LATEST ADDITIONS

Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 06, 2014
For a long, long time, we controlled things with buttons. Buttons are nice because they give us tactile feedback. But buttons are bulky and touchscreens have made them seem even clunkier. Now there is a movement underfoot to modernize the hardware button paradigm. The effort is often called the Neo-Sensory Age. Novasentis is a key player in that movement. Their press conference revealed their plans to bring back the button.

Al Griffin  |  Jan 06, 2014
Sharp has big plans in the works for HDTV and UHDTV. According to the company’s presentation at CES, they’ve placed more 60-inch-plus HDTVs in homes over the last 3 years than any other maker. And they plan to keep the emphasis on big going forward in their 2014 Ultra HDTV and HDTV models, along with a new product category that the company calls Quattron+ (more on that in a bit).
John Sciacca  |  Jan 06, 2014
For some, video’s Holy Grail has become the quest for glasses-free, 3D TV. IZON held a press event to put on a technical preview of their take on this technology. Along with a 3D Blu-ray player, IZON used a 20-inch monitor with their technology built-in and showed Man of Steel, the latest Superman movie, in 3D. Nary a pair of glasses was in sight.

Rob Sabin  |  Jan 06, 2014
In the aftermath of the late 2013 news that it was abandoning the plasma TV market, Panasonic came to the 2014 CES armed with a new line-up of advanced 4K-resolution, LED-backit HDTVs—though no OLED models were annonced.

According to Julie Bauer, president of the Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company, the new high end 4K HDTVs will fill the hole in image quality that many enthusiasts believe will be left by the disappearance of the firm’s plasmas.

John Sciacca  |  Jan 06, 2014
Dish President and CEO, Joe Clayton, kicked off the company’s press event by welcoming the crowds to “part three of DISH’s transformation.”

Building on the success of its Hopper and Joey multi-room DVR system, DISH announced several significant upgrades to the system today. Where the previous Hopper system was capable of recording three programs at once – or up to six when using the PrimeTime Anytime feature – the new SuperJoey will record a breakthrough eight shows at once! (Any four shows plus the four major broadcast networks when using PrimeTime Anytime, or the five network tuners recording/watching any five shows from any network.)

Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 06, 2014
LG isn’t just talking HDTV picture quality this year. Like other manufacturers, it’s now it’s into everything but the kitchen sink—actually they may be into that as well. In any event, if you can plug it in or it runs on batteries, LG probably makes it.

Even in TV, various forms of Smart TV and how they can light up your life are front and center this year with every TV maker. But quality HDTV and Ultra HD are my beats today and I’m sticking to them.

Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 06, 2014
My brain was still pondering whether I'd like to text my fridge about the availability of beer when LG showed a handful of audio-for-video products. Of the most interest was the LAB540W SoundPlate. As you can see, it's less than 40mm thick and designed to serve as both base and sound reinforcement for 32- to 55-inch TVs. It includes 320 watts spread over 4.1 channels, Smart TV functionality, built-in Blu-ray player, and speaks both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Also shown were two soundbars, NB5540 and NB3740, the first of which is similarly equipped in channels and power. And there were the NP8740 and NP8540 multi-room speaker systems, which operate by 2.4GHz mesh networking and speak both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Shipping and pricing was not mentioned at the event or on the web press release. One more interesting tidbit: Harman Kardon helped tune up the audio on LG's 4K 2014 TV line.
SV Staff  |  Jan 03, 2014
The world’s largest showcase of consumer technology is upon us. The 2014 International CES opens in Las Vegas on Tuesday, January 7 and runs through Friday, January 10 but our pre-show coverage kicks off on Monday with the latest news from LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and a number of other companies making announcements on the eve of the show.
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jan 03, 2014
You’re going to find this hard to believe, but even I make mistakes. I cover this stuff for a living, and in my personal tech life I screwed up some things in 2013.

I’d like to think I can learn from my mistakes, and like any “teaching moment,” I figured I’d share a few of these semi-painful revelations in the hopes you won’t suffer the same fates.

Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 03, 2014
For some, tower speakers are an article of faith. Many audiophiles wouldn't consider going without them—either folded into a 5.1+ system or as a standalone two-channel system. For some of those listeners, owning a pair of towers is the right decision, and I wouldn't be foolhardy enough to try talking them out of it. But for others, floorstanding speakers are just one option among many, and not necessarily the best one. In some primary systems, smaller-scale monitors or satellites would be more appropriate; for some secondary systems, soundbars or standalone audio products make more sense. As I discussed in a previous blog, choice of speaker size depends on both needs and personalities.

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