Dave Zatz Right on schedule, second generation Simple.TV network tuner pre-orders have begun shipping. To improve upon the first gen, Simple.TV partnered with Silicon Dust to produce a smaller, yet more more powerful dual tuning unit to better leverage those high definition over-the-air broadcasts. For maximum flexibity, but a possibly higher geek quotient, SimpleTV remains hard driveless … Read more
It’s that time of year. No, not holiday shopping. Rather, annual rate increase notices. And, next up is Sirius XM, who just hit me with a letter that indicates my online streaming add-on will increase from $3.50/mo to $4/mo. A fifty cent increase is pretty insignificant, yet these sorts of notifications may motivate folks such … Read more
While I’m the CTO of the Zatz household, my wife Melissa is also capable of making tech purchasing decisions… and living with the consequences. What follows is her realization that one gadget doesn’t fit all.
Dave’s pattern of flipping gadgets must be contagious because I’ve caught the bug! More importantly, I’ve inherited his appreciation (or lack thereof) of a gadget’s usability and functionality. As such, technology is frequently coming and going in our home.
A year ago I wrote about swapping my iPad 3 for the new iPad Mini. At the time I wanted a smaller device that I could more comfortably handle when lounging around; a gadget I could use for mundane web browsing and video streaming. But, the Mini and I had a short lived love affair as I quickly starting yearning for something sexier. The lack of retina display was hard to get used to and I never adjusted to the fonts. Having to constantly pinch and zoom the screen became annoying. My $330 toy started collecting dust.
My iPhone became my “go to” device when doing non work-related web browsing. But as close to perfect as the iPhone is, size does matter! I was missing a larger screen. A larger screen that I could still easily hold without needing a stand or case. When the iPad Mini retina display launched earlier this year I was tempted to buy one. I’m a loyal Apple fan who loves their sleekness and simplicity. But, I didn’t want to indulge myself by purchasing the new model knowing that I would likely want something new sometime soon! Yup, I’m a true Zatz!
When we got up Sunday morning,
We’ve been tracking Channel Master‘s moves since new digital video recorder hardware first surfaced in FCC documents last summer. They’ve clearly used the intervening months wisely to fine tune both the product experience and marketing strategy as the originally documented pair of K77 set-tops has been whittled down to the single and more memorable DVR+ ($250). And, as you … Read more
Perhaps another benefit of the TiVo 20.3.8 software update is a framework to tabulate in-show tenor by repurposing those iconic TiVo thumbs up/down remote buttons (versus their original purpose to rate programming as a means of generating suggestions). Classified as an “experiment” by “TiVo Labs”, select customers have been recruited to test this new functionality:
If you’re interested in helping out, here’s what to do:
- Watch The Voice episode “Live Final Performances,” airing Monday, 12/16 at 8 PM/7 Central.
- As you watch the episode, please use the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down buttons on your TiVo remote throughout the episode to rate the contestants’ performances.
- Really loving it? Press Thumbs Up! Totally hate it? Press Thumbs Down!
- You can use the Thumbs buttons as many times as you want throughout the episode.
- You can use the Thumbs buttons more than once on the same performance.
- Feel free to fast-forward, pause, and rewind as usual.
You don’t have to watch the episode live as it airs, but if possible, please try to watch the episode on Monday night. Sound interesting? Just watch and click — that’s all you have to do. There’s no online survey, just “vote with your remote.”
While TiVo’s collected this sort of behavioral data before,