Developages - Development and Technology Blog

I have a Philips AmbiLight TV and while I love the inner glow I get from the glowing lights around the telly, I am continually frustrated by the positioning of the HDMI ports. Being underneath, they make sense only if you are wall-mounting but will freak you out if your TV - like most flat HDTVs - is sitting on a TV cabinet or table. Combine that with corner positioning and the theoretically simple job of swapping out HDMI devices becomes a task for a heavily-muscled contortionist. Cable and add-on specialist IXOS has an answer: the odd little Studio HDMI 90 degree Adapter. As you can see from the shot, it’s a simple little L-shaped HDMI affair that fits into an awkwardly placed HDMI slot to make it easier - and safer for your connectors - to plug things in and out of. And it works a treat.It’s also perfect for those side-mounted HDMI ports that leave you with an unsightly cable sticking out the side like a sore thumb. Using this, I was able to overcome the tricky underneath ports as well as being able to route the cable from the side down along the side of the TV. The adapter comes in two varieties: the Studio XS118 adapter-only and the XS218 which also sports iVEC Technology, for boosting the HDMI signal and which lets you use longer HDMI cables, up to 4m. The XS118 and XS218 cost £15 and £30, respectively - a cheap way of sorting out those niggling TV cabling snafus without putting your back out.-Martin Lynch [IXOS] news TV HDTV

Original post by nafiz

Panasonic likes rolling out jaw-droppingly big tellies. Usually of the type that we can’t afford but, nonetheless impressive to stand in front of at shows, drooling. This time out, the company is prepping a new 103in Plasma TV, the TH-103PZ800, for the IFA Show 2008, which kicks off on Friday. This is a third generation 103-incher and while the specs are impressive, it’s most notable because it’s around £10,000 cheaper than its predecessor launched in February.OK, at around £25,000, it’s still not cheap but at this rate, I’ll be able to afford one in around 5-7 years. Alright I’m joking since I think HD projectors are the only way to go for the really big picture without going bankrupt. This is a Full HD telly, with Deep Colour and x.v. Colour support, a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, 4 HDMI slots, Ethernet, SD Card slot and VIERA Link tech for hooking up simply to other Panasonic kit. Just make sure your wall can take this baby since it weighs in at 756 pounds. Oh, and there’s no speakers. Go figure.-Martin Lynch [Akihabaranews] news TV HDTV

Original post by nafiz

The Hoff (David Hasselhoff), king of chest hair and Germany, has decided that it’s high time the world of social networking made room for the man who made talking cars cool and brought a scantily clad Pamela Andersen into our daytime TV homes. As a result, he has just launched HoffSpace, a new social networking site that’s, well, not there for you, but for him. I apologise for the photo above, just be glad I cropped it where I did. This is what the great man had to say: “In my travels round the world I have always been surprised that no matter where I go people recognize and know me, from Europe, Australia and India to the Philippines and the Zulu Nation in South Africa. This got me thinking… I realized that while two people from two entirely different countries and backgrounds may seem to have nothing in common, the only thing they might have in common is me. So I decided to start a network where people from across the world might come together and get a conversation started over me. So here is HoffSpace. There are videos and photos of the adventures of my life (THAT NO ONE ELSE GETS TO SEE) and also from the lives of other members.” The Zulu Nation? Having seen a few unauthorised videos of David in action, we’re intrigued. As for Facebook and MySpace? You may as well pack up and go home now.-Martin Lynch [HoffSpace]

Original post by nafiz

thesandbender writes “I don’t watch TV but keep an HTPC for watching movies. One of my relatives is very ill and I’ll have a lot of family rotating through my apartment and I’d like to have a few more options for entertainment. I’m running Vista MCE and bought a Hauppauge HVR-1800 with a DB8 HDTV antenna and I’ve used AntennaWeb to point the DB8 in the best direction. The results have been terrible and I’m looking for recommendations / suggestions for hardware and setup. I am on the first floor of a three-story apartment building and I can’t mount any external antennas (I know this is a major issue). Thankfully almost all the transmitters are located in the same place so a good, compact directional antenna might be effective. And please… no platform bashing. They all have their issues (I have a lot of h.264 encoded files… hardware/GPU acceleration on Linux is very, very limited at the moment).”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by kdawson

TV shipments for North America hit record growth levels in the second quarter, despite a weaker U.S. economy.

According to research firm DisplaySearch, TV shipments rose 28% compared to the same quarter last year to more than 9.3 million units, marking the strongest quarterly results since the research firm began tracking TV shipments in 2004.  

