The news might be filled with HDTV but one company is offering a glimpse into the future of display technology with the launch of the first 3D TV.

Like a scene from Star Wars or Minority Report, the M2i Heliodisplay projects images in mid-air. Developed by IO2 Technology, the M2i Heliodisplay is a modified projector that projects a hovering image 28in above the unit. It can be used in well-lit environments such as trade show floors – its first real outing - but obviously it looks a lot better in the dark.

The unit is around the size of tower PC lying on its side and can be connected easily to a DVD player or PC to project images or play back movies. In true sci-fi style though, the unit allows you to use your finger as an interactive mouse. You can ‘touch’ an image in order to get more information as well as ‘drag and drop’ images. The downside, however, is that initial units are for commercial use only but if you have £10,000 to spare we’re sure they’d sell you one for the home. Available in the UK to rent or buy from here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 31, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sky has announced that 90,000 households have signed up for its high definition TV (HDTV) service, launched at the end of May.

The figure is certainly impressive but it does not tell the whole story. Of the 90,000 that have signed up only 38,000 have so far been connected. The remainder will be hooked up between now and September - for some a wait of more than three months. The news that many are still waiting tallies with reports of thousands of Sky punters complaining about delays and rescheduling of set-ups.

Most subscribers signed up in May because they were promised the World Cup in HD but for more than half, they are still waiting. In a statement this morning, as part of the company’s financial results, Sky said:

“Sky launched high definition TV services on 22 May 2006 and there were 38,000 Sky HD subscribers at 30 June 2006. The total number of bookings to date is around 90,000 and after some initial delays, the Group currently expects to install all of these orders by September 2006. In addition to England’s busy summer of cricket, Sky Sports HD will be showing coverage of the 2006 Ryder Cup, Guinness Premiership Rugby, and Coca Cola League, Carling Cup, UEFA Champions League and Barclays Premiership football.”

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 28, 2006 in Active Home, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

BT has joined forces with NBC Universal to let punters download TV and movies to own from next week. Universal has been letting people download its movies for some months now but will hoping the backing of a heavyweight like BT will help boost its popularity.

The Download-To-Own service, through BT Vision which will launch on July 31^st, will let you buy downloadable movies ranging in cost from £8 to £17 on the same day that they are released on DVD. What you get is two digital files – one copy for a laptop/PC and another for a portable media player, as well as a DVD that will be posted out to you for your DVD player.

There is no movie renting facility though but there will be by Autumn, says BT. There is one key flaw with the service though in that two copies of the same movie is going to take hours to download, especially on slower links. And, unless you have a broadband account with unlimited downloads, you will eat through your monthly download limits in just a few movies. More.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 27, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The problem with most headphones is that you can always still hear external noise, especially the din from traffic, trains or planes.

In recent times noise canceling headphones have stared to become more popular, but the full-sized headphones often cost too much for most punters. Peripheral specialist Logitech has just entered the fray though with its stylish, Noise Canceling Headphones and a price tag of £80. These compare favourably with the £180 Bose Quiet Comfort 3 headphones.

The Logitech offering promises to block out up to 22 decibels of external noise – or 92 per cent – making for a much more pleasant trip to work or trip abroad. Still, portability is an issue. They are a bit big for carrying around in your pocket but Logitech is hoping that the classy carrying case provided will make it an attractive purchase for the fashion gadget set.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 26, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The makers of the reasonably priced Squeezebox music streaming solution for the home have decided to go upmarket with what it claims is the first networked streaming solution for audiophiles.

Slim Devices has introduced the Transporter which it boasts, in eye-raising fashion, will be the ‘death of the CD player’. At £1,200, we somehow doubt that. In its favour, the Transporter  - which can be hooked up easily to your PC and stereo system – transmits audio wirelessly, has an in-built DAB radio for receiving thousands of digital radio stations, and supports Pandora's personalised music service and Rhapsody's two-million track collection of online music.

