Over the last few years the major NAS vendors have settled into some routines when it comes to product categories. Some NAS poduct lines are targeted at home and SMB users while others are geared more toward medium-sized businesses. Each product line typically delivers some 2-bay and some 4-bay devices, with the occasional single drive and 6-bay system thrown in for variety. […]
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Today was an exciting day for Netflix. They launched their first original series, Lillyhammer, and got to watch Redbox unload on them with both barrels. Redbox has risen rapidly in the last few years to become Netflix’s biggest competitor in the DVD and Blu-ray rental market, and today Redbox made two major announcements that signal their intention to be even […]
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Kaleidescape has made its mark with its high-end DVD and Blu-ray distribution systems and media servers. While many DIYers have built their own solutions for serving movies across their home networks, Kaleidescape’s systems are intended to deliver the same experience to any user in a sleek, albeit expensive, turnkey package. At the heart of a Kaleidescape system is the Kaleidescape Server for storing […]
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Logitech’s Harmony remotes can control just about any device because they are programmed by communicating with the Harmony servers via MyHarmony.com, synching the remote and its functions to the gigantic database of devices and IR codes that the company has compiled. The Harmony Link takes the concept of the Harmony remote a step further by ditching the physical remote in […]
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Google TV has received a major update that brings the platform up to Android 3.2. The update is rolling out to Sony devices first, but is eventually expected to be made available for the Logitech Revue as well. The move to Honeycomb brings with it a few big changes for Google TV, including hardware acceleration for apps, an improved Chrome […]
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For many of us, a home network is not complete without some storage attached. NAS devices and home servers are the ideal way to serve up media throughout a home, and for folks who like to roll their own systems, FreeNAS has long been a popular OS option. Certainly it is a popular topic here in our forums and a […]
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Microsoft has continued their slow trickle of new streaming video apps for Xbox Live with the release of apps for Crackle and CinemaNow. For those not familiar with the two services, Crackle is a free service owned by Sony that offers a variety of streaming movies and TV shows and CinemaNow is a Best Buy-owned streaming rental service. Unsurprisingly, Crackle’s […]
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Apple TV owners have been treated to a surprise update and they didn’t even have to download anything. Apple has quietly updated their backend to push Genius recommendations for movies and TV shows to the Apple TV. The Apple TV was already able to provide Genius recommendations for music, and iTunes already provided Genius recommendations for movies and TV shows, […]
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Once upon time there was a cable channel called TechTV devoted to geeks like me, and my favorite show on that ill-fated channel was The ScreenSavers. It was during an episode of The ScreenSavers that I first head of WeaKnees, a company devoted to selling upgrade kits for and upgraded versions of DVRs such as the ReplayTV and TiVo. It’s been […]
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Warner Bros. recently took steps to try to double the length of their DVD rental window to 56 days. Redbox, who had signed on with Warner Bros. for the original 28-day release window, has evidently grown weary of Warner Bros.’s efforts to delay DVD rentals because the kiosk-based rental company has decided not to renew their agreement with Warner Bros. […]
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