Darryl Wilkinson

With the ever-loving number of products that are introduced at CES each year, it never takes long before you come across a gadget that causes your brain to stop functioning for a second under the heavy processing load of trying to figure out just why in the hell something like that would ever have reason to exist. Jooki, “an award-winning, figurine-controlled wifi speaker that develops children’s independence and imagination, away from screens” fell into that category when I read the initial press release. In fact, I had absolutely no intention of even taking a cursory look at something that seemed so stupid and had such a silly name. But Jooki was at an event featuring a number of startup companies with “smart” or “connected” products, and—out of the sheer goodness of my heart—I sat through what I thought would be a quick (but painfully dull) demo. It turns out that Jooki wasn’t quite what I thought it was.

The problem is that Jooki is hard to explain in a way that does it the justice it deserves. Seeing it in action, on the other hand...

PRICE $3,995

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Internal storage for up to 100 BDs, 600 DVDs, or 6,000 CDs
Bit-for-bit downloads of BDs and DVDs from Kaleidescape Store
System interface and operation unmatched by any other movie server
Minus
BD must be inserted to authorize playback, even if movie has been imported
Limited options for adding zones and storage

THE VERDICT
The Cinema One provides almost everything you’d want in a movie server. “Almost” not good enough? Pair it with the DV700 Disc Vault.

Sometimes I’d rather take a jackhammer to my brainstem than dig through piles of disc cases and endure the mind-numbing delays of spinning icons, non-skippable trailers, loading menus, FBI warnings, and whatever else stands in the way of watching a movie at home.

If it seems like I’m exaggerating, it’s only because you haven’t experienced the tidal wave of dopamine that comes with using a movie server in your home theater. For the uninitiated, a movie server is an A/V component that provides near-instant access to movies stored digitally on an internal or external hard drive (or drives). Some servers, such as Kaleidescape’s new Cinema One, include a built-in Blu-ray/DVD player that makes it easy to import movies or music.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Or so goes the old saying. BloomSky, “the world's first crowd connected module”, won’t change the weather. BloomSky says its aggregated crowd-sourced community weather data will “disrupt the way people see, think and interact with the weather.” A spherical device about the size of a softball, BloomSky is a...

I’ve heard about Dolby Volume technology, but I hadn’t heard an actual demonstration until today. Dolby’s Craig Eggers gave a short but very effective demo of the technology using a prototype Onkyo receiver with the appropriate Dolby circuitry built-in. Onkyo’s not ready to bring a unit to market yet, but it’s obviously coming (from somebody, if not Onkyo). Dolby Volume helps keep all the sources and programming you listen to at the reference level you choose. It can also keep dynamic peaks (explosions and the like) within a more moderate range when it’s engaged.