Hasta La Gadget!

OK, so the tangle of wires behind my desk is getting pretty ridiculous. Luckily, I’ve got it confined in a corner, so it’s not going to take over my place any time soon, but something like Unlace might just banish the cable squid to Davy Jones’ Locker forever.

Unlaces are designed to manage your excess cable with ease. The colorful, rubbery, and twistable lace will allow you to neatly bundle  cords, cables, and any other loose ends. They are made out of reusable silicone material, and look like colorful shoelaces. Unlaces will be available in 5″ and 10″ varieties.

You’ll have to pledge $20(USD) on Kickstarter to get a set of four 5″ Unlaces. $33 buys you eight of the 5″, while $40 or more gets you as set of eight 10″ Unlaces. With $9,860 pledged of a $10,000-goal, and 25 days of funding left, the project will surely be fully funded.

[via Ubergizmo]

Boxee is declaring victory in recent FCC decisions on cable encryption, though the loophole for third-party devices wanting to tune into free channels could involve some messy cabling. The set-top box company had joined with Comcast to protest against cable encryption proposals that could have blocked devices like the Boxee Box from getting a signal without owners paying a subscription, and while the FCC isn’t entirely convinced by their collective arguments, it has thrown a temporary solution their way.

Boxee itself plays coy with the details, but the FCC’s own summary spills some technical details. Cable companies will be obliged to notify users that their basic tier service will be encrypted and offer them a free adapter box: those with only basic service will get up to two of the boxes for two years (five years if they’re on Medicaid), while those with an existing cable company supplied STB or DVR will get one of the boxes for a spare TV.

Those adapters will decrypt the basic service and allow the Boxee Box and other third-party systems to chew through the channels as they do now. However, it’s not all gone Boxee’s way. Subscribers will have to pay a monthly service fee outside of that two year period for the use of the adapters.

Meanwhile, there were calls to mandate the sort of FRAND-style (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations that 3G patent holders must follow to cable companies, but the FCC decided only to insist on “good faith” licensing and the requirement for clear DLNA (or other standard) labeling so that users and third-party manufacturers know what will work with which box.

Meanwhile, there’s no end in sight for CableCARD either, with the FCC opting to stick with the technology despite some requests to replace it. The Commission points out that no company should have been branding its devices as “digital cable ready” unless they had CableCARD support, and argues that the proviso means there should be no confusion.

FCC cuts Boxee a little encryption slack (but not forever) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I have to admit that my cable management system is basically non-existent, and the cable squid is set to take over the rest of my apartment if I don’t manage to do something about it soon. Maybe the Smart Guide cable management system could help me out.

Smart Guide was created by Albanian designer Marin Myftiu. His solution addresses many concerns that people have with their bowl of cable spaghetti, and should eradicate at least part of yours. Its modular structure and rainbow color-coding make it pop, and help you keep track of what wire is running where. It will work with cables of virtually any size, shape, or length.

The system can be used for power cable management, PC cables and rack servers, as well as the wiring of a PC. For now, this is a concept, but someone needs to put these into production ASAP.

[via designboom]

Time Warner Cable just added a snazzy little rental fee to all its customers’ bills, which hasn’t made anyone (outside of maybe the Time Warner offices) very happy. A lot of other cable companies do this too. You can get around it by buying your own modem or maybe get a better plan with more bandwidth a free modem so you’ll be paying more, but not wasting money on a rental. But have you? More »

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is from David, who wants to know if you’d prefer a free cable or a cheaper device when you buy pro audio gear. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

Many thanks!”

a) Include a cheap cable and let people who care buy a high quality one?
b) Include a reasonable quality cable but increase the price?
c) Include no cable and make it clear they need to buy one?

“I work for a small audio-tech company and we’re currently getting close to releasing our first retail product, which does surround sound from stereo inputs — kinda like Dolby Pro Logic, except good. Internally, we’re agonizing over if we should include a stereo RCA cable. Of course, users will need to integrate an additional cable into their setup, but plenty of people will have spares lying around at home. Do you think it’s better to:

What a question! We’re decidedly of two minds, since given a bit of haggling, most retailers will chuck in a branded lead, but we’d hate to get our shiny new gear home to find it’s missing a key component the one time they don’t. Our dithering aside, it’s time to turn the question over to our faithful Engadgeteers with this chance to shape the future of the high-end audio business for the better… we’d better not disappoint the man!

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Ask Engadget: should companies include a cable with a new product? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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