Barbecue manufacturer, Lynx, demonstrated a connected grill that will text you or speak to you when it is time to turn over your food and when it is done to perfection.
Roku has joined forces with Chinese TV manufacturer, Hisense to offer a Roku TV. When the TV is first turned on, it will display a Roku home page similar to the menu on a Roku Box streaming device
Samsung showed a 4K UHD TV with the M-Go Premium App. This app will stream 4K movie titles to the TV. It also will stream titles that have been “optimized for 4K.” These are movies that were not shot in 4k, but because M-Go is owned by Technicolor, the titles have been optimized in the lab and made available for streaming. While M-Go limited their announcement to Samsung TVs, it was clear (yet unspoken) that the Premium service will extend to other manufacturers’ UHD TVs.
During an impassioned keynote, Sony Chairman Kazuo Hirai promised to deliver content without the box. The first product in what Sony calls Lifespace UX will be the Ultra Short Throw Projector. A long, short rectangular box is placed close to any wall in your house and projects a 147 inch 4k image on the wall. Hirai described content that includes real time, life size images in this makeshift window that might include an outdoor view with transitions. The Ultra Short Throw Projector will be available Summer 2014.
The streaming media innovations of 2013 continue to change the way we watch TV, movies and listen to music. Here is a roundup of what was new and trending in the past year.