Hasta La Gadget!

Convergence, the dictionary tells us, is the point where two things combine, so imagine Sceptre’s new hardware as the singles bar where speakers and Android first met. The SB301524W Sound Bar 2.1 marries dual front-facing speakers, a 35W subwoofer, 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Ice Cream Sandwich to rejuvenate any old display into a Smart TV. Naturally, users will be able to access Google Play and download apps to the machine, but there’s no word on capacity or expandability — something you’ll have to ask in the store before you shell out $300 on the gear.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Google

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Source: Sceptre

We caught a glimpse of Toshiba’s second generation 4K TVs at CES in January and at a European event in March, and now the company has announced it’s delivering three versions of the L9300U series this fall. All feature its CEVO 4K Quad+Dual Core processor built-in to handle image processing and its suite of Cloud TV apps, plus built-in WiFi, Miracast and WiDi. It also announced Technicolor has certified its Blu-ray player and streaming media box for delivering HD content to its 4K TVs. The 58-, 65- and 84-inch models will all ship in August for $4,999, $6,999 and $16,999 respectively — we’ll see how they compete with similar Ultra HDTV options arriving from the likes of Sony, Sharp and Samsung.

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD

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Shortly after Microsoft released its Xbox 360 HD update to Halo: Combat Evolved — a game which allowed players to seamlessly switch between the original game’s graphics and the update — the company filed a patent for games “having a plurality of game engines.” That patent filing just got published today, and it seemingly attempts to specifically lock down the concept of gaming classics being re-released in an updated form while also allowing longtime fans to switch between the original game and the update.

Microsoft-owned Halo developer 343 Industries is at the forefront of the filing, with executive producer Daniel Ayoub’s name listed first and two other 343 employees rounding out the list. The description of the patent does allow for some flexibility. “A game having a plurality of engines is described. In one or more implementations, a computing device displays an output of a first engine of a game by a computing device. An input is received by the computing device to switch from the output of the first engine of the game to an output of a second engine of the game, the first and second engines being executed concurrently by the computing device,” it reads. However, later on in the filing, it specifically speaks to “remakes of games” that “attempt to captivate their audiences by leveraging emotions associated with the initial game.” Certainly a blunt way to put that, eh?

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Microsoft

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Source: Pat2PDF (PDF Link), USPTO

We like dry erase whiteboards just as much as the next guy, but $15,000 like? Not so much. Of course, when we’re given a chance to check out an 84-inch 4K LED whiteboard for free, we’re more than happy to. And that’s how we ended up here at Westinghouse‘s Consumer Electronics Week booth, playing around with an unbelievably expensive toy. Yes, of course the multimillion dollar corporations of the world use stuff like this for work — we used our time to draw an Engadget symbol. Do you expect any less?

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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There’s a whole plethora of places to keep your data online, but without getting too political, there’s no place like home, right? TonidoPlug is a tiny personal server that lets you access your images, photos and personal files wherever you are, without having to hand them over to someone else to look after. Not only is there software to mount it as a local drive — à la dropbox — but it serves as a NAS device on your home network too. With the option to plug in USB drives, or add an internal SATA HDD, you won’t need to pay a subscription, either. Best of all, we’ve got five to give away to some lucky UK readers. Please read the terms and conditions after the break to make sure you qualify. But if you do, be sure to enter — and good luck!

Filed under: Peripherals, Internet, HD, Mobile, Alt

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Source: Tonido