Hulu Plus landed on the Roku today with a newly discounted $7.99/month price tag for all subscribers. I don’t have a Hulu Plus account, but I was able to borrow Dave’s for a quick test drive on my home Roku. Initial impressions: Nice execution, but the content is still stinky. In fairness, some of the … Read more
This year’s holiday gadget season looks like it’s going to be a bit of a mixed bag. I’m not as excited as I’d like to be about the new stuff available, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of gadgety toys to add to your holiday shopping list. Here’s a quick round-up of the video … Read more
Sonos announced an addition to their hardware lineup today in the form of a new wireless dock. If you have a Sonos whole-home audio solution you probably already know that your iPhone and iPod touch can be used as a free remote control on your Sonos. And you’ve been able to plug your iPod into … Read more
Apparently we should have all eyes glued to the home management space over the next year. Verizon is the latest to jump on the bandwagon saying it will launch a “connected home service” in the near future for controlling functions like lighting, temperature, and home security automatically. Details are scarce, which makes me wonder if … Read more
Blake Krikorian, the guy who invented the Slingbox (a vision we shared for a time), has set his sites on home automation. Basically, what started out as a personal project to consolidate control of all his gear has evolved into a commercial offering. And his Crestron Android app, dubbed R2, will be on display at CEDIA … Read more
The Kill A Watt is a green-geek favorite, but it’s also one of the few gadgets over the years to make it off the stumbling block in home energy management. Despite general support for greener living, the consumer market for energy management tools hasn’t taken off. High costs and difficulties in accessing utility data have … Read more
One of the big selling points for the XR version of the Roku is the addition of a USB port. And although there’s no official Roku support for USB video playback yet, there is a private USB channel available thanks to citizen-coder Nowhereman. (Submit your own channel in Roku’s developer contest by September 7th.) The … Read more
I’ve been hunting for a new netbook for about two months, and have come to the conclusion that my perfect model does not exist. My requirements don’t seem out of line to me, but apparently netbook makers don’t agree. I need a model with: a 10″ screen, 2GB RAM, a Pine Trail processor (or equivalent … Read more