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Ever since the advent of the first radios and TVs, home entertainment has been a relatively high-tech enterprise, but in the past few years, there has been a revolution in the quality of sights and sounds available. This arena continues to be an experimental space for new and improved technologies t...
Buffalo Tech on Monday became the first on the market with wireless products touting 802.11ac WiFi, also known as "5G WiFi." These are its AirStation WZR-D1800H wireless router and WLI-H4-D1300 wireless media bridge. They purportedly offer speeds up to three times faster than 802.11n, and they are f...
We might never get to the point of having a Jetsons-like kitchen that prepares our meals for us, but some recent advances in kitchen technology are getting close to that. Programmable ovens and stoves with pre-set recipes and instructions for various dishes, for instance, take much of the guesswork ...
As if the remote home monitoring and automation market weren't crowded enough already with players like ADT and utility companies with their smart meters, AT&T announced on Monday plans for entering the arena. It will offer consumers Web-based access to automation tools for their home energy and...
Tim Shriver likes to talk to his house. "Turn the porch light on at 3 p.m.," he says through an intercom to the female voice that belongs to his house. She confirms that she will make sure the light comes on as instructed. "Open my shopping list, and add apples, bananas and bread," he continues. Sh...
Marla Cilley, aka the FlyLady, knows a thing or two about housecleaning. One of those things is that it's hard to get motivated to do it. To address this problem, she created an empire around inspiring others to step up their housecleaning game. "We do behavior modification through email, Facebook a...
Have you ever accessed your home or small office router configuration settings and been bombarded with a mass of incomprehensible, cryptic computer-eze and senseless acronyms and abbreviations? Never fear -- you can quickly come up to speed on the basics. The router is a computer networking device t...
A new all-in-one home entertainment center announced Tuesday by Ikea may give some Baby Boomers a sense of deja vu. The new product line is called "Uppleva" by the Swedish furniture retailer, known for making attractively designed products with odd names and selling them at affordable prices. It com...
Forget to turn on your security system at your home in Denver, and you're on a business trip in Chicago? No problem: With the tap of a finger on a touchscreen, you can switch it on. And while you're at it, you can adjust your home's temperature and flip on a few lights as well. In the converging wor...
The tumultuous convergence of entertainment devices, greater interaction with the television-viewing experience, and increased involvement of social networks were all in the Klieg lights at the IP&TV World Forum, the Internet television show I attended recently in London. I was immersed in the f...
I'm surrounded by screens here at the Olympia exhibition hall -- tablet-sized, big screens, you name it -- and they all connect with each other. It's day three at the IP&TV World Forum. The lowly remote control can soon be buried under the sofa cushions for good, judging by the offerings from se...
New home construction and remodeling projects, from a multimedia wiring angle, have the advantage of incorporating cable management at the design stage. That design is structured into the build. Unfortunately, existing homes don't have this luxury -- tearing into walls is disruptive and expensive....
Samsung's ES8000 -- a so-called smart TV complete with gesture and voice controls as well as a touchpad remote -- is ready to hit shelves. Attendants at January's Consumer Electronics Show got a first glimpse at the new line of smart TVs, but the sets weren't available until Tuesday, when Samsung an...
If you think of some of the more recent significant developments in television viewing, you'll probably come up with a list that includes the digital video recorder, which provides easy time-shifting without lossy tape; the flat-screen, high-definition television, which provides high-quality images ...
Canadian company Kik Interactive, creator of the Kik Messenger smartphone texting app, has announced a new product called "Clik." Clik lets smartphone users take over any screen that's connected to a browser. Smartphone owners can simply use their devices to scan a code found on the screen they want...