Archive for: February 12, 2008

Man I must be getting old. It seems like just the other day I was doing the “Thriller” dance. And, in my defense, everybody was when it first came out. But whether you like MJ or not, he was the hottest ticket in town for quite a while.

Are you dancing yet… or do you just feel old like me.

Filed under: Home Entertainment
Apple isn’t one to let a new product out the door without a video guided tour lately, and today’s release of the Apple TV take 2 update is no exception. Nothing too shocking in the walkthrough of iTunes rentals and the new Flickr features — when will Apple memorize t…

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Filed under: Misc. GadgetsAs anyone who has a regular moment with a needle knows, poking oneself on the daily can be a real pain — in the ass or otherwise. Well there appears to be good news on the horizon for at least some of us self-stabbers: Philips is attempting to patent a method for diabetic …

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Filed under: Wireless
We’ve seen a lot of research and even some products that promise seamless WiFi / cell roaming, but Intel and Nokia are cooking up tech that might one day bring us true uninterrupted broadband connectivity, based on robotic undetectable switchovers from WiFi to WiMAX. Intel’s po…

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment
With a name like BlackWing, it’s gotta be good, right? At least that looks to be the case with Cineversum’s latest trio of BlackWing Three projectors, as these naughty boys sport a design eerily reminiscent of something straight out of the Star Wars g…

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Simmer down — it’s not like you haven’t seen advancements in blue laser technology before, and even though the current format war may still be raging when either’s successor rolls into town, Kaai and Soraa are already looking to the future. Reportedly, Khosla Ventures has invested in both of th…

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

As discussed in last week’s Switched On, the PopCatcher Ripper scours FM radio stations to separate the music from the mumble and transfer songs to flash drives, memory cards and …

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Apple has released the moment major version of its professional-grade photo editing and management application, Aperture. The company packed 100 new features in to Aperture 2, including a more streamlined user interface and an entirely new image processing engine. “Many of the most respected…

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Earlier this month, a friend of mine received a text message request for a date. "Did you really just ask me out via text message?" she quickly responded.

Indeed he did. But according to U.K.-based Juniper Research, she might want to get used to not hearing date's voice until they actually meet up. Revenues from mobile dating and chat rooms will hit an estimated $1 billion by 2010, according to a new Juniper report.

So, provided your BlackBerry isn't plagued by another outage, Juniper predicts that more and more wireless users will want to access dating sites and chat rooms on their mobile devices around the clock. The person who checks out your profile and "winks" at you in the wee hours has to be a real catch, right?

Of course this is more about making money for these dating services than finding you a soulmate, but stranger things have happened, right? Juniper acknowledges that few mobile dating services are actually profiting much at this point, but the migration of user-generated content onto mobile phones and the success of such services in countries like Korea and Japan could mean that enhanced Match.com mobile apps (minus Dr. Phil, thanks) on your iPhone might not be that far off, Juniper predicts.

Filed under: Cellphones, WirelessYesterday’s surprising-but-not-shocking announcement that Starbucks would be switching to AT&T for WiFi services left a lot of T-Mobile customers in the lurch — although Starbucks said that T-Mo and AT&T had an “agreement” that would let HotSpot users stay c…

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Craving a little Al Jazeera? Want to brush up on your French? Look no further than LiveStation, a Microsoft-backed Web TV venture that has decided to ditch entertainment and sports videos in favor of news content.

LiveStation launched a news-focused public beta this week that will give U.S. users access to streaming radio content from BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4, as well as TV content from France 24 in English and French and the English version of Al Jazeera.

If you're interested, head to the LiveStation Web site to request a download.

A download tested by PC Magazine on Tuesday morning easily connected to BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4, and intermittently linked up to the French version of France 24, but failed entirely to access Al Jazeera and the English version of France 24. LiveStation technical support e-mailed me to ask for my system specifications, and said it would troubleshoot the connection problems.

LiveStation is the brainchild of U.K.-based content delivery provider Skinkers which acquired the rights to Microsoft's Internet TV-related technology in June 2006. The LiveStation technology came out of the Microsoft IP Ventures program, a Redmond-backed research initiative intended to provide start-up companies with technology they can eventually bring to market.

Skinkers launched a smaller beta of LiveStation last summer. Skinkers is aiming for a formal, commercial roll-out in the second half of the year, said LiveStation developer Matteo Berlucchi.

"TV news channels are less burdened with rights problems compared to other types of channels like sports and music, so it makes it somewhat easier for a news network to distribute its content on a global basis," Berlucchi said. "Having ...

Apple released its first shield update for 2008 late Monday, correcting vulnerabilities in OS X Leopard and Tiger. Mac OS X 10.5.2 and safety degree Update 2008-001 right 11 flaws in applications such as date Machine, Parental Control, Mail and Safari. additionally included is a patch for a …

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