consumer electronics
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Photo sharing on the decline
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007This story came out a while ago. March 30th to be precise. I thought it was a no-brainer, so did not respond right away or feel the need to discuss it.
As more people take digital photos, from cameras and cell phones, the prospect of sharing same becomes more daunting. Complicated. So many solutions, and so [...]
Happier housewives
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007A quick note regarding a forum at TVPredictions.com, on why people love TiVo and hate DirecTV. In which, a delightful guy named Andy refers to the “Wife Usability Factor” (WUF) of TiVo and explains how his wife, who holds an engineering degree, had difficulty with previous set-ups that were more complex.
Brains are not the issue [...]
Classical ipod wanted
Monday, March 19th, 2007It’s not that I always want to listen to classical music. Far from it. But I do, often enough, that I have noticed what a hostile environment my iPod provides for symphonies or opera.
For starters, you wouldn’t want to use the random shuffle play. Skipping from the first movement of the Brahms violin concerto to [...]
Beating up on the little guy
Friday, March 16th, 2007I really enjoy it when companies take risks and try something new. Because it means somebody is trying. Which also means that maybe they care.
Perhaps I read too much into things. But it’s a pleasure to even see a photo of the little FlipStart personal computer introduced by Vulcan, Paul Allen’s venture.
Walter Mossberg is probably [...]
Blu-ray rocks
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007Blu-Ray, my HD format of choice for DVD, has outsold HD-DVD two months running, so I am jumping up and down a little (on the inside; it’s hard to type if you are actually jumping up and down).
I also wish HD-DVD well, of course.
The fact that there are two formats at all, and that they [...]
Bathroom electronics
Saturday, March 10th, 2007No, I haven’t seen any articles on this topic recently. But that is the point! The market for bathroom electronics has been largely left to the two extremes: cheap, waterproof things that hang in your shower, or much more costly, custom install jobs like putting a flat screen and DVD player right into your tub.
I’d [...]
Refrigerator screen please
Saturday, March 10th, 2007Heard from a customer the other day. (Disclosure: the “customer” is my dad.) He was in Best Buy admiring the LG refrigerator with a TV screen, except he thought the screen was too low for comfortable viewing in his kitchen. (Disclosure: it’s my mom’s kitchen, but he eats there frequently.)
So here was his question: can [...]
Countdown to digital tv
Friday, March 9th, 2007The website for the DTV transition coalition offers a running count in the first paragraph of the home page. Which is fun! Because the only thing moving on that page is the second-to-second countdown. (It might be lost if there were moving ads or images on the page.) As of today, we have 711 days [...]
Digital memories preserved
Friday, March 9th, 2007Yesterday, David Pogue of the Times offered a review of Sony’s DVDirect VRD-MC3. He likes it. And I was reading the review, remembering that I enjoy playing with these products more than reading about them. Perhaps for the same reason that I enjoy drinking wine more than reading about how it might feel to drink [...]
Where are the white gloves?
Thursday, March 8th, 2007Along the general recurring theme of HD here, I checked into Amazon and looked at their 1080p page. That’s the page where the newest 1080p display HDTVs are featured. And at the top of it, they tell us that “White Glove Delivery” is available for all of these products.
Here’s what happens: the delivery folks come [...]