Here’s the Simpsons’ take on Apple – the basic premise being that the Springfield Mall gets a “Mapple” store and everyone buys MyPods, MyPhones, and MyCubes. Everything’s pretty realistic, even down to the fine details like Steve Mobs (get it, “Jobs” but with an “M” instead?) urinating on each MyPhone before it gets shipped out and then investing the company’s profits in… → Read More
Here comes yet another set-top box that connects to the internet and streams web video. Thankfully, this one looks pretty cool. It’s called the Neuros LINK and it’ll leverage the Neuros.TV interface to stream shows to your TV from sites like YouTube, Hulu, NBC.com, CNN.com, CBS.com, and Fancast. Oh, and it’s an open platform. It appears that the Neuros.TV part of the equation will do most of… → Read More
Jalopnik has a pretty extensive photo gallery of the second-generation Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) from Discovery’s Storm Chasers series. For the uninitiated, the tank-like TIV is able to drive into the middle of tornados, allowing owner Sean Casey to film from the inside out in high definition. If you haven’t seen the show, check it out. The TIV2 weighs a staggering nine tons and gets 12… → Read More
Sigh… Above, please reference what girls between the ages of 10 and 30 think is cool. Also, as it happens, the same reason MTV will be blocked from every TV in the Aamoth household if I ever have a daughter. Transcription to follow for those of you who can’t access YouTube at work… → Read More
This is kind of along the lines of the Onion’s World of World of Warcraft spoof, except that it appears to be real. According to a Craigslist post in the LA area, MTV is apparently looking for people to star in a reality show about Rock Band 2. So basically, a reality show about non-musicians with toy instruments pretending to be musicians. And with that, reality TV has officially hit rock… → Read More
I used to think that my local Best Buy had a lot of televisions on display. Then I attended IFA. Each vendor’s stand has dozens — sometimes hundreds — of TVs up and running. It’s enough to make the eyes glaze over. Samsung had the largest display of TVs, pictured above. More Samsung and others after the jump. → Read More
Salacious photos after the jump. Finlux unveiled several new televisions and set-top boxes at IFA. The video they selected to demonstrate the sets at the front of their stand was the most salacious of the whole show (though I never did get to the Penthouse stand), while the rest of the sets on display were showing much more business like sequences. → Read More
Mmm — the sweet, sweet smell of exploitation. Playboy TV’s shameless new show puts a guy with three girls. He must dismiss one immediately, then whittle it down to one after a little vetting process. Once he goes on a “real” date with his one remaining chick, he has to choose at the end whether to have a “weekend getaway” (likely at an hourly-rate motel) with… → Read More
DISH announced today a net loss of 25,000 customers. The company blamed the loss of subscribers on a combination of economic factors and stiffening competition. Wall Street reacted unfavorably, sending the shares down in early trading. The stock price made up lost ground as the day went on. Craig Moffett, analyst at Bernstein Research, said: This is not pretty. It’s the first ever loss of… → Read More
I’ll be honest. I’ve never met anyone in real life who subscribes to DISH Network, but I’m fairly convinced that the company does exist and probably turns a profit. If you happen to be a DISH subscriber and you have one of the HD packages, then you, my friend, are in for what appears to be some sort of treat. Tomorrow, DISH will start rolling out a big, fat update to all of its MPEG-4 HD DVR… → Read More
Oh hey there, this should be interesting. Remember the Roku Netflix set-top box that came out a little while ago? Well Roku has just released the code under the GPL, which got the MythTV community buzzing about getting its popular open source media center software onto the Roku box. If you think about it, the $99 box would be a nice little option for running MythTV, as there’s HDMI output… → Read More
Oh me, oh my! The most vulnerable segment of our population, the old and useless, don’t seem to know much about the upcoming transition to digital TV. Some simply don’t know what’s going on—chalk that up to the horrendous ad campaign the government has run so far—while others, like 69-year-old ray of sunshine Bertha Graham, refuse to acknowledge the transition on… → Read More
Remember Akimbo? It’s gone now. The company launched an internet-connected hardware box for your TV a few years ago and charged about $10 a month for a handful of channels, some mainstream. After a while, Akimbo abandoned the hardware aspect and made itself into a software service that you could use with, say, Windows Media Center. I tried it for a very brief period of time and found the… → Read More
The New York Times has a piece on the impact that digital video recording, on-demand offerings, and web video services have had on advertising budgets for prime time television slots. Apparently if people aren’t actually watching TV during prime time, it makes advertising “trickier to measure and pitch to marketers,” resulting in less ad revenue, giving the networks “no… → Read More
