Hulu blocks boxee browser entirely, gloves get ripped halfway off

As a wise man once said: "Damn, that's just cold, son." Merely hours after boxee announced its latest alpha build along with RSS feed support for Hulu, said video portal has now blocked off boxee's browser entirely from accessing its content. If you'll recall, boxee saw a huge increase in interest when it first added easy access to Hulu, and once Hulu demanded that it be removed, boxee sadly complied. The latest move just seems "cold blooded," as now boxee users who attempt to surf over via a Hulu RSS feed link will be greeted with an infinite amount of nothing. boxee is quick to point out that its browser doesn't access Hulu content "any differently" than IE, Firefox, Opera or any other browser, which does a good job of explaining just how deliberate this move is. Needless to say, we get the feeling this bout is just getting started.

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40 amazing photos of Microsoft's New American Home

While we were in Vegas earlier this month covering CES, we got a sneak peek at the New American Home, a posh house on town outskirts that Microsoft and a few other select tech companies were involved in designing. Built on the same block where Wayne Newton lives, the half-acre home has tons of whole-house electronics, including 10 Toshiba HDTVs, a 16-zone Nuvo distributed-audio system, and Anthem A/V processors — all controlled by Lifeware software that lets you access it from anywhere. You can start your bathtub (Kohler, of course), pick what music you want to listen to, and fire up the towel warmer… all from your phone.

The most amazing thing about the home is the power bill: $0. Thanks to extensive solar paneling (and the desert sun), the house is completely self-powered. But our favorite feature is the spectacularly chic pool (seen in the gallery below), whose surface is at the same level as the surrounding edge, separated only by a barely noticeable inch-thin drain.

In the market? The house isn't as pricey as you'd think: Tyler Jones of Blue Heron, who built the house, told us it costs somewhere north of $5 million. Though the place we saw is going to stay a show home for a while, it'll be part of a community called Marquis Vegas, which plans to have about 14 of these babies. We'll take three.

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LG brings Netflix, LEDs, and wireless connectivity to its 2009 TV lineup

LG, a brand with a number of recommended models in our LCD and plasma TV Ratings, had one of the more interesting and technologically diverse CES exhibits. Its 2009 LCD and plasma TV lineup includes models with access to streaming Netflix content, the ability to beam HD content wirelessly from a separate media console to the TV, and LCD modes that use LED backlighting and “TruMotion” 240Hz technology.In addition, it showed two new series of broadband-enabled “NetCast” TVs using Yahoo's Internet Widgets to provide access to Web-based news and entertainment content.

Joining the growing number of Internet-connected TVs are LH50-series LCDs and PS80-series plasmas, all 1080p sets. As part of what LG calls its NetCast service, models in both lines can directly access streaming Netflix movies and TV shows, YouTube videos, and information and entertainment content supplied via the Yahoo Internet Widget Engine. Netflix subscribers visit the Netflix website to add streaming movies or TV episodes to online queues, and they’re automatically displayed on the TV when the Netflix menu option is chosen. The quality of the video—mostly standard-def, but also some higher-def content—depends on the available bandwidth coming into the home.

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Allio 42-inch HDTV with PC and Blu-ray Player

It use to be that the big buzz word going around the industry was convergence. In the multimedia living room of tomorrow, a melding of the capabilities of various entertainment center components, along with the computer functionalities, is the end goal that will culminate into a more intelligent, connected entertainment center. Or at least it seems to be. Granted, the HTPC (Home Theater PC) has come a long way at making that goal a reality but you'd have to agree we're not there quite yet.

Interestingly, in a reverse merger sort of fashion, Boulder CO company Silicon Mountain (mountain of silicon perhaps?) steps out today with the first fully integrated HDTV PC product. The Allio PCTV has a lot more going on under its hood beyond 400nits and a 2000:1 contrast ratio...

