Consumer Electronics Daily News

Audiovox mobiletv Brings Free TV to Your Tablet

Audiovox Electronics Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of VOXX International Corporation today announced that is has launched Audiovox mobiletv, the first wireless mobile TV receiver designed to bring free live TV to iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Developed by Siano, the world's leading supplier of mobile broadcast DTV solutions, the receiver delivers Dyle® mobile TV, operated by Mobile Content Venture (MCV), a joint-venture of 12 major broadcast groups, which will be providing the content. Dyle mobile TV is available in 38 markets, reaching 57 percent of the U.S, delivering live broadcast TV, including local and national news, sports and entertainment programming to mobile devices.
Using the Dyle mobile TV app developed by Siano and available from the App Store and Google Play, the Audiovox mobiletv receiver will enable millions of Apple and Android device users to watch live TV on their devices without the need for Internet or cellular connection. Ultimately, this will help consumers extend the live TV experience and give them greater levels of choice and flexibility – completely free.
"Our partnership with Dyle expands the mobile television experience by expanding the availability of broadcast television to literally millions of Apple and Android users across the U.S.," said Tom Malone, president of Audiovox Electronics Corp. "Our Audiovox receiver provides both the convenience of wireless accessibility and the ability to work with a broad set of devices and screens to deliver the live, local TV experience consumers demand."
"The addition of the Audiovox accessory marks a pivotal point for Dyle by offering an exceptionally revolutionary product for mobile television," said Erik Moreno, co-general manager of MCV. "We look forward to continuing to expand our network footprint and ability to deliver service to a wider consumer audience of iOS and Android users."
"We are excited about this close collaboration with Audiovox and Siano," added Salil Dalvi, co-general manager of MCV. "Perfect for both at home and on the go users, the wireless receiver is an exciting step forward for the mobile television industry in providing an innovative option for watching live programming across multiple devices and platforms."
"We are impressed by Audiovox and Dyle mobile TV's strong commitment to bringing high-end digital TV content to U.S. consumers," said Alon Ironi, CEO of Siano. "The ATSC-MH signal is already broadcast in dozens of U.S. cities, and attractive content is continually being added. We are confident that our partnership with Audiovox and MCV portends a bright future for mobile TV in the U.S."
The Audiovox mobiletv receiver is compatible with both iOS (30-pin and Lightning adapters) and Android devices. A free, easy-to-use Dyle™ Mobile TV App by Siano from the App Store and Google Play enables users to view high-quality digital TV (ATSC-M/H). With no need for a data plan or Internet connection, the compact wireless unit fits right into your pocket, can be taken anywhere and can be moved around indoors to find a location with the best reception. Audiovox mobiletv includes a program guide, pause/rewind features, an internal battery providing up to four hours of TV viewing, and a USB charging cable.
MSRP on the device is $129.99 and is available at select regional, national and online retailers.
Dyle™ mobile TV services are available immediately without a subscription fee, subject to change at any time. Coverage varies in participating markets, not all stations are available in all markets.
For more information, visit the Audiovox and Dyle TV websites. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: Audiovox - Twitter / Facebook; Dyle TV - Twitter / Facebook

Device Takes a Smart Approach to Nutrition

By Lorrie Baumann

 A company called The Orange Chef has invented a way to make cooks smarter in the kitchen by providing them with real-time information about the nutritional content of the food they're preparing and how that fits into their nutrition goals.

Prep Pad by The Orange Chef Company is, at its heart, a kitchen scale with a brain. It bridges the gap between what kitchen scales do, which is to tell the user the weight of what's on them, and what home cooks very often really want to know, which is the nutritional value of that food.

“It's allowing for the first time consumers to have complete access to the nutritional value of what they're preparing and serving in real time,” said Michael Tankenoff, Marketing Director for The Orange Chef Company. “The research that we've done talking with consumers has told us that people don't have access to this information and yet it's important to them. Many of them are going to extremes to monitor their fitness level, but they don't have the information about calories and carbs for their cup of Cheerios. They've never had absolute real-time access to that information until now.”

The Prep Pad device works in conjunction with an iPad app called Countertop, to which it connects through a wireless Bluetooth 4 connection. To start using the system, the user creates a profile in Countertop, similar to the profile that a user would create with a Fitbit and its app. After the user tells Countertop the profile information, including age, gender and physical activity level, the app consults its huge database of information and comes up with a profile that fits the user's information together with U.S. Department of Agriculture dietary recommendations. From there, the user can modify that profile according to personal dietary restrictions and nutritional needs. “It starts you out with a rough profile, but everyone's different,” Tankenoff observed. “We've completely broken down the barrier in terms of access to this information for the consumer.”