The company has gone all out to create something special in the infant streaming space. Transporter uses the AK4396 DAC from professional audio outfit, AKM, used in many high end CD and SACD players. There is also a gold plated circuit board, arranged to keep digital and analog sections separate, and to minimise jitter by micro-managing clock signals. Power is supplied to the DAC and analog stages by three separate super-regulator circuits and the balanced amplifiers use precision polyphenylene film capacitors.

Sean Adams, CEO and founder of Slim Devices, said:

“With Transporter, we set out to design an even better system by incorporating ideas both from the audiophile community and specialist engineers from around the globe. Transporter is designed not merely to rival traditional high-end sources, but to surpass them in both subjective and quantifiable performance.”

It will ship in September.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 25, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a fortnight of intense speculation Microsoft has confirmed the world’s worst kept secret by admitting an iPod killer is on the way. Zune will be the umbrella name for a ‘family of hardware and software products’ according to Chris Stephenson, Microsoft's GM of marketing for MSN Entertainment Business.

“The ability to connect the different devices is a key part of the strategy,” Stephenson says in an interview with Billboard. "Whether it's a portable media device, or a phone, or the Xbox or Media Center PC, the idea is you can access your entertainment from anywhere.”

The first products will be the portable music player and music download service. As already revealed here, Zune player owners wil be able to view each other’s playlists and sample tracks wirelessly. The same functionality is expected to be extended to the Xbox, Windows Mobile phones and Media Center PCs.

There’s no talk of video or TV downloads for the first Zune though which will give Apple the edge on the content front. That said, Microsoft’s decision to focus all of its resources on winning a decent share of the massive music market makes sense. Let’s hope Zune lives up to the hype and Apple finally comes under some real competitive pressure. Cheaper iPods anyone?

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 24, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

JVC launched the first camcorders to record video directly to internal hard disk drives (HDD) and now Sony is getting in on the act with the launch of two new models that also record in high definition (HD).

The news additions are the HDR-UX1E and HDR-SR1E, both capable of recording video in 1080i HD format. The HDR-UX1E records directly to 8cm discs based on the AVCHD technology developed by Sony and Panasonic. AVCHD combines MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video codec and the 5.1 Dolby Digital surround audio system to record HD content in 16:9 widescreen onto special 8cm DVD discs. These discs can be played back in PC DVD drives and Blu-ray disc player/recorders from Sony and partners. The HDR-SR1E also uses the AVCHD technology but swaps out the disc burner for a 30GB HDD.

It is capable of storing over eight hours of video at the standard 7Mbps setting and up to four hours of HD video at the highest setting. Both models come with HDMI ports for connecting to high definitions TVs (HDTV). Release dates and prices have yet to be announced. Full details here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 21, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems owning an piece of consumer electronics is just not cool enough for some, which is why we now have million dollar phones, diamond-encrusted TVs and even luxury hard disk drives.

The latest on the list comes in the shape of a handcrafted, solid silver faceplate for the Xbox 360. Crafted by the very exclusive and expensive silversmiths, Christofle, this shiny trinket will set you back around £700, which in console terms makes it the most expensive 360 accessory on the planet.

It won’t improve your kill rate but will sure as hell kill your bank balance. There are only going to be five of these made, in an effort to keep it exclusive and keep the price high. They will go on display at the end of the year.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 20, 2006 in Active Home, Games, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pioneer is claiming the world’s first, 50in plasma TV to support the highest, high definition (HD) format, 1080p.

The new Elite PureVision PRO-FHD1 comes with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and supports all HD formats – 720p, 1080i and 1080p. Pioneer claimed the challenge in getting the big plasma to support 1080p was being able to reduce the pixel size by half in order to fit more than 2 million pixels on the screen. The company claims the result is a picture with much greater depth that allows you to see “tiny beads of sweat on an athlete’s face as well as the stitches on the football as it flies through the air.”

