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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Word on the street is that Philips has decided to dip its collective toes into the DVR world with a new line of products that appear, at least ostensibly, to compete with TiVo. Like the “TiVo Suggestions” feature that the recorder-company offers, Philips’ new devices tout user preference tracking, which will “learn” different user’s likes and dislikes, and create custom sets of programming geared towards those tastes. The new line will also be able to access and download YouTube and other internet video, as well as podcast content. Advertising on the new boxes will also follow user’s watching habits, thus ensuring a steady flow of laser-targeted ads beamed directly at your face. Apparently the new products will begin their lifecycle as software for PCs, but will eventually become set-top boxes for the living room. What’s really interesting here is that Philips used to manufacture TiVo hardware, which increases the chances of cross-pollination (and lawsuits) oh… about tenfold.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, GPS

Engadget hit the GPS section of IFA in a major way today, scoring some serious face time with Navigon’s new bargain-basement 2100 GPS. Our thoughts? For the price, this is a pretty tight little package. While the screen isn’t quite as big as some of the competition, the interface and build quality put this in a class that you would think would break slightly more bank… but no. Check the gallery for a vast and varied selection of photos.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, GPS

If you’ve used a TomTom device recently, these photos will look shockingly familiar to you. Like a crime scene in a 1980’s Charles Bronson flick, there’s nothing to see here, folks. You’re looking at the TomTom GO 920, sure, but there are pretty much no differences between this and the GO 720, save for a feature which the company refers to as “Enhanced Positioning Technology” (which uses an accelerometer to maintain your course, even out of satellite range). Regardless, we snapped some pics of the little dude, and we’d be hurt if you didn’t at least take a peak.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, GPS

We finally wrangled some Panasonic reps around midday, then promptly convinced them to let us take the Strada CN-GP50N GPS navigator for a spin… in our hands. At a glance, the device comes off vaguely like a TomTom high-end model, or similarly-classed device, though we take a little issue with the kinda-sorta fugly UI, which produced violent 1997 flashbacks in the staff. Also, the interface seemed a bit slower than it should, with brief but noticeable pauses every now and again. Our word to Panasonic?Fix it up! Check out the gallery to see what we’re lamentin’.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features

The word was white for Philips‘ showing at IFA. White, white, and more white. They also managed to throw just a few Aurea televisions up on the walls (to give it that colorful accent). Here’s our walk-through of all the money-dripping action (including the off-limits-to-the-public press and dealer section, replete with sit-down cafe). Be sure to note the super-gigantic television, and the odd, colored block game that the company had people playing. Oh, and check out those swinging interpretive dancers showing you what the Philips product line feels like. Hit the gallery and take yourself on a magical journey.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Features

We’ve gotten our hands all over the new JVC GZ-HD3 1080i camcorder, and we thought we’d share the good fortune with you. If you’ll recall, the new GZ-HD7 kid-brother rocks a 60GB internal hard drive, allowing for something like five hours of 1440 x 1080, 30Mbps recordings. The camera is light and small for the feature set it packs (although it gets some stiff, stiff competition from the new Sanyo HD-1000), though the design is pretty much what you’ve come to expect from JVC. Check the gallery and see for yourself.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, Home Entertainment

You can’t really do too much hands-on’ing with headphones, since it defies the whole point of the things in the first place, though we’ve done our best with Philips’ new SHD9100 wireless headphones. As you can see, they look just like regular headphones… but without a wire. The full-ear pair also has a handsome charging / transmitting base, which would probably class-up any music fan’s domicile. Take a look at the stunning / breathtaking photos and see for yourself.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Features, Portable Audio, Portable Video

If you’re in Europe or Asia (or anywhere that has DVB broadcasts, for that matter), and in the market for a portable DVB-T solution, we suppose you could do a lot worse than the Philips PVD1075; a sleek, skinny package which does a whole bunch of media playing. At a glance, the little guy doesn’t seem like too much of a heavy hitter, and honestly, the screen didn’t blow us away, but if this fits your lifestyle (and we’re not sure what that lifestyle is), then perhaps you should take a much, much closer look — like in our gallery, for instance.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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