Video Hardware & Software

Microsoft upgrades Xbox Live But Rumored Skype Integration is False

December 5, 2011

The upcoming Metro update to Microsoft’s Xbox, will start to be pushed down to your Xbox console some time this week, but alas it doesn't appear to contain the rumored Skype integration, which several rumors hinted at a Fall release. Well it's winter and the latest release doesn't appear to contain Skype integration with Xbox live. At least that is my assumption from reading the various news articles on the latest Xbox Dashboard, including Microsoft's official announcement, which make no mention of any Skype integration. Surely, someone would have uncovered this momentous piece of news if the latest Dashboard had it.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Skype, TMCnet, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

Kindle Fire Silk Browser Proxying Stokes Privacy Concerns

September 29, 2011

The new Amazon Kindle Fire will use Amazon's very own completely new Web browser called Silk that leverages Amazon's EC2 architecture to proxy and cache web content for faster performance. You might think of it as something similar to Opera Mini, a former favorite mobile browser of mine, which does something similar. What I liked about Opera Mini on my old Windows Mobile phone was that it compressed images and made pages load faster on slower connections. But as 3G speeds became more prevalent, the need for Opera Mini diminished.

Posted in Android, Computer Hardware, Gadgets, Google, Home Entertainment, PDAs & Handhelds, TMCnet, Tablets, Technology and Science, Unified Communications, Video Hardware & Software

Amazon Kindle Fire - Hot or Not?

September 28, 2011

The Amazon Kindle Fire 7-inch tablet aims to take on the Apple iPad, but will the Fire catch fire with consumers? Amazon has loyal Kindle e-reader users, but part of its draw is the e-ink screen which works in direct sunlight for beach book reading. It's the one-up Amazon had over the iPad which doesn't do so well in direct sunlight.

The new Kindle Fire is a color screen and not e-ink, so it loses that advantage. Further, the new Kindle Fire doesn't have a camera! What? No camera? It also doesn't have 3G. What? No 3G? Oh and no microphone either, so no Skype or other VoIP apps.

Posted in Android, Apple, Gadgets, Google, Home Entertainment, PDAs & Handhelds, Skype, TMCnet, Tablets, Unified Communications, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

Steve Jobs the Man, the Myth, the Legend: How it began.

August 26, 2011

I grew up as a computer geek in the late 70s through the 80s into the 90s admiring Bill Gates much more than Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was just "that other computer guy" whose computers were used by less than 8% of the computing world. Microsoft was #1 and Apple was #2 and I liked a winner. Steve Jobs was an also ran to Bill Gates and Microsoft, especially after Windows 95, which arguably copied much of the Macintosh ideas.

Posted in Apple, Gadgets, Mobile Phones, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Video Hardware & Software, Wireless

Home Surveillance using Dropbox Catches Possible Thief in the Act

August 20, 2011

I've been meaning to test out my home surveillance recipe which combines a standard webcam, Dropbox (hosted backup solution), iPhone & iPad mobile Dropbox app, and the free Yet Another Webcam Software (Yawcam). I went to Cape Cod last week and hired a pet sitter to watch our family's dog (Jessie) and cat (Boaz), which offered a perfect opportunity to test out my "poor man's home surveillance" setup. What I found happening in my house while on my vacation shocked me!

But first, my home surveillance recipe:
Setup and install Dropbox (comes with 2GB free). If you use this link, I get 250MB more storage. Create two folders within the main Dropbox folder.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Internet, Personal and Humor, TMCnet, Video Hardware & Software

DirecTV Website Outage

August 4, 2011

DirecTV's website is down. Isn't that just the luck? I have a DirecTV installer here today installing my service and they accidentally signed me up for Spanish TV. While I took 3 years of High School Spanish, I think I'll pass on the Spanish TV. Apparently, the Spanish TV channels use LNB 119 and it requires a 5 LNB satellite dish and I only need a 3 LNB satellite dish.

Posted in Home Entertainment, TMCnet, Video Hardware & Software

Delta Airlines TV FAIL! Plus my Streaming TV over Internet Workaround

August 2, 2011

I was on a Delta Airlines flight a few months ago and was excited to see each seat has a TV on the back of each seat. Jetblue was the first airline to carry live TV on all their flights and I've loved flying Jetblue ever since. It makes the droning hours pass by much quicker if you can watch TV. So in any case, I was pretty excited to see my Delta flight had TV.

After we took off, I pressed the touch-screen to see what channels were available.

My only choices were On-Air 1, On-Air 2, Movie Trailers, and Dish Network.

Posted in Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Internet, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Video Hardware & Software

Blue Jeans Network Bridges Skype, SIP, H.323 for Multipoint Telepresence Solution

May 9, 2011

Blue Jeans Network has been quietly developing a new cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration service that bridges H.323 and SIP end-points, PSTN — and even Skype, with the goal of allowing users to connect everything from high-end video telepresence systems like Tandberg/Cisco and Lifesize to web cams running Skype to desktop IP videophones from Polycom, Grandstream, Cisco, and others. This solves a major problem with video conferencing and telepresence since interoperability, while it has improved, still doesn't take into account legacy H.323 end-points or users that only have inexpensive webcams. Blue Jeans Network plans to support Google and Microsoft Lync as well. Their cloud-based service handles the transcoding of audio and video codecs as well as manages the meeting IDs, PINs, etc.

Posted in Cisco, Digital Cameras, Internet, Mobile Phones, News, Polycom, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

Phantom Flex Camera Super HD 2,564fps Staggering Slow-Mo footage (video)

April 20, 2011

Want to see water drops captured at 1080p with 2,564fps speed played back in slow motion? How bout shattering glass and lightbulbs in slow-mo? Or watching the wave impact travel up a Blackberry as it hits? Tom Guilmette took a Vision Research Phantom Flex camera recently and put together a video of mind blowing slow-motion footage. Tom said, "I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night.

Posted in Accessories, Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Video Hardware & Software

Flash 10.2 Adds Full Screen on Separate Monitors

February 9, 2011

Flash 10.2 finally adds the ability to watch full screen video on a separate monitor while you continue to work on your primary monitor. Guess this makes the popular Flash full screen hack called FlashHacker obsolete. Now everyone can happily watch Hulu, YouTube, Liveleak, and all other Flash video in full screen on a second monitor while simultaneously checking email and surfing the web. In theory, any Flash-based video conferencing product (i.e. FaceFlow) that uses Flash and allows full-screen mode should also allow you do full-screen video conferencing while working in a separate window.

Posted in Internet, News, TMCnet, Video Conferencing, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

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