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Toshiba is taking their Smart TV streaming capabilities a step further, announcing that their new TVs will have the Toshiba "Cloud TV." A list of features includes a Toshiba server based system for ongoing upgradability.

The Smart TV ePortal hub has a redesigned multi-page ePortal for "ease of use." The ePortal not only displays streaming media apps, it now includes a constantly updating news feed, weather, personal messaging and a family calendar. There is also a new MediaGuide with recommendations of TV shows and movies that you might like to watch.

All Toshiba Cloud TVs work with their wireless keyboard with touchpad accessory that is included with the L7300 TV models and above.

To make it easier to stream media from other devices, the Cloud TVs feature "Miracast" to mirror Android tablets and phones to the TV and are WiDi enabled to use the TV as a second display for your laptop.

The Cloud TV was announced at a mixer Sunday night where Toshiba demonstrated the features of its new TV line. While I'm not a fan of playing games on a TV, a poker game they demonstrated looked fun. Each player connects using the KontrolTV app on their device or on the Toshiba TV and can see their poker hand. Rather than challenging one other player, a group of friends or family can play.

Samsung helped usher in a new era of television on the eve of CES 2013 with the announcement of two next-generation TVs: the super-sleek 85-inch S9 Ultra High Definition (UHD) TV, boasting four times the resolution of today’s 1080p sets, and the 55-inch F9500 OLED TV with a Multi-View feature that enables two people to watch different programs simultaneously from the same screen. Pricing and availability was not announced for either model.

The S9 (shown) boasts a striking design with a screen that appears to float within a frame. Highlights include “extremely high contrast ratio,” a proprietary upscaling engine that converts high-def images to UHD quality, and a 1.35 GHz quad-core processor that’s more than three times faster than last year’s processor for improved content/app multitasking. The set has enhanced voice and gesture control and uses a new version of Samsung’s Smart Hub interface with five content discovery panels that appear onscreen as thumbnail images.

At the heart of the F9500 OLED TV are self-emitting red, green and blue sub-pixels that eliminate the need for backlighting, which is said to ensure absolute blacks and pure whites with no motion blur. The Multi-View feature is enabled by special 3D glasses with built-in speakers that deliver a personalized audio experience. The set also uses a quad-core processor and the updated Smart Hub interface.

Call it a wireless musical gulleywasher. NuVo’s (accurately but very dryly named “Wireless Audio System”) uses both dual-band Wi-Fi and MIMO technologies to transmit up to 16 simultaneous audio streams at 600 kbps each, a feat that NuVo claims is the highest throughput of any Wi-Fi music network system. The system connects to home networks to play iTunes and Windows Media libraries and to the internet to access streaming services (Pandora, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, etc.) The system consists of three primary components, including two music player devices with built-in stereo amplifiers (P200, 60-watts x 2; and P100, 20-watts x2) and a network gateway (GW100). The P200 includes built-in aptX Bluetooth technology for wireless music streaming from tablets and smartphones. Each GW100 gateway has a range of about 300 ft (enough to cover an “average” 4,000 sq ft home), and multiple GW100s can be used in combination for larger homes. Prices are: P200, $599; P100, $479; GW100, $199. And, unlike when I first saw (and really liked) the system at CEDIA last year, NuVo says the Wireless Audio System is shipping now.

Just when you thought eating utensils couldn’t get any better than the plastic spork, HAPILABS develops the HAPIfork – “an electronic fork that monitors your eating habits…and alerts you with the help of indicator lights and gentle vibrations when you are eating too fast.” In addition to larding it over the knife and spoon, the HAPIfork also connects to your iOS/Android/Windows device and keeps track of your eating performance, or you can use an online dashboard at HAPILABS website. (Now that I think of it, it could also be used to aid in training aspiring eating contest champions…) The HAPIfork has a unique HAPIbutton that lets you track HAPImoments by pressing and holding in the HAPIbutton from 1 (“meh”) to 10 (“orgasmic”) seconds. No doubt the next HAPIgadget to appear will be a HAPIremote that will warn you when you’ve been sitting on your butt for too long in front of the TV. It should also track how often you change the channel. And how often your family fights over who gets to hold the remote control.