GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

LAS VEGAS — Orb, maker of the little $100 set-top box that brings web content to your TV, will now do the same for your Blu-ray player in the form of a Blu-ray disc, called Orb BR.

Pop the disc into your PlayStation 3 or other Blu-ray player, fire up the companion smartphone app and you’re good to go. You can now stream Netflix, Hulu, Comedy Central, and Amazon video, amongst others, and watch it on your big-screen TV. With server software installed on your computer, you can also send content from there.

In fact, in some ways this magic disc is actually better than the actual Orb set-top box. The hardware only supports standard-def video. This $20 disc, on the other hand, will do 720p and 1080p.

Orb BR will be available late February.

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Source:wired.com

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Amazon’s Disc+ is simple and smart: buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc and get a free digital copy to stream right away and keep for later. It’s based on the premise that physical and streaming media go better together. Now, the program is expanding, going from just a few hundred titles at launch to over 10,000 today.

“Customers love instant gratification,” says Amazon’s Steve Oliver, “and this program allows customers to watch Disc+ On Demand titles instantly, without having to wait for their DVD or Blu-ray to arrive in the mail.”

Disc+’s expansion means more than it would have just a few months ago, as more televisions and set-top boxes offer direct support for Amazon’s VOD, including the new Roku Player, TiVo Premiere and Google TV. This makes the downloads much more valuable than just streaming the device to your laptop. And it’s a natural way for new customers who might be reluctant to pony up for download-only or streaming video to get familiar with the service.

Amazon started offering digital downloads with physical media purchases to customers years ago with music, leveraging their unique position as a top retailer of both physical and virtual media. The model is slowly growing in movies and television. Now we just need a Book+ program for books offering a Kindle edition bundled with hardcovers. Then we’re really talking about something.

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This week, Sony launched the first commercial 400mW blueviolet laser diode for Blu-ray. The higher-power lasers can perform triple or even quadruple-layer recording at 8X-12X speeds, storing up to 128GB on a single disc.

Sony’s blue-violet laser diode, called the SLD3237VF, will cost about $12. Until the Blu-ray Super-Sized to 128GB, Requires New Player“>multi-layer BDXL spec is supported by players that can read the higher-storage discs, Sony says the new laser will allow a greater range of lenses and prisms to be used in constructing Blu-Ray devices, freeing up some of the restrictions on current hardware. Devices with the more powerful lasers already in place will be easier to upgrade later.

A year ago, Sharp announced a similar technical breakthrough with a 500mW blue-violet laser, with plans to ship in late 2010. Sharp representatives did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

In laboratory experiments, Sony’s Advanced Materials Laboratories and their research partners at Tohoku University have developed blue-violet ultra-fast pulsed semiconductor lasers that can generate as much as 100W. In addition to industrial and nanotech applications, Sony is already experimenting using these lasers to create next-generation optical storage of even higher capacities.

Image above of 100W Experimental Laser by Sony via Semiconductor Today.

Source:wired.com

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Image via SonyStyle.com

Are you intrigued by touchscreen, tablet-style media players, but don’t want to give up anything — and I mean anything — from your desktop PC? The refreshed high-end Sony Vaio L is pricey and heavy, but it’s packed to the gills.

Yesterday, Sony announced its holiday-season refresh of the Vaio line of notebook computers (barring the 8″ notebook-not-a-netbook Vaio P, which was updated in May).

The 24″ let’s-call-it-an-all-in-one-notebook-’cause-even-my-lap-isn’t-that-big Vaio L is packing a quad-core Intel processor, a 2TB hard drive, a capacitative touchscreen with true HD resolution, a webcam (well, yeah), an NVidia graphics card with 1GB video-dedicated RAM (on top of the 8GB of regular memory), and (most significantly) a Blu-ray read/write drive.

It’s got Sony’s own touch-friendly media management and editing suite, and also comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a remote control. The whole thing costs $2200 (already on backorder), and the part with the screen weighs 27.6 lbs — about the same as an old 24″ iMac.

So it’s a portable computer, in the sense that you can pick it up and move it from one part of the house to another, but you can’t exactly hold it in your hands. But if your complaint about Apple, Android, or Windows 7 touchscreen tablets has been that “they don’t even have ____,” this Sony is your answer.

If you don’t want all that, you can also get an entry-level Vaio L with “only” a half-TB of storage and no Blu-Ray on clearance for less than $1300. But that might feel a little like driving a Lexus without power windows.