Flowery marketing aside, it also boasts a high precision video scaler to up-convert 480i, 720p, and 1080i signals to 1080p without many of the artefacts found in lower-end scalers. Shipping soon, it will cost around £6,000.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 19, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

It had to happen and now it has. Sky has landed in the already competitive UK broadband market like a nuclear bomb, offering free broadband services to Sky customers. The 2MB service will be offered free to the 8 million Sky TV subscribers and Sky predicts that 30 per cent of those (2.4m) to take it up.

All subscribers will receive free, wireless routers and Sky is promising a reduction in broadband and call costs by up to £300 per year, per customer, against rivals like BT and others.

Non Sky subscribers are not being left out in the cold though and can subscribe to the 2MB package for £15 per month, which is quite competitive. Sky bought Easynet last year and a move into broadband was always on the cards. The company is investing £250m up front with another £400m promised over the next three years. There are two other broadband packages on offer to Sky customers, promising 8MB and 16MB broadband for £5 and £10 per month, respectively. 

In other words, this is all good for consumers in general since it’s going to force the other players to make their offerings more attractive, and cheaper, if they plan to stop the sky from falling - so to speak. More

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 18, 2006 in Active Home, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Government is set to ban standby buttons on electronics devices like TVs and DVD players in an effort to reduce power consumption.

You might not have thought that the humble 'standby/on' button was much of a threat in the overall energy picture, but you'd be wrong. The move comes just a week after the ‘The Rise of the Machines’ report from the Energy Savings Trust (EST) revealed that devices on standby accounted for 8 per cent of all domestic energy used.

In the latest Energy Review from the DTI, the government outlines plans to outlaw standby buttons on consumer electronics devices and gadgets. Wasteful products that must be redesigned, according to the government, include computers, TVs, chargers fridges, freezers, lighting and washing machines.

In fact, flat TVs and phone chargers are some of the more deceptive devices. According to the EST, many people do not understand that chargers, even when not being used, are consuming power. In its report, it said:

“A significant proportion of the population leave their mobile phone charger plugged in and wasting energy all of the time whilst believing it to be inactive. Although the stand-by power consumption of a single mobile phone charger only averages 1 watt, the combined stand-by usage of approximately 25 million of these items adds up very quickly to 25 megawatts. This adds up to 219 GWh consumed per annum, enough energy to power the electricity needs of 66,000 homes for one year.”

Anything that forces manufacturers to build less power-hungry products and lower our electricity bills can't be all bad.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 17, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (34)

Just in case you can't get to the next Norman Cook beach party, luxury speaker maker, B&W are hoping to offer a little bit of Fatboy Slim in your living room.

The Fatboy 601 speaker is actually a DM 601 S3 bookshelf speaker but don’t let the ‘bookshelf’ moniker turn you off. Capable of pumping out a whopping 120W, these babies will be like having Norman doing a sound-check in your kitchen. It combines a 165mm woven Kevlar cone bass/midrange driver with a Nautilus tube-loaded metal dome tweeter. It has the same double-skinned baffle construction of its predecessor but the cabinet boasts extra internal bracing for reduced coloration.

The customised artwork comes from Fatboy’s current album: Why Try Harder. Sadly, B&W has only made 100 of these and apparently Fatboy plans on giving most of those away to his musical mates. B&W will be running a competition though to give one lucky bugger the chance to win a pair.

Since our luck is rotten we’ll have to rely on our close, personal friendship with Norman to get a pair. Isn’t that right mate? Norman? Buddy?

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 14, 2006 in Active Home, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

England might have gone out with a whimper and the Italians may have sneaked off with the World Cup but Philips is claiming a World Cup win of a different sort.

According to the company, a record 10 million footie fans watched the games on the world’s largest Philips TV with Ambilight technology. AmbiLight projects light from behind the four sides of the TV to match whatever is happening on the screen, creating a wider peripheral image and ‘sucking the viewer in’, so to speak.

