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Panasonic unveiled a 150-inch plasma at CES, calling it the “world’s largest.”
Panasonic calls it the “Life Screen.” By the way, Panasonic also took the wraps off something it calls the “Life Wall” — a wall of video displays that you can install in your house. Apparently, it has face-recognition software and some kind of user interface so you can watch TV and surf the web. Wicked.
4 comments January 7th, 2008
WMUR.com in Manchester, NH has hired a 22-year-old college student to cover the primary. Called “Your Fate ‘08,” his reports are appearing on WMUR.com as well as YouTube and Facebook. “The whole point of doing Your Fate ‘08 is getting our message out to as many people as possible,” says WMUR News Director Andrew Vrees. “We’re doing the things younger users say they want to see more of.” Also, WMUR worked with YouTube to distribute free flip video cameras to encouarge people to upload their primary-related video. The highest-ranked videos will make it on the air. Screen grab of WMUR’s YouTube page below…
7 comments January 7th, 2008
So how do you get around all the legal uncertainty while giving TV viewers the ability to take the same shows they recorded on their DVR available on a portable device? You make a DVR that doubles as a portable device. That’s what Comcast and Panasonic have done with AnyPlay, a new device revealed at CES. AnyPlay can record up to 60 hours of standard-def video and also plays DVDs and CDs. And it docks right into your cable service (that photo shows the AnyPlay docked) so it also acts as your at-home DVR and cable set-top box. Not as cool as an iPod, is it?
5 comments January 7th, 2008
NBC’s Brian Williams had planned to report from CES today to debut the new Nightly.msnbc.com, but a message on the site says it has been pushed back to Wednesday “due to upcoming live coverage of the New Hampshire primary.”
1 comment January 7th, 2008
Samsung announced a deal with USAToday.com to deliver news and local weather information direct to your TV. “Weather is the most popular feature (in trials),” says a Samsung spokesperson. Separately, Sharp announced it would pipe selected internet content directly to its Aquos TVs, including local weather and Traffic.com updates. NBC will be one of the content partners, with others to be announced later. Both Sharp and Samsung TVs don’t require any extra hardware — just plug an ethernet cable directly into your TV set. This is just one more development of how local consumers are able to bypass local media for their local weather and traffic — this time right on their TV sets.
2 comments January 7th, 2008
NBC has teamed with Microsoft’s MSN team to power NBCOlympics.com, the official site of the 2008 Olympics. During his CES 2008 keynote, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft Silverlight will drive the online video for the site. As announced before, NBC will stream 2,200 hours of live coverage — as many as 30 simultaneous live feeds — and make more than 3,000 hours available on demand. The live feeds will have a “metadata overlay” which will allow users to click for enhanced information. “It’s going to let us illustrate why TV is going to be very different,” Gates said. “Events like this in the broadcast format… are not as satisfying.” In a video, Bob Costas showed a quick preview of the Silverlight service with Olympics video, which showed a quad split of four screens of video playing at once. Costas called it the “most comprehensive and ambitious” live broadband production ever. Screen grab…
It’s unclear if this means the end of Internet Broadcasting’s role in NBCOlympics.com, or limits its role to the local content. The press release with more details follows below.
Read the full post 8 comments January 6th, 2008
Now that the Wall Street Journal is owned by the same company behind Fox Business, CNBC has partnered with the New York Times to share web content. As part of the deal, CNBC video will appear on NYTimes.com.
Add comment January 6th, 2008
Gates also announced that ABC and Disney will sell their hallmark shows, such as Lost and Grey’s Anatomy, on Xbox Live. MGM will also offer movie downloads on the service. “This is not a hobby for Microsoft, this is something we take quite seriously,” said Microsoft exec Robbie Bach. Release…
Read the full post Add comment January 6th, 2008
Bill Gates has been giving the kick-off keynote at CES for over a decade. And tonight, it’s his last, as he’s stepping down from his day-to-day work at Microsoft in June. So he opened his presentation with a video chronicling his last day at work at Microsoft. Wow. Stars like Matthew Mcconaughey, Jay Z, George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, Bono, Al Gore, Jon Stewart and Brian Williams (of course) appeared in the clip. Hilarious stuff. Currently the video is only available in the full presentation clip, but let us know if you see it on YouTube or somewhere else in clip form.
