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Company with a camera that sees through walls gets $14 million

Camero, a company out of Israel that has developed a camera that can "see" things through solid walls, has raised $14 million, bringing the total is has raised to $20 million.

The investment comes about four months after it showed off a prototype of the Xaver800 and began to sell systems to customers. Investors include Greylock Partners, Motorola Ventures and Walden.

The Xaver800 doesn't technically capture images directly. Instead, it issues ultrawideband signals and the data harvested is then used to create 3D models of things the signals bounced off of. The trick is that the camera … Read more

Samsung shows off new Blu-ray player, has HDMI 1.3

Samsung was the first to roll out a Blu-ray player last year, and now they're the first company to roll out a standard form-factor player with HDMI 1.3. The new BD-P1200 offers many of the same features as last year's BD-P1000: 1080p playback; DVD upconversion to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p; and a stylish design. The BD-P1200's HDMI output is also compatible with the consumer electronics control (CEC) format, which should enable compatible products to send commands between each other--for instance, a CEC-compatible TV could send commands to the BD-P1200 and tell it to turn on and … Read more

Warner details combo HD DVD/Blu-ray disc

As reported last week, Warner Brothers announced yesterday at CES its introduction of a new disc format that will contain both HD DVD and Blu-ray versions of the same movie, so it would work with either type of player. Warner calls the new format Total HD.

The studio fleshed out a few more details at the press conference. It announced that major retailers Best Buy and Circuit City, along with online retailer Amazon, will stock the discs when they appear in the second half of this year. It also specified, according to Reuters, that the discs could be either single- … Read more

Catch ya on the flip-side

Warner Bros. will be making some of its films available on "Total Hi Def" DVDs, which are, ingeniously, HD DVD on one side and Blu-ray on the other.

The combo discs are the same size as always but contain both single and dual layers for both formats. A Total Hi Def DVD can have 15GB or 30GB on the HD DVD side and 25GB or 50GB on the Blu-ray side.

The Total Hi Def DVDs (THD DVDs? THDs?) will begin appearing some time after July, in conjunction with normal movie-to-DVD release schedules, Warner Bros. said at CES.

The … Read more

LG debuts a combination Blu-ray and HD DVD player

At a press conference today at CES 2007, LG introduced the first player capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. The words on the drawer of the player read "Super Multi Blue Player," but the model number is simply BH100. The player will be available as early as the first week of February at Best Buy and Circuit City among other outlets, according to the company, and will cost $1,199. At least for now, this announcement appears to be the most significant news at the show.

In case there was any doubt of the unit'… Read more

LG talks Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player

Last night LG said it would release a combination Blu-ray/HD DVD player in early 2007. The news comes with no other details, but I expect the company to divulge a bit more information, perhaps including a mocked-up image or even a physical box of some kind, at the company's press conference, scheduled for 8 a.m. PT this Sunday at CES. Until then we're in the dark as regarding questions such as "When exactly?" "How much?" and "Is this for real?"

LG has made a similar announcement before, so I'll … Read more

Dell offers Blu-ray with the XPS M1710

As more and more manufacturers get accustomed to working with Blu-ray technology, prices will eventually drop for the everyday consumer. Until then, prices will remain on the premium side. Dell became the second manufacturer, after Sony, to offer a Blu-ray optical drive option in a laptop by now offering it with their XPS M1710 system. This model is available in red or black and is sure to be popular with users.

All Blu-ray players bow to the PlayStation 3?

After a long wait, we're finally starting to get in a new wave of first-generation Blu-ray players. CNET will be posting full reviews for both the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and the Philips BDP9000 shortly, but I've already taken some long looks at each in terms of picture quality, and they've got a lot to be worried about. Not because they look worse than HD DVD; in fact, the picture-quality gap is almost gone between the two formats. And not because they're bad players; both of them put out a pristine Blu-ray image that blows DVD out of … Read more

HDMI 1.3: The 1080p of 2007?

In a conference call this year with an exec at HDMI, we heard someone at the other end of the line describe HDMI 1.3, the new standard for the highest-quality digital A/V connection, as "the 1080p of 2007." In other words, he's hoping that HDMI 1.3 becomes the new buzzword in HDTV that everybody wants to know about, that high-end buyers will plunk down lots of cash to get, and that makes everything that came before it seem obsolete.

On Monday, I attended a 3-hour press event where HDMI Licensing LLC, the company behind … Read more

Help for the sunburned and clueless

A sun-bathing device that tells you when you're fried to a crisp? Please.

Sure, Minox's "Suntimer" has sensors that indicate UV intensity. So does something else--it's called skin. And yes, sunbathers can "program their skin type and the protection factor of sunscreen in use for accurate readings," as MobileWhack says. We have an alternative suggestion, shade.

Those who insist on getting one of these may need help figuring something else out: The strap could leave some unsightly tan lines. There's also this thing called melanoma, but that's probably information overload for … Read more