Now that internet-enabled smartphones are rapidly expanding their market share, we're increasingly turning to our phones to pass the time while we're on the bus, sitting in a waiting room or even when we should really be keeping our eyes on the road.
A couple weeks ago I was trying to configure a TV antenna to get some of my local television stations in the over-the-air HD quality they broadcasted in. The problem was that in trying to figure out the best direction to point the antenna I realized that there had to be an easy way to get the optimal direction for the antenna to face. That's when I came across AntennaPoint.com.
Have a movie quote in your head, but can't remember what it's from? Most people turn to Google to find that kind of information, and for the most part you can find the source without too much trouble. What if you wanted to find the exact second the quote appeared in the movie so that you could actually play it back though? For that you might be better off using a site like Subzin.
I use Windows Media Center as my primary source for watching live TV, and last weekend I decided to figure out how I could customize the placement of menu items. For example, I don't really listen to music or look at photos on my Media Center computer so having these options visible only makes it take longer to navigate to some of the other menu rows.
If you are a Windows Media Center user the chances are pretty good that you've already heard of My Channel Logos. With this beautiful addition to Media Center you'll see logos for each of the channels when viewing the television guide. It's one of the most popular add-ons for Windows Media Center, and the developer has done a great job of keeping it up-to-date.
I'm a big fan of the Numb3rs television show, and a couple weeks ago the sixth season came to a close. Anyone that watches the show knows that they throw around a lot of mathematical equations and algorithms that can sometimes seem as though they are pulling them out of thin air.
These days computers are becoming more and more of a media hub for users to watch movies or television shows on. For awhile I've switched between a handful of media players including VLC, KMPlayer, and GOM. All of those are excellent in their own way, and now I think I'll also have to add SPlayer to the list.
Last week Hulu announced that they were going to be blocking access for Boxee and TV.com because of pressure from content providers. This obviously makes sense because Hulu still looks as though they are having a hard time capitalizing on advertisements when being compared to what they're able to sell on TV.
Rumor had it that HBO shows would be appearing at the iTunes store soon. This was yesterday and now today, sure enough, HBO has made it's grand entrance. The official Press Release from Apple explains that programs like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood, and Rome, Flight of the Conchords and The Wire.
Slowly but surely, television networks are starting to understand new media. They get that there are other places than the TV where people want to watch their favorite shows, and they are finally starting to come up with ways to bring TV to the Internet. Hulu is a great example of television networks "getting it" by offering premium content from Fox, NBC, MGM, Sony, and others, online for free.
It's hard to imagine life without a computer, isn't it? We use computers for so many things these days, and most of us have our computers running 7 days a week, and nearly 365 days a year. What would happen if you turned off your computer for a whole day? Would you be able to survive for 24 hours without going through withdrawal? Let's find out!
One of the questions that I get asked rather frequently is how people can take their media with them to places (normally work) without carrying a media player around. There are plenty of services out there that will let you upload, for example, your music so that it can be accessed from anywhere. But most of the time people want to stream it directly from their home machine.
As a further indication that analog TV is on its way out and digital is in, Best Buy has announced that they have pulled all of the analog TVs they had left off of the store shelves. Just about two months ago at my local Best Buy, they still had a small portion of one aisle dedicated to the analog TVs while flat panel and high definition screens took over aisle upon aisle of space.
Microsoft is kicking Vista Media Center up a notch starting tomorrow morning. All Vista Media Center users (which means you're running Home Premium or Ultimate) will have access to an early Beta version of Internet TV.
Microsoft briefly announced in one of their press releases today that they hired on the developer of the popular WebGuide software for Windows Media Center (both XP and Vista).
There is some bad news for those of you taking advantage of free media center software, such as MythTV or Media Portal. As it turns out Zap2it couldn’t continue to provide the television listings that many free media center applications were using.
A few days ago I had the pleasure of getting my hands on a specialized Media Center remote by Gyration. If it sounds familiar, that’s because this is the same remote control that Alienware includes with their Hangar18 Media Center PC. So what makes this remote control so much better than any other?
Okay, so maybe Google isn’t exactly an advocate for video piracy, but they don’t seem to be taking the drastic measures needed to keep copyrighted videos off of their service. The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) posted an article criticizing Google’s effort (or lack thereof) for stopping copyrighted videos from appearing on the Google Video site. They pointed out that:
