Hasta La Gadget!

Blockbuster has finally got into the game of online movie delivery direct to the TV with the MediaPoint set top box, made by 2Wire. It’s clearly an attempt to claw back some market share from Netflix, which will let you stream movies to your Mac, PC, Xbox 360 or TiVo and, most importantly, the Roku box.

Rather than just copy Netflix, though, Blockbuster has an interesting take on the service. First, the box is "free". You buy 25 movie rentals for $100 and Blockbuster gives you yet another box to perch on the tower atop your television. Second, there’s no subscription fee — movies will start $2 a pop, and you’ll have 30 days to watch them. Once you start watching, you have to finish up within 24 hours. This is similar to the model Apple uses for iTunes movie rentals.

What about the hardware? The MediaPoint has Wi-Fi (b and g), ethernet, HDMI out along with composite and optical and it will work with Hi-Def movies.

Of course, Blockbuster’s online offering is much smaller than that of Netflix, but as Ars Technica points out, the movies it does have are truly outstanding. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, anyone?

Still, the unit is essentially free, so why not grab one? Those who really don’t want any more living room clutter should hold out a little longer. Blockbuster is planning on another Netflix-a-like move soon: The company wants to get this service inside Blu-ray players, the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

Blockbuster takes on Netflix with new set-top box [Reuters]

Blockbuster releases set-top box with à la carte rentals [Ars]

Scott Forman’s ShutterVoice brings your Canon DSLR a little closer to Star Trek. The Windows-only application provides a voice-control front-end to Canon’s own EOS utility, which allows remote control of many Canon DSLR functions.

Shuttervoice let’s you switch on live view, focus the camera, take a shot — in short, pretty much everything you can do with the EOS utility itself, only you can do it without lifting a finger. In the video, it looks pretty accurate, although Forman has told photographer and blogger Rob Galbraith that he’s still tweaking it to play nice with Vista.

The best part? First, you need to say "computer" to get it to listen for a command — just like Jean-Luc Picard! Second, it speaks back to you.

Mac users should be able to cobble something like this together themselves using the built-in Speech Commands, the Image Capture utility and some Applescript, but given my experience with the Mac’s speech recognition features, this is likely to leave you screaming abuse at your machine instead of issuing relaxed commands.

ShutterVoice will be available in early December for $30.

Sign up page [ShutterVoice via Rob Galbraith]

After the fuss over the baked-in DRM of the new unibody MacBook, Apple has updated QuickTime to re-enable standard definition playback on many external monitors, including some of Apple’s own.

The new Mini DisplayPort connector on both the new MacBook and MacBook Pro supports HDCP, a "feature" which stops people playing tagged video content on non-compliant monitors or projectors. The heavy handed implementation meant that some people couldn’t watch certain (seemingly random) movies from the iTunes Store itself except on the notebook’s built in display.

An update to QuickTime (7.5.7) is now available to fix this. While HD content is often protected this way, standard-def usually isn’t, and that’s what the update corrects. You should be able to play any of your SD movies and TV shows on a regular VGA monitor and likely on DVI displays.

This is good news for teachers wanting to watch Hellboy 2 during the lunch break (advice: don’t bother — it’s terrible), but clearly shows that Apple has opened the "bag of hurt" that is movie copy protection. So, either get used to watching HD movies on a small screen, buy a brand new monitor or pay a visit to the Pirate Bay. Like most people, I expect you’ll be driven the the last option. The fix will show up in unibody Mac’s Software Update.

QuickTime 7.5.7 for DisplayPort Allows Standard Definition Playback [MacRumors]

Golden Shellback started circulating videos of their extraordinary gadget waterproofing treatment in action way back in July, and it took us a while (and a live demo) to really believe that it works. Well, it does, and now you can buy it. That is, if you’re willing to send the company your gadget to be treated with their mysterious “vacuum deposited film.” All of the coatings come with a warranty, but its modest 30 day duration raises some concerns about the coating’s durability. But really, warranties? Longetivity? Whatever, tell me about it on my underwater BlackBerry. Amphibian-able gadget list, with prices, after the jump. [OhGizmo]

Devices:

Blackberry Pearl $120.00 per unit coated

Apple IPod Shuffle $60.00 per unit coated

Apple IPod Touch $120.00 per unit coated

Lansing IPod Speaker Orbit M $60.00 per unit coated

Garmin GPS etrex $75.00 per unit coated

West Marine Vhf 55 Radio $120.00 per unit coated

Speakers (no enclosures) up to 8 inches in diameter $100 each $180 pair

One part of the new MacBook experience that didn’t exactly seem like much of an upgrade was the addition of HDCP for the new DisplayPort video connector, which left users unable to watch iTunes DRMed video content—HD or SD—on non-HDCP compliant external displays. This morning Apple released an update to ease the pain: protected SD content will now play on older DVI and VGA-connected displays. It’s a step in the right direction, but the real mistake here probably wasn’t including SD content under the HDCP umbrella—it was cramming the DRM tech into the laptops in the first place. [MacRumors]