An ingenious electronics engineer with, as you will see, excellent woodworking and fabrication skills has created a new type of home entertainment PC for all of us to consider adopting called a Sofaside PC. The basic idea is to remove your “hobbled” set-top duty HTPC away from your TV and build a high performance PC rig inside a custom furniture end-table enclosure – complete with folding doors and slide out tray accessibility – that sits, as the names suggests, next to your couch. Very clever. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

It was just a few weeks ago MyNetflix v2.0 for Windows Vista Media Center came out and now Anthony Park has taken all the feedback he’s received in that short time and squashed a few nagging bugs and enhanced the interface with a bevy of new useful features. Below is the change log. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

After reading the news release yesterday about DnC Multimedia’s latest product offering, the Sideshow Remote Control, I was surprised to learn that the company has also been putting the finishing touches on a portable media player called the SideShow PMP. The device, which looks like a winner on paper, will be powered by NVIDIA’s Preface (chipset and 3D smart touchscreen UI) technology and offer Wi-Fi connectivity (later Mobile WiMAX), VoIP communications, media player functionality, web browsing, GPS navigation, 4/8GB internal storage options, a slot for SD memory cards, Bluetooth, a 3.5-inch 320×240 TFT LCD touchscreen, and, most notably, Windows SideShow compatibility. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Media Giant is a highly advanced and full featured network HD media player and hard disk recorder in one solution. With Media Giant, Conceptronic combined the best features of a product coming from both the CE and IT markets. This device with touch screen on the front has a distinctive design which fits perfectly in the living room.

Also inside it impresses with a lot of functionalities. The recording onto the built-in 3,5 inch SATA hard disk (up to 1 TB) can be done in 4 ways; MORE »

Popularity: 9% [?]

DnC Multimedia, Inc. today announced that it will be demonstrating its Sideshow device as a universal remote control for PCs at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, next week. DnC Multimedia, Inc. (DnC) is a maker of a broad range of digital media technology products, and owns and operates an array of high-end encoding technologies and the Pluginz Network, an eCommerce marketplace for sophisticated multimedia technology. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

DS2, the leading technology innovator and global supplier of high-speed powerline communications technology, presents fully interoperable 100Mbps, 200Mbps and 400Mbps Powerline Communications technology at CeBIT 2008, Hall 13, Stand C83. The standards-based company created and patented the baseline technology for the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) Digital Home Standard for multi-media home networking and service provider applications. UPA’s Digital Home Standard is the best selling powerline communications technology for IPTV services selected by leading service providers including Belgacom, British Telecom, Neuf Cegetel, Portugal Telecom, Telefónica, Telecom Italia and Telia Sonera. Over four million 200Mbps UPA ICs have been sold. DS2 holds the largest market share of this expanding market for 200Mbps powerline communication products in the retail, service provider and smart grid markets. At CeBIT, DS2 will be demonstrating cross generation, fully interoperable solutions for networking in the Digital Home and will be introducing new powerline products and solutions for Smart Grid and embedded applications. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

Looks like the Mvix MV780 is getting some competition in the unique space of hard-drive equipped HD media player/PC media streamers that also double as NAS devices. However, what sets the Korean manufactured Celrun TV apart from the crowd is that it also functions as a PVR with the ability to record to its 320GB hard drive from either an unencrypted cable (QAM) TV connection or over-the-air (ATSC) antennae signal, according to Akihabara News. But that’s not all… since the Celrun TV is powered by Sigma Designs’ SMP8634 chip, the device makes easy work of playing 1920×1080p HD video (HDMI out), outputs S/PDIF digital audio, and plays back a multitude of popular media files codecs/formats like H.264 MPEG-4/AVC, VOB, Xvid, WMV HD, MPEG-1/2/4, FLAC, OGG, AAC, MP3, etc. (full list below). The device even offers wireless 802.11b/g connectivity and USB 2.0 Host functionality.

Unfortunately, there’s no word if this product will make it to the states and for how much. But from the reaction this product has been getting in the blogosphere, I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes soon. MORE »

Popularity: 6% [?]

[Editor’s note: Akimbo reinvents itself from being a consumer Internet VOD set-top provider to a content provider Internet VOD distribution tool]

Akimbo™, the Silicon Valley company that was first in Internet video delivery, is now first to develop a complete Internet VOD solution for content providers’ own websites.

The Akimbo solution has a comprehensive advertising system and supports multiple business models including ad-supported, transactional, subscription, download-to-own, download-to-burn, pay-per-minute, gift cards, account credits and more.

The announcement was made today by Thomas Frank, president and CEO, Akimbo. MORE »

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sony today unveiled four home theater systems featuring the new S-AIR™ technology, a wireless audio solution for multi-room listening. MORE »

Popularity: 6% [?]

Apple® today updated its popular MacBook® and MacBook Pro notebook lines with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives and 2GB of memory standard in most models. In addition, MacBook Pro includes the latest NVIDIA graphics processors, now with up to 512MB of video memory, and Apple’s innovative Multi-Touch™ trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air™. All Mac® notebooks include a built-in iSight® video camera for video conferencing on-the-go*, Apple’s MagSafe® Power Adapter that safely disconnects when under strain and built-in 802.11n wireless networking for up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g.** MORE »

Popularity: 9% [?]