Recently in Home Entertainment Category

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Blu-ray have teamed up with Brickfish to launch the "Why Blu?" campaign at http://www.brickfish.com/Entertainment/whyblu?tab=entries&=blu_pr.

The campaign asks entrants to create a poster, ad or video highlighting the "supreme quality" of Blu-ray Discs.

The grand prize winner, selected by Sony from the top 50 highest-scoring entries, will win a Sony PlayStation 3 with a built in Blu-ray Disc player, and a collection of 8 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Blu-ray movies. Prizes will also be awarded for the entry that gets the most attention across the Internet and to weekly sweepstakes winners.

Be quick though - only 14 days 14 hrs 15 mins to go!

According to BetaNews, in Nintendo's E3 keynote this morning came not only the official announcement of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii, but also something unexpected - VoIP functionality (voice chat) and native SMS/e-mail interactivity.

Animal Crossing: City Folk is the third in the Nintendo Animal Crossing series - a life simulator game. Sounds like Second Life to me. This follows-up the lauch of Animal Crossing in 2001 and Animal Crossing: Wild World in 2005. You assume a anthropomorphic character (resembling both human and animal) and in the open-ended life simulation game you live in a village but there is little preset plot or mandatory tasks.

Called WiiSpeak BetaNews explains that it's "an ambient microphone peripheral meant to encourage live group chatting in Wi-Fi gameplay."

Lastly, BetaNews states:

Also, though only mentioned briefly, the feature in previous versions of Animal Crossing that allowed users to send each other letters in-game, has been expanded to include sending letters outside the game. Communications can be sent to the Wii Message Board, e-mail accounts, and even cell phones via SMS.

I wonder if this is using the new Logitech wireless keyboard for the Wii (also launched today) to text/email messages outside the game? That's pretty cool - connecting your virtual simulated life communications with your real life communications. Before you know it that line will be so blurred you won't know the difference.

Logitech has announced a wireless keyboard for the Nintendo Wii console that enables users to chat online when playing games like "Animal Crossing." The keyboard was unveiled during the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. Combine the Logitech Wireless Keyboard for Nintendo Wii with the new Wii MotionPlus more accurate motion sensor -- or even the current Wii controller's accelerometer technology --  and who needs to type an emoticon such as  ":(" when you can just shake the damn keyboard to indicate you're mad. Ok, maybe not.

Cool Blue-ray promotion from Amazon I thought I'd share. Buy 2 Blu-ray DVDs get 1 DVD free. Sweet! I keep threatening to buy a Blu-ray player, specifically a Sony PS3, but I just can't seem to pull the trigger. Could have something to do with the $1500 Jeep transmission repair.

Blu-ray Buy 2, Get 1 Free Promotion

Now through July 27, the Amazon DVD team is offering a special Buy 2 Get 1 Free promotion on over 100 Blu-ray titles. This is a fantastic opportunity for your customers to start building their Blu-ray libraries with Amazon's great selection of titles, including Shooter, 3:10 to Yuma and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

In addition, Amazon.com is currently offering exclusive Blu-ray bundles of Kill Bill - Volumes 1 & 2, now available for pre-order ($39.99), and Weeds Seasons 1-3 ($65.99), in-stock now. Plus, the epic saga The Godfather Collection ($86.95) has arrived on Blu-ray, now available for pre-order. Explore hundreds of titles available in our Blu-ray store, all at least 30% off.

Click to see the Amazon Buy 2 Get 1 Free promotion with available titles.

According to Yahoo News, Microsoft Corp said today that its Xbox 360 console will sell better than the Sony PlayStation 3 over the lifetime of the machines.

"Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PlayStation 3," Don Mattrick, a senior vice president at Microsoft's Xbox division, said at Microsoft's news conference before the start of the E3 video game industry trade show. Microsoft said the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 in the United States by 5 million.

