Chilean Miner Rescue Live Streaming

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CNN is currently offering live streaming video of the rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. It’s a bit surreal, to say the least–but then, there’s very little about this whole story that isn’t surreal, I suppose. The miners have managed to survive underground for 69 days. They survived for weeks by rationing food, until a rescue team was able to lower down everything from food to medicine to movies.

Now, more than two months later, the rescue is finally underway. For safety’s sake, the rescuers are taking things slowly, pulling the miners up the 2,000 feet drop, one a time. At last count, 13 of the miners have been rescued in the 11 and a half hours since rescue began, much to the relief of all of the family members present.

The footage, while slow, is pretty engrossing, as the miners emerge, one by one, to smiles, applause, and hugs.

Scosches sneakPEEK II Sends iPhone and iPad Video to your TV

Scosche sneakPEEK IIIf you have video on your iPhone or iPad and want to display it on your television, you don’t have too many options, and your options depend heavily on the video you want to play and the television you have. Thankfully, the new Scosche sneakPEEK II is designed to give you a tool that will work for just about every type of television.

The sneakPEEK II is a switchable composite and component A/V cable that plugs into the bottom of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch using the dock connector at the bottom of the device.  On the other end of the cable, you can choose to connect the component or composite cables to your television, depending on the inputs on the back of your TV or whether you’re trying to output HD video. The sneakPEEK II even has a micro-USB port on the bottom so you can charge your iPhone while your movie is playing. It’s available now for $59.99 list.

Logitech Tries To Terrify You Into Buying a Google TV Revue

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Gah! There are misguided tech ads (see: pretty much every ad Microsoft has put out in the past decade) and then there’s this. The stuff that nightmares are made of–dancing flat screen TVs with stubby legs and a giant, bloodshot eye.

The message here is simple: buy the new Logitech Revue Google TV unit, or this thing will almost certainly kill you in your sleep. Don’t say you haven’t been warmed.

Video after the jump: if you dare.

Logitech Debuts Revue Google TV Box

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Logitech this afternoon unveiled the Revue, the company’s set top Google TV box. The Logitech Revue with Google TV (its full name) gives users access to TV and Web content, and features.

The box hooks up directly to HDMI-ready sets, using the including HDMI cable. It can also be connected to a cable or satellite provider box. Once hooked up, the software setup takes a few moments, offering access to “virtually limitless Web content, as well as a host of preloaded Google TV and Logitech applications.”

The device ships with a Logitech Keyboard Controller–Logitech’s Harmony remote line can also be used, if you happen to have one of those lying around the living room. The company has also introduced the Logitech Mini Controller, which measures six by 3.5 inches and features a “palm-sized keyboard.”

The Revue box will run $299. The Mini Controller retails for $129. Both will be available by month’s end.

Google TV Site Goes Live

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Google TV just got a little more real. The search giant this week launched a Website for the set top box, featuring a new logo, product highlights, and the tagline, “TV, apps, search, and the entire Web…together at last. Your TV just got smarter.”

A quick video introduction showcases the products search capabilities; the ability to view Web content from sites like YouTube, Wikipedia; Google Maps, and Farmville; apps, including Netflix, Napster, Pandora, Twitter, Chrome, and Amazon; and the ability to use a mobile phone as a remote for the device–the shot appears to be the top of an HTC EVO 4G.

Also highlighted are the Google TV’s DVR functionality; compatibility with cable boxes, satellite dishes, at al; and customizable homepage.

According to the site, Google TV apps, which will be open to all developers, will launch next year.

Toshiba Releasing Glasses-Free 3D TV in December

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The biggest complaint about 3D in home electronics? Okay, there are plenty: content, price, general apathy–but generally when people are finding something to whine about, all eyes tend to turn to those pesky 3D glasses. They get lost, get scratched, and will no doubt be eventually be sat on more then a few times during their living room career

Nintendo made a big splash when it introduced its glasses-free 3DS console of over the summer. The logical question quickly became: when will the rest of the industry release their own glasses-free 3D products? Of course there are a number of hurdles to deal with when implementing such a technology on a product the size of an HDTV.

Toshiba, apparently, has overcome these. This week at CEATEC in Tokyo, the company announced plans to sell a glasses-free LCD TV. The set will go on sale in December–in Japan. No word on an international release for the set. Boo.

Of course there are other limitations with the technology. The first seems to be size. The set will only be available at 12 and 20 inches–pretty tiny, given the fact that today’s sets are topping off at well over 100 inches. The second limitation is, you guess it, price. The 12 inch set runs 120,000 yen ($1,440). The 20 inch set is double that price.

