Hasta La Gadget!

Buffalo’s toyed with that newfangled idea of sharing files over the internet once or twice, but today it’s stepping up to the plate, picking up a PogoPlug bat, and sending a hard drive coursing into the upper stratosphere fueled by good intent. Well, perhaps the reality isn’t quite as exciting as that analogy, but Buffalo is indeed launching the first PogoPlug with internal storage today, which works just like your run-of-the-mill NAS in everyday use, but can also share files of your choosing with awkward acquaintances around the world through an online web portal. $170 buys you 1TB of storage, $270 doubles that capacity to 2TB, and the end of friends and relatives nagging you to upload Facebook photos is (hopefully) included free with every purchase.

If all you’re looking for in an external hard drive is improved transfer speeds, Buffalo’s got plenty of options there too, as it’s revamped four tried-and-true units with USB 3.0. You can nab the blue SuperSpeed connector in a four-drive, 4TB or 8TB DriveStation Quad with up-to-225MB transfer rates starting at $630, a two-drive, 2TB or 4TB DriveStation Duo starting at $280, a single-drive DriveStation Axis with 1TB or 2TB starting at $100, or a more portable MiniStation Stealth in 500GB and 1TB capacities starting at $90. Speedy rotating magnetic platters, anyone? PR after the break.

Continue reading Buffalo launches an HDD into the PogoPlug clouds, outfits external storage lineup with USB 3.0

Buffalo launches an HDD into the PogoPlug clouds, outfits external storage lineup with USB 3.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news, Hulu Plus is finally coming to Xbox 360 this spring. Better news, both Hulu Plus and Netflix will be compatible with Kinect. We imagine it’ll be just like Zune Video’s interface, but there really wasn’t much of a demo during Ballmer’s keynote tonight. Excited? We are.

Netflix and Hulu Plus with Kinect coming this spring to Xbox 360 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The 2011 lineup of Sony Bravia HDTVs is quite extensive with a total fo 27 models spanning nine lines. All but the five most inexpensive models feature internet streaming services while 16 of the higher end models being 3D capable. Most of the great streaming services we’ve come to expect are there, but in addition you can now watch Time Warner Cable VOD without a set-top-box as well. A few of the lines are compatible with a special Sony 720p camera (CMU-BR100) for use with Skype, while others feature Gorilla Glass. The XBR-HX929 Series sits at the top with a new local dimming technology called Intelligent Peak LED Backlight, and is also one of the lines that supports the new Media Remote application for iPhone, iPod Touch or Android, which includes full remote capabilities as well as a keyboard. The 929s will be available in April in 46, 55 and 65-inches, with the others hitting the street sometime between February and May.

Continue reading Sony’s 2011 Bravia lineup includes 27 new HDTVs

Sony’s 2011 Bravia lineup includes 27 new HDTVs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aperion’s Intimus 4T wireless surround sound speakers, available in February, will use Summit Wireless’ auto-calibration system.

LAS VEGAS — Home theater nerds will advise you to spend hours calibrating your surround sound speakers, adjusting delay times and tweaking volume levels to place the system’s “sweet spot” in perfect alignment with the well-worn ass groove in your sofa.

Now, you can advise them to suck it. We’ve just seen a demo of a wireless HD audio system for home theaters here at CES that takes only minutes to set up, sounds awesome, and doesn’t give a damn where you’re sitting.

You unpack the speakers and just plop them down in your room wherever they fit the best. Then you sit on the couch and press a button on the remote. The system locates all of the speakers and assigns the proper channel to each one: right-front, center, left-rear and so on. It also calibrates all of the speakers, adjusting the volume and delay of each one individually.

This auto-optimization places the sweet spot of your home theater in the exact position where you’re sitting when you press the button. Calibration takes only one second, literally — the remote sends out an ultra high-frequency ping, each speaker answers, and the system calculates the distance based on the delay. Get up and move to another seat, press the button again, and the sweet spot jumps to your new location.

Best of all, the system sounds downright amazing. It’s fully uncompressed HD audio (24-bit/48 kHz, with 96 kHz capability), so there are no nasty compression artifacts gunking up the sound.

The technology was developed by Summit Wireless. The company is currently licensing it to speaker and TV manufacturers, with the first products coming to market next month. Summit’s system use the U-NII wireless band, so the audio data is streamed outside the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies used by most consumer wireless devices, keeping interference to a minimum. It also uses its own error correction and timing technology. Summit Wireless says it has latency down to between 2 milliseconds and 5 milliseconds — low enough for games, and lower than what’s required for movies, since most humans don’t start to notice lip-syncing problems until around 9 or 10 milliseconds. I certainly didn’t notice any syncing issues during the demo.

The lucky company to ship the first Summit-equipped wireless speakers is Aperion, which has both 5.1 and 7.1 versions of its Intimus 4T home theater systems arriving in February. These are the speakers I heard today. They are active units (each speaker has its own on-board amp) and the system includes the remote control and the wireless base station that connects to your TV with an HDMI cable.

Aperion’s speakers sound killer, but they are big and expensive. The 5.1 system is $2,500 and the 7.1 system is $3,000. However, Summit is also working with other companies to develop a sub-$1,000 surround system and a soundbar system. Summit also says it’s “in talks” with several TV manufacturers to produce Summit-compatible TVs, which be ready by 2012.

See also:

• Altec-Lansing Speakers Will Toss Your Tunes 100 Yards
• LED Lightbulb Speakers for Wireless Music in Every Room
• The Real Original Remote Control: Zenith Space Command
• Accessory Streams Video Wirelessly to Any HDMI TV

Kaz Hirai, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, just twirled a fine dance around the PlayStation Phone. In discussing Sony’s future strategy for offering a coherent and extremely expansive consumer offering, he used the words “tablets,” “smartphones” and “PlayStation” in the same sentence, whetting appetites but never taking the leap to confirm what we all pretty much know his company is working on:

Strategy encompasses driving the development of a variety of new strategic products and services including tablets currently in development as well as smartphones, all the while of course integrating the knowhow and the assets that we’ve accumulated from our PlaySation business.

Oh Kaz, just admit it.

Kaz Hirai non-confirms the PlayStation Phone and tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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