Yeah, well you wouldn't be forgetting the Wii now would Wii? The Nintendo Wii might just kick both your butts in worldwide units sold. Still, the PS3 is a more applicable comparison to the Xbox 360. The Wii is for the casual gamer where as the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 are for your hardcore gamers. Actually, I've been eyeing a PS3 just so I can have a Blu-ray player.

In related Xbox 360 pwn'ing PS3 news, Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console will be able to stream thousands of movies over the Internet, thanks to a deal with Netflix. It was announced today at the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. This deal will give Netflix's 8 million subscribers the ability to stream movies on a TV instead of a computer.

And don't forget the Netflix-backed startup called Roku already sells a small streaming device that connects to TVs.

The Netflix streaming service offers 10,000 movies and TV shows. Your move Sony...

I just happened to be checking out our firewall logs and noticed traffic coming from 88.160.222.185. Curious, I did a whois and figured out it was coming from http://www.proxad.net/ which redirects to http://www.free.fr/adsl/.

The first thing I noticed other than the fact that website is in French,-- which I can't read -- is that they offer Internet + Telephone + Television for 29.99 €/month. I was able to figure that out since apparently Internet, Telephone, and Television don't translate at all in French. They're the same words except for some accent letters, as seen here from a website screen grab I did:

What I can gather is that they offer 250 channels, ADSL (ADSL2+?), Freebox HD receiver, unlimited phone calls to 70 destinations, and even a WiFi-MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) router. MIMO (pronounced mee-moh or my-moh), is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. Their Internet speed says 28 Mega- whatever that means. 28Mbit/s? Although, ADSL2+, which is faster than ADSL, maxes out at 24Mbits/s. Hmmm. Are the French inventing some proprietary ADSL spec that is faster?

Also, if I read their website correctly, they give you 10GB of storage space - mostly likely talking about the Freebox receiver. Seems a bit low to me if doing any sort of Tivo-like functionality (pause Live TV, recordings, etc.) The 29.99 €/month translates into $46.99 U.S. dollars which seems like a pretty sweet deal for a triple-play package!

Any French readers want to translate exactly what this products' feature-set is? Post a comment...

Update: 5 min after post Found some more info on Wikipedia

The box, designed by Free, uses a 32 bits RC32355 processor and is managed by an operating system using a derivative of the Linux kernel. It has many interfaces:

• An Ethernet port 10/100 Mbit/s full/half duplex;
• A USB2 port;
• An HDMI port;
• An RJ11 jack for the ADSL connection;
• An RJ11 jack for phone equipment (two jacks on versions 1 & 2 but only one active);
• A SCART (Péritel) socket
• An digital audio output RCA, or optical SPDIF starting from version 3;
• An extension port of the Serial ATA standard on versions 3 and 4 and Parallel ATA standard on versions 1 and 2;
• A host USB port on version 4;

One cool feature is that it supports a Videolan client in order to get the movies (in any format read by VLC) stored on the computer and watchable on TV through a playlist selector using Freeplayer. See my VideoLan post for more on this free streaming client.

Freebox is indeed an ADSL2+ modem that the French ISP called Free provides to its ADSL subscribers at a cost of around 190 Euros.

It can not only be uses as a high-end wireless modem (802.11g MIMO), but it also enbles Free to offer value-add services such as HD television (1080p), video recording with timeshifting capabilities, digital radio and analog telephony via one or more RJ11 ports.

The technology used in the PlayStation 3 is being used to help explore and find oil much faster than before. Woohoo!

Using IBM technology, specifically the IBM PowerXCell 8i, which was originally developed for the Sony Playstation, a Spanish Oil company reports that specialized "Cell" microprocessors are speeding the search for oil and natural gas reserves located 30,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico up to 6 times faster than current technology. Repsol and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center are using a process known as Reverse Time Migration (RTM), a sophisticated subsurface imaging tool accepted by the oil industry.

