Other Tech

A lot of the Seinfeld props were recently donated to the Smithsonian. Was Kramer's Merv Griffin set included?You know what went that was mine? The puffy shirt - that's it. But I would have gladly given them my shoes.

Surfing the Web on a TV has never had much appeal for anyone who's comfortable with a computer. Even mighty Microsoft did little to increase the set-top browser market after it purchased WebTV and renamed it MSN TV. Now the company, through hardware partner RCA (Thomson), is trying again with the introduction of the MSN TV 2 Internet and Media Player.

For years, "whole-house" music meant either a pair of speakers in the living room blaring loud enough to be heard everywhere or bad-sounding radio playing through intercom panels. Most people confined their listening to a single room and used table radios and portable music systems in other rooms.

After traipsing dozens of miles through aisles as crowded as a big city subway train in rush hour, I have seen thousands of light-emitting diodes, if not hundreds of thousands. I have seen every video display technology and their variations known to civilization. I have heard nearly every reproducible sound audible to the human ear.

Sadly, many people have a love-hate relationship with their remote controls. On the one hand, the thought of actually getting up to change channels or adjust the volume is unthinkable.

The popularity of flat-panel TVs with LCD (liquid-crystal display) screens was very much in evidence at CES 2005. From well-established names like Sharp and Toshiba to relative newcomers in the U.S. market like BenQ and Moxell, a good number of manufacturers displayed LCD models ranging from 15 to 55 inches.

The first public day of the 2005 International Consumer Electronics Show reached new heights with announcements from Echostar's Dish Network and DirecTV. These satellite-TV providers plan to turn the sky over the equator into the equivalent of a freeway in rush hour.