Jun 29
Jun 23
Hey friends, that’s right, esteemed colleague and boss will be stopping by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight to talk iPhone 4 and crack a few jokes. Be sure to tune in at the times below — we hear that Heidi Klum is on tonight, too!
Showtimes:
12:37AM Eastern
11:37PM Central
11:37PM Mountain
12:37AM Pacific
Josh will be on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 23
Bing Entertainment integrates Zune Marketplace purchases, improves Microsoft’s media swagger
Posted in: amazon, Games, itunes, Microsoft, Movies, Music, search, Today's Chili, TV, zune
Bing, Microsoft’s “decision engine,” is wading into the entertainment realm today with the revelation that searches for music, lyrics, games, TV shows, and movies will get a new special sauce treatment from here on out. You’ll now be able to play 100 basic games right in your search results, along with full-length streaming of songs (first time only, 30 seconds thereafter) from a 5 million-strong catalog. The latter is augmented with “one-click” purchases from the Zune Marketplace (directly through the web, no need to launch the app), Amazon, or iTunes music libraries. Movie tickets are promised to be similarly easy to buy, though the biggest new feature might well be the Bing.com/entertainment page, which acts as a portal into your media consumption with a selection of the most popular content in each category. It doesn’t look terribly different from the iTunes storefront, but given its partnership with Apple’s digital music shop, we doubt Bing’s Entertainment section is perceived as much of a threat — not yet, anyway. As to that other search giant, Google’s been said to already be putting together a music store of its own. Man, all this integration and interconnectedness — just where will it end?
Gallery: Bing Entertainment
Bing Entertainment integrates Zune Marketplace purchases, improves Microsoft’s media swagger originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 22
Is there a little shine on your set? Intelligen just announced the availability of its expanded line of ViewGuard Anti-Glare TV filters, featuring a selection for TVs up to 65-inches. With an anti-glare filter, owners can position their sets in bright settings, including showrooms, waiting rooms, and sunrooms. The filters start at $99.99.
Besides stopping glare, Intelligen’s filters protect LCD, LED, and Plasma TVs from scratches and other surface damage, as well as fingerprint smudges. The filters can be easily removed, so you can always take them off if you no longer want the protection . To find the right filter for your set, check out the ViewGuard site.
Jun 21
We seem to be edging ever closer to the world we saw in the movie Minority Report: three companies have announced a new partnership aimed at getting gesture-based navigation into our home entertainment systems. Softkinetic’s iisu gesture recognition software and Optrima’s OprtiCam work in combination with Meterological’s MediasConnect TV system to change the way people interact with their televisions. Instead of punching buttons on a remote control, users can control their television using hand gestures or optional voice recognition.
MediaConnect may sound familiar to gamers, as many of the features and capabilities of the system sound very similar to Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360, which was announced at last week’s E3 conference. SoftKinetic is led by Mike Nichols, the former executive producer for Microsoft Kinect. However, this system promises to have a lower cost of entry as it may be available as part of a subscription service program offered by cable or satellite television providers.
The new MediaConnect TV will be available in Europe within the next few weeks and should be available in the US later this year. Software development kits will also be available this fall, allowing developers to create games and other interactive applications, such as video conferencing, that are compatible with the system.
Jun 17
How to Silence Obnoxious, Deafening Vuvuzela
Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, Sports, Today's Chili, TVDo you hear that? The hideous, piercing dirge of a B-flat drone that is the unfortunate backdrop to every single World Cup match? It’s the vuvuzela, a stupid plastic trumpet that has infested the temple of the beautiful game with an incessant buzzing that is a cross between a traffic jam in Naples and a giant, booming mosquito. We’re going to tell you how to kill it.
If you have never heard a vuvuzela in person, you won’t know quite how loud it is. I hear one every time Barcelona plays a game, and my neighbor expresses his over-excitement by forcing his asthmatic breath through the thunderous plastic horn.
It is deafening. It literally makes my ears hurt, and it is the most annoying thing I have ever heard. Now imagine a football stadium filled with these things, and you have an idea of the fun going down in South Africa right now.