It has proven essential for imaging areas of complex subsurface geological structure, such as the rich hydrocarbon provinces of the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and West Africa. These basins are the new frontiers in oil exploration, where significant oil reserves are present below thick masses
of salt that have made seismic imaging difficult. But the new technology
will accelerate and streamline oil and gas exploration in these promising regions by several orders of magnitude compared to current industry
methods.

Great! Now we just need to network up the millions of PS3s around the world to assist in oil exploration and we'll have this high oil price problem licked in no time!

Of course, just because we find it doesn't mean we can 'drill' for it. Darned extreme environmentalists! Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico and last I checked not a drop of oil was spilled by any of the oil platforms in the Gulf. And don't get me started on ANWR and offshore oil drilling.

Anyway, the project is sponsored by oil and gas company Repsol and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service estimates that these ultra deep Gulf waters holds approximately 56 billion barrels of oil equivalent (oil and natural gas), which, at $130/barrel, would be worth over $7 trillion and would meet the entire U.S. demand for oil and gas for about five years.

Sounds too good to be true, especially with the Democratic party blocking any attempts to drill for oil in U.S. territories. Then again, it's a Spanish company doing the oil drilling and not the U.S., which apparently is beholden to extreme enviro-wacko views even though the vast majority of Americans want us to drill. Heck, even the Chinese will be drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. ABTUSACD (Anybody But The USA Can Drill) apparently. Well, if you believe oil is bad and causing global warming, I have news for you --- China and other countries are doing to drill off the coast of the U.S. anyway.

Check out the funny The No Zone chart displayed on the U.S. Senator floor to show Congressional stonewalling.

Speaking of fring (blogged earlier today), there is a cool new TV series called Fringe which comes out this Fall created by American Emmy Award-winning film and television producer, writer, actor, composer, and director J.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams also wrote and produced for the popular TV show Lost, including the opening sequence in the first episode of Lost where the plane breaks apart in mid-air.

Apparently Abrams hates planes since in the opening sequence in Fringe involves a plane that lands "intact" but all of its occupants are dead and the inside of the plane is bloody, dark, and eerie. The show definitely has an X-Files feel to it, which is fine by me, since I'm a huge X-Files fan. The trailer talks about exponential science advancements including re-animation, teleportation, genetics, etc.

The new show premieres September 9th at 8pm ET/PT and stars Joshua Jackson (Pacey from Dawson's Creek) , Anna Torv, John Noble, Blair Brown, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo, and Jasika Nicole. Fringe airs this Fall on FOX. So will this be just another X-Files rip-off or will it suck you in and and make you addicted? FOX has had me addicted to X-Files, 24, and now potentially Fringe so I can't wait till the Fall! Smallville is another TV show I'm addicted to, but it's been slowly going down-hill. Guess it's run it's course after 7 seasons, now in its 8th season.

Also, check out this other Fringe preview where a female FBI agent chases down a suspect. Some high-octane chasing, roof jumping, camera shaking action that will get your heart pumping.
Now as to what this has to do with VoIP. Well, Fringe is similar to fring, the mobile VoIP app. Ok, that's a stretch. How bout, I'm excited to see how advanced scientific advancements are portrayed in the show, specifically regarding mobile phones and VoIP. Lest you forget, the show 24 had Cisco IP phones and even had a drunk guy hitting on Chloe using VoIP as a pickup line  - "Whatdya got? A little voice over IP going on there?"  So the new TV show, Fringe in order to be on the 'bleeding edge' should have wireless VoIP phones, miniature hidden in-ear Bluetooth headsets that work 1000 feet away for when the bad guy takes your phone away you can still covertly dial for help , or maybe even WIMAX phones or some other futuristic communications technology.

 Time to upgrade your headphones or ear buds for some high-quality iPod music listening? Not to mention some high-quality VoIPing, Skyping, etc. etc. Well, why not get cash back for your headphones to offset the costs of a new one? Check out this news I just received...

