Audio Video News

Recognizing that voice control will play an increasingly larger role in audio/video and smart home technology as we move into the future, Sensory, a Silicon Valley technology company specializing in voice technologies, has announced a collaboration with Philips to create a “best-in-class” suite of speech recognition technologies.

Buried in all the hoopla and exciting digital television news at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month was the answer to many DVD fans' prayers: <A HREF="http://www.philipsusa.com">Philips Electronics</A> announced that it has developed a technology for real-time recording of DVD-Video discs. According to Philips, the recorded discs can be played back on existing DVD-Video players, offering up to four hours of record/playback time at various levels of quality.

Philips Electronics has thrown its weight behind "SmartRight," a digital content copy-protection technology developed by Thomson Multimedia, according to mid-December reports from Paris and Geneva. Originally called XCA, SmartRight is a smart-card&ndash;based technique that could allay Hollywood's fears about offering hit movies over the Internet or via high-definition broadcasts.

Philips will no longer sell television sets in the North American market. Instead it will license its Philips and Magnavox brand names to Funai, which makes TVs for Wal-Mart among others. The license is for five years. Other Philips consumer product businesses in North America will not be affected.

By December of this year, home-theater-in-a-box systems may be able to record television programs, archive digital videotape on recordable DVDs, and perform other technical feats now possible only with megabuck gear.

Philips has been slowly pulling out of the entertainment side of consumer electronics, but they're still a major player in the lighting industry. This year's Times Square Ball is going to be bigger, brighter, and surprisingly greener than...

Funai. Get used to it. Philips had pulled out of the TV-making business in the US and Canada and pulled out Australia and New Zealand monts ago. It still handles design and manufacturing for the European market, its home field. They turned that...