Source:wired.com

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Oh, Netflix. We can’t stay mad at you. Even though you clearly think we’re all a bunch of idiots.

Netflix just launched Watch Instantly in Canada with a big press event. Unfortunately, apparently they were also (for reasons unknown) simultaneously, at the same location, shooting a corporate video with hired extras who (according to Netflix’s official apology) “were given improper directions” to talk to the press about how much they loved Netflix. (Love that “mistakes were made” subject-less sentence construction.)

Okay — so you duped some Canadians. Simple souls, they may be gullible — but luckily for everyone, the truth was soon found out. We Americans are too worldly to fall for something like that. We’re stupid in entirely different ways, as CEO/co-founder Reed Hastings revealed in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter:

THR: Are you concerned that American Netflix subscribers will look north and ask for the same discount Canadians get at $7.99?

Hastings: How much has it been your experience that Americans follow what happens in the world? It’s something we’ll monitor, but Americans are somewhat self-absorbed.

So we’re self-absorbed, huh? We don’t follow the world; we just spend all of our time watching the same shows over and over again on TV, do we, Netflix? But you’ll still take our money so we can watch movies without leaving the house?

That’s a serious question: You’ll still take our money, right? We’ll pay even more than those cheap-ass Canadians! Blockbuster just filed for bankruptcy! Microsoft and Apple say Blu-ray’s a dead end and streaming is the future! The new Roku player is so cheap!

Don’t make us go back to broadcast or cable! I can’t watch The Godfather trilogy any time I want there! Seriously, I’m watching it on my iPhone right now! Canada will never love you like we love you! What would our lives be like without you?

Source:wired.com

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Playstation 3, Move Controller, and Eye Camera, from Sony.com

A free software update for all Sony Playstation 3 owners on Sept 21st will enable playback of 3-D Blu-ray movies and games.

Sony’s Hiroshi Kawano made the announcement at the Tokyo Game Show this morning, according to the AP’s Yuri Kageyama.

The update is actually being pushed out early to capitalize on the popularity of 3-D movies, and to coincide with the Sept 19th US release of Sony’s new Move motion-controller wand.

The release of the Move and 3-D video playback also puts Sony ahead of rival Microsoft, whose Kinect video-capture system won’t be released in North America until November. Sony wants to be the first in the console gaming and home theater markets to offer an integrated three-dimensional experience — at a lower cost (just $99 for the Move package).

Source:wired.com

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Samsung’s BD-C8000 is the world’s first portable 3D Blu-ray player. It is also a pretty pointless and misleading waste of time. Despite the 3D part of the same, the player doesn’t show any more than plain ol’ 2D on its own screen. For the extra dimension, you’ll need to hook it up to a 3D television.

If you have a 3DTV, it’s pretty likely you already have a 3D Blu-ray player. This leaves the new Samsung player in a rather queer position, especially as it costs $500, or the price of an iPad.

Now, it’s not all bad. The BD-C8000 has a 10.3-inch screen and Wi-Fi, which combine with the power of widgets or “Samsung Apps” to bring you Blockbuster, YouTube and others. You won’t be storing any movies on there, though: the player has just 1GB memory. If you’re really into movies, might we suggest buying an iPad instead, and skipping the battery-sucking spinning disk part altogether (battery life is claimed to be three hours, which really means 1.5-hours).

If you absolutely do need the capability to maybe, someday hook up to a 3DTV and never stray far from a power-point, the BD-C8000 is available now, through Amazon. Or, you know, you could buy something else. (*cough* iPad *cough*).

Samsung BD-C8000 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player [Amazon via Oh Gizmo!]

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Scrolling through the Google Shopping results for “Blu-ray burner” brings us to $200 before we find a device that will actually author the high-capacity disks. And that’s the cheapest online price: The same Light-On unit is also listed for $380, So the new “Portable Blu-ray Super Multi Drive” from Amex looks like good value at $290.

What’s more, it looks great. The sleek slot-loader will read and write Blu-ray, CD and DVD disks, hooks up to a USB 2.0 port and will even run on the power provided by that same port (there’s a 5v DC adapter in the box if you need it).

With Blu-ray being the “Bag of hurt ” it is, we’d certainly steer towards the external option rather than opting for a built-in laptop drive, especially as, once Blu-ray dies a quiet death, you’ll still be left with a serviceable DVD and CD burner.

BBG and the Giz]

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