Hasta La Gadget!

Falling asleep with the TV is bad for you, and science has the hamsters to prove it. Researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus conducted a study using the puffy cheeked rodents and found out that exposing them to dim lights during the night has a number of negative side effects, like depression, breast cancer, and weight gain.

“We’ve set up a link between exposure to light at night with depression in these animals,” said Tracy Bedrosian, a doctoral student at the college told Discovery. “If it does apply to humans, people might want to think about getting dark shades, not leaving the TV on all night long, and making sure to give themselves darkness when they go to sleep.”

The result of the research is a number of adorably depressed fur balls. “The darkness-deprived hamsters drank 20 percent less sugar water than the other group, for example, suggesting that they weren’t getting the same enjoyment out of activities that they used to find pleasurable,” writes Discovery. “The depressed group also gave up far sooner on a swimming activity.”

Researchers have, in the past, linked depression to artificial light. Exposure to light regulates te release of melatonin in the body, which affects all manner of bodily functions.

TV on the iPad: Fantastic idea or foolish folly? I lean towards the former, but then I don’t own a TV set and so much of my life is now contained in my iPad that the only paper books I buy are fancy hardbacks, like The Making of The Empire Strikes Back (you should get it). To bring live TV onto your tablet (or iPhone or iPod Touch) you will need Buffalo’s Little Tele i.

The dongle, with its own loop antenna, slots into the dock port and works with the 1Seg service. This is a digital broadcasting service available in Japan,Chile, Brazil, Peru and Argentina, and already works in those countries with many compatible phones.

The Little Tele i works in combo with an iApp, so you can enjoy a variety of non-skippable programming at a herky-jerky 15-frames-per-second, and has its own battery which will power it for up to 2.5-hours. It will cost ¥10,600, or $127 when it goes on sale in December.

Clearly this isn’t the solution for anyone in the U.S or Europe, which is a shame as the iPad (and presumably other upcoming tablets) is perfect for streaming a bit of background junk once in a while. Until Elgato comes up with a standalone EyeTV for the iPad, there’s another, free, way to get your fix. Filmon.com, visited from an iOS device, lets you watch local, live TV re-streamed to the browser, no app required. Neat.

Buffalo Little Tele i [Buffalo via OhGizmo]

See Also:

• Retro TV-Shaped iPad Box Will Terrify Children
• Tizi Brings Live TV to iPad
• Wooden Charging Dock Makes iPad Look Like a TV From Mad Men …

Lottery winners now have one more reason to celebrate: Now you can add one more conspicuous piece of expensiveness to your already tasteless and cluttered duplex: After years of showing the thing off at trade-shows, Panasonic will finally take your money in return for a 103-inch plasma TV. The price? A mere $102,000 (¥8.5 million).

This huge television, probably bigger than any of your windows, has also been given the 3D treatment (it ships with a single pair of specs), offers a contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 and -despite the huge screen, a resolution of 1920 × 1080.

Once you have come up with the money, you’re problems are just beginning. First, you need to get the thing into the house. If you remove it from its box, the set measures 241.2 × 141.9 × 14.1 cm. That’s almost eight-feet long, and then you have to deal with the stand, which takes the depth up from just over a foot to almost three-feet (87.1cm).

Want to hang it on the wall instead? Best call in some friends to help. The bare, stand-free set tips the scales at 200-kilos, or 440-pounds. Add in the stand and the fat thing balloons to 321-kilos, or 707-pounds.

Astonishing, but once everything is installed, you’re done, right? You can sit back and relax, enjoying the immersive 3D landscape before you. Or can you? Maybe you should start thinking about the next electricity bill. The television uses around 1350-watts of juice. Oh, and you’ll need to spring for some speakers, too.

Available now to lottery winners and other taste-free consumers.

Giant Panasonic TV product page [Panasonic via Engadget]

Swedish manufacturer People of Lava has finally gotten its Android TV, the Scandinavia, into stores. First seen here on Gadget Lab back in April of this year, the computer/TV hybrid is now ready for pre-order in Sweden, with a future US launch planned pending the raising of enough money to do it.

The TVs look gorgeous, made from stone as well as the usual metal and glass, and will come in 42, 47 and 55-inch sizes, all running the rather ancient Android 1.5. That’s not really a problem, though, as the custom UI is designed for a big screen, not a tiny cellphone display.

All models are 1080p and have a backlit LED display, along with every port and hookup you could wish for, and come prepped with YouTube, Google Maps, apps for weather, a calendar, web-browser built in, and other apps like Twitter and Facebook ready to download. Connection to the internet is via reliable ethernet, but you can opt for a USB Wi-Fi dongle if you prefer.

The 42-inch model is available now for pre-order, and will cost 22,000 Swedish Krona, or $3,630 (the price is doubtlessly raised partly because the sets are made in Sweden). The 55-incher will cost a whopping 40,000 Sweden Krona, or $5,800, and because of the bauxite rock used to make it, the set will weigh a wall-busting 40-kilos, or almost 90-pounds.

In some ways, Android is better than Google TV itself. For instance, the TV networks are currently blocking Google TV from accessing their shows. That isn’t yet the case with Android (although in Sweden I case nobody cares about the US networks anyway). On the other hand, most people know the hell of watching somebody else drive a computer, and this can only get worse on a bigger screen. I’ll stick with browsing on my iPad while other people watch soap operas.

Scandinavia product page [People of Lava]

See Also:

• World's First Android TV Comes from Sweden
• Google Introduces Google TV, New Android OS
• Android Holds the Key to Samsung's Smart TV Plans

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 question is coming to us from Troy, who clearly longs to relive the glory days of WebTV. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I’ve got a curious desire for a good-to-great web browsing experience on my television. I know there are countless connected HDTVs out there, a few new Google TV options and the idea of using an HTPC. I’m not afraid of putting the legwork into hooking up a full-blown computer, but I’m trying to keep everything under $400 or $500, so that eliminates the high-end rigs with Blu-ray, CableCARD, and the like. I also am leaning towards the HTPC so I can have a standard user agent for viewing Hulu content, etc. Anyone in the same boat with any opinions?”

With Google TV just hitting the marketplace, you’ve got more options than ever before. Hard to say just yet if that’s a boon or not, but surely a few readers have a couple pennies each to share on the matter. Toss out yours in comments below.

Ask Engadget: best method for getting the internet on your HDTV? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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