TBS will broadcast eSports in 2016
From 2016 TBS won’t just show Conan and Big Bang Theory re-runs, as the channel has revealed that it’s launching its own eSports league. Turner Broadcasting has signed a deal to broadcast bouts of Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which’ll air on Friday nights for 20 weeks of the year. At this early stage, details are thin on the ground, except to say that qualifying rounds for the main events will be streamed online. Successful teams will then be handed a ticket to TBS HQ in Atlanta where the live show will be recorded.
It’s not the first time that eSports has graced the lighted stage of basic cable, since ESPN showed off a Heroes of the Storm tournament earlier this year. As The AV Club reports, however, the move angered “real” sports fans who felt that activities where people don’t get life-threatening injuries aren’t suitable for a primetime broadcast. Those objections probably won’t be around for long, however, since the sound of traditional sporting institutions like gambling and big-money sponsorship deals will drown out any lingering haters.
[Image Credit: Getty]
Source: WSJ
Amazon discounts Prime subscriptions to celebrate its Emmy wins
If you haven’t heard, Amazon original series Transparent won five Emmys over the weekend, including Jeffrey Tambor nabbing Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. To properly celebrate, the online retailer is discounting the cost of Prime for new members this Friday. From 12:00 AM ET to 11:59 PM PT, signing up for the annual subscription will set you back $67 instead of the usual $99. Of course, opting for Prime gets you access to Transparent (season 2 starts in December) and other movies and TV shows in addition to music streaming, free two-day shipping and more.
[Image credit: Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
Source: Amazon
The new Apple TV is surprisingly easy to tear open
It’s practically a cliché to say that Apple’s products are difficult to repair yourself, but that isn’t universally true. The crew at iFixit has managed to tear down the new Apple TV before it even ships, and the biggest surprise is simply that it’s easy to pry apart. This is a very modular set-top box, and it’d be relatively trivial to replace components like the motherboard or power supply. Even the remote, despite being sealed by adhesive, isn’t that hard to dissect. iFixit’s only major gripe is that the most crucial parts are integrated on the main board, which could lead to a costly fix if you’re just trying to replace a damaged port.
That’s not the only mystery laid bare. While it isn’t a secret that the Apple TV is using an A8 chip like you find in the iPhone 6, it shares a few other parts in common with other Apple gear. The remote uses the same touchscreen controller you find in the iPhone 5c and iPad Air, and the box itself is using a memory controller that’s largely similar to what you see in the 12-inch MacBook. The upcoming Apple TV is something of a patchwork product, then, but you might not mind if it’s dramatically more powerful than its predecessor.
Source: iFixit
Samsung’s bringing back the TV ‘set’ with the Serif TV
The humble television wasn’t always the ultra-thin, wall-mounted “appliance” we know today — it used to be a piece of furniture, wrapped in an elegant case of wood, plastics and metal. Now, Samsung is bringing the idea of a stylized ‘TV Set’ back, introducing a an expensive, font-inspired television called the Serif TV.
The name is a wildly overt nod to the television’s shape — a thick chassis with ledges that jut out from the top and bottom of the screen. When viewed in profile, these ‘serifs’ give the TV the distinct shape of a capital letter ‘I.’ This charming design can stand up on its own, but add a pair of retro-looking legs and the design becomes shockingly nostalgic. It’s all about looks: there’s even a fabric panel on the TV’s backside to hide connectors and ports.
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, the design firm behind the Serif TV, also revamped Samsung’s Smart TV interface into something it calls “curtain mode.” This pulls a fabric-like filter over whatever the TV is showing and offers a simple menu with Bluetooth speaker functionality, apps, a photo gallery and a simple clock mode.
Samsung says the Serif TV will come in three models: a large UHD model (about 40-inches) a medium sized Full-HD model (30-inches) and as well as a smaller 24-inch set. All of the sets will have built-9in WiFi and Bluetooth, as well. They’re fancy, but not cheap — when the 40-inch set hits stores in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and France on November 2nd, it’ll cost £1,199 (about $1860). There’s also no word yet if these TVs will be hitting the international market at all, but we’ll let you know if we hear anything.
Via: Engadget Germany, Daily Mail
Source: Samsung
The new Apple TV works with your wireless headphones
The new Apple TV is still weeks away from launch, but that isn’t stopping a few people from getting their hands on it… and discovering a few pleasant surprises in the process. Dom Esposito at 9to5Mac has learned that the device’s improved Bluetooth support extends not just to the controller, but to audio equipment like headphones. Yes, much like on the Fire TV or Roku 3, you can watch movies late at night without waking your housemates or connecting your headphones to another device. If that’s not an option, you’ll still have access to a “night mode” that turns down the volume for everything but speech.
As for other tidbits? There isn’t a whole lot to know beyond what what we got to try earlier in September, although it’s notable that the Apple TV will regularly download new video screensavers to keep things fresh. The one certainty from this early look is that Apple has addressed many of the gripes with previous-gen hardware, including the addition of smaller but nice-to-have features that you might have missed.
Source: 9to5Mac
New Amazon Fire TV announced with 4K streaming, Alexa and is up for pre-order
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Amazon came out of the gates this morning with a slew off announcements regarding nearly everything in their product line up. Among the announcements is a newly beefed up Amazon Fire TV. The set-top box has been beefed up with 75% more processing powers that is provided by a MediaTek 64-bit quad-core processor. It offers up a dedicated GPU as well as 2GB of RAM to help. It sits with 8GB of internal storage, but does offer up support for expandable storage up to 128GB.
Along with the spec bumps Amazon also added in Alexa support. Alexa is the brain behind the Echo
Amazon has also beefed up the Wi-Fi with 802.11ac MIMO for added throughput and range. Which will certainly help with its ability to now stream 4K content.
