Bang & Olufsen, purveyor of high-class home entertainment porn, has added another sleek model to its stable of high-def tellys. And, with a price tag of just £1,800 [excluding stand – this is B&O, after all] this 26in HDTV is considered to be the ‘affordable’ model.
That sleek black and silver finish surrounds a display with a 1366x768 pixel resolution, contrast ratio of 1200:1, a 6ms response time and brightness of 500cd/m2. There’s only one HDMI input though, which I think is just plain stingy for a luxury TV these days. Hell, most other makers offer two now, and some, even three. There’s also no digital TV tuner.
You can expect the BeoVision 8 to sound great though, thanks to two, 2in midrange/tweeter drivers and one 4in center bass loudspeaker driver. The company says that it can even be used as a dedicated PC monitor – jump now for a photo.
Still, you don’t go for B&O for a bargain, and this is a pretty smart looking HDTV from a company with a pedigree in design and quality. You can even get that funky stand if you shell out an extra £200.-Martin Lynch
Monday, April 30, 2007
Bang & Olufsen’s Budget HDTV
Sunday, April 29, 2007
iPods Dished Up In Top UK Restaurant
My ideal restaurant experience tends to be when someone else picks up the tab but, for others, they need a little bit more to get the most out of their nosh.
The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire is now one of the world’s most renowned restaurants, thanks to the mad genius of owner/chef Heston Blumenthal.
The man who’s never adverse to a bit of experimentation has decided iPods and music will enhance its menu. A new dish called ‘Sound of The Sea’ comes with iPods on the side. It is comprised of seaweed, seafood and tapioca, comes served in a wooden box with a surround of sand and seashells and diners are requested to listen to sounds of the sea on the iPods as they chow down.
Talking to Square Meal, Blumenthal said:
“I did a series of tests with Charles Spence at Oxford University three years ago, which revealed that sound can really enhance the sense of taste. We ate an oyster while listening to the sea and it tasted stronger and saltier than when we ate it while listening to barnyard noises, for example.”
No, you don’t get to keep the iPods.
19in HDTV For Bathroom Hogs
For those that like long baths or can't face missing even a minute of glorious day-time TV, you might want one of these. This is Envirovision’s 19in HDTV for bathrooms, guaranteed to look good on the wall and not kill you when you slosh water all over it.
You can get the TV with ceiling mount speakers – again waterproof – on with internal waterproofed speakers. There’s also an impressive range of colours, from single-bloke shiny black to Diva gold and available with or without a mirrored display.
On the technical front, the display has a resolution of 1440 x 900, a contrast ratio of 800:1, 3ms response time and connections that include HDMI, Scart and PC. Prices start at £999. See one installed after the jump.
Slouchpod: The Gamer's Beanbag
If beanbags had a version 2.0, the Slouchpad would be it. A gamer's dream, it has two built-in 5Watt RMS speakers and a 10Watt RMS Sub Woofer for those outta-the-chair moments when you're playing Gears Of War. And it's not just gamer-friendly, as you can plug just about anything into it from MP3 players to TV, DVD and your laptop.
The Slouchpad comes in six colors, including classic black, cream and red, and the more nausea-inducing lilac, pink and white. The price is £299, a bargain at under £300. – Ad Dugdale
GeekMan: For the Geek Who Has it All
If having buff action figures on your desk reminds you of your own flaccid muscular structure, then this Geek Man figure will make you feel like Dolph Lundgren. Complete with a BlackBerry, a Windows (Acer? Lenovo?) PC, an analog watch, coffee mug and gigantic spectacles, the Geek Man really does remind us to get out, exercise and play with some real-life people once in a while.
Maybe if you put him in a drawer with that slut Malibu Stacy, you'll have some Geek kids soon as well. – Jason Chen
Nintendo Sells Nearly 6 Million Wiis
It’s all champagne and caviar at Nintendo this week, following astronomical results. Hard to believe they could actually have been better, but they could if only there had been a little more Wii to go around. .
In five months Nintendo has managed to ship 5.84 million Wiis [just short of its 6m goal but still mental]. Even despite the fact that it’s half the price of the PS3, it shows that Sony’s sales of under 2 million PS3s in roughly the same timeframe points to some trouble. Check the latest console sales stats - at least for the US - here.
Still, Nintendo could have sold a lot more if its production set-up had been better. Nintendo has even predicted that it will hit 20 million Wiis sold by this time in 2008. That’s a phenomenal number, if it manages to pull it off. In fact, it really needs to sort out that chronic supply problem.
The company has been producing one million units a months but admitted that it’s along way off fulfilling demand. Even with new plans to produce 14 million units this year, it’s warning that it will not be enough.-Martin Lynch
Wi-Fi Bad For Kids Again: Possibly, Sort Of
Following on from last week’s scare into Wi-Fi being potentially harmful for kids, today we have another one, with a leading government advisor claiming that kids should not place laptops on their laps when using Wi-Fi.
This stuff has more than a whiff of similarity to the ‘mobile phone/radiation’ scares. This time, Professor Lawrie Challis, who heads the committee on mobile phone safety research, told the Daily Telegraph that laptops on kid’s laps put them too close to the transmitter and exposes them to mobile phone levels of radiation. He said:
“With a desktop computer, the transmitter will be in the tower. This might be perhaps 20cms from your leg and the exposure would then be around one per cent of that from a mobile phone. However if you put a laptop straight on your lap and are using Wi-Fi, you could be around 2cms from the transmitter, and receiving comparable exposure to that from a mobile phone.”
Half of UK schools are currently equipped with Wi-Fi networks and teachers are now weighing in on the subject. The Professional Association of Teachers is writing to the education secretary for confirmation that Wi-Fi is not harmful.
That means you can expect to see yet another Wi-Fi safety report commissioned for a few million quid and, in about two years and after numerous delays, it will deliver either contradictory or inconclusive results, leading to - yes, you guessed it - another pricey report. Expect this hot potato to run and run.-Martin Lynch