If you know your history, then you already know that the Canadians and the English can do some good things when they get together. While we were taking care of our business down at Utah and Omaha, the Canadians and the Brits were giving the Germans a pretty good working-over of their own up the beach at Normandy. They even teamed up rather effectively against us during the American Revolution and War of 1812, managing to hang on to Canada despite our various efforts to take it and, in the process, preserving one of England's last real toeholds in the New World.
It's been a long, hard road for TiVo, the company that started the digital video recorder (DVR) revolution. Even though the name has become a household word (as both a noun and a verb), TiVo has struggled to stay afloat since it was founded in 1997. In fact, it has yet to show a profit.
This week at ShoWest 2005 in Las Vegas—the premier gathering for commercial-cinema owners and operators—HD entrepreneur Mark Cuban and partner Todd Wagner announced at they are taking a big step toward the digital future with the purchase of six Sony SRX-R110 digital-cinema projectors for their Landmark Theatres, the nation's largest "art-house" theater chain, currently with 209 screens in 22 markets. The SRX-R110 provides 4K (4096x2160) resolution and 10,000 ANSI lumens of light output using SXRD (Silicon Crystal [X-tal] Reflective Display) technology, Sony's version of LCoS. The projectors will be installed in six Landmark Theatres—two each in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco—with the eventual goal of converting all Landmark locations to 4K SXRD projection.
Spring is traditionally the season when major consumer electronics manufacturers hold their annual line shows, showing new products that will be introduced during the year. With a late winter snowstorm raging in the northeast, Sony held their 2005 get-together in warm, sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 8.
Confession: I don't own an iPod. I don't even really want an iPod. I know they're cool and store gazillions of songs, but somehow I've avoided falling under the spell. The only portable I've ever owned - and loved - was a Sony Walkman. Not being a big fan of "portables," I didn't think I'd ever give my heart to another.
When's the last time you got really excited about listening to the radio? For me it was when I discovered an alternative station called 99X in Atlanta . Now I actually look forward to visiting so I can tune in. During my formative listening years near San Francisco , I enjoyed an abundance of great music on FM.
The Consumer Electronics Show is all about firsts, but some of this year's bordered on the freakish. Samsung unveiled a flat-panel TV with a 102-inch screen - that works out to 31 square feet of plasma real estate. Or how about $75,000 for LG's 71-inch plasma set?
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/headshot150.sw.jpg" WIDTH=150 HEIGHT=200 HSPACE=6 VSPACE=4 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>We live in troubling times. Many people look at our society and see an increasing erosion of morality and civility, which leads them to yearn for the perfect suburbia as depicted in early television sitcoms such as <I>Father Knows Best</I> and <I>Leave It to Beaver</I>.
It's unlikely that you've got hours and hours of HD video sitting on your computer's hard drive - although you might if you're the proud owner of a HDV camcorder (from JVC or Sony) or you've invested in an HD PCTV card for your computer and have been recording over-the-air HDTV broadcasts for the past umpteen months. On the other hand, you're more likely to have a slew of high-res images courtesy of your megapixel digital still camera. However, as my wife is forever explaining to me, having lots of great pictures (and video) stored on your computer is nice; it would be nicer (much nicer), though, if they could actually be viewed by the family in some way that didn't involve jockeying for space and hunching over a small computer screen. As I've discovered over the years, you ignore your significant other at your peril.