At home, the problem is less severe, and we can do something about it. B-flat has a frequency of 466.164 hertz, which is unfortunately close to the frequency of human speech, and the main reason that the frequency isn’t more forcefully blocked at source by broadcasters. You can cut the drone almost entirely, though, by filtering at home, blocking 466 hertz along with other harmonics. The easiest way is to drop the 300 hertz bar on your TVs EQ, which is close enough to make a quick-and-dirty fix.
If you have a more capable setup, like a home-theater receiver, or are prepared to run the audio through a computer, you can get even better results. First, use your EQ to drop the 466 hertz band by around 20 dB (remember to apply it to both channels). Then do the same for 235 hertz. This, as you see in the video above put together by LifeHacker, cuts out pretty much all of the incessant drone.
If you’re using a surround-sound system, you might try turning down the left and right speakers, which broadcasters use for crowd noises, and turn up the volume of the center speaker, where commentators’ voices come from.
You could, of course, employ the simplest and fastest filter on your TVs buzzing output: Hit the mute button.
Vuvuzela filter [Surfpoeten]
How to Remove Vuvuzelas From an Audio Recording [YouTube via Lifehacker]
Can you block out the blare of vuvuzelas? [BBC]
How to turn down the volume on those World Cup vuvuzelas [Consumer Reports]
Jun 17
Colorware slings paint onto next logical object: your HDTV
Posted in: hdtv, LCD, monitor, plasma, Television, Today's Chili, TV
Bet you never thought people would line up to pay absurd amounts of money to have their otherwise vanilla gizmos coated in some of the swankest paints known to man. Turns out, Colorware has made a living from doing just that for those with vivid imaginations, and the company is finally breaking away from handheld gadgets and heading straight for your den. Starting this week, fat-walleted consumers can ping the company with a custom television request, namely the TV model and desired hue. The outfit’s not publishing any sample prices due to the sheer quantity of available HDTVs out there, and sadly, the “send in” option ain’t available here — you buy new or paint yourself, bub. Anyone care to take a poke as to what that fire-engine red masterpiece up above would cost? Nah, we thought not.
Colorware slings paint onto next logical object: your HDTV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 15
What is Google TV? (video)
Posted in: Android, Google, GoogleTv, streaming, Television, Today's Chili, TV, video
Google’s reveal of Google TV wasn’t exactly flawless. After technical issues wreaked havoc with the live launch demonstration, many of us found it nearly impossible to focus just as soon as we heard mention of IR blaster control. Fear not, Google has returned with a two and half minute video that breaks it down like we were kindergartners. So grab your blanky and Mr. Tickle, the embedded video is available after the break.
Continue reading What is Google TV? (video)
What is Google TV? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 05
Switched On: Android’s shot at TV stardom
Posted in: column, Google, GoogleTv, set-top-box, switched on, SwitchedOn, Today's Chili, TVEach week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the short course of about 18 months, Android has gone from an upstart operating system on a single handset to one of the fastest growing mobile operating systems around to one that’s increasingly being used beyond the handset on new devices like slates, smartbooks and now televisions. As fellow Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg pointed out last week, the idea of putting the web on a TV has been with us for well over a decade with little acceptance.
But the content and role of the web has changed dramatically since Sony and Philips launched their first devices based on WebTV’s platform. As I mentioned last week, the web has become home for a growing family of mainstream sites upon which we’ve grown increasingly dependent. It’s also become an outpost for both first-run and long-tail video. And the progress of standards such as CSS has improved the display of web sites across browsers and devices. HDTV has quadrupled the resolution of televisions and enabled flicker-free display of text. While few consumers directly connect their PCs to their TVs, several of the former sport HDMI connections, and many of the latter sport VGA connections.
Continue reading Switched On: Android’s shot at TV stardom
Switched On: Android’s shot at TV stardom originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 03
What the Next Apple TV Could and Should Be [Concepts]
Posted in: Apple, apple tv, Today's Chili, top, TV
If the rumors are true, the next Apple TV will be a cloud-connected, iPhone-based device. Not only it makes sense, but it’s the only way they can create a best-of-breed gadget that can best Google TV, and be truly successful. More »
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