AT&T will begin selling two handsets on Sunday, May 4th to complement its “AT&T Mobile TV with FLO” service. FLO TV, in and of itself, is not exclusive to AT&T, as it’s been available to Verizon Wireless customers since January 2007 as part of the VCast Mobile TV feature. At any rate, AT&T will soon be offering the service on the LG Vu ($299) and the Samsung… → Read More
The Archos TV+ is a set-top media extender plus (get it?) a whole lot more. And in true Archos fashion, this device demands a lot from its users. I mean that in a positive way, though, believe it or not. Archos users make up a proud community of tech-savvy enthusiasts hell-bent on getting the most out of their gadgets. I should know, I’ve been an owner of the Gmini 200, the Gmini 400, and… → Read More
Lost, blah blah Ben blah blah smoke monster blah. Blah blah Whitmore blah blah (“NOT PENNY’S BOAT!” said the hobbit) blah blah! Cash also says it is absolutely possible that a plane’s black box would still be in working condition after four months on the ocean floor. The current record goes to a recorder that, after nine years at the bottom of the Mediterranean, was perfectly… → Read More
In the coming months, DirecTV subscribers will finally have access to on-demand content. Popular movies will automatically get pushed to set-top DVR boxes via satellite and everything else will be downloaded as it’s requested using the boxes’ built-in Ethernet ports. It’s not a perfect solution, as automatically pushed content can take up precious hard drive space that’d… → Read More
Hulu, which has been throwing me the above 500 error all morning as I try to log in with my beta credentials, will be open to the public tomorrow. It’s tallied up about five million viewers in the past month, which is impressive for a site that hasn’t been open to just anyone yet. It’s got a pretty broad swatch of content partners, too, including Fox, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony… → Read More
Wow. Apparently Seth MacFarlane and company are working on a spin-off from Family Guy tentatively titled Cleveland, starring the slow-talking walking stereotype Cleveland Brown. It’s unclear whether the series would be set in Quahog and/or if Loretta, Cleveland, and Cleveland Jr. would continue to show up on Family Guy as part of the storyline. I’d hope they’d still be part of… → Read More
When the TiVo HD box was announced, there was a pretty substantial price gap between it ($299) and the original Series3 box ($799) but the differences between the two didn’t seem enough to justify the purchase of the more expensive unit. After a $200 holiday rebate on the original Series3, TiVo has just about run out of stock and will not be replenishing its supply. → Read More
This video clip needs very little introduction, as it’s pretty much exactly how it sounds. Might not be safe for work, so proceed at your own risk. Star Trek Orgasms [Double Viking] → Read More
http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Here’s a quick first look at the Comcast + TiVo interface that’s recently become available in the Boston area. Pros: Way better than the alternative Comcast DVR interface from 1982, it’s TiVo, dual tuner + HD for about what you’d pay per month for TiVo except you don’t have to shell… → Read More
Comcast is busy installing TiVo-equipped boxes here in the Boston area today. I’ve been waiting patiently since 11:30. It’s now a little after 1:30 and this screen’s been up for the past hour with no end in sight. Come on, TiVo! You can do it, buddy! → Read More
[photopress:upsideholly.jpg,full,center] Thanks to striking writers, who are striking thanks to your changing media/entertainment consumption habits, NBC says this is a great time to completely re-think the way television is produced. No more pilot seasons, no more song-and-dance to prospective advertisers, no more glut. No more Hollywood excess, in other words. Pat yourselves on the back, writers… → Read More
After somehow destroying my 20-inch LCD TV in a cross-country move, I needed to face down the task of replacing it. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money and I didn’t need a huge TV but I did want something a little bigger than 20 inches. This TV has been a great replacement. There’s a built-in HD tuner, two HDMI connections, two component inputs, two composite inputs, VGA… → Read More
Who doesn’t like a little TV in the tub? I mean these days, being without TV for more than five minutes is considered a sign of weakness, am I right? Well show all those mouth-breathing idiots in your life that you expect to be taken seriously with this $340 waterproof bathtub television. It’s got a 3-hour battery life, so you can hide in the tub for a long time when you have company… → Read More
Your TiVo box added a wee bit o’ usefulness today with the inclusion of Photobucket and Picasa compatibility. You can view your own photos, other people’s photos that you’ve been given the ability to access, and you can also customize photo feeds and view photos that have been tagged with specific keywords. Anyone try this out yet? I’m gonna fire my TiVo up this afternoon… → Read More
Realizing that putting past episodes of TV shows online may actually increase television viewership, MTV Networks has decided to "make every clip from every episode" of South Park available online. I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t just say "every episode" but I hope that’s what they mean. Anyway, it’s thought that other programs from MTV… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
