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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

When Westinghouse launched its 40-inch LCD HDTV / DVD combo unit earlier this year, we really began to think of just how nice it’d be to broaden Blu-ray’s appeal by shoving a drive into a new set for those looking for simplicity. Enter Funai — the company currently responsible for the lowest priced standalone BD deck on the market — which is reportedly aiming to loose an LCD HDTV with built-in Blu-ray player on the North American market next summer. The company typically brands its wares with names like Sylvania, Symphonic and Emerson, so we wouldn’t expect the highest-end stuff here. That said, we’re glad to see someone taking this very necessary step, even though you won’t catch us recommending ‘em to anyone but the technologically challenged. [Warning: read link requires subscription]

[Via CrunchGear]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Do we really still need to talk about this? You’d think with over a decade of experience under our belts along with our inherent delusions of hyper sophistication that we’d have figured things out by now. But the sad truth remains: cell-phone douche-baggery is worse than ever!

Source: Digg / Technology

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CampMinder.com, Bunk1.com and CampRegister.com offer e-mail service through thousands of sleep-away camps nationwide, but what are the rules of parent-to-child e-mail etiquette?

Source: By MICHELLE SLATALLA

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Filed under: Displays

It’s been a solid tick since we’ve seen a new monitor from Fujitsu Siemens, but apparently it’s been spending a lot of time on its SCENICVIEW Premium Line ECO range. Announced today, the 20-inch P20W-5 ECO and the 22-inch P22W-5 ECO are being hailed as the planet’s first to feature power supplies that “automatically switch off completely in power-save mode.” The whole zero-watt bit comes from their ability to suck down precisely no power when not in use, while the majority of LCDs continue to draw slivers of energy even in standby. Furthermore, the new devices include the DisplayView AutoBright functionality, which automatically adjusts brightness “in harmony with ambient light” in order to net even greater power savings. Both screens are available now in Europe starting at €419 ($625), though 24- and 26-inch models are arriving next month.

[Via BIOS]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

Carrying on the rich hacker tradition of picking up the slack for companies that are unwilling or unable to provide the functionality users need, a team of Wii coders have given the console what Nintendo could not: DVD playback. By installing a small, hidden channel on a system, this package blesses the console with a libdi file (DVD access library), and allows you to watch your favorite videos with the MPlayer application, an open source media player. The install file will run on modded and unmodded systems, and the software is also capable of playing media from SD cards (though it’s experimental right now). Finally Wii owners can join the ranks of, well… pretty much everyone else.

[Via TehSkeen; Thanks, brakken]

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Laptops

Things are looking rosy in Intel’s land of Atom, the little chip that could. Early reports from the chip maker indicate that Atom sales are brisk. After declaring a 25% rise in quarterly profit, Intel noted that the MID, netbook, and embedded-friendly Atom isn’t cannibalizing sales of its traditional processors. In fact, it notes that Atom chips are creating a completely new money machine. Intel calls Atom a “perfect recession product” as it plays well into people’s desire to pick up a second PC or a low-cost small computer for kids. Meanwhile, the embedded market hasn’t even been reported yet. Once those numbers come in, it will probably be time to call Atom a success.

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Source: Joshua Fruhlinger

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A documentary film about truck drivers is being underwritten by a division of the Navistar International Corporation to help promote a new long-haul truck.

Source: By STUART ELLIOTT

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An analyst estimates that Amazon.com will sell 380,000 of its Kindle e-book readers this year and may have a $1 billion business from Kindle by 2010.

Source: By SAUL HANSELL

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