Gates asks Mcconaughey, “Am I ready to take my shirt off yet?”
Update: Here’s a link to the clip, courtesy of CitizenRain.
2 comments January 6th, 2008
For most kids, Christmas was a couple of weeks ago, but for tech geeks, it’s now with CES. With that in mind, here is a list of places you can go to for updates. We’ve also changed the news wire in the right column to automatically update with the latest CES news from nearly two dozen sources.
- PaidContent reporting from CES
- CNET at CES, including video from the floor
- Engadget, Gizmodo and Crunchgear, for all the gadget coverage
- Wired.com @ CES
- Valleywag for all the gossipy stuff
- Switched (AOL News blog)
Add comment January 6th, 2008
Since we here at LostRemote know that Lost fans tend to find our website, let me point out that ABC.com has just posted the first 3 seasons of the show, in streaming HD, as a way to get you ready for the January 31st return of the show. To this point ABC has only posted a few episodes of any show in HD, so this is news to our normal readers too. If you’ve had a chance to watch the streaming HD video, you know it’s clear. I imagine many will be interested in going back and watching shows they may have missed, so this is a great move for consumers, but you have to wonder about the impact on DVD sales.
1 comment January 6th, 2008
In the first big announcement of CES 2008, Warner Bros. has decided to support Blu-ray, “a decision that could serve as a death blow to Toshiba’s rival HD DVD format,” reports Variety. Warner says consumer preferences for Blu-ray were outpacing HD DVD. That leaves Paramount and Universal still supporting HD DVD, with Warner joining Disney, Sony, Fox and Lionsgate all backing Blu-ray. Meanwhile, the HD DVD team was stunned with the news heading into CES. They canceled a media event, but promised to keep fighting. “We’ve been declared dead before,” says a Toshiba spokesperson.
2 comments January 6th, 2008
NBC Universal is set to tee up three new sites this month - with at least one of those debuts set for Monday. AccessHollywood.com will get a makeover and new direction - and be unveiled during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. nightly.msnbc.com was also set to debut tomorrow, with Brian Williams broadcasting live from CES. TVNewser says Williams’ CES broadcast has been moved to Wednesday - so it isn’t clear how this affects the Nightly site relaunch. We’re also expecting a relaunch of NBCSports.com with MSNBC.com before the Super Bowl.
NBCU is going all out for CES - with a massive booth, and live broadcasts planned for Today, Nightly, MSNBC, CNBC, Access Hollywood, Telemundo and News Channel. The company has also set up a blog at NBCUatCES.com They’re also rolling out something called the iWall - which is described with some pretty heavy prose:
Our booth at CES will include 290 web sites, 61 presentation tapes, 18 downloadable pieces of content, and 14 interactive sizzle reels on what’s called the iWall (you have to see this thing!)
I think I had a sizzle reel for breakfast once. Here’s the artist’s rendering:
1 comment January 6th, 2008
As MediaPost explains, “It’s clearly a new day when the Recording Academy names YouTube as the official online partner.” Called “My Grammy Moment,” unsigned musicians are encouraged to submit video of them playing a song from the Foo Fighters with the hope of performing with the band on the air.
1 comment January 4th, 2008
We reported a few weeks ago that PublicEye blogger Matthew Felling was let go by CBSNews.com, and now there’s news the blog is going away. “We weren’t able to find a sustainable business model for Public Eye,” a CBS spokesperson told TVNewser. The blog began in 2005 with the mission of bringing “transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News.” Apparently, there isn’t a business model for a blog about transparency.
