Hasta La Gadget!

How do we know that Philips will unveil a 65-inch 4K television at IFA on September 5th? Because that same, unannounced device has just won the European Ultra HD TV of 2013-14 award. The self-congratulatory press release mentions that the Ambilight XL-packing hardware will be offered at a “significantly lower” price point than current UHD sets, which generally retail for upwards of $7,000 for this sort of screen size. There’s no word on how much cheaper this new unit will be, but we’re hoping that Philips has updated its (slightly clunky) smart TV interface to complement the eye-watering resolution.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: Pocket-lint

Alright, we admittedly don’t know a great deal about the provenance of the slide above. It was first picked up on Chinese social networking site Weibo, but the original post seems to have been deleted. What we do know, however, is that Sony’s forthcoming flagship phone, codenamed Honami, has already been rumored to possess a 4K-ready processor (the Snapdragon 800), and that Sony is wildly enthusiastic about 4K as something that can unite its expanding hardware ecosystem. The slide’s title therefore has a ring of truth to it, because it’s accompanied by Bravia branding and sounds like realistic marketing babble from a TV-focused presentation:

“How do you get 4K content? By shooting videos with a 4K cellphone.”

The slide also details a 20-megapixel Exmor R rear camera sensor for Honami, which tallies with earlier reports, as well as a meaty 2.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The only issue we have is with the quoted 4K video resolution of 4,000 x 2,000 — it’s unusual and doesn’t match the Ultra HD resolution Sony has settled on for its 4K TVs (3,840 x 2,160). In any case, resolution is only half the story. This is all speculative, of course, but if other bottlenecks in this phone forced Sony to compress the heck out of captured 4K video, there’s every chance it’d end up looking worse than 1080p.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Sony

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Source: Vgooo

The Acer T272HUL Ultra-High Resolution Display is one of three new such IPS LCD monitors hitting the market this year, each of them working with well-above-average high-definition collections of pixels up front. Each of the three works with either a 27 or 29-inch panel and the whole lot sees 178 degree viewing angles both vertically […]

The Google Fiber Android app got an update today that adds support for Vudu, adding another over-the-top video service along with Netflix and YouTube. The support pages for its Vudu setup seemingly date back to August 5th, but we haven’t heard anything about the launch from either company. According to its change log, the update will allow viewers to search for and view content across their TV and mobile screens, although the iPad app hasn’t received any update yet. Also new to the Android version are channel shortcuts in the main menu for faster switching back and forth. This addition should bring Ultraviolet digital copies to Google’s TV service, although the support page notes users will have to login to Vudu separately on each set-top box. That is, assuming they’re lucky enough to live in a place where Google Fiber is available.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Google

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Source: Google Play, Google Fiber Support

If we may paraphrase a sacred text, Microsoft giveth and Microsoft hath taken away. Earlier today, the company announced that the Xbox One would be launching in only 13 markets (as opposed to the originally planned 21), but not all news out of Redmond is bad. To allay the concerns some Xbox 360 owners had over switching over to the new system, Microsoft has announced the Season Pass Guarantee. Basically, all it means is that season passes purchased on the 360 will carry over to the Xbox One, provided you own the same game for both consoles. Big names like Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are on board and have plans on offering exclusive content for season pass holders for games like Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 on both systems. The Xbox One may have gotten off to a rocky start, but Microsoft seems keen on smoothing the transition when the console hits stores later this year (for some of us, at least).

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft

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Source: Xbox