An oft-mentioned aspect of the digital comic discussion at the San Diego Comic Con this year was the role of intellectual property rights, as both a source of revenue for creators but also as victim to widespread comics piracy. As with so many popular artistic endeavors, the creators themselves often expressed ambivalent feelings towards intellectual … Read more
Still think Twitter on TV is a good idea? Check out Fox’s failed Fringe experiment above. Pop-Up Video or MST3K this ain’t. Bottom line: The huge Twitter overlay made Fringe unwatchable last night. And imagine how much worse it’d be on a 4:3 screen.
According to Windows Media Center blogger Chris Lanier, a new OCUR CableCARD firmware update is coming soon that will enable support for cable company switched digital video broadcasts via tuning adapter hardware. There will also be an additional change that allows for “less DRM on non-flagged CableCard recordings.” So expect this to be one of … Read more
Right on schedule, the Vudu experience has landed on select broadband-connected LG televisions – making good on the promise to diversify their distribution strategy. Additionally, they’ve inked a deal to bring Vudu on-demand movie streaming, now reworked as a CDN play versus their P2P roots, to select Mitsubishi HDTVs being released later this month. These … Read more
While we rarely speculate on future products or report on rumors here at ZNF, it’s been a pretty quiet week and I haven’t seen this particular item pop up elsewhere. My source is rock solid, but his informants are possibly suspect. So file this under the unsubstantiated rumor category when I say GameStop is in … Read more
There’s a market for kid-friendly online browsing. Children watch their parents on computers and want to get in on the fun from an early age, even if they don’t quite know how. Although there are a number of kid computers (VTech, Fisher-Price, etc.), these low-end devices don’t offer the same breadth of options available on … Read more
When I first purchased my Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, several years ago, I dabbled with an earlier stand-alone version of Evernote. It presented a never-ending scratch-pad of sorts that I could write on with the tablet’s stylus. It was nice, even useful, but it didn’t supplant OneNote as my primary note-keeping software, until recently. The new … Read more
Over on Geek Tonic, I recently learned of the HDFury 2 – a small dongle designed to complete the HDCP handshake and convert a digital signal into a possibly more useful analog one. (Component or D-Sub 15, VGA) The folks who’d benefit most probably want to keep older projectors or HDTVs, which lack HDCP, in … Read more