Toshiba doesn’t seem to expect to be selling a lot of these things. The company will be producing 2,000 of the sets a month, compared to the 1.25 million total LCD TVs the company ships a month.

Sometimes it’s just important to say that you’re first, right? Given how competitive the HDTV market is, at present, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Super Hi-Vision: 16X More Pixels than HDTV and its Already in Use

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High definition TVs are good for some. For those who are okay not seeing everything. But for those of us who need to see the shimmering glimmer in the eye of every fan in the stadium, the future is Super Hi-Vision (also known as SHV, Ultra HDTV, and 8K).

SHV offers 16 times more pixels than the best HDTVs can offer with crazy powerful 7680 x 4320 resolution. New lenses and TVs had to be invented just to be seen in all its pixel packin’ power. It was first demonstrated in 2003, and is now being pushed as the new standard by the BBC, Japan’s NHK, and Italy’s RAI. Last week the BBC and NHK teamed up to broadcast the very first SHV broadcast over the internet: a performance by The Charlatans. Of course, no one could really see it in all it’s glory, but it’s setting the ball rolling.

There are some real constraints to just transmitting the sort of data needed for Super Hi-Vision, but NHK is hoping to have the format in wide release for the 2012 Olympics.

BBC video explaining the first SHV broadcast after the jump.

via endgadget

Apple TV Teardown Reveals 8GB Flash Storage

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Well, here’s a surprise. During its customary new product teardown, iFixit discovered a full 8GB of on-board storage inside the second generation Apple TV, in the form of a Samsung K9LCG08U1M 8GB NAND flash chip.

That’s not a ton, granted (especially in light of the fact that its predecessor had either 40- or 160GB), but a bit more than expected, given the fact that the device isn’t designed to serve as a hard drive for media, in the way the first Apple TV was.

iFixit notes that the chip is the same as the one discovered during a teardown of Apple’s iPad. “This is a pretty remarkable amount of storage for a $99 device,” the site wrote.

The storage is most likely used to cache media streamed to the device, so you don’t have to deal with buffering, should there be a lag in your connection. Still, iFixit puts it best, “we wonder what else you could do with 8 GB of exploitable storage.”

Star Wars Saga Coming to 3D. Blech

Darth VaderWhen I attended Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, Star Wars series creator George Lucas sat down with TV’s Jon Stewart and promised a full Blu-ray disc set of the entire six-film series next year. Brilliant idea, George. Now, Lucas, who loves new technology and had to use the best available at his own Industrial Light and Magic special effects house to enhance the original three films and make cold, impersonal messes of the last three, is now ready to enter the next digital dimension. 3D.

That’s right director, writer, entrepreneur, one-time Star Wars cameo actor George Lucas wants to rerelease the entire saga in three dimensions, starting in 2012. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter Lucas was, apparently, only waiting for enough 3D movie screens before he pulled the trigger on adding three dimensions to all six films.

Lucas will start with the newer films and while some Star Wars critics think at least Revenge of the Sith was watchable, 3D could actually help the flat, emotionless Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. On the other hand, films that have been converted to 3D after the fact, like Clash of the Titans, typically do not fare well in visual quality or at the box office. Lucas’ reported plan could turn the classic A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi into muddy messes.

Obviously Lucas is also thinking of revenue (studios usually charge a premium for 3D movie viewing) and of the 3D home viewing market. Early 3D TV shipments sold out and major manufacturers are still bringing new models to market. By the time Star Wars 3D makes it in and out of theaters, we may even see 3D TV’s that do not need special glasses. Perhaps in-home viewing will make the Star Wars 3D experience less painful. As a fan, I somehow doubt it.

Thanks a bunch Avatar.

Nexus Announces New Hotel HDTV

gI_0_new32031anglecopy.jpgThe next time you check into a hotel, you might be checking out the NX32H60 in your room. CTL’s Nexus division has just announced the release of the NX32H60, a 32-inch HDTV designed just for the hospitality industry. What makes a TV a hotel TV, you ask? Well, this one comes with a Hotel Feature Pack, designed for the unique requirements of hotel use.

The pack includes a swivel stand, RS232 terminals, and USB clone. USB clone allows for quick and easy custom setup. Hotels can transfer TV settings including minimum and maximum volume, start up channel, and channel mapping from a master Nexus TV to an unlimited number of identical models, saving hours of programming time. The set and Hotel Feature Pack are currently available, although the price hasn’t been given.