The new Fire TV does sound quite a bit better than its predecessor. Amazon kept the pricing the same with the new Fire TV landing for $99.99. They are also offering up a Gaming Edition package, which includes Amazon Fire TV, Game Controller, a 32GB microSD card, and two games—Disney’s Ducktales and Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight—all for $139.99. Not a bad deal.
Hit the link to get a pre-order in for the New Amazon Fire TV, which is expected to start shipping by October 5th.
The post New Amazon Fire TV announced with 4K streaming, Alexa and is up for pre-order appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Skype’s new ‘Mojis’ feature lets you send short clips of your favorite TV and movie moments
If you’ve ever had a difficult time expressing your true emotions through a simple text or emoji, Skype has just introduced a new feature that might help. Now when you’re sending text messages to your friends and family, you can use a new feature called Mojis. Mojis are short animations of popular television and movie clips that you can easily send to whomever you’d like with just a few taps. It’s basically like sending your friends an animated GIF, but with sound.
To send a Moji, simply tap on the emoticon button from within Skype. You can browse by movie or by expression, preview the Moji and drop it in the chat from there.
The Skype team says they’ve handpicked some of the funniest and most iconic moments from some of the best television shows and movies out there. They’ve teamed up with Universal Studios, Disney Muppets, BBC and other studios to bring new Mojis to the platform. The first Moji release will consist of clips from Despicable Me, Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect, Jurassic Park, The Muppets and many more. To get a good look at what Mojis can offer, check out the short Muppets clip below:
The new Mojis feature is rolling out to Skype for Android, Windows, Mac and iOS as we speak, so head to the Play Store link below to grab the latest version.
NVIDIA apparently working through small recall of the NVIDIA Shield Pro
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It looks like NVIDIA is having a bit of a bad year. After having to recall some NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet units due to the risk of the battery overheating, it appears NVIDIA is having another, smaller recall of the NVIDIA SHIELD Pro, NVIDIA’s Android TV device. Specifically, the recall relates to the 500GB version of the SHIELD Pro which has experienced hard drive failures in less than 1% of the units that have gone out – that’s not a particularly big number, but it’s never good to have a known issue with devices in the wild. And the symptoms you should be looking for? Here are the two things NVIDIA has pointed out:
- Fastboot menu appears during Upgrade 1.4 (even if system recovers after a system reboot you should get a replacement).
- Severe and persistent pixilation in all tiles of the top row of the Android TV home screen (text in tiles will be unreadable and does not become clear after a few seconds).
If that’s you, you’ll need to contact NVIDIA here to arrange for your unit to be shipped back. Luckily, it appears NVIDIA is quite eager to make the transition for you as easy as possible, so they’ll be shipping out a replacement as soon as your RMA is approved.
What do you think of NVIDIA’s handling of these recalls?
Source: NVIDIA via TalkAndroid
The post NVIDIA apparently working through small recall of the NVIDIA Shield Pro appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Philo’s streaming TV platform now covers over 40 universities
It’s tough to be a college student these days, what with new sources of procrastination popping up everywhere. Philo’s streaming television platform, which gives students access to live TV and DVR functionality across a variety of devices, is one of the more recent entries. Now, it’s covering 15 more schools, including Harvard University, Brown University, and the University of Alabama. Altogether, Philo is bringing the joy of television to more than 40 schools. The startup works together with cable and satellite providers to bring live TV to its private network — it’s not the sort of thing just anyone can access. Along with the expansion news, Philo is also updating its Roku app to make searching for TV shows simpler. Yes, giving college kids access to TV service isn’t anything new, but Philo’s multi-device lets schools offer TV in a way younger folks are more used to.
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Source:
Philo
Tags: hdpostcross, Philo
NVIDIA isn’t impressed by the new Apple TV
Yesterday, Apple unveiled its revamped TV box, alongside its other products, which comes with a new OS, access to TV based apps and also acts as a living room gaming device. Apple certainly wasn’t the first to market though and NVIDIA doesn’t seem too impressed. Late, under powered and already outdated seems to be the vibe.
“The future of TV is apps” proclaimed Cook during yesterday’s presentation, meaning that Apple has finally caught up with Amazon and the rest of the Android TV space by moving over to an app based TV OS. The device also comes with a remote control with a touch-sensitive panel and built in microphone, which enables users to issue voice and search commands to Siri.
Although Apple TV seems to have most of the main features covered and a reasonable selection of channels to choose from, NVIDIA points out that its SHIELD Android TV box has a few more, as do a few other Android based boxes. Not only that, but the SHIELD is the only major product to support 4K video content and HDMI 2.0 technology.
“Wireless remote with voice integration? Check. Universal voice and cross-app search? Check. Ability to download games from a dedicated TV app store? Check. How about a mobile OS with a user interface optimized for TV? Been there, done that.” – NVIDIA
For the gamers out there, NVIDIA is also boasting almost three times the benchmark performance of the latest Apple TV and even higher gains over the likes of the Nexus Player or the Amazon Fire TV. The SHIELD Android TV also supports game streaming from PC, GRID cloud gaming technology and a selection of “console-class” games. Of course, not everyone is going to care about all of these features, but it’s something to consider, given that Apple spent some considerable time talking about video games during its presentation.
See also: NVIDIA Shield Android TV review
NVIDIA sent us this nifty little comparison chart that sums up the major features included in variety of major set-top boxes. It’s probably worth a glance if you’re thinking about picking up a box any time soon.
What do you think about the NVIDIA SHIELD TV box and Apple TV, or are there other set-top boxes out there that are more worthy of your cash?
AIVAnet 