Once that's done, the cook uses the Prep Pad to keep track of ingredients as they're added to a dish. The scale measures each ingredient as the dish is composed and uses its database of information about a wide range of raw ingredients and scannable supermarket products to calculate the impact of that dish on the user's nutritional intake. “As you keep adding multiple ingredients, the device keeps a running list of what's in the dish. You can add or subtract items as you go along, and the Prep Pad will accommodate those changes to create a real-time nutritional profile,” Tankenoff said. “The weight of the food is irrelevant. What people care about is the calories, the carbs, the information that people need to know.”

Once the dish is complete, the Countertop app gives it a score to let the user know how it has affected the user's profile goals. Then that information can be shared, if desired, with others in the user's social networks or with, perhaps, a nutritionist or doctor.

The Prep Pad is encased in a unibody aluminum case that's the same quality of material that Apple uses on its Mac computers, and the scale top is made of dishwasher-safe wood fiber composite that's safe for food. It's nonporous and doesn't harbor bacteria, and it's very easy to maintain. The Prep Pad can tolerate up to 15 pounds of food on its scale, with plus or minus 1-gram accuracy.

The system will be reaching the market in November through The Orange Chef website at www.theorangechef.com and over the course of the next several months, it'll be available through other retailers. The system is currently available only for iOS devices, but the company plans to make apps for other major platforms in the future. Prep Pad retails for $149.95.

 

Sony Introduces Portable, Wireless Head Mounted Display

Sony Electronics today introduced its next-generation Personal 3D Viewer (model HMZ-T3W), the world's premier wearable high definition visual display featuring twin OLED screens

Available for pre-sale in the U.S. now at Sony Stores and select retailers nationwide for $999, the Sony HMZ-T3W allows consumers a unique ability to sit back, relax and immerse themselves in a new world of portable entertainment with super-sized HD images and realistic sound reproduction – all with wireless freedom.

The third generation personal 3D viewer from Sony is lighter than its predecessors, easy-to-wear and loaded with simple connections for gaming consoles, PCs, home theater components, tablets and smartphones to enjoy movies, games and apps with a massive virtual screen size that brings a cinematic, home theater viewing experience into a portable, wearable device.

Light and comfortable

From lengthy gaming sessions to movie marathons, consumers will be comfortably absorbed in immersive entertainment. The ergonomically-styled head mounted unit features flexible headbands that quickly adjust to fit almost everyone. There's a large, cushioned head pad to reduce wear pressure, plus easy lens adjustment for relaxed, fatigue-free viewing.

Portable
Head-mounted HMZ-T3W viewers are no longer tethered to an AC power socket. The handy, compact battery box keeps the HMZ-T3W powered for hours to enjoy videos or games on the move. Additionally, when connected via MHL, the device will also charge the battery of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets while being watched and played. In addition, the HMZ-T3W also connects via HDMI®.

New WirelessHD™ lets consumers enjoy entertainment anywhere in the room with uncompressed, lag-free HD video and crisp digital sound, all without cords.

Play to win
The Sony HMZ-T3W portable 3D viewer keeps serious gamers in the game with speedy responses from its twin OLED screens and no annoying on-screen image lag. A one-touch button instantly boosts contrast and enhances shape details (game-mode), allowing gamers to relish the competitive edge in dimly-lit scenes where danger's always lurking. It's the perfect way to enjoy favorite titles, from fast paced shoot-'em-ups to tire-burning car rallies. Plus, there is no fumbling for the right keys in mid-game - the ergonomic visor-style headset gives an unobstructed 'look-down' view of your PC's keyboard and mouse while you play.

Surround Sound
Thrilling 7.1 channel virtual sound adds an extra dimension of realism to movies and games on the HMZ-T3W. Consumers can listen through either the supplied 16mm driver in-ear phones or pair the HMZ-T3W with their own favorite headphones. Whichever option chosen, Sony's Virtual Surround Technology creates an impressive 360 degree soundstage with dialogue, music and effects placed accurately around the viewer. It's like being in the cinema – or right in the action as the gaming battles rage around you.

