DigitalLife Wrap-Up, Part 1

Despite Amtrak breaking down and delaying my return, I made it home safely though fatigued. I’m not sure if less vendors attended DigitalLife this year, or if less vendors I cared about were present. Overall, I wasn’t very excited about most of the tech on display (other than the Dash) and am glad I only took one day for the event.
neuros.jpgTwo products in particular appealed to me as a geeky consumer — though I question their viability in the commercial marketplace.

First up is the revamped Neuros device, known as the OSD. The Neuros OSD is primarily designed to encode video, from whatever source you choose, and save it as an unprotected MPEG-4 onto a variety of memory cards or devices (PSP, iPod). The networked device also has the ability to playback this video at up to DVD resolution. But where it gets really interesting is that the OSD is open-source (Linux) and Neuros is offering cash bounties to developers who extend the feature set. For example, an EPG and Skype integration are in the works.

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Mo’Blogging: DigitalLife, NYC

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Amtrak, near Baltimore, 7AM

DigitalLife officially kicks off in NYC today. Unlike CES which is industry oriented, DL caters to gadget loving consumers. There will be plenty of opportunity to play with all sorts of stuff (they even have video game tourneys), so if you’re near NYC anytime until the 15th pick up your free tickets and get down here. If the quantity of email and calls I’ve been receiving is any indication, this year’s event is much larger than prior events and looks to be a good time.

Like most bloggers, I do have a day job and I’m into negative PTO these days… So we’ll just have to see how much I can cram into only 9 hours on the ground. To maximize my limited time, I probably won’t be updating ZNF as frequently the last time I journeyed north.

I don’t imagine we’ll see many (any?) product announcements today, though there have been rumors a new Treo will be unveiled. I plan to spend a decent amount of time with various portable devices, check out the home media hardware, and see if Orb will finally reveal their business model. Obviously, I’ll be dropping by the TiVo booth (last year I got fresh with their mascot) and I intend to hook up with the Sling guys who’ll be roaming the floor. But wait, there’s more! I also have two classified meetings, and several interesting people to touch base with… so stay tuned.

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View from press office, 10:30AM

The eagle has landed: I’m all checked in and ready to go! I’ll hit the floor as soon as my hot date, Peter Rojas, arrives. Peter, of course, founded both Gizmodo and Engadget and now you can see him weekly on TV.

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No SlingPlayer Mobile For Dash/Excalibur (Yet)

I just got off the phone with the Sling PR folks and have confirmed the current version of SlingPlayer Mobile for Smartphones is not compatible with the T-Mobile Dash (likely my next phone, despite the lack of EVDO). Sling is aware of issue and already has a beta build in testing for release in the … Read more

Logtech Introduces Harmony 670

If you’ve been reading my site awhile, it should come as no surprise that I’m a big fan of Logitech’s Harmony remotes. They do initially require some time to configure and tweak to your liking, but the time you’ll save down the road makes it worthwhile. I didn’t particularly care for the button layout of … Read more

PBS on iTunes

iTunes has started serving up PBS shows — for a fee. On one hand, if any network were to give away shows online I would have pegged PBS… On the other, they don’t bring in the same advertising revenues as their for-profit brethren and probably need the cash. Videos are $1.99 (Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, etc) … Read more

SlingPlayer Pocket PC v1.1 Beta 2 Released

Go get ‘er! What’s new in SlingPlayer Mobile for Pocket PC v1.1 BETA2: Widescreen (16:9) menu option added under Display Mode (available only when connected to a Slingbox PRO, Slingbox TUNER, or Slingbox AV) Shows correct number of Inputs for the Slingbox PRO, Slingbox TUNER and Slingbox AV Interface changes: The task bar now has … Read more

Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… Walgreens testing RedBox DVD kiosks. (Davis Freeberg) SageTV get its groove on with SlimServer. (eHomeUpgrade) Placeshifting coming to Zune? (PVRWire) Hardware support for Microsoft IPTV expands. (EngadgetHD)