All PVR

From Teleglass comes the T4-N Limited Edition Video Glasses. The glasses create a simulated 45 inch screen (as if sitting from six feet away), with a resolution of 640 x 480. Coolness abound, you can focus and adjust each monitor to reduce eye strain. As you can see by the picture above the audio comes from frame-mounted earbuds.

Just connect any NTSC viseo player and enjoy. They look stylish, unlike the competition, and it’s hidden components reside in the frame and nose-piece. Word on the street is that they cost $1150 per pair, but you’ll have to hurry, because there’s only 500 available.

Pink Tentacle via Teleglass

And now for something completely different… Athusa and Backyard Birding

The “mythical” Traveling Terabyte Gear

In reference to an entry published on Sept. 23 (“Hacker Sends War-Tough Marines a Befitting PVR�?), I have received a generous update about the Traveling Terabyte Project. Go to www.travelingterabyte.org for all the official information.

This is an important project that connects us to our beloved Devil Dogs (Marines). It provides them a care-package that we can all share in to show support. Hopefully it gives the soldiers a bit of home when they’re abroad, and keeps them grounded when they’re in hell (Ooo-Rah!).

They are not yet taking donations (as this is a grassroots movement stemming from the generosity of one person, Deviant Ollam), though there should be something set up soon.

And, as a big fan of this project, I will also be posting updates and hopefully finding more supporters, at Athusa.net. Let make it work.

Very, very special thanks, and American gratitude to: AST Cell. As well as to all the people involved with this project.

Get your HD-DVR’s warmed up people. Like Jay-Z, you’re going to have a busy recording schedule ahead of you. With the launch of 21 new HD channels, DirecTV promises there’s more channels to come, “,more than any other cable or satellite provider”.

They say, “By the end of October, DIRECTV will deliver over 70 HD channels. And by the end of the year, you’ll get up to 100 of the channels you really want to see in breathtaking HD” (examples: CNN HD, A&E HD, The History Channel HD, premiums like HBO HD, Showtime HD, and Starz HD).

What do you think?

To follow up on a 22 Sep 07 entry, this was announced today from Western Digital:

My Book Studio Edition

Sorry PC-based PVR-lovers, this one’s for Mac users only. Here’s excerpts from the Western Digital press-release:
“From storage-hungry high-definition video editing to big design projects and managing photo shoots, creative professionals require high-speed performance and huge amounts of storage capacity for the rich multimedia content generated by their work.”

“Equipped with high-performance quadruple interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire® 400/800 and eSATA)”

“,Offered in capacities from 320 GB to 1 TB (terabyte),”

“Estimated pricing for the My Book Studio Edition storage appliances ranges from $199.99 USD to $399.99 USD depending upon capacity.”

Click here to read the entire press-release. Snoogins.

“Deviant Ollam” is a New Jersey hacker/network engineer who saw fit to create the Traveling Terabyte Project (TTB). A program in which he sends hard drives, filled with popular movies, television shows and music, in Pelican cases, to Marines in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

Deviant said this about his revelation, “I’ve got this extra storage and thought ‘what could I do with it?’. It didn’t really make sense to put the disks into my already hugely ridiculous raid array.�? So, why not send them to a few Leathernecks? Everyone needs a little inspiration (even tough-guys). But, shipping the drives to a war-torn country could’ve been an obstacle, “You can’t really put the drives in bubble wrap and throw them in the mail,�? So he instead packed the equipment into the olive-drab cases with international power adapters and USB cables.

Once Marines receive the cases they often add their own files customizing and personalizing their gifts (becoming a snapshot of our modern heroes lives). And, like any grassroots movement, these drives have become a small overseas urban-legend. Eventually being delivered to the American embassy in Dushanbe Tajikistan, just to prove they exist.

Hopefully the Traveling Terabyte Project will get legs. I’m still searching for a donation website. If anyone knows of one, please comment. Anything we can do to remedy some of the stress of being in a war zone, is something we should do. They’re heroes.

From one American cyber-geek to another, thank you, ‘Deviant Ollam’.

More thanks to TG Daily for getting the word out on this project.

The Diamani DUO line of LCD’s from Viewsonic has been launched. It’s a unique hybrid of TV and computer monitor. There’s a 19″ version for $349 and a 22″ version $399. Both sporting slim, sexy HDMI inputs, as well as HD tuners. They’re also equipped with VGA inputs. And to address your analog desires, there’s component, RCA, and S-video inputs. It’s the “be all to end all” of TV’s… I mean monitors… I mean… where was I? Oh yeah, It’s fine time someone tried to invent something useful for the practical man.

Electronista

From Replay TV comes the “Personal HD”, a USB-based system that allows you to watch and record HDTV on your PC or notebook. Everything you need to get started is included; an HD tuner, antenna, remote control, software, and a 1 year subscription (after that it’s $19.95 a year, to keep the subscription). All available in November.

Other benefits are: Pause live TV, advanced searches to find and record your favorite shows, and transfers video to your iPods, iPhone, and AppleTV.

Replay TV

Now you can watch your watch. Skymall is offering what they call the “Home Theater Watch”. For $150 clams, you can watch movies anywhere (without filling your pockets with cumbersome devices). As a matter of fact, you can listen to music or look at pictures too, all from your wrist.

Download files via USB to it’s 2 GB drive, and you’re good to go. It also comes with formatting software for movie transfers.

The future is here “tech-heads”! It’s the ultimate geek-paraphernalia (and somewhat reminiscent of the Casio Calculator Watch).

According to Gizmodo, the TiVo Series 3 DVR (including TiVo HD) will have Multi-room viewing and TiVo-To-Go; available in November.

Also announced for the Series 3 DVR, is the addition of a Crestron touch-panel. Be like Captain James T. Kirk, and control all of your electronic devices from one throne.

(Mitsubishi Laser TV on Left, Samsung LCD on Right)

Per reader request, here’s a few links to quench your thirst:

Official Mitsubishi Electric Website Press Release
Technology Review (published by MIT): Article 1, and Article 2
News.com (Australia)
Product News (with YouTube video)
GadgetGuy.com (Australia)

According to DailyTech, Microsoft filed a patent for DVR advertising technology. The US Patent Office filing shows that Microsoft is creating technology where ads are not permanently embedded into a TV show, but uses a DVR ad-server instead. Ads can be turned on or off, depending on when a TV show is being watched. For example, new ads can be inserted into shows that may have been recorded weeks ago.

If this works, it can be great news for advertisers who can better target ad campaigns to the growing number of DVR owners.
From the DailyTech article:

Using a DVR-based advertisement database, a time-sensitive database is kept of all current ads being served on network TV. When a user watches a particular program, the Microsoft ad server will lookup relevant and appropriate ads from the network that produced the program and serve ads. If a show is recorded and watched repeatedly over time, different ads will be served. This method helps advertisers target and produce ads appropriately.

Still, this doesn’t address the problem of ad-skipping. Most DVR owners watch recorded shows and skip ads. Having targeted ads looks good from a technology point of view, but most users hate ads. Can this technology ever help users actually watch and like these ads?