room

We're not sure why Sony hasn't made a bigger deal about its Vaio TP1 Living Room PC going on sale. Sony announced the existence of its round, Roomba-like system at this year's CES, and then we didn't hear much about it. After we found out at Sony's laptop launch last week that the TP1 was actually available, we got Sony to send us a review unit. It's in our lab right now, and we'll have the review up early next week. As Sony said all along, this system will not have the higher-end … Read more

The "Cone of Silence" finally comes to life! The "WhisperRoom" is created by attaching 1-inch-thick soundproof walls called "Seam Seals" that are designed to keep your conversations private from those snoops you're certain are listening in. (It will also provide much-needed sanctuary from the noisy brats next door when the Ritalin wears off.)

For added security, you can bolt on ceilings and floors as well, essentially creating a room within a room. Red Ferret says prices start at $2,760, but we know that cost is no barrier when it comes to keeping … Read more

As I sit in my bedroom writing this on a somewhat cool morning for June, I couldn't help but be inspired by what is sitting in front of me: a wireless Apple keyboard and Mighty Mouse which interact with my Mac Mini that is connected to my HDTV. Sitting next to the Mac Mini is my Apple TV -- connected to my HDTV via HDMI of course. So, with that in mind, I couldn't help but ask if Apple's push for control of the home will lead to future success. My guess: absolutely.

For decades, Apple was … Read more

With services like YouTube and Joost dominating our time on the Internet, there is no wonder the latter may be trying to make its way from your desktop to your living room.

In a recent interview with TV week, David Clark, executive vice president of global advertising for Joost, hinted that the platform may be making the living room trek sooner than some of us thought. In the discussion, Mr. Clark said that in a year from now "we hope you will see Joost in the living room."

To add more momentum to this idea, new Joost CEO … Read more

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

OK, not really, but the freeware Windows app Dark Room (based off the Mac OS X 10.4 software WriteRoom) looks a heck of a lot like the classic text-adventure game Zork.

The idea behind Dark Room and WriteRoom is simple: offer a distraction-free application for writing text. Both apps throw out the bells and whistles and provide a lightweight text editor without buttons, menus, or anything else that might disturb your concentration.… Read more

There are plenty of ways to make acquaintances roll their eyes in anticipation of you whipping out photos of your excruciatingly cute progeny. But few can approach the theatrical effect of unfurling a snake of transparent plastic from your wallet.

Brookstone, however, has updated the concept with a "Women's Digital Wallet," a leather bi-fold that includes a detachable viewer with a 1.4-inch screen that holds up to 55 digital images. And the photos can be transferred and updated easily through a USB cable to a computer, according to Outblush, so co-workers will consistently avoid you in … Read more

Kyte.tv is a new service that lets people create their own TV channel. It's a bit of a mashup between a live blogging tool, a social network, and some of the live Internet TV channels we've been seeing lately with Justin.tv, and UStream.tv. Although, instead of strapping a camera to your head, you can use a cell phone.

The mobile client is a small Java application for several Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones that allows Kyte.tv users to upload photos and chat with others in a Kyte.tv channel. The mobile live blogging component is called "Lifecasting" which lets users upload pictures from their camera phone in real time. You can set it to automatically take a picture every few minutes, or every time you click the shutter. Either way, photos will show up on your channel instantly and viewers will get a visual notification that you're "live."

Kyte.tv channel owners can create as many channels as they want and add music, photos, videos, polls and text. A channel consists of a display screen, a playlist, and integrated chat room. Each channel also gets its own custom URL and branding, which is chosen by the channel owner. Alternately, there's embed code to place the entire Kyte.tv experience on a social networking profile or blog post (like we've done after the break).

One thing to note about adding music: you can't upload your own tracks. Instead you have to pick from a small selection of music from indie music service IODA. It's a lot like the music integration you get with Photobucket's video Remix tool.

What Kyte.tv has done really well is the live chat room. While it's lacking admin controls and private conversation options, you're getting the same chat experience on your computer and your phone. It's also really easy to use, as long as you're handy with your phone's keypad.

Kyte.tv is a fun service that opens up a lot of options for live blogging. Like we've seen with Twitter, mobile blogging has exploded with the help of easy-to-use tools that can be used and accessed on multiple platforms. Likewise, live video broadcasting has become something normal people can do with services like Pocketcaster and UStream.tv. Kyte.tv is happy medium between the two.

We'll be broadcasting live at various points during the day, so to visit our Kyte.tv channel, just click the read more link below.… Read more

YackPack, the group Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) chat and messaging service we covered last month, has launched a new zero-configuration widget to complement its chatting service. The new widget can be placed in blogs, Web sites, social networking profiles, and forums--practically anywhere embeds are allowed. It's dead simple with a single button you push to talk with others. There's no registration, and no need to install any software--it just works.

The widget has three flavors: one that starts live (meaning you hear others chatting whether you want to or not), an opt-in that requires user input to begin, and a custom URL version that will work across your entire site, no matter how many different pages you embed it in. In all the versions, there's a small number in the bottom right-hand corner that will let you know how many other people are using the widget. If you've had enough of their chatter, there's an X button on the top right to put the widget to sleep.

The Walkie-talkie widget joins YackPack's YackPlayer widget, which lets users embed and share audio messages in a way similar to Jaxtr's VoiceBlast, which we wrote about earlier this week. See also Snapvine.

We've embedded the widget after the break to speed up our page load, so just click "Read More" to begin chatting with other Webware readers. … Read more

Lingr is a really slick chat service that launched late last year. Lingr lets you create and manage Web chatrooms, combined with some handy technologies to help you keep track of conversations, even when you're not there.

I recently broke down a few of the top apps for chatting, both Web based and software downloads, but Lingr is a straight up chat destination as opposed to a piggy-backing service. Lingr lets you create your own tags for a chat room to make it easily searchable by others. These tags show up in a tag cloud on the front door … Read more