Gadgety News

It seems to have been longer than the 6 months that it actually has been since I got word that Sling Media was going to bring their SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G.

But it’s here and has been demo’d at Macworld and the plan is to release the final version to the public in the next three months.

Like SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, UIQ, and BlackBerry platforms, this iPhone version will let you access one or more Slingboxes from your mobile device and then you can watch your TV stations on-the-go.

You’ll also be able to manage your PVR from the iPhone as well as adding and removing fave channels via your phone.

That’s a first for the SlingPlayer Mobile line of software.

They’ve even utilised the touch screen of the 3Gesus Phone so that swiping the screen horizontally advances you through favourite stations, and flicking up and down rotates through all your home channels.

SlingPlayer should appear in the iTunes AppStore by the end of the March.

Expect it to cost around $29.99 which is the going rate for the lifetime fee of SlingPlayer Mobile on other platforms.

If that’s too much just remember OrbLive delivers live TV and media stored on your PC for $10.

It’s all well and good that tele’s are getting thinner and larger but there’s only so much that your wall can take but JVC are taking this into account.

Their yet-to-be named lightweight goggle-box should be gracing the up-and-coming CES as the company attempts to sell the idea of ceiling-mounted TVs.

And when a 32-inch TV weighs just 5kg, you can see the company’s point, especially when you use “almost-invisible” cabling for support.

I can hear many a modernist apartment dweller sighing with anticipation.

And just because it’s light doesn’t mean it has lightweight specs.  It can quite happily display 1080p resolution from that 7mm thin screen and with an increase in LED backlighting, less mercury is used, boosting your green credentials.

Which is nice.

More when it appears at CES and perhaps at that point we’ll get to know when/if it will appear in the UK shops and what kinda price we’ll be looking at.

Engadget

At the moment it seems that Nintendo’s Wii can do no wrong.

What could possibly be the next step for it?

Well, if you remember, Japanese Wii owners are already getting the food delivery service - but they also seem to be getting a full-blown television channel, delivered to the Wii via the interweb in Spring.

Called Wiinoma, The Times reports that Nintendo is planning to use the on-demand channel to deliver mostly free and original programming, produced exclusively for the service.

Brain-training quizzes, original cartoons, educational shows, even cookery and lifestyle programming, are all reported to be on the agenda.

It’s definitely a step up from the current on-demand content such as game info, weather and news.

The new channel would offer full shows and not just clips and trailers, adding to the other content available to the Wii from BBC’s iPlayer service.

The stumbling block could be the lack of hard-drive.

The likes of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 both have internal hard disks to store downloaded content and the Wii doesn’t.

This means that the content would have to be streamed to the console unless the Wii hard drive becomes more than a rumour this time around.

As this service is only being released in Japan at the moment I’m guessing that if it takes off it would be spread throughout the globe - possibly hitting these shores late in the year.

But with that comes a number of other issues.

All that content would have to be remade in English and other languages and also the regional channels would have to get advertisers in that area.

Personally I vote for dubbed Japanese content!  I very much doubt that UK made content would be so crazy and entertaining

Crave

Say hello to Versimo Networks VuNow Pod set-top box.

The VuNow is a hand-sized set-top box that picks out channels across the interweb and sends them straight to your TV without requiring your puter to be hooked up.

The channels include one solely for YouTube content, another for CinemaNow, a BitTorrent codec option and a “Global’ select channel that takes in choice clips from around the world.

VuNow’s Pod comes in a couple of flavours: The HD version is priced at $150 and a standard definition at $100.

The user interface is apparently pretty easy to find your way around with and is said to be basically modeled on the Apple TV UI.

The VuNow Pod also comes with the necessary video search engine, it’s wireless (though it does have an HDMI port), and requires no subscription fees.

You can also use the pod as a streamer for your personal media on a PC.

The VuNow pod is available now people!

BlogWired

If you’re fed up of searching the interweb for a particular TV show or film then you need to check out OVGuide.

OVGuide (Online Video Guide) is a comprehensive link portal to just about every mainstream video and online television site on t’internet.

Most shows are listed but some are of, let’s say, not quite HD quality - but if you’ve missed a crucial episode of Heroes or Desperate Housewives it’s a good way to catch-up.

The listings cover Anime to Adult; so chances are that you’ll find pretty much whatever you’re looking for.

With over 3,000 sites on its listings I think it’s worth a try - it’s not like it’ll cost you anything

OVGuide via RedFerrett

Blackberries.  They’re a bit…..business like generally aren’t they?

Well, that was my impression until I read about this hardware and software thingy from Canada.

This clever stuff will magically change your BlackBerry into a universal remote control for a typical AV set up, your lights, your garage door or anything else that you have remotely controlled! 

Unify4Life supplies an AV hub box that talks to the AV equipment through an infrared connection, but then communicates with a BlackBerry over Bluetooth.

