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CES 2014
What a Crock of Bluetooth!
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 08, 2014
Proclaiming that “the era of smartcookers” has arrived, Instant Pot displayed its new “iPot” – a programmable electric pressure cooker that the company calls “the Industry-First Bluetooth Smart Connected Smartcooker”, which is shown to the right in the photo above. (iPot is a much better - but easily misinterpreted – name for the kitchen appliance.) According to Instant Pot, rather than being a gimmick, Bluetooth was added because the product designers had run out of space on the smartcooker’s control panel to support all the programming features that have been requested by users of the other Instant Pot models. Instant Pot says, “Once the limiting factor of a control panel is removed, the “iPot” app can implement complex cooking functions, expand and upgrade those functions at will. This offers unparalleled simplicity, a huge variety of functions and most importantly a consistent result.” The iPot is expected to be available for sale in the US sometime in the second quarter of 2014. Pricing info was not released. Belkin is also joining the smartcooker revolution. The company announced it has partnered with Jarden Corporation, the maker of Crock-Pot and Mr. Coffee to incorporate Belkin’s WeMo technology into everyday kitchen appliances, such as the WeMo-enabled Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker shown on the left in the photo above, which is to released in the spring of 2014. The MSRP will be $99.99.
CES 2014
Tablo Gives Cord Cutters Reason to Rejoice!
John Sciacca  |  Jan 07, 2014  |  First Published: Jan 08, 2014
If you’re tired of paying the Man – ie: the exorbitant rates demanded by the cable or satellite provider – for your TV content, but have held off on cutting the cord because you can’t stand the thought of parting with your program guide or DVR and the sweet, sweet awesomeness which is time-shift viewing, then Tablo might be the solution you’ve been looking for!

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CES 2014
Klipsch Community Service
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 07, 2014
Ain't it the truth!
CES 2014
Vizio Zones Out
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 07, 2014
For 2014 Vizio announced three new lines of HDTVs in a bewildering range of sizes. The big news is that all of the new sets, including the cheapest 23-incher in the budget E-Series, will have full array LED backlighting with local dimming. The only compromise is in the number of LED zones behind the screen. The E-Series will have 16—not a lot, but at least potentially better than the edge lighting used in most other sets at equivalent or higher prices). The more upscale M-Series (shown in the photo) will have 32 zones.

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CES 2014
Vizio Goes All Out for Ultra HD
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 07, 2014
Vizio also announced five new Ultra HD sets in its P-Series. These UHD designs will have 64 zones of local dimming and will be available in 5-inch increments from 50-inches ($999!) to 70-inches ($2600). They will, of course, have all of Vizio’s smart TV features.
CES 2014
Welcome to the Hi-Res Music World, Part Two: Music Creators
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 07, 2014  |  First Published: Jan 08, 2014
The second installment of the hi-res music panels focused on content creation. Clearly, garbage-in, garbage-out. For great-sounding music in our homes, we must rely on engineers and producers to create it in the studio. Complicating that picture is the fact that artists and labels must also agree that sound quality is an important part of the job at hand. The panel tackled those and many other hi-res issues.

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CES 2014
Welcome to the Hi-Res Music World, Part One: Record Labels
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 07, 2014  |  First Published: Jan 08, 2014
The International CES is where new technologies are launched. Experts discuss what the market potential is, what consumers in that market really want, and how companies can deliver it. To that end, a show-within-the-show was created for hi-res music and the emerging market for high-fidelity recordings. Three panels are being presented, each with industry leaders with their pulse on hi-res music. The first panel discussed opportunities and challenges associated with the licensing and distribution of hi-res music recordings. Two subsequent panels will discuss ways to create and archive hi-res content, as well as ways to market hi-res titles.

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CES 2014
Vizio Reference Series Features Dolby HDR Technology
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 07, 2014
Topping off Vizio’s 2014 offerings will be the company’s new Ultra HD Reference Series. The big news here is the inclusion of Dolby’s new High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology. The Reference Series panels are capable of 800 nits of peak lunimance (just under 234 foot-lamberts).
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CES 2014
Dolby Refines Glasses-Free 3D
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 07, 2014
The Holy Grail of 3D has long been 3D without glasses—technically known as autostereoscopic 3D. But past CES demos of this technology have been notable duds.

The only way to do 3D without glasses is to process the image so that the images to each eye are isolated. But this has a side effect. You can see the 3D when viewed straight on. Move off center by a few degrees and the 3D disappears, taking some image quality with it. Move a bit further off-axis and the 3D returns. And so on—and off. The result is you get 3D only in a limited range of viewing zones, and poor image quality in others.

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CES 2014
Sony Tells Tale of Two Amps
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 07, 2014
Two Sony events two days in a row told two radically different stories about what you might want in an amplifier. In Monday's press-day event, news of the STR-DN1050 surround receiver arrived in a single run-on sentence that also referred to several other products. Wish we knew more; ship date and price were unavailable. But Sony has been on a roll with its receivers and we hope to get this one in for review ASAP. Afterward we jumped onto the stage and disrupted someone's video shot just long enough to grab a pic. In a special event Tuesday, reporters were treated to the extraordinary story of how amplifier genius Nelson Pass resurrected the VFET, a nearly forgotten 40-year-old Sony technology, and built a couple dozen pairs of them into a 250-watt mono-block design which he promptly turned over to Sony as an apparent gesture of audiophile love and respect, probably mixed with a healthy practicality. Again, marketing details were scanty, but that does not diminish the story's cool factor. As a kicker, we were also told that our long-awaited sample of the HAP-S1 high-resolution DAC-amp will soon arrive. It's been an eventful couple of days!

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