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World's First "I" Integrated Augmented Reality Helmet Systems

Reevu is now announcing the invention of a commercially viable fully functioning intelligent helmet with internal augmented reality display within the internationally accepted standards envelope. The company promises that this development isn't going to stay just on the drawing board and that it has in place the internationally registered patents necessary to develop the world's first internally housed augmented reality helmet device. 

The technology built into the helmet includes compact multiple reflective optical systems to deliver information to the wearer without eye strain or unnecessary distraction. The Reevu helmet can be integrated to accept a number of existing diagnostic and information enabling systems currently linked to the cluster pack of some of the latest bike design, according to the company.  "We are primarily developing the product to fit within Reevu's product portfolio in the motorsports sector," says the Reevu engineering team leader. "However, further products [utilizing the invention] are on the drawing board." 

"This invention takes the Reevu business into a $500 billion mobile communications market, as we negotiate with a number of companies to spin out the innovation into a number of business sectors utilizing our commercially available optical system," adds Reevu Marketing Sales Director Graham Steele. "If you need H.U.D. communications systems in an article of headgear, we have the commercially viable answer."

Sherwin Williams Hops on the Google Glass-Wagon

For decades, Resource, the largest independent digitally-led marketing agency in the country has connected consumers with brands using next-gen technologies, and today the agency is releasing a Google Glass application for a major consumer brand.

ColorSnap® Glass developed by Resource for Sherwin-Williams, North America's largest single-source supplier of high-quality paints, lets consumers instantaneously act on color inspiration by adding a digital layer right before their eyes. Resource developed ColorSnap Glass as part of Google's Explorer program; an exclusive group of innovators selected by the company to shape the future of Glass. Still in beta and available for download at www.colorsnapglass.com, the new application joins a suite of award-winning digital tools developed by Resource for Sherwin-Williams that has fundamentally changed the way consumers discover and select color.

"Resource Lab is a technology accelerator that ideates and fast-tracks breakthrough consumer experiences using the latest digital technologies. We're enthusiastic about the possibilities that Google Glass gives our clients to connect with consumers in unobtrusive ways," said Dan Shust, Vice President of Innovation at Resource. "Wearable technology is the next frontier in mobile computing and ColorSnap Glass and other consumer-focused applications will play a large role in the acceptance and adoption of the new technology."

For seven years, Resource and Sherwin-Williams have successfully launched numerous digital and personalized consumer experiences using the latest technology. Most notable is the 2009 launch of the original and highly-successful ColorSnap mobile application. Named by Advertising Age as one of the Top 10 Branded Apps of the Decade, the application has been downloaded more than one million times. And while ColorSnap Glass is also designed to help consumers explore color, the new application streamlines the original version, elevating features best suited for wearable technology.

"We're committed to harnessing the latest in technology in order to create superior experiences for our customers," said Ellen Moreau, Vice President of Marketing Communications at Sherwin-Williams. "Cutting edge applications like ColorSnap Glass elevate our brand and keep us top of mind with consumers by bringing color inspiration to life in a fun and engaging way."

As part of the test and learn approach to developing Google Glass applications, Resource and Sherwin-Williams will be seeking consumer feedback about ColorSnap Glass at www.colorsnapglass.com. Resource CEO Kelly Mooney says it's an essential part of the development process.

"We're steadfast on breaking new ground that uniquely empowers and inspires consumers, which means we have to make them a part of the conversation," said Mooney. "Digital innovation is part of our DNA and we'll continue to be pioneers in the space."

 

Honeywell Introduces Home Thermostat with Voice Control

Honeywell has introduced its latest connected home innovation: the Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control. The new voice technology allows consumers to simply say, “Hello, thermostat,” to activate and control their home’s temperature.

A first-of-its-kind consumer device, the Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control utilizes advanced far-field voice-control technology, which breaks through the ambient noise of a busy household and recognizes commands such as “make it four degrees warmer” or “make it much cooler” — even from across the room. Upon installation, the thermostat immediately recognizes the homeowner’s voice and adjusts the temperature setting based on their request. This is the first cloud-based voice controlled solution that will get smarter over time, adding more commands based on its interactions with homeowners.

“For more than 100 years, our mission has been developing products and technologies that make life more comfortable and convenient for homeowners,” said Beth Wozniak, President of Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls. “Honeywell created the first programmable thermostat, the first touch-screen thermostat, and the first with a color-customizable screen. And now we are first with voice control. We are very proud to introduce a Wi-Fi thermostat that truly interacts with homeowners and offers a level of convenience not found anywhere else.”