The software also knows which commands can be used with which situation, so if you’re watching a movie, the BlackBerry’s screen will display only those buttons required to, for example, fast forward a DVD and change the volume for the AV system.  This is to stop you fastforwarding the lights and turning up the volume on the garage door I assume.

There’s a full review of this cool little bit of kit on the CrackBerry website.

Unify4Life

This has been around for a while but required you to JailBreak your iPhone.

But Orb has just gone official, with its own app for the handset finally getting the thumbs up from Apple.

In an announcement CEO Joe Costello said:
 

“We released a version of OrbLive in May, but this was before the Apple SDK and App store.  You had to Jailbreak your iPhone to use it, but we still got 300,000 downloads,” he explained.

“Now it is ready for prime time — all the capability and blessed by Apple.”

All you have to do is install a small piece of software on your Mac or PC, and then tap into it from your iPhone wherever you are.

Simple!

Then all the media on your computer is instantly available, as well as live TV from any tuners you have installed.

Orb handles all the compression and file conversion on your home computer, so the iPhone doesn’t break a sweat trying to handle bulky files.

It gets even better…….

As well as dishing up live TV, radio and webcam feeds, it means the end of syncing your iPhone to tap into your media, since it’s all available over the network.

Best of all, Orb is free!

Download it direct from the App Store, and check out Orb’s website for more information.

Good ol’ Auntie Beeb!

After bringing us the joy of the iPlayer the Beeb is going to be showing content from BBC One and BBC live online.

From the 27th November web visitors will be able to watch shows including Never Mind The Buzzcocks (fab!), EastEnders (never mind eh?) and Heroes (Yatta!) as they are broadcast.

BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News are already broadcast on their channel websites.

Director of BBC vision Jana Bennett told BBC News that this move “completes our commitment” to make channels available online.

“From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes live wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices,” Bennett added.

Via - BBC News

This vid from Sony explains a new bit of gear that should make watching your telebox a lot nicer.

In the new BRAVIA Z4500 televisions there’s something called Motionflow 200hz (standard tele is 50hz).

So to cut to to the chase - the clever kit will insert some “transitional” images (3 in this case) in between each frame to make it even smoother.

Check out the vid as it explains it a lot better than I can

Looking for a true all-in-one media thingy?

Say Allo to the Allio HDTV with built-in PC and Blu-ray player!

No more will you need to multi-task from laptop to tele and back again - this 42-inch 1080p TV has cojoined with a high spec PC that holds an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory, a massive 1TB of storage and Windows Vista Premium.

It’s no surprise really that it is also packing plenty of connectivity including wireless networking.

You can still multi-task (of course) with this big TV as the split screen/picture-in-picture options are a go-go!

To ensure that all boxes are ticked there’s that Blu-ray player - surly making this the first high-def all-in-one to hit the market.

Silicon Mountain is offering up six flavours of the TV, starting at $1,599.99 for the 32-inch model, jumping to $2,799 for the big boy.

No news of a UK launch as yet but don’t question about future upgrades or “what happens if this bit breaks?”………….

Silicon Mountain via Engadget

A lot of emphasis has been put on getting the best pic from your google-box with high-definition but what about the audio people?

Well, French TV station - TNT is the world’s first to broadcast a Dolby Digital Plus track over a terrestrial signal.

The Dolby system is said to be just the thing for limited bandwidth applications like terrestrial broadcasts, as the original Dolby Digital bitstreams are maintained and can still be decoded.

Not sure when this will travel across the Channel though.

Marketwatch via CrunchGear

Softbank has just come up with this rather interesting mobile TV add-on for Japanese iPhone and iPod owners.

it’s a separate unit with tuner and aerial that retransmits the signal over Wi-fi to the phone.

The rechargeable device will give about three hours of TV eye-candy and connects to a special iPhone app that’ll be distributed free when the device hits the streets in mid December!

It’ll cost somewhere around the $100 mark but also doubles as an iPhone battery top-up when you link it via the dock connector.

Just gotta wait for it to be adapted and shipped over here.

AVWatch

Belkin are still pushing to make our lives cable free.

The largest glut of wires must be lurking behind your home cinema rig.

Enter Flywire!  Belkins new wireless transmitter and receiver that can send 1080p video over a 5GHz band with a little help from Amimon. This probably means it’s WHDI.

They promise little to no interference and no latency even for gamers.  A recent viewing of a Blu-Ray movie showed pretty much no hint that there wasn’t physical connection.

As for connections you’ll get three HDMI ins, two component ins, one composite, and one HDMI out.

Remote control is done via IR, which should be welcome news to those of you with universal remotes.

FlyWire will come in two flavours:

The FlyWire AV69003 will come somewhere between $999.99-$1,499.99 and is meant for a whole-home solution with an IR backchannel for multi-room control.

While the FlyWire R1 AV69000 at the $699.99 ballpark is meant for a single room without the IR backchannel.

Nope, not cheap but a lot less hassle than channeling your walls to ‘plumb’ everything in or to buy a custom wireless solution.

FlyWire should be in the shops next month.

