote won’t have to go through the teaching process. On the back of the soundbar there’s a broad IR repeater strip, just in case placing the PLAYBAR in front of your TV blocks its IR receiver, and there are two IR windows on the Sonos itself, catering for table or wall mounting.

Back when the PLAYBAR was first spotted sneaking through the FCC, there was speculation as to what its dual wireless chipsets might be used for. As the company explained to us, it’s all down to latency – or the avoidance of it – in surround sound mode. The PLAYBAR has one regular WiFi chip to hook up to the network as per all Sonos speakers, but also has a second, ultra-low-latency chip which is used to maintain up to three perfectly-synchronized channels in a surround setup, feeding two PLAY:3 rear speakers and a SUB subwoofer.

As for the speakers inside the PLAYBAR itself, there are six mid-woofers and three tweeters, the latter spread across the outer edges and one in the middle. At normal volumes, the woofers are synchronized, but they can automatically shift out of phase if required – complete with some clever DSP – to avoid distortion when you crank up the audio. Sonos has also equipped the PLAYBAR with completely different settings for music and movies (in fact they automatically change depending on physical orientation, too).

Most importantly, in either mode, it sounds great. Music has a surprising degree of precision, with vocals coming through clearly in the center while the rest of the soundstage has a spread that belies the placing of the speakers. Movies, meanwhile, go even further: the virtual surround you get with the PLAYBAR alone is impressively effective, and the bass has some decent thump to it (given the limitations of the 36 x 5.5 x 3.4 inch footprint and the speakers Sonos has been able to fit), but group it up with a couple of PLAY:3 rear channels and the SUB, and it’s both incredibly loud and precise.

Sonos PLAYBAR overvew video:

Control, as you’d expect, is via Sonos’ existing PC, Mac, iOS, and Android apps: the PLAYBAR shows up as a regular zone, which means you can group it up for party music. However, there’s a little extra consideration for the TV focus there too; if you try to add the PLAYBAR to a group, it’ll double-check to make entirely sure you want to do that, and if you start playback on your TV, the soundbar will automatically switch to whatever is coming through its optical input. You can, though, manually change the audio while leaving the screen on, handy if you want to show a photo slideshow with music from, say Spotify.

The Sonos PLAYBAR will go on sale on March 5, priced at $699 in the US, £599 in the UK, and €699 in Europe.