Silicon Mountain Unveils Allio 42-inch HDTV with Integrated PC and Blu-Ray Player

Product, First of Its Kind in North America, Now Available

Boulder, Colo. & Menlo Park, Calif. -- November 10, 2008 Silicon Mountain Holdings, Inc., (OTCBB: SLCM), a technology company specializing in high-performance interactive computing solutions, today announced its design for a 32 and 42-inch High Definition LCD-TV with an integrated, full-function PC and Blu-Ray/DVD player. Named Allio, this system will define an entirely new category of converged products, where entertainment and instant, on-demand information and productivity blend together seamlessly, in stunning high-definition.

The Allio HD TV / PC is the first product of its kind in North America, and Silicon Mountain is the first company worldwide to develop a converged HDTV / PC solution that includes Blu-Ray. It is available now, in time for U.S. holiday purchases. Orders are being taken now at the Visionman website at http://www.visionman.com/.

Additional information on where to buy Allio will be announced soon.

The flagship Allio model marries a Full-HD 42" LCD display with a combo Blu-Ray/DVD player, integrated digital recorder for PVR and a powerful PC, based on the Intel Core2Duo E8400 processor, 4GB of RAM from Silicon Mountain, a 1TB hard drive and the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. In addition to the analog and digital audio-video inputs common to high-def televisions, Allio includes wireless and wired networking capabilities and several USB ports to extend the experience to other computers and peripherals in the home.

Allio 42" HDTV-PC - Click image for high res

Specifications

* Allio 42” 1080p LCD HDTV
* 16:9 Full Screen Aspect Ratio
* 3D Y/C Digital Comb Filter
* 176 Degree / 176 Degree Viewing Angle
* 2000:1 Contrast
* 400cd Brightness
* Built-in 12Wx2 Speakers
* 7.1 Surround Sound w/Dolby Home Theatre
* 2 x Component Video & Audio Connectors
* 2 x HDMI Connectors
* 1 x S-Video & Audio Connector
* 1 x Composite Video & Audio Connector
* 6 x USB 2.0 Ports
* 1 x eSATA Port
* 1 x DVI-I Port
* 1 x HDMI Output Only
* 1 x S/PDIF Optical Audio Out
* Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
* 4GB High-Speed DDR2-800 Memory
* Slim 2X BD-ROM Blu-Ray Player (Play’s DVD’s too!)
* Plays & Burns DVD’s as Well!
* Western Digital 1TB (1000GB) SATA-II HDD
* Integrated Intel GMA X4500HD Video
* Hauppauge HVR-950Q TV Tuner
* Gigabit 10/100/1000 Ethernet
* Wireless 802.11b/g
* Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit
* Logitech Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
* Wall Mountable
* Menu Languages: English, Spanish, French
* Includes A/V Cable, User Manual, Remote Control

There you have it; an LCD HDTV with a fully functional on-board HTPC with 2GB of RAM, a Core 2 Duo processor, Intel's newly released G45 chipset with integrated graphics for full HD offload and a Hauppauge HD TV Tuner/PVR card. The specs list certainly reads like a PC with integrated 42" LCD monitor but with its digital comb filter and reasonably high quality LCD, this just may be one step closer to that convergence nirvana we've all heard about. There are lower cost units but the high-end flagship model shown here lists for $2799.

We may be contacting Silicon Mountain soon to get our hands on an eval unit.

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Double the viewers, double the TV

Here's a classic dilemma: You are home for the evening. You wish to watch, say, a comedy, on TV, but your family member would rather watch something else.

Texas Instruments, the maker of the DLP Cinema chip, is developing technology that might reduce the common problem by allowing two people to simultaneously view two different programs -- on the same TV.

The company outlined some of its early developments that use 3-D technology for home entertainment, on Thursday at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Technical Conference and Exhibition in Hollywood.

One development, which TI expects to begin to preview at year's end, is processing technology that if incorporated in a third-party home entertainment system could allow for 2-D, 3-D or "dual view mode" on the same TV. Dual view mode, similar to 3-D, combines two images, but they are two different images.

TI's Tim Simerly said that each viewer would wear different glasses -- one exposing only program "A," and one allowing the viewing of only program "B."

Simerly added that at least one of the viewers would need to wear headsets in order to get the correct audio.

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