Plus other bizarre news in this week's Weird Tech
Commuters in New York's Grand Central Station received a shock yesterday when they were greeted by a 26-foot tall Christmas tree… made of 43 Aquos LCD televisions.
Surprised passengers stood back and admired the unusual decoration, which has been donated by Sharp.
Funai has been in the news a lot lately with taking over Philips home theater biz and developing new LCD technology, but the companies recent lawsuit is extremely notable. Apparently the company just won its lawsuit that claims 14 companies are infringing on a Funai patent. The court has yet to decide wether these TVs all going to be banned from entering the U.S. of A.
Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, the American DVD rental company, has given a vote of confidence to web TV.
Speaking at New TeeVee Live in San Francisco, he explained how in an ideal world all TVs should have internet browsers to watch internet television. The problem is, the technology is not quite there yet.
"In terms of what you want to watch, we may be 15 per cent of the way there, but this will grow with time," explained Hastings.
"When you want to watch is covered 100 per cent, but when it comes to where you want to watch we're still limited to the laptop."
Hosting the Maker Workshop segment of the upcoming Make: television show has been a quick education on how TV is made.
The show is done as a two-camera shoot. This means there are two cameramen, one covering me and another covering the project. It's a great way to shoot, because it allows the editor to cut between the guy talking and the thing he's talking about. (Synchronized time-code between the cameras keeps audio and action all in sync. )
It's kind of difficult to talk to one camera and hold the thing you're talking about toward another. Try it sometime.
You know those sweepstakes that go on in malls and on oceanside boardwalks? Organizers might ask you to offer up $50 for a single ticket with a chance to win a car when the final lottery drawing is made. Purchance is kind of same idea.
We’ve received a couple of anonymous tips that DirectTV, a $24 billion satellite TV provider, may be entering the online TV wars with a new site called DirectTV Web On Demand. The site would compete with startups like Hulu, Joost, Fancast, Sling.com, etc.
We don’t know much about the service, or even if it’s real. One of the tipsters says they’ve worked on the project and supplied us with the mockup screen shot above, which could quite possibly be real. On the other hand, we’ve spoken with industry insiders and they say they’ve heard nothing about the project.
A number of recent patent filings from Google were published at the USTPO, and may provide some insights into Google’s advertising models for Television, Radio, and Podcasts.
I’ve linked to the patent filings below, and included the abstracts from those rather than an analysis of the filings. Most of those abstracts are pretty good summaries.
Here's a classic dilemma: You are home for the evening. You wish to watch, say, a comedy, on TV, but your family member would rather watch something else.
Texas Instruments, the maker of the DLP Cinema chip, is developing technology that might reduce the common problem by allowing two people to simultaneously view two different programs -- on the same TV.
The company outlined some of its early developments that use 3-D technology for home entertainment, on Thursday at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Technical Conference and Exhibition in Hollywood.
It’s not easy watching television when you’re on the go. You can’t exactly take the TV with you, nor a DVR. There are many solutions for this conundrum, of course. One of the most impressive ones is the ARCHOS 5. ARCHOS introduces a new concept: the Internet Media Tablet.
The ARCHOS 5 is the flagship of the new range, bringing the customer a new way to enjoy Internet, Media and TV…in a handheld device.
