Sony Eco TV goes to sleep when room is vacant

In case you haven't noticed, "green" is big business. One way for HDTV makers to cash in on the public's craving for efficiency is to label a TV "eco-friendly." Sony's KDL-VE5 series does just that, but unlike a lot of so-called green electronics, this TV can actually save power in a new, potentially very effective way. That's because it incorporates a "presence sensor" that can automatically turn the picture off when it detects nobody's watching.

Amazingly, the feature worked pretty well in our tests, and we hope to see similar automatic turn-offs in future televisions--as long as irate couch potatoes don't flood Sony's customer service call centers to complain of malfunctioning TVs. Otherwise the Sony uses about as much power as a typical LCD--it's nowhere near as miserly as the LED-backlit Sharp's LC-LE700M-series, for example.
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Blu-ray ripping gets legalized with Managed Copy?

Movie buffs may be able to copy (or rip in underground lingo) movies from Blu-ray Discs to PCs and gadgets come early December. This is after the studios, electronics makers and related technology licensees have agreed to loosen their iron grip on content protection. The new initiative, dubbed Managed Copy, enables Blu-ray disc owners to legally backup a copy of the movie, and will be a mandatory offering according to the Advanced Access Content System License Administrator (AACS-LA). The official watchdog regulates an industry-wide digital rights management (DRM) solution.

The idea behind Managed Copy sounds promising and is similar in concept to the Blu-ray Digital Copy already available on selected movie discs such as The Dark Knight. In a nutshell, users will have to authenticate the disc online before they're allowed to copy the content. The only key difference here is that this option will be available on both PC and Blu-ray players, although no vendor has yet announce compatible products capable of making backups. This is expected since most existing players lack onboard storage for BD-Live function, let alone a whopping 50GB memory for an entire movie.
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An iPod dock that stands almost a meter tall

For a stereo, the Wall of Sound isn't massive. But for an iPod dock, it's gargantuan.

Pitched as "the world's most powerful iPod speaker," the Wall of Sound is a US$4,500, handcrafted iPod dock with a stocky 3x4-foot (approximately 914mm by 1219mm) frame that weighs in at 225 pounds (102kg).
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LG predicts OLED's price level will fall to LCD's by 2016

On the heels of announcing a 15-inch OLED display going on sale in Korea this December, LG predicts that prices for panels using the coveted technology will fall below those of LCD panels in seven years.

"Forty-inch and larger OLED panels will be fairly expensive in 2012, but they will be available in the market," said Won Kim, VP of OLED sales and marketing, at a trade show in Japan yesterday. "OLED panels will cost less than LCD panels in 2016."
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Nintendo president admits "Wii has stalled"

Though it once appeared to be a tiny sales juggernaut, Nintendo's top-selling Wii console has struggled in 2009. In July, the Japanese publisher reported April-June revenues that slid 40 percent from a year prior to 253 billion yen (US$2.81 billion). Nintendo didn't fare much better during its July-September quarter, saying Thursday that sales fell 34.5 percent to 548 billion yen (US$6.09 billion) during the first half of its fiscal year.

Nintendo's slipping performance has not gone unnoticed by the publisher's president. As reported by Japan's Mainichi Newspaper and translated by GameSpot, Nintendo executive Satoru Iwata told analysts and investors as part of a post-earnings Q&A that a weak software lineup has contributed to the Wii's sluggish performance.
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