9 comments January 3rd, 2008
Remember that WaPost story I posted a few days ago that said the RIAA was now pursuing a legal strategy that concluded that copying legal CDs to your own computer is illegal? Well, the reporter who did the story, Marc Fisher, ended up on NPR radio with the president of the RIAA, and as Fark would say, hilarity ensued. The RIAA denied it and accused Fisher of sloppy reporting. The RIAA said that Fisher only quoted part of the legal documents, leaving out the line about copying files to a “shared folder” — a folder that would share the music with other users. “The way I saw it, Fisher was ill advised to debate,” writes Greg Sandoval on News.com. “What was exposed was a reporter who doesn’t want to admit to making a mistake and has dug his heels in.”
Add comment January 3rd, 2008
That’s the Nielsen estimate for the number of viewers watching the new Fox Business Network every weekday.
Ahem. More people read blogs like Lost Remote than watch Fox Business? I wish the ad revenue reflected that…
8 comments January 3rd, 2008
Amazing, Leno can write his own jokes! And the WGA is trying to stop him. I don’t know about you, but this strike is just getting plain silly.
4 comments January 3rd, 2008
Netflix is teaming with LG Electronics to market a device that would allow you to watch movies on your TV. Currently, Netflix subscribers who pay the standard rate of $17 a month can stream movies to their PCs, and sources tell the WSJ.com the same model will likely apply to the LG set-top device. The device is also rumored to play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he’s also exploring other hardware partnerships, which include video game consoles, to also offer the movie service. (WSJ sub. req.)
Add comment January 2nd, 2008
Wow. Landmark Communications is looking for a buyer for The Weather Channel and Weather.com, which some analysts say could fetch $5 billion. So who want a quickly-growing basic cable channel along with the top weather destination on the internet? NBCU, News Corp. and Comcast are all interested, reports NYTimes.com. Imagine, for example, the scenario of NBCU with its Weather Plus digital channels and WeatherPlus.com, etc, etc. Instant synergy. Stay tuned on this one…
8 comments January 2nd, 2008
It debuted on Leno tonight (though it’s been on YouTube for a week) — and I’m sure it will be all over the feeds tomorrow.
On a side-note, JibJab doesn’t seem to be allowing embedding of their videos from JibJab.com anymore, and the version they put up on YouTube also has embedding disabled (the version above is a rip). Why?
2 comments January 2nd, 2008
Howard Owens is offering a challenge to “non-wired” journos: get with the program. He offers a plan for this journalists that many newsroom manager could offer (especially if it has some sort of incentive attached). The ideas include starting a blog, buying a digital camera, posting to Flickr, Twitter and YouTube, getting on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook and use RSS and SMS. Newsroom managers would be smart to use Owens’ plan as a template for old-school journalists to invest in their own future - and the future of their newsroom.
4 comments January 2nd, 2008
The editor of the now-defunct Cincinnati Post issued an edict to his staff just five days before the newspaper shut down: don’t bring booze to your final shift. From Mike Phillipps’ memo: “…tempting as it may be …please do not bring any alcoholic beverages into the newsroom. Let’s go out like the professionals we have been these last, difficult weeks.”
Seems an odd thing to worry about when you’re closing up your business. Slate’s take is classic:
Philipps’ memo brings a couple of questions to mind: 1) Since when is it considered unprofessional for a journalist to take a drink? and 2) If Post staffers, who were all scheduled for dismissal, did bring flasks to work, what was Philipps going to do if he caught them? Fire them?
5 comments January 2nd, 2008
Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang crunches the numbers and determines that WSJ.com would need a 12x increase in traffic to offset the loss in subscription dollars if it moved to a free model.
Adds Rocker in comments: “Lame analysis. $6 (CPM) is absurdly low for this site. WSJ.com at X traffic is worth a multiple of what Yahoo Finance is worth at the same level of traffic. Plus going free opens up syndication/broader distribution options beyond direct site traffic that will expand the footprint and revenue potential, advertising and otherwise. All in all, this is eminently achievable for a company like News Corp.”
1 comment January 2nd, 2008
If you log into Facebook right now (8p ET), you’ll see this very prominent ad at the top of your news feed:
Pretty powerful, if you ask me. You may remember back in November ABC News partnered with Facebook to power its new politics section.
1 comment January 2nd, 2008
