Football. Opium of the proletarian mind. You may find 22 men kicking a ball around a patch of grass about as exciting as embroidery, but at least there’s the possibility of a ringside seat at some good old ultraviolence. And if bloodshed’s on your mind, then high definition is what you need: what finer way is there …
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Exciting news. I heard today that Channel 4 will be launching a DVD download service this autumn, and will be offering thousands of films for download. This is great news for movie fans, who today have only a few options if they want to download DVDs. I like postal DVD services such as ScreenSelect, which send out rental films via …
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The wireless has come a long way since the days of cat’s whiskers, Bakelite headphones and aerials that looked like your gran’s washing line. The good old BBC is still up there with the leaders, too; its Listen Again service means you can get a blast of a Mozart symphony or a reading from Moyles’ Profanisaurus up to seven days …
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Fancy some high-definition TV but don’t have satellite or cable? Got a PC and a digital TV card? Then you may care to know that BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five are running trial transmissions on the Freeview system, and that while the broadcasts are nominally restricted to a few hand-picked technotesters there’s nothing stopping you from eavesdropping. Except for …
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Yesterday marked the official relaunch of Grundig. That’s right — the company best known for flogging cheap tellies through cheap retail outlets is back, and it’s better than ever. Apparently. It marked its re-entry to the UK market by hiring a room at the exclusive Groucho Club in London’s Soho, serving lots of alcohol and showing the football on a …
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When it comes to music, mighty Microsoft is the underdog. For the company that dominates PC operating systems, desktop software suites and e-mail software and has a darn good business in everything from databases to video games, it’s an unaccustomed label. Can the latest version of Microsoft’s music software, Windows Media Player 11, be the first in many steps to …
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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has confirmed that its first batch of Blu-ray movies will arrive in the US on 20 June. The films, 50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch and the House of Flying Daggers are set to coincide with the release of the first Blu-ray players, but are we wrong not to be excited? House of Flying Daggers …
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Depressed that you’re stuck watching the World Cup from home? Your luck could be about to change, because we’re running a competition, in conjunction with Toshiba, to win tickets to see England play against Trinidad and Tobago in Nuremberg on Thursday 15 June. Toshiba will fly three lucky winners to Nuremberg for the day, where they will be treated to luxury hospitality and …
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Little Timmy’s kicking the back seat, you’ve run out of Ritalin, and you don’t want to waste any more tranquiliser darts on the urchin of your discontent. What’s a parent to do? Why not strap one of these Mustek LCD screens to the back of your headrest and sedate the chimp of your loins with a DVD movie? The quality …
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I have been reading your reviews on HD Ready LCD televisions, and while they’re informative I can’t find any LCD TVs that support 1080p definition. I work in the games industry, and I need to buy an LCD TV set that will be compatible with 1080p. Most of the sets I have researched seem to be only 1080i compatible. Could …
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Chronos, God of time, born from Chaos, celebrated star of Greek mythology, and now a bedside alarm clock. How far the great have fallen. Did the great God Chronos imagine that one day he would be awakening the commuter from her hazy red wine slumber and propelling her into the bathroom to the wolverine yapping of Coldplay? We’ve looked at …
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Crave’s beautiful 32-inch Sharp LCD is about to hijacked by a World Cup-obsessed partner so we are currently looking into alternatives. Sony’s new DVD Walkman caught our eye this morning — the timing was perfect. According to Sony, the D-VE7000S DVD Walkman has a 7-inch LCD widescreen, isn’t much bigger than a DVD case, and weighs about the same as …
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File-swapping company Grokster has agreed to stop distributing its peer-to-peer software, following a $50 million legal settlement announced Monday with Hollywood studios and record labels. Along with co-defendant StreamCast Networks, Grokster had been accused by the music and movie industries of contributing to widespread copyright infringement by people who used its software to download songs and films. Monday’s settlement comes …
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It must be a good time to be at the helm of the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA, the primary trade association for the American recording industry with a $27.7 million annual budget, is enjoying a string of recent political and legal victories. In last year’s Grokster case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower court’s ruling …
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As Microsoft continues to enjoy mostly favorable reviews of its new Windows Media Player 11 jukebox software, analysts say the real boost for the company’s latest foray into music is a partnership with MTV Networks. As expected, Microsoft officially rolled out a test version of Windows Media Player 11 for XP on Wednesday, two days after the free software could …
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