Daily Marauder

TECHNOLOGY

(Below) Didn’t quite make it to the BCS Game tonight unfortunately.  CES can get a hold of you and spin you in 3,000 directions pretty easily.  That said, I dropped by the Sony booth earlier in the day and watched video in 3D HD in the theatre.  Mind blowing really.  I saw video from the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony in 3D HD.  The only way that could get any better is if they installed a scratch and stiff panel on the side and I could smell the environment as well as see it in 3D.  Amazing stuff.  3D seems best suited for the sports environment.  The animated films left me feeling a bit queasy but the basketball, football, and soccer were unbelievable.

3-D technology continues to find new ways to win the hearts and minds of America. College football fans can watch tonight’s BCS Championship Game between Florida and Oklahoma at one of 80 Cinedigm cinema screens. The event, the first national live sporting event delivered to audiences in 3D at multiple locations, will be shot by a 3ality camera crew using Sony cameras with Fox Sports providing play-by-play and color commentating. Tickets are going for between $18-$22 and they’re going fast. Check out Cinedigm’s CineLive site for theater locations. (Cynopsis 1/8)

Toshiba announced at CES that its new Regza LCD television sets will come equipped with Dolby Volume, the licensed system that aims to eliminate loudness spikes during commercial breaks and when viewers switch from one channel to another. The high-end Regza also comes with Toshiba’s Resolution Plus video upconversion technology as well as a USB port to view digital media. Broadcasting & Cable (1/7)

Sony unveiled at CES new additions to its Bravia TV line that will hit store shelves this year: the 52-inch KDL-52VE5, the 46-inch KDL-46VE5 and the 40-inch KDL-40VE5. Each model has a number of energy-conservation systems built in, including a zero-watt standby power switch and the company’s Hot Cathode Fluorescent Lamp, which Sony said could decrease power consumption about 40%. The company also is offering the XBR9 and Z-series lines featuring an Ethernet connection. ElectronicHouse.com (1/7)

Today during an Industry Insider Series keynote at CES in Las Vegas, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer and OTOY CEO Jules Urbach announced that AMD has been working on what it’s calling the world’s “fastest supercomputer ever”, designed “to break the one petaFLOPS barrier and to process a million compute threads across more than 1000 graphics processors”. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/08/amd-and-otoy-working-together-on-fastest-supercomputer-ever 1/8)

Netflix announced that its Watch Instantly streaming video service will also be integrated with the price sensitive Vizio line of HDTVs, without the need of a separate set-top. (Cynopsis 1/8)