(No money to go out, so let’s spend more time on the couch …)

Samsung was the leading brand for the quarter, with a record share of approximately 19% of all TV unit shipments in North America, and Sony took the No. 2 spot. Vizio also saw strong gains in PDP market share, ranking it the No. 3 supplier in total TV shipments.

LCD and plasma TV technologies both had strong sequential gains over the first quarter this year of 30% and 35%, respectively, with PDP growth influenced by strong initial shipments of Vizio’s 32-inch HD PDPs and LCD growth also very strong at 32 inches (that’s one of them above).

LCD TV shipments rose a stronger-than-expected 52% over the second quarter last year, to nearly 7.5 million units. Much of the growth came from small- to midrange screen sizes, such as 19-inch, 22-inch and 32-inch models, where price points are lower and easier on family budgets. 

Get more at TWICE.

Tags: displaysearch, lcd, plasma tv, samsung, sony, TV, twice

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Original post by nafiz

It’s big telly time with Sony launching a new flagship series, the Bravia X4500 family, in 40in, 46in and 55in sizes. The TVs [above] are Full HD 1080p models and boast some new styling, with a ‘floating’ design and translucent frame. And let’s not forget the sterling silver speaker covers. How posh. Optional speaker covers come in ‘Ruby Red or Obsidian Black’ and there’s 4 HDMI slots as standard. On the performance front the TVs use the new Bravia Engine 2 Pro processing technology which claims to “filter, clean and optimise image data before it’s displayed.” These are also the first Bravia TVs that can connect with other consumer devices using DLNA technology for sharing content like music and photos. The TVs will upscale non-HD images, like DVDs, using DRC (Digital Reality Creation) 3.0 while the 46in and 55in models use something called Motionflow PRO 100Hz technology that creates extra frames, inserting them into the signal and doubling the displayed frame rate. In other words, the promise is smoother playback of sports and action movies. The company has also launched the less expensive W4500 series, also 1080p and available in 40in, 46in and 52in varieties. The design boasts a long horizontal gap under the screen for that contemporary twist. It uses the Bravia Engine 2 [not the Pro version like the X4500 series] and also supports DLNA technology. They will be cheaper than the X4500s but since we have no prices for either yet, we can’t tell you what the difference to your wallet will be. They are due out next month. TV HDTV HD sony