The biggest of Philips 12 screens – one for each of the host cities – was located at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, measuring 77m square. In total, 18m fans watched the games on 34 specially erected Philips screens in 15 locations, with the biggest draws being over one million people for the Germany vs. Italy semi-final in Berlin and the France/Italy final.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 13, 2006 in Active Home, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marantz is best known for its quality audio equipment but the company has been carving out a solid niche in the performance end of the projector market. It’s latest offering, the high definition (HD) VP-11S1 is the best yet, with an £11,000 price tag to match.

Offering full-HD resolution of 1080p, Marantz likes to boast that this one breaks the ‘digital cinema barrier’ but that’s marketing for you. The specs are very impressive but, as always with projectors, it’s best to rely on what you see on the screen than what you read on the page. It has a native resolution of  1920 x 1080, making it capable of handling all levels of HD content and a high contrast ration of 6500:1. It’s powered by the first 1080p DLP chip from Texas Instruments and according to Marantz this means:

Texas Instruments' first true 1080p HD chip, which more than doubles the pixel count of previous 720p chips to over 2 million pixels. Furthermore, the super-reflective micromirrors of the new DLP chip are smaller, making the total area only approximately 1.4 times as large as a 720p chip. In addition, the chip is now controlled by dual drivers, Texas Instruments’ newly developed DDP3021. Used in parallel, the drivers provide precise control over the more numerous mirrors and enable 12-bit gamma processing, resulting in the expression of image gradations that are four times richer. This allows the VP-11S1 to display an astounding 68-plus billion colors on screen. Further enhancing image quality is the use of the specially designed 10-bit image processing chip with Visual Excellence Processing (VSP) from Gennum Corporation.

If you have £11,000 to spare and a yen for Marantz kit then this is for you, although it's not the prettiest beast. Just remember you can now get 720p HD projectors for under £1,500 and rival 1080p projects for around £5,000.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 13, 2006 in Active Home, Film | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Internet is on fire this morning with more breaking news about Microsoft’s ‘iPod killer’, not to mention this photo of what it will look like and a new name.

The player, which has so far been referred to by the codename Argo, will be marketed as the Zune. We are not really sure which is better but Zune looks like it might be the final name for the iPod rival, which is expected to launch in time for Christmas.

If the photo is to be believed then the design is good, with simplicity being the key – like another famous, white digital music player we know. No word yet on price and don’t expect Microsoft to officially confirm anything since it’s all very ‘Hush Hush’.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 11, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3)

It looks like the troubled Blu-Ray bandwagon will not be rolling into Europe at the end of the summer, following reports that Pioneer will have nothing on show at the big IFA show in Berlin this September.

At a briefing in Germany, Pioneer said it has no concrete plans for a European launch and admitted that it will have nothing to show consumers until at least January 2007, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. However, Toshiba, developer of the rival HD DVD technology, said that it will have dedicated players ready for launch at the Berlin show.

Both technologies have suffered setbacks but at least HD DVD players are available in the US and Japan, even if they are hard to get hold of. The Blu-Ray camp have been operating at snail’s pace and will be relying on the forthcoming launch of Sony’s PS3 console to rocket Blu-Ray technology into pole position. More 

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 10, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Games, Music, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Internet is alive with some solid leads that point to Microsoft finally getting an ‘iPod-killer’ ready for a Christmas launch. It’s no secret that Microsoft is green with envy at just how Apple’s iTunes and the iPod players have completely dominated the music download and player market.

The unnamed media player is coming for Christmas according to entertainment execs that have been briefed by Microsoft. The key, differentiating feature will be in-built wireless connectivity. Other ‘leaked’ feature information, therefore potentially unreliable, points to a sensor that will pick up ads from Ad-Nodes. Hardly a selling point but if you watch the ad you will receive some form of bonus. The sensor will also allow two users to 'sense' each other and create a network connection to listen to each other’s tracks, before opting – or not – to download it from an online store.

