Michael Antonoff

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Other Tech
Escient FireBall SE-80 Digital Music Manager
Michael Antonoff  |  Oct 04, 2005

Even before Apple's iPod changed the way we listen to music on the go, audio hard-disk recorders - also called music servers - were altering how we store and listen to music at home. When ReQuest Multimedia christened the category with its ARQ1 some five years ago, the promise of putting away all your CDs and having any song accessible by the push of a button seemed too good to be true.

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Apptitude
Exploring Audible, a Different Audio Experience
Michael Antonoff  |  Jul 22, 2016
You’d think that a company that started out in 1998, four years before the iPod, selling a dedicated audio player and a small library of spoken-word books would be out of business by now. Yet thanks to the rise of smartphones and a timely acquisition in 2008 by Amazon, Audible has become the leading provider of digital audio books.

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Apptitude
Eyes in Back of Your Head
Michael Antonoff  |  Oct 28, 2015
Techno-lust rises during the holidays, especially for action cams that take selfie-friendly video to a whole new level. Driving my hormones this season is the V.360º, a wireless camera with companion apps for Android and iOS devices. Though its manufacturer, VSN Mobil, likens the cylindrical cam to a 9-ounce can of Red Bull, the immersible camera captures a 360-degree view—8MP photos and 6480 x 1080 video—without stitching.

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Apptitude
Fall TV: It’s Back to the Past
Michael Antonoff  |  Aug 29, 2016
Maybe it’s because the broadcast networks crave turning the clock back to when they were dominant that the new season is dominated by series about time travel.
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Throwback Thursday
Flashback 1998: Reflecting on 20 Years of Netflix
Michael Antonoff  |  Mar 15, 2018
When Netflix launched its DVD-by-mail service 20 years ago, the dozens of websites selling DVDs said the newcomer would never survive. Funny how almost all of those competitors are now long gone.
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Apptitude
From PiP to Zoom: A Brief History of Screen-Splitting
Michael Antonoff  |  May 13, 2020
Whether you’re using a TV, tablet or phone to shelter at home, your screen is becoming ever more crowded. Though TV news still relies on a traditional split screen when an anchor hands off a story to a correspondent, Lester Holt now regularly leads off NBC Nightly News by addressing a gaggle of bobbleheads (some masked) in which ten correspondents peer into cameras from locations as wide ranging as the other side of the world to the other side of Lester’s desk.
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Apptitude
From Smug to Snug: VR for the Rest of Us
Michael Antonoff  |  Jun 08, 2015
Paul McCartney and Candlestick Park are more likely to be linked to endings (the last Beatles concert, 1966; the last big gig at the Stick, 2014) than new beginnings. But thanks to an innovative app that incorporates a 360-degree perspective from the stage of McCartney’s performance of “Live and Let Die” at the San Francisco ballpark, the man and place will now be coupled to the birth of an exciting way for everybody to enjoy music like never before.

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Apptitude
Get Thee to the Abbey
Michael Antonoff  |  Dec 16, 2015
Back in 2001 when the M.I.T. Media Lab unveiled a demo about social media and TV, it presaged greater things to come. At the bottom of the TV screen, viewers’ live comments appeared for all to see, demonstrating the potential of instant feedback shareable by everyone. My eyes opened wide as I experienced the idea of social media at a time when tweets were still for the birds and Facebook wouldn’t launch for another three years.

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Custom Installation How-To
Go-Video D2730 Networked DVD Player
Michael Antonoff  |  Sep 10, 2003

Photos by Tony Cordoza Using a standalone DVD player in the connected home seems so inappropriately standoffish. Why live by disc alone? That's the thinking behind the Go-Video D2730, a richly featured DVD player that's also adept at playing music or videos, or displaying photos stored on a Windows-based computer.

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Audio Video News
Google Glass: Running with Screens—Or Not
Michael Antonoff  |  Aug 09, 2013
A home theater display is more riveting and safer to operate than any mobile screen, yet tech pundits are abuzz over Glass, Google’s high-tech eyewear. Indeed, the spectacles’ first-generation specifications are compelling.
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