360 DEGREES Weblog

In the 10 billionth song that Apple sold through iTunes, Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way”, a man other than Steve Jobs famous for black attire bemoans the happenstance of his romantic misfortune. But nothing could be further from the story of iTunes, in which Apple’s meticulously crafted ownership of the end-user experience led to a dominant position in music sales. Now, on the dawn of releasing a new device that could be to television shows what the iPod was to music, Apple has an opportunity to create as commanding a lead in TV distribution — if it is willing to again capitulate to consumers’ media consumption habits.

Apple has enjoyed great success with iTunes in part because it adopted the purchase-to-own model that had been so successful with CDs and records before them. However, Apple didn’t simply mirror that model. By allowing consumers to purchase the vast majority of songs as singles, it provided better perceived value, Such an option was also a natural fit for the iPod, where playlists made it trivial to create the digital equivalent of “mix tapes.” The iPod’s capacity for thousands of songs was also no match for most albums that typically had a dozen or so songs.

One of the best mobster movies ever made gets the special edition treatment in Goodfellas - 20 Anniversary Edition ($24). With a good — but not great — high-definition transfer, the film looks better than ever before, only helping to highlight the masterful direction by Martin Scorcese and career-best acting turns by Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and a solid supporting role by some guy named De Niro. Dual commentary tracks, and a second disc with a handful of documentaries and other special features round out the set.

Using SurfaceSound technology, the new Tunebug Vibe ($70) lets you take a speaker with you basically anywhere you go. The Tunebug sports a stylish, triangular brushed metal body, an illuminated power button, and a standard 3.5mm input for compatibility with a wide range of audio sources, but the real magic is in the NXT-powered SurfaceSound Speaker, which turns nearly any surface — although hollow ones work best — into a makeshift speaker.

Buy $70

Sporting an Apple-like monolithic design and gobs of high technology, the Sony Bravia NX800 HDTV ($2,300-$3,500; March 2010) is one of the Japanese electronics giant’s sexiest yet. Features include a full HD 1080p, edge LED-backlit LCD screen in either 46-, 52-, or 60-inch sizes, Motionflow 240Hz technology for smooth on-screen motion, integrated Wi-Fi, and ambient light sensor, Sony’s Bravia Internet Video and Internet Widgets, the Bravia Engine 3 video processor, and both USB and DLNA support for photos, music, and video playback.

Bowers & Wilkins has been keeping a very low profile and the last set of speakers we had in view was Bowers & Wilkins 800D which was one hell of a stunner. The British AV manufacturer has finally got out of its shell to present us with the 800 Series Diamond this year, which is a set of premium speakers for the cream of the crop. The features are quite similar to the 800D, with the inclusion of the Diamond Dome Tweeters and Kevlar FST mid-range drivers. It also incorporates Nautilus tube-loaded tweeters, Matrix enclosures, and the unique sphere/tube heads.

All of these features don’t come cheap for sure, Bowers & Wilkins never did. But this new version is way expensive than any of its previous models. If you’ve made up your mind on it, be prepared to spend $6200 on a pair. It’s available in Rosenut, Cherrywood and Piano Black.

Some may call it a sophisticated alarm clock, but the truth is that the Dash presented by Sony at CES 2010 is simply much more than that. A one-of-a-kind “personal Internet viewer,” this device is designed to let you pull all sorts of information off the Internet from its 7-inch touch screen even when you don’t have a PC at hand.

It has the look and feel of a tablet PC, but it’s not meant to be one. The Dash, in fact, is not portable: it’s designed to be placed in your bedroom, kitchen or office, where you can choose among 1,000 (and counting) completely free applications that can get different bits of information using your Wi-Fi Internet connection.

Examples of the content it can display include real-time traffic information on a custom route, calendars, movie trailers, YouTube videos, Internet radio (via Pandora), photo albums, custom news feeds, flight timetables, weather forecasts, and more. You can even have multiple sources of content streaming at once so, for example, you can listen to Internet radio while browsing through an online photo album.

To be clear, the Dash doesn’t include a fully-fledged Web browser, and can only access content through its many applications. It does however come with built-in stereo speakers, a headphone output jack, as well as a USB port for easy connection to many external devices such as digital cameras.

An internal accelerometer allows you to use it upright, ideal for a table or nightstand, or tilted, ideal for a countertop. It also supports multiple user profiles and channels, so different household members can create and maintain their own customized views of the Internet and check for them in an easy way.

Sony says the Dash is scheduled to hit the stores in April, when it will be available for USD$199.

Most parents seem to have good enough sense not to give their kids control of the remote, which lets them make sure they’re only watching suitable programming. Now if you’re the type that wants to give your child a little freedom to watch what they want at an early age, you have to jump through hoops to make sure that they don’t stumble onto bad channels. Or you could just get the iMote.

I have no idea why they felt the need to use the ‘i’ in the name, but that’s beside the point. The remote has only a handful of buttons, which is all a child needs. You’ve got your power and volume control, along with five channel buttons. You’ll program the five channels to the ones your child watches most, thus assuring they will never see anything inappropriate. If you like to leave your kid alone with the TV for extended periods, it might be worth $30.

This is awesome and just plain makes sense: With Amazon’s Disc+ on Demand, when you buy a DVD or Blu-ray movie, you’ll be able to stream it instantly via Amazon On Demand.

So far, they’ve got this going for a few hundred titles it looks like, and it’s restricted to the US, but hopefully it grows. (And hopefully, they’ll stop being stingy with the high def streams.) Just look for the Disc+ on Demand logo on movie pages to see if it’s eligible.

Proving once again you can find a study to prove almost anything, a report came out today showing that Redbox will bring down the movie industry by continuing with their $1 a night business model. Sounds like some sour grapes to me.

And what is Redbox doing that is so heinous you ask? Well, according to the study, renting DVD’s for a buck is cannibalizing sales, making customers want other outlets to offer similar deals, and harming the “perceived value” of movies in general. As an example of this, Blockbuster recently started their own kiosk system to try and muscle in on Redbox.

On top of these crimes, Redbox is also making quite the killing in the aftermarket sales area. Of course, Redbox claims that what they are doing it’s that bad, and they contest some of the data that the study collected.

Yamaha have been quietly plugging away at their soundbar technology for a while now, and their latest model looks to be the most alluring yet.  As ever, the concept is straightforward: why have a room stuffed full of speakers when a single row of them – together with some clever digital processing – can reproduce the same effect.  Targeted at TVs up to 50-inches (as well as projector setups), the Yamaha YSP-5100 packs 120W and five HDMI ports.

There’s no shortage of sound format support, either, with the YSP-5100 content with dts-HD, dts ES and Dolby TruHD/Digital Plus/Digital/ Digital EX/Pro Logic and Pro LogicⅡ/x.  You’ll get pseudo-7.1 surround sound and there are apparently a total of 42 individual speakers hiding behind that grill (forty 2W speakers and two 20W speakers) plus a separate subwoofer output.

The YSP-5100 will also play nicely with your iPod, and if you have the Yamaha YIT-W10 wireless transmitter you can stream audio directly from the Apple PMP to the speakerbar.  It’s expected to land in Japan by the end of 2009, priced at the equivalent of $2,280.