The company is also rumoured to be working on a cunning plan to lure iTunes users. This will work by scanning your music library for iTunes tracks and then letting you to download them in Windows format for free. This will cost Microsoft a fortune in royalties but it could be worth the tens or hundreds of millions of pounds to build a base of users fast in the multi-billion pound music download market.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 7, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Portable video players (PMPs) are still a mixed bag but they are certainly becoming more portable. The stylish MaxMovie video, photo and MP3 all-rounder is the latest portable media player from German outfit Maxfield, proving that not everything small and good-looking has to come from Apple.

This is a 1GB player that supports MP3, WMA and OGG audio-formats as well as MP4 video. That said, remember that players like this sport tiny OLED screens and will not make for the most comfortable movie viewing experience. The MaxMovie though manages to pack in an FM radio and voice recorder as well as a very handy wristband for those that want to take it jogging. There’s also a clock, alarm, timer-controlled recording, sleep function and six-band equaliser featuring SRS-WOW 3D sound. Expect to pay around £150.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 6, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not every room is built for decent audio which is why Altec Lansing thinks it has the perfect solution for turning your bedroom into a concert hall. The iM9 portable speaker system is yet another iPod speaker dock but the company seems to have actually put in a bit of effort to ensure that that the sound is robust and spacious. It also looks quite good, and a little less ‘plasticky’ than many other portable speaker add-ons.

Good looks aside, the iM9 is a rugged piece of kit, offering shock resistance. At 11 x 7.8 x 3in it’s not the most portable speaker system out there but this is down to the bigger speakers and a Class D amplifier. It houses a 1in tweeter and two, 2.5in midrange/basss drivers alongside the heftier amp for a big sound.

On the connectivity front there is a stereo headphone jack, a composite video jack for showing iPod photos or video on your TV, a port for hooking up to the PC and an auxiliary-input jack for older iPods. The iM9 also charges your iPod and has a claimed battery life of 24 hours off four batteries – not included. It costs £140 and comes its own backpack.

Posted by Martin Lynch on July 5, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

B&W make great speakers. They know it too because they usually cost the price of a small car to get the really good ones. Now, we have the chrome-domed XT Series of home cinema speakers which according to the company owe more to aerospace construction techniques than typical wooden cabinet making.

The XT-Series enclosures are constructed from an immensely rigid extruded aluminium shell, the curve of which – apart from looking nice – also minimises panel and internal resonance. They house Nautilus tube loaded aluminium dome tweeters, mounted on the top of the enclosures of the XT2 and XT4, combined with both Kevlar and paper/Kevlar cone midrange and bass drivers.

The XT Series comprises three speakers: the floor-standing, three-way XT4, the compact two-way XT2, and the XTC two-way centre channel speaker. The package is rounded out by the pricey and unusual looking, designer subwoofer, the PV1.

The prices look something like this. The XT4 cost £1,700 per pair, the XT2 comes in at £700 per pair; the XTC centre speaker is £550 and the PV1 subwoofer is £950. Who needs a small car anyway?

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 4, 2006 in Active Home, Film, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

French politicians have given the thumbs up to a controversial copyright bill that will call for Apple to makes its iPod player and iTunes software compatible with rival offerings.

The vote on the legislation, which Apple has dubbed ‘State-Sponsored Piracy’, means the proposed bill could become law before the summer is out. At the moment, songs downloaded using Apple’s iTunes music download service can only be player on Apple iPods. The law calls for changes to allow consumers that download songs via iTunes to be able to play them on any player they like while songs downloaded from rival services should be allowed to play on the iPod. There is a loophole that Apple can exploit to dodge the data-sharing bit but it will require it making new deals with record labels and music artists.

This law is good news for consumers but Apple has threatened that if the bill becomes law it will shut down iTunes France. However, Apple knows that it can’t do that everywhere and it will have to come up with a compromise eventually since similar laws are currently under discussion in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Denmark. There’s only so often you can throw your toys out of the pram and while Apple shareholders might stomach the loss of some francs they will not support such action on a wholesale basis.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on July 3, 2006 in Active Home, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)