Hasta La Gadget!

In a move widely anticipated ever since the XBox expanded its service with Netflix, Nintendo announced over the Christmas holiday that it is adding a video-on-demand option to its popular Wii console.

Video-on-demand is one of the most competitive areas in consumer electronics with more and more companies showing a willingness to infuse their main course offering (be it a Blu-ray player or a gaming system) with a bit of saucy video content.

Currently, there are plenty of options for the person who wants video quick and easy. There are specialized set-top boxes for internet services (like Roku’s Netflix Box), improved offerings from satellite providers, all-in-one video services (like the Vudu, or even Apple TV), and the strong pull of internet video like YouTube and Hulu.

Mix them all up and you have a huge royal rumble showdown that is either destined to get ugly, or might get big enough to accommodate everyone. With the appetite shown by consumers in the last year for all these services, we’re betting on the latter for now.

Over the last year, several rumors placed Nintendo near a VOD announcement. If you’ve followed Chris Kohler’s coverage on Game|Life, you know that Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aimes had previously knocked off related rumors surrounding HD content on the Wii, but video was never completely dismissed.

It seems like Nintendo finally felt it was the right time to use their huge reach in the living room to make their mark in this space.

Here’s the gist of the announcement:

• Nintendo will partner with Japanese advertising giant Dentsu to
  create the service, which will offer videos through the Internet.
• Nintendo will start offering VOD in Japan in 2009 during a trial period at first, then it will expand to other countries.
• VOD options means it’s highly likely that a large storage
  accessory will be announced soon. Currently, the Wii offers 512 MB of
  internal flash memory storage, plus up to 2 GB-4 GB in an external SD
  card. That’s fine if you want to order up a few 23-minute TV shows, but
  something much larger will be needed for movies.
• The two companies will develop original programming for the Wii,
  which will be made available through the net. The company is
  considering developing videos for free but some (or many?) will be
  available for an as-yet-undisclosed fee.

But perhaps the most important part of the announcement was the
mention of a prominent stat: 40% of the 35 million Wii consoles already
sold are linked to the internet.

With that level of popularity, the Nintendo Wii has a chance, if it
does this well, to obliterate the VOD numbers of its rivals.

Still, the mention of creating ‘original programming’ might throw a wrench into our plans of the global royal rumble. Nintendo might not intend to compete with the type of content offered by the XBox or a TiVo, since they often like to create their own market categories that are more family friendly than others, as well as more creative than aggregative. But that’s something we’ll have to see down the line.

Acer’s just updated their 8930G gaming line, adding the 8930-7665 to its arsenal. This 18.4-inch beast boasts Intel’s new (and surprisingly affordable) Core 2 Quad Mobile Q9000 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB 7200 SATA hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT graphics with 512MB of dedicated video memory. Other than that, it’s identical to previous 8930G models. Sure, it’s a little extreme, but hey — why not? It’s available now, if you’re willing to drop $1800.

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Cellphones

Acer’s quad-core packing Aspire 8930G hits the streets, guns blazing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seriously, there’s only so much picture improving you can do before the law of diminishing returns demands some recognition. While Sony just spent boatloads creating an over-the-top advertisement for its largely unimpressive 240Hz Motionflow technology, LG Display is laughing all the way to Vegas with its Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV. Set to debut at CES 2009, said panel will boast a four-millisecond response time and an unprecedented 480 refresh rate per second. Curiously, we’re not informed of the screen size nor the resolution, so we could theoretically run into a 9-inch 320 x 240 display and be totally underwhelmed. On the real, the outfit is expected to launch the world’s first Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV panel in the second half of next year, but we’re just about to lay down good money that Sony or Samsung accelerates development in order to beat it to the punch. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading LG Display plans to melt eyes with Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

LG Display plans to melt eyes with Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon.com is selling a large number of Blu-ray movies at 50% off in an extended deal that lasts until January 4th. The internet retailer is clearly hoping to entice the growing number of people who’ve bought players in the new format.

According to figures released by the Blu-ray association, Blu-ray players are seeing a huge purchasing growth in the U.S. during the holiday season.

But the best value among the available titles is the one that stars the little champion of truth, ingenuity, and true American humor. I’m talking about the Nova Robotics Robot Johnny Five, in his original starring vehicle Short Circuit, of course.

If you scoff at the notion that this movie is one of the great new classics of the cinema, well, Sir or Madam, I will say without reservation that you have no heart. You probably share the sentiments of a former co-worker, who fastidiously dismissed the movie as the ‘ultimate in painted 1980s cheese.’ But said man is a duplicitous snob raised on the dry, colorless Scandinavian cinema of Ingmar Berg-man and is obviously cursed with ice-cold blood and little feeling.

But I’m talking about robots here.

Johnny Five is not just a robot with a penchant for reading novels every two seconds, or one easily duped by moronic henchman preying on the sweetness of his disposition. Yes, he’s a sensitive soul that can barely crush a grass hopper. But he is also one who, along with R2, T2, and various other animatronic creatures, set a standard for entertaining usefulness that will always have a place in the cultural history of robot-human relations and has inspired many a boy or girl to get into robotics in the real world.

In case you were wondering, I have no personal financial incentive from the selling of this movie, even if Steve Guttenberg and I share the closed chin cleavage that sadly attracts little specks of dirt.

So forget about the nasty cackling of the film cognoscenti and check it out. The Blu-ray version is supposed to come with extra features showing the full process behind the robot, as designer Syd Mead and his team of puppeteers and robot operators put the soul into Johnny.

And if you’re disappointed by the movie, well, you know where you stand with me.

Source: Amazon.com 50% Off Sale

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In 2008, a year in which some of the most-used American political buzzwords were “change” and “maverick”, many technology companies bucked conventional wisdom. With rising penetration across a broad range of mainstream consumer technology categories, it has become more difficult than ever to compete in the device space if you’re not bringing something different to the party.

The year did not start out auspiciously for those going against the grain, as CES 2008 brought news of Warner Brothers’ decision to exclusively support Blu-ray as opposed to underdog HD DVD. The move set off a swift collapse of the HD-DVD partnership and Toshiba officially threw in the towel a few months later.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Steve Jobs used part of what is slated to go down as his final Macworld Expo keynote to announce something that wasn’t very surprising — shifting the focus of Apple TV from a PC-centric content shifter to a broadband video store. But two open-source efforts have stepped in to shake up the home video space – Boxee, which can run on Apple TV hardware, and NeurosLink, the open-source hardware developer’s foray into a set-top box optimized for streaming video from the Internet. Neuros currently has a list of bounties posted, offering dollars for developers who can bridge gaps in its software’s functionality.

Continue reading Switched On: When hardware startups zagged

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Switched On: When hardware startups zagged originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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