Original post by nafiz

The fifth annual report on the state of communication in the UK by regulator Ofcom highlights how we are all talking/emailing/IM’ing and texting more than ever and, it’s costing less too. The whopping 365-page report shows that in 2007, we spent an average of 7 hours and 9 minutes using communication services - from phones to TVs and radios. Oddly though, this is only up 6 minutes on 2002 but, the greatest increases were seen in mobile and Internet. Between 2002 and 2007 the time spent talking and texting on our mobiles doubled, up from 5 minutes to 10 minutes each day. Time spent on PCs and lap-tops quadrupled in the same period, from 6 minutes to 24 minutes per person every day. Ofcom found that we are also getting more for our pound - albeit marginally - with the average household spend on comms services at £93.63 a month in 2007, a fall of £1.53 on 2006. The reduction is attributed to discounts from bundles, lower prices for broadband and our newfound skills at bargain hunting and swapping from crap suppliers to better ones. Peter Phillips, Partner, Strategy and Market Development, said: “We are spending more and more time with our communications devices but spending less on them. Our devotion to watching, listening and staying in touch wherever and whenever we want shows no sign of diminishing and, with healthy competition, overall prices offer increasing value for money. That is what consumers demand and what Ofcom helps deliver.” My favourite stat is that if every set-top box in the UK is left on standby for one year [more than half of us do] this would use the same amount of power needed to make nearly 80 billion cups of tea. Scroll down to see a breakdown of the main findings in key services markets.-Martin Lynch Converged communications * We are increasingly listening to the radio online. The number of people listening to radio via the internet has increased to 14.5 million by May 2008, up 21 per cent from 12.0 million in November 2007. * Online advertising spend is up by almost 40 per cent year-on-year reaching £2.8 billion in 2007. For the first time, more money was spent on internet advertising than the combined advertising spending on ITV1, Channel 4, S4C and five (£2.4 billion). Paid-for search advertising still dominates the internet market up 39 per cent during 2007 at £1.6 billion. Classified advertising saw the largest increase in 2007 - up 54 per cent to £600 million while display advertising grew by 29 per cent in 2007 accounting for a further £600 million of advertising spend. * The vast majority of people (88 per cent) said that, when they use their DVRs, they use them to fast forward through advertisements. * The number of people using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) fell from 20 per cent in 2006 to 14 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. Television and Radio * By July 2008, nearly 9 out of 10 households had digital television (87.2) compared to 7 out of 10 twelve months ago. * By March of this year, nearly 80 per cent of all TV sets sold in the UK were High-Definition (HD) ready, up from 50 per cent in twelve months. The number of HD subscriptions more than doubled to reach 829,000 over the same period. * People are favouring larger television screens - a fifth of all TV sales were for 33 inch screens and larger. * When asked which media activity would be missed the most, more than half of us (52 per cent) said it would be watching TV, up from 44 per cent in 2005. The next highest ‘most-missed’ activity would be using a mobile phone at 13 per cent, up from 10 per cent in 2005. Conversely, the 16-19 age group put their mobiles ahead of the television. Some 42 per cent of these teenagers said they would miss their mobile most. For them, watching TV came next at 20 per cent. * Over half (57 per cent) of viewing in homes with digital television was of the five main Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) channels, down slightly from 58 per cent in 2006. * That was more than offset by the viewing share of the PSBs’ other channels (such as ITV2, BBC Three and E4) which grew from 11 per cent to nearly 14 per cent of all viewing. * By March 2008, 7 million households (27 per cent) had a DAB radio set, up from 17 per cent on last year. Telecoms * By the end of 2007, there were almost 74 million mobile connections serving a population of 60 million in the UK. This was an increase of 3.7 million connections since the end of 2006. The total number of mobile connections increased by 48 per cent in the five years from 2002. * Seven out of ten people with a mobile phone and a landline use their mobile to make calls, even when they are at home. One in ten people with a landline at home said that they never use it to make calls. * We are a nation of texters. In the UK, nearly 60 billion text messages were sent in 2007 - an increase of 36 per cent since 2006 and up by 234 per cent since 2002 when we sent 17 billion texts. The average mobile phone user sent 67 texts per month from each mobile compared to 53 texts per month in 2006. * The majority of children have access to the internet and most have a mobile phone but they use them in different ways. Boys aged 8-11are twice as likely to use the internet every day than girls of the same age (45 per cent compared to 22 per cent). Meanwhile girls aged 12 -15 are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age (74 per cent compared to 65 per cent). * Instant messaging is more popular than email amongst children with 62 per cent of 12-15 year old sending an instant message, compared with 43 per cent of them sending an email. Adults prefer to email - 80 per cent of adults sent an email compared to 34 per cent who used instant messaging. news technology life

Original post by nafiz

We had been told that the cool PlayTV add-on for the PS3 would arrive in September in the UK first and, I’m happy to report, that’s still the plan. This time out we have a UK price: a penny shy of £70. It’s not exactly chump change, nor the kind of typical £30-40 add-on price you may be used to and hoped for, but it’s cheaper than some thought and it will, no doubt, be popular. So what is it? It’s a twin channel TV tuner peripheral with PVR software that lets all you PS3 users to watch, pause and record live TV. Similar to the ‘Series Link’ on Sky+ - and other services - you’ll be able to record entire series simply, at the touch of a button. The extra incentive is the fact that recorded TV can be streamed via Wi-Fi to your PSP via Remote Play and, you’ll even be able to record TV while you are gaming on the console. That said, the PS3’s 40GB hard drive may need swapping out, especially if you plan to record a lot of TV.-Martin Lynch console ps3 TV

Original post by nafiz

I really did like the spectacle of the 29 giant footprints walking through the sky at the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics 2008 games at the weekend. Now, it seems, the footprints had less to do with superbly orchestrated fireworks and more to do with sweaty teams of digital engineers and CGI. Sure the fireworks went off but the film feed that went around the world contained some meticulous CGI, with 28 out of the 29 footprints seen on telly the result of a year’s laborious special effects work. And the reason?It seems the organisers of the games decided that filming each footprint live by helicopter would have proved too difficult and the weather too unpredictable. Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it took a year to create the 55 second sequence, which included the creation of hazy Beijing night smog and a slight camera shake to make it look like it really was being filmed from a chopper. “Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks.But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished.” Digital fakery eh? Next they’ll be telling me that Lord Of The Rings wasn’t real and there’s no such things as Cave Trolls and Tree Ents. As if.-Martin Lynch olympics sport news