Due to the wild success of Sennheiser's upgrade program, the high-end German headphone manufacturer has relaunched the trade-in program with several enhancements. The cash back offer now includes wired AND wireless headphones of all sizes:

+ Audiophile headphones
+ Wireless headphones
+ Hi-Fi headphones
+ Portable headphones
+ Sport headphones
+ Noise cancelling headphones

(yes, you can even trade earbuds for $50 bucks off of the mighty HD 650)

Even better, the program has been extended to the end of September 2008 to include summer travel and back-to-school shopping.

From now through September 30, 2008, upgrade to a high quality pair of Sennheiser's and they will give you cash just for unloading the old ones...even if they are broken, crusty, damaged or an obscure brand. Best of all, you're likely to find a better type of headphone for your needs than what a stock earbud can provide: sport headphones, in-ear headphones, noise cancelling headphones and more.

Here's how it works:

• Gather up your old headphones, which can be new, old, broken, used, any brand - they don't care!
• Upgrade to a pair of Sennheiser's (see link below for eligible models)
• Mail us the old headphones E-Z trade form and get $$ for your trade. It's really that easy.

Simply visit www.sennheiserusa.com/upgrade to get started

Looks like you can only trade-in Sennheiser brand headphones (and earbuds) per their Terms and Conditions included below. Still I think this is a nice deal that helps build customer loyalty. They know they will at least get something for their old headphones if they want to upgrade. It doesn't appear this trade-in cash back deal applies to Sennheiser headsets (i.e. built-in microphones). Bummer.

Terms and Conditions
$5 rebate applies to Sennheiser MX 51, MX 55, MX 55V, MX 560, MX 660, MX 760, MXL 51, OMX 50, OMX 52; $10 rebate applies to Sennheiser PMX 100, PMX 200, PMX 60, PX 100, PX 200, LX 70, MX 75, MXL 70V, OMX 70, PMX 70;
$15 rebate applies to Sennheiser CX 300, CX 400, CX 500, CX 55, CX 95; $20 rebate applies to Sennheiser MX W1, RS 110, RS 120, RS 130, RS 140; $25 rebate applies to Sennheiser PXC 150, PXC 250, PXC 300, PXC 350, PXC 450;
$30 rebate applies to Sennheiser HD 515, HD 555, HD 595; $50 rebate applies to Sennheiser HD 600, HD 650;

Headphone exchanges are limited to one per customer, household, or organization per rebate form submission. Headphone exchanges greater than (1) per rebate form will be discarded. Headphones submitted cannot be returned under any circumstances (all trades final). Offer valid only on consumer purchases made between April 1 - September 30, 2008 from an Authorized Sennheiser USA dealer. eBay purchases are excluded from this offer. Rebate claim forms must be postmarked no later than 10/31/2008. Sennheiser distributors, retailers, their employees or their families may not claim rebates on behalf of consumers (end users). Rebate requests not including proper documentation (this official coupon, original UPC code, and dated sales receipt containing model # and retailer's name) will be ineligible. All checks will be issued in U.S. dollars. Sennheiser is not responsible for lost or misdirected mail. Sennheiser reserves the right to terminate program at any time. Void where prohibited by law. Sennheiser is a registered trademark. All rights reserved. Rebate eligibility as determined by Sennheiser is final. Offer valid to U.S. addresses only, for new product only.

So  who will be the winner -- the ruler -- of the home entertainment (media) center battle royale?

Sony is making a strong bid -- and why not with its history? -- using the PlayStation 3 as the centerpiece of their strategy.

According to Engadget, Sony will make a movie download service available to US PlayStation 3 owners this summer -- Japan and Europe at later dates with details coming "next month," presumably at E3.

Of course, we already knew that Sony was prepped to deliver full-length TV shows and movies sometime in 2008 via its North American PlayStation Network. But summer, eh?

It would be good if someone could make this type of service really, really appealing -- nothing out there gets me really excited -- except for the overall concept.

And now with the price of gas making dedicated trips to the video store even less appealing (does anyone still do that Blockbuster?), then this has got to be the next killer app.