Panasonic NEO plasmas consume half the power

As we've been reporting for years, plasmas are much less energy efficient than LCDs. Panasonic aims to level the playing field with its new NEO PDP plasma panel, which uses half as much energy to create the same brightness, according to the company.

The S10 series, the company's least-expensive with NEO PDP panels, will be available in a whopping total of six screen sizes. The 42-inch TC-P42S1, the 46-inch TC-P46S1, and the 50-inch TC-P50S1 will ship in the US in March, the new 54-inch size TCP54S1 will ship in May and the behemoth 58-inch TC-P58S1 and 65-inch TC-P65S1 will ship in August. As expected, prices were not announced.

Unlike the step-down X1 series, the S1 incorporates many of the company's most-desirable picture quality enhancements. The NEO PDP panel, in addition to its purported energy savings, offers improved contrast ratio that should contribute to deeper black levels. The S1 series is also the least-expensive in Panasonic's lineup with 1080p resolution, for what it's worth.


Read more »

WowWee shows off micro projector trio

At the pre-CES Digital Experience event held at The Mirage in Las Vegas, the WowWee Group showed off its recently announced micro projectors. The Cinemin Swivel, an entry-level model, comes with a unique 90-degree hinge for ceiling mounting and a 3-hour battery. The Cinemin Stick, on the other hand, offers onboard memory and an SD card slot. The largest unit of the trio, the Cinemin Station, is touted as a media center with a built-in iPod docking station.

According to a company representative at the booth, the Cinemin micro projectors can throw a diagonal screen size of up to 60 inches. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find out if the three new projectors would make their way to Asia.

Seagate's new living-room accessory: The FreeAgent Theater HD media player

Western Digital recently released an HD media player that was designed to leverage the content people were storing on that company's external storage devices. Now Seagate's followed suit with a similar product, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD media player, which connects to your TV and plays back video, pictures, and music from external storage devices.

Seagate describes the FreeAgent Theater as an accessory that enables "people to easily enjoy stored digital media on their TV screens rather than their computer monitors." It works like this: You transfer files from your computer to your FreeAgent Go--or another storage device--then dock the device in the FreeAgent Theater via a USB connection. The little black box has the processing power and the codecs onboard to read a wide variety of file formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DivX files with support for NTSC, PAL, and HD resolutions up to 1080i (there's also support for subtitles). The audio formats supported include 5.1-channel surround sound (if available) and popular digital-audio formats including MP3, WMA, WAV, and OGG. Naturally, there an easy-to-use onscreen interface that makes navigating your files easier. (when we get our review unit, we'll let you know just how user-friendly it truly is, of course).


Read more »

Netgear unveils Internet TV Player

Together with the Digital Entertainer Elite, Netgear showcased in CES its new Internet TV Player (ITV2000).

This is an Internet settop box with a simple remote control that allows viewers to watch Internet videos from various sources on their TV screens. It works with both new HDTVs and old analog TVs.

The purpose of the device is to display on a big screen TV what you would normally watch alone on your computer.

Currently, the device can stream content from popular sites such as BBC.com, CNN.com, ESPN.com, EuroSport.com, NBC.com, PGATour and TMZ.com, as well as video powerhouses YouTube, Google Videos, Yahoo Videos, and MetaCafe.


Read more »

Netgear adds storage, Draft N to content streamer

During CES 2007, Netgear joined the home entertainment department with the Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD, a networked digital content streaming device. Two years later, Netgear unveils the device's successor, the Digital Entertainer Elite EVA9150, which offers a few significant improvements.

First off, it now comes with a 500GB internal hard drive for extra local content storage. This means the device now not only works as a media-streaming device but it can also store content on its own. The hard drive is even removable so you can change or replace it with a larger hard drive.


Read more »

Crave is...

The name says it all. Crave is our blog about cool gadgets and other crushworthy stuff.

Drop us an email if you have tips or suggestions.

Crave for...

» Mobile Phones (2194)

» Digital Cameras (968)

» Notebooks (1222)

» PC & Peripherals (1299)

» Handhelds (581)

» Printers (79)

» Home AV (1132)

» Music & Play (884)

» Gadgets (1468)

» Future Tech (386)

» Green Tech (170)

» Lifestyle (151)

» Luxury (22)

» Home Appliances (57)

» Cars (98)

» Games and Gear (244)

» Software (90)

» Web (98)

Previously...

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Hot Topics

Subscribe to
Crave

What's Hot

apple apple inc. apple iphone apple ipod asia battery camera game google inc. iphone microsoft corp. microsoft windows mobile phone photograph singapore smart phone software sony corp. video

Today on CNET |  Reviews |  Crave |  Blogs |  CNET TV |  Digital Living |  Downloads