Original post by nafiz

The BBC has been busy watching what us millions of iPlayer users are watching on its obscenely popular online catch-up TV service. It’s been watching so closely in fact that it says it has worked out what the typical iPlayer user is like. Read on to find out.* The typical BBC iPlayer user is a man aged about 40, in a full-time job, with a partner but no kids. He uses BBC iPlayer at home over a fast broadband connection, and accesses it on a desktop PC in the evenings - usually on his own, though sometimes his girlfriend watches something with him. * He found it through the BBC homepage, and was prompted to try it for the first time when he missed something specific on TV. He still tends to go there looking for a particular programme, rather than just to browse what’s available. He gets there through the bbc.co.uk homepage. * When he’s found the right programme, he streams it in full-screen mode (he hasn’t connected his PC to a TV set), although sometimes he watches within the webpage when he wants to do something else on his PC at the same time. He has downloaded BBC iPlayer programmes before, but is usually too impatient to wait. He’s never had any problems with his ISP because of BBC iPlayer, though. He’s never used the BBC iPlayer on a portable device, or on Wii. * Sometimes, he won’t bother watching something on linear TV since he knows he can watch it on BBC iPlayer later. He thinks the rules about what’s on BBC iPlayer are fairly clear, but still finds that the programme he wants isn’t there sometimes. He’d love the seven-day limit to be longer. Do you fit the profile?-Martin Lynch [BBC Blog] TV BBC iplayer

Original post by nafiz

Hot on the heels of Sky’s announcement of a high-def feast of Olympics coverage, Freesat has announced that it too will be offering the Beijing extravaganza in pretty HD. The Freesat coverage will be coming via BBC HD, meaning Freesat users, who don’t have to pay a hefty subscription to Sky+ HD, will be sitting pretty with around 300 hours of HD coverage. Emma Scott, MD of Freesat said:”The Olympics is the ultimate global sporting event, and viewers will be astounded by the quality of the BBC’s HD footage; every drop of water falling off the oars of a rower to the sand erupting from the long jump pit will be beautifully clear. At Freesat, we’re committed to bringing brilliant HD programming to as many UK viewers as possible, for free. The scope of BBC’s HD coverage of the Beijing Olympics is testament to the exciting future of HD broadcasting in this country.” Good news all around then. Just get yourself a Freesat HD receiver and you’re off. Roll on Friday.-Martin Lynch news TV sport

Original post by nafiz

With the world’s greatest sporting occasion ready to kick off in a few days, those Sky+ HD customers will be the smuggest gits on the block with mote than 500 hours of Beijing 2008 Olympics being beamed down in HD via BBC HD and Eurosport HD. Around 300 hours will come from various BBC sources while Eurosport HD will be chipping in over 230 hours. According to Sky head of HD, Hilary Perchard: “If you can’t make it to Beijing, Sky+ HD is your next best bet for experiencing the Olympics this year with coverage from both BBC HD and Eurosport HD” In addition, given the time difference and the fact most of us will be asleep or at work, with Sky+ HD you can record your favourite sports to watch later.” The BBC HD Olympics coverage will run from 2am until 6pm each day. You may think that high-def is wasted on close-ups of sweaty people but that hasn’t stopped HD porn. Personally we can’t wait to ogle all the HD exertion of the first HD Olympic games - even if everyone is wearing clothes.-Martin Lynch news TV sport

Original post by nafiz

The fondly remembered actor, James Doohan, or Scotty from Star Trek, was all set to finally reach space this weekend until the rocket his ashes were interred in blew up over the Pacific ocean before reaching the final frontier. The Falcon 1 was built by SpaceX and was also carrying the ashes of 200 other dead space hopefuls, including astronaut Gordan Cooper, and satellites paid for by NASA and the US Department of Defence. The rocket was the third to Space X rocket to fail to reach orbit. Elon Musk, founder of Space X and Paypal, commented: “It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened. The most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that.” Maybe Doohan’s family should have checked SpaceX’s track record before conferring his ashes to the Pacific Ocean. I hope they get a refund.-Martin Lynch news movies star trek

Original post by nafiz

Most of us are fed up with ads and the ad folk know it, which is why they really are stretching their devious little brains to find new ways to intrude on our lives. Frankly, it doesn’t get much more intrusive than armpit advertising, or ‘pitvertising’. Deodorant maker Right Guard, has taken advertising to new - smelly - places by hiring male models in special jackets with LCDs in the armpits to hang out on London’s public transport. That way, while holding the handles while standing on the Tube, commuters get an eyeful of deodorant commercials - direct from the armpit. If you see one of these Pitvertisers, feel free to nick their telly.-Martin Lynch [Textually.org] news advertising fun

Original post by nafiz

Discovery Channel is one of my employers, but they didn’t know that when they asked me to let you know that Shark Week now includes robot sharks. Informed.

Shark Week (dot com)

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Original post by Joel