Time for more tele news!

Here’s some rather large Plasmas from LG.

The 42 and 50 inch PG6900 plasmas are designed to hold up to 86-hours of programming on its 160GB of internal hard drive space, and the 8-day EPG should give you plenty of time to plan what you’re going to be watching.

These sets are also packing a 30,000:1 contrast ratio, Energy Star compliance, a DVB-T tuner (plus an analog tuner), three HDMI 1.3 ports, 100Hz refresh rate and “invisible” integrated speakers.

They should be appearing in Europe soon

Gizmag

There’s been plenty of chat about thin tele’s and most make me feel uninspired to write even the briefest of remarks on this site.

But at least this one has made me sit up and put pen-to-paper….well, finger to keyboard at any rate.

This new gogglebox from Sony is (at the moment) the thinnest LCD HDTV.

Measuring at a size 0 model-like 9.9mm thick the KDL-40ZX1 nearly halves the depth of Hitachi’s former champ (likely to be hitting the lemon-juice and two-fingers down the throat diet) and comes within a fag-papers width of Pioneer’s Kuro concept (9mm).

Into this remarkable frame it squeezes such nice things as LED backlighting, a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 120Hz MotionFlow tech, x.v.Color and BRAVIA Engine 2 image processing (this is pretty much like having the actors perform in your living room behind a 40-inch picture frame).

Only one HDMI in is directly on the screen itself.

All of the other HDMI, USB, etc component inputs are relegated to a base station.

All this skinny lovliness can be yours for a found-underneath-your-sofa 490,000 yen ($4,474) and will be at your local Japanese (if you live in Japan) tv vendor on November 10th.

AV Watch

EuroTech have just launched their new iPod docking station, the movieCENTER.

As the name suggests you can connect your iPod to the dock and then get your iPod content through your stereo or TV.

They claim that the device incorporates

“powerful processing technology that transforms iPod movies and music into a more realistic and immersive experience”.

This technology includes:

• TruBass processing for subwoofer like performance from ordinary stereo or TV speakers.
• Dialog Clarity tool that creates a virtual center speaker “that lets you hear even the quietest whisper in crystal clear detail no matter how much background action there is“
• There is also a tool to process surround sound.

The movieCENTER comprises a compact black dock and remote control, a shielded audio cable with gold-plated connectors, component and composite video outputs and a USB input.

The Xitel movieCENTER is available in the UK now for £59.99.

Fed up with the lack of Sci-Fi B-Movies?

Constantly flicking from channel to channel in the search of something decent?

The answer will be beamed to earth on August 16th.

Although there’s not much in the way of a write up on the product page I feel pretty certain that “Channel Changer” and “Ray Gun” is a darn good hint at what it will do.

Now, I just need to get someone that looks like Barbarella to pose with it………….

Product Page

Sling have just released some interesting information which means that you could watch Sling-ed (?) flicks on your iPhone or iPod touch (albeit on a jailbroken version at the mo).

According to Sling,

“Ever since the Apple iPhone hit the market, we’ve been receiving inquiries as to when we’ll have a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for the platform. To date we’ve only expressed our desire to support the platform when it is possible to do so. But with the Apple WWDC kicking off this week, we’re now ready to show off a bit of what we’ve done.

We do not intend to make this available to customers, it is a proof of concept. We are looking forward to the iPhone SDK becoming publicly available this week and fully intend to develop SlingPlayer Mobile using the SDK and are looking forward to selling it through the iTunes store. We started the development process before the SDK was available to characterize the performance of the platform and ensure that we could deliver a high quality customer experience on the iPhone & iPod Touch platforms. The results have been very promising and we are eagerly awaiting the SDK’s release so we can hopefully leverage what we have done already to deliver SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone.

So let’s hope that the SDK’s release will also see the release of this lovely bit of kit :0)

Mobility Today

As you will have heard, Freesat will go up against Sky’s HD service and will be available across the UK - in fact - in 98% of homes.

Users will have to make a one-off payment for a dish, set-top box and installation, but will not pay a monthly subscription.

As you’ve got to track down your own dish you might as well get something a bit more groovy - enter the Sqish!

Suitable to receive Sky as well as Freesat broadcasts, Sqish dishes come with the bonus of “sqishoflage” stickers .

Squishes are from around £150, plus £25 for a sticker, available now.

Sony has confirmed that their Play TV service will be out in September and will hit your wallet to the tune of 99 euros (£78).

PlayTV is an add-on gadget for the PS3 and effectively turns the console into a personal video recorder (PVR), although you have to keep in mind the puny 40GB hard drive.

It brags dual TV tuners with full access to Freeview, so users can record one channel while watching another and take advantage of the usual Freeview features. A seven-day EPG is also featured for easy channel surfing.

The bestest feature for Sony fans is the PS3’s link up with the PSP, so owners of both consoles can record and watch TV remotely using Wi-Fi, effectively turning the combination into a personal global TV channel.  Bonus!