“Most homeowners know the feeling of coming through the front door while juggling bags of groceries, a stack of mail, and keys to a less-than-comfortable temperature,” said Tony Uttley, General Manager of Home Comfort and Energy Systems at Honeywell. “With this hands-free advancement, homeowners can simply speak to their thermostat, and it responds by adjusting the environment to their preferences. We believe the next generation of advancements in connected home technology means people don’t have to be tied to their devices. Instead, Honeywell devices are truly an extension of their lifestyle.”

In addition, the Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control allows design-focused homeowners to customize it to match or accent their home décor. The thermostat also offers Wi-Fi connectivity that allows consumers to regulate their energy usage and home comfort through their smart phone. Homeowners can adjust the thermostat by using the Total Connect Comfort smart phone app – which is the top-rated thermostat app on Google PlayTM or iTunesTM.

Honeywell’s Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat with Voice Control will be available beginning November 2013 at a suggested retail price of $349. To purchase, visit lowes.com, homedepot.com, amazon.com and bestbuy.com.

To learn more, please visit www.wifithermostat.com or for consumers who want installation assistance a contractor can be found at www.yourhome.honeywell.com.

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FeZZee, who Make Music Festivals Smarter, Launch Their Kickstarter Project

FeZZee, who make awesome apps for Music Festivals in the US, UK and Europe, are looking to raise $80,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to help them build a Smart Phone Testing Lab and finish FeZZee in time for next year's festival season.

The 2013 festival season is finished, but as festival organizers are competing to book the headline acts for 2014, the creators of FeZZee are building a new set of apps that are Festival Smart and embrace many emerging technologies.

FeZZee is designed for music festival fans, by music festival fans. FeZZee cares about music festivals, because you do. After interviewing 100's of festival fans, the crew at FeZZee arrived at their four main solutions:

• Line-up components that let you select the acts you want to see, and recommend and help you check out the ones you don't know.
• A Location app that lets you mark and find your car, your tent, your favorite food/merchandise vendor, and your friends, reliably.
• The Buzz feature is a single place where you can check out what's happening at the moment, from a host of social media channels, and also contributes.
• Share and synchronize your photos and videos with groups of friends to contribute to collective crowd-sourced albums quickly and easily.

FeZZee is web, smart-phone, and social media apps working together, doing what each do best, at the time they do it the best, to make music festivals less hassle and more fun. Smart-phones are street-smart; they're designed to work in towns and cities. The FeZZee Festival Smart apps are designed to solve the problems unique to festivals, including huge crowds, remote locations, and limited connectivity. Co-founders Gene Myers and Matt Mapleston have together 30 years of experience developing software for defense, security, and high volume websites, and are now using their experience to address these challenges. Both are also long-term music festival fans.

"This Kickstarter project will allow us to deliver on our promise to make apps that are Festival Smart, and we also have a great range of essential festival items as of rewards for backers that will make great holiday gifts," says Gene Myers, FeZZee's CEO. Backing FeZZe's Kickstarter gets you access as a Design Partner, and for those that love festivals, it's a way to keep that spirit alive during the winter months and help shape the apps that many are saying will revolutionize the festival scene.

"This will take over-- [it's] the future of festival programs," says Benga, Radio 1 DJ and owner ofthe record label Benga Beats. Ella Guthrie, of the music magazine Guestlist, went further, "The New Generation Festival App that will save your life".

There are a wide variety of awards for backers of FeZZee on Kickstarter. For $5, your support will be celebrated by adding your face and name on a photo-mosaic crowd scene on the FeZZee apps and site. Further levels of reward include T-Shirts, Smart-phone charging bricks, waterproof phone cases, limited edition media, and even a chance to appear as a Mock Star in FeZZee's demo festival lineups.

Please visit http://kck.st/17TO3hD and for more information visit http://fezzee.com

PRNewswire

Apple's iPhone 5S, 5C Announcement Satisfies and Excites

Today at 10:00 Cupertino Time, Apple held an intimate meeting in their 200-seat theatre at 4 Infinite Loop to introduce the new iPhone 5c, 5s, and iOS 7.

