Televisions

Do-it-yourself flat-screen TV

Looking to impress your BFFs with a ginormous flat-panel TV, but not too keen on shelling out a few thousand bucks for the privilege?

You could go with the 42-inch plasma that Vizio is selling for under $1,000. Or you could take the do-it-yourself approach to a giant CRT, like this guy.

U.K.-based Pocket-lint dubs it the "First Irish Flat Screen TV," though the joke may be slightly lost on a U.S. audience since snarking about the Irish fell out of favor here more than half a century ago. But it seems any country … Read more

First 42-inch HDTV for under $1,000

Stop the presses. We mean it this time. Vizio is selling a 42-inch plasma HDTV for under $1,000.

But don't rush out with your riot gear just yet: Electronista says the flat panels will go on sale at that price at Costco for one day only next week, presumably Black Friday.

Vizio will be offering deals on other products as well, but the 42-incher is the headline grabber, the first high-definition TV of its size to break the $1,000 barrier. "A slight upgrade to the existing P42, the VP42 carries over many of the existing features … Read more

Cell phone 'Sling'-ing to be new British national pastime

Beginning Dec. 1, our friends across the Atlantic will be able to snag a cell phone pre-loaded with Sling Player Mobile.

The 3G mobile broadband company known as the 3 Group will be offering its new X-series of handsets with the software preinstalled needed to play content from a home television via a Slingbox, the two companies are expected to announce Thursday.

It's Sling Media's first partnership with a major mobile operator.

Hutchison Whampoa, the parent company of the 3 Group, also announced that it would be selling the Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson w950i pre-loaded with SlingPlayer … Read more

TiVo and others tout all-in-one media devices

Writing about gadgets around the holidays can get pretty hectic--hello, PlayStation3!--but there are some pretty cool perks. Take Tuesday night, for example, when the DigitalLife folks (the ones who organized the big tech trade show last month) invited a host of NYC-area reporters to Manhattan's fashionable Nikki Midtown bar and lounge for a packed evening of consumer tech. The agenda included a press conference from TiVo featuring CEO Tom Rogers, as well as a showcase of some products that people may or may not be craving this holiday season. Oh, yeah, there was free food, too.

The general … Read more

A 'female' TV can be for men too

Even in our perpetually clueless state we're somewhat familiar with the concept of gender-specific marketing, but we're not sure why this falls under either category.

For one thing, the photos of this 10-inch-screen Samsung portable TV depict representatives of both sexes gleefully viewing said product, which reportedly can be hooked up to an external hard drive. And the casing is a gender-neutral white--not even pink!--so it's unclear which features make this "exclusively reserved for female customers," as Akihabara News puts it.

The only clue that might tip it in that direction is a picture … Read more

Rage against the small machine

So we're on this anti-small kick. Yeah, that's right. Small is not always better in our book, especially where our increasingly feeble eyesight is concerned.

Last week, for example, we kvetched about the 3- by 2-inch Cube Mini media player, which we're sure we would lose in a week. But at least it made good use of its cramped space, with a 2.4-inch screen that occupied most of its surface area. Then today, we spotted this TA 454 player that is truly Lilliputian in stature, which The Raw Feed describes as smaller than a car key remote. … Read more

An all-in-one for winter

Imagine a winter weekend morning. You wake up, let the dog out, and fetch the Sunday paper, two unwrapped Playstation 3 games, some newly arrived Netflix and a cup of coffee (made per the timer you actually remembered to set).

Where are you going next? No, not to the couch with a blanket and pillow, or to the kitchen to argue over whether the new Ferrari Dino will be a front-engine or mid-engine car.

You climb back under the warm blankets of your bedroom, settle in and...up pops your flattie from the foot of your bed. A remote control … Read more

The kind of laser beam you're supposed to stare at

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Lasers have not lived up to their full potential in consumer electronics. At least that's what one of the companies behind laser TVs says.

Novalux makes infrared lasers that will in the future be used in microdisplay TVs, home theater front projectors, and eventually digital projectors in movie theaters and business projectors.

But wait, a high-powered laser in your TV? Don't shield your eyes just yet. Lasers are a light source that so far has only been mass-produced in low-power applications, like in CD or DVD players. "We've never had a high-power consumer … Read more

Stream TV to any room of the house

Once again, I posit the question: why does Asia get all the cool stuff? (I sense I'm beginning to whine about this a bit.) Twinbird, a Japanese company that produces a variety of novelty gadgets, is coming out with a product called Link Zabady...or at least, that's how Engadget has translated it. At any rate, a big thanks to my fellow bloggers for bringing this fabulous gadget to my attention, even if I never get my hands on one. The Link Zabady consists of a splash-proof, 7-inch LCD screen with 480x234 resolution, a transmitter box, and a … Read more

Rub a dub dub, TV in the tub

Apparently, these days you just aren't keeping up with the Joneses if you have a TV in your bedroom and one embedded in your refrigerator. And it's not enough to have one in the bathroom--it's got to be in the bathtub. I should also mention that the tub can't be an ordinary tub. It's got to be along the lines of the Luxor Hydro Massage Bathtub, as featured on Born Rich. The Luxor tub is selling for 3,995 British pounds, which is about $7,600. A small price for the absolute must-have of being … Read more