Some highlights from the announcement:

iOS 7

• Siri has “higher quality male and female voices” and a more seamless integration with twitter, Safari, and other apps.
• Safari now has a 3D tabbing interface-- similar to what iTunes did with "Album View"
• The iOS 7 Camera has built-in instagram-y filters.
• Airdrop, the P2P sharing found on iMacs, is now part of iOS 7.
• iOS 7 will be a free upgrade for existing iPhone users (4 or later), iPad (2 or later), iPad Mini, and iPod Touch (5 or later) on September 18.
• iWork comes free with iOS 7-- they are immediately downloaded with the update.

iPhone 5C

• "The entire back and sides are made from a single part, its front one glass, multi-touch surface. As close as you look, you wont see joints or seams"
  
• Each device comes with a color-matched wallpaper
• 4-inch Retina Display
• Higher-capacity battery than other iPhones and an A6 chip
• 8MP iSight Camera
• 16gb model will be $99 and 32GB for $199 on a 2-year contract
• On Sale September 20.

iPhone 5S

• Features the A7 performance chip-- the biggest and first smartphone CPU of its kind.
• Graphics are two times faster and the computing power is two times as fast with its 64-bit re-engineering. "It’s got a new 64-bit kernel, libraries, and drivers. All built-in apps have been reengineered. It’s a seamless dev transition, with full backwards compatibility."
• The M7 Motion Coprocessor continuously measures motion data, accelerometer, and gestural data. It can determinine whether you’re walking or driving.
• The battery life is even better than the iPhone 5-- it has an estimated 250 hours of standby time.
• iSight camera now has an f/2.2 aperture and a 15 percent larger active sensor area (1.5 micron pixel sensor)
• There are two flashes in the 5S-- one white LED, one amber, and the camera has auto-image stabilization.
• Videos can now record in Slo-Mo.
• TOUCH ID: The fingerprint sensor "is capacitive, 170 microns thin, has a 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers, and has 360 degree readability"
• With the Touch ID, you only need to touch the home screen and iTunes purchases can be made with the tap of a finger
• $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB on a 2 year contract
• On sale September 20.

For a complete blow-by-blow, check out Techcrunch's live update stream.

Facebook Announces Public Feed API and Keyword Insights API

Facebook has announced another way that it will be taking your words and applying them to media marketing. According to Jason Osofsky, VP Media Partnerships and Online Operations, "Over the past few months, we have rolled out a series of products aimed at surfacing the public conversations happening on Facebook including hashtags, embedded posts, and trending topics. We are committed to building features that improve the experience of discovering and participating in conversations about things happening in the world right now, including entertainment, sports, politics and news." Basically, a user's conversations and posts will be meshed with trending topics (not only hashtags) to create a comprehensive and enhanced ad stream alongside the facebook feed, profiles, and pages.

This will be carried out with the Public Feed API and Keyword Insights API, and they will only be available to certain news organizations, including Buzzfeed, CNN, NBC's Today Show, BSkyB, Slate, and Mass Relevance. With these tools, the news organizations can "begin to integrate Facebook conversations into their broadcasts or coverage by displaying public posts of real-time activity about any given topic. For example, CNN’s New Day can now easily incorporate what people on Facebook have to say about the latest, breaking news event during their show."

The function of these two APIs are summed up by Osofsky:

Public Feed API
The Public Feed API displays a real-time feed of public posts for a specific word. Only public posts (from Pages and Profiles of those with ‘Follow’ turned on) are available with this API.

Keyword Insights API
The Keyword Insights API aggregates the total number of posts that mention a specific term in a given time frame. It can also display anonymous, aggregated results based on gender, age and location.

It will be interesting to see how news outlets integrate these tools into their media. Will this become as obnoxious and prevalent as forced facebook logins, or will it be relatively unobtrusive like the facebook web tracker API?

Microsoft Announces Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 Event: NYC, September 23

Though Microsoft Surface sales have been slow-- resulting in a $900 million writeoff and a serious price slash-- it appears as though Microsoft is pushing ahead with the release of the Surface 2 and Surface 2 Pro. Yesterday Microsoft emailed the press an invitation to save the date for a September 23 Surface event in NYC.

From a series of leaks, we know that the next generation Surface tablets will share a similar silhouette. The main differences are significant: the Surface Pro 2 will feature longer battery life, up to 8GB RAM, and Intel's new Haswell Processor. The Surface 2 will have a 1080p screen and a Tegra 4 Processor. Both Surface models will have a two-stage adjustable kickstand that position the tablet in "laptop" mode and one ideal for uneven surfaces. 

In the coming days, CEDN will be reporting the leaks and rumors of this exciting new overhaul.