Your Home TV… On Your Blackberry

I just returned from riding around in a car watching live TV on my Blackberry.

Research in Motion hasn’t added a TV tuner to any of its popular Blackberry devices but Sling Media just introduced software that enables Slingbox owners to watch content from their home TV on a Blackberry connected to the AT&T or T-Mobile networks. The company is working on a version for other Blackberries and it’s likely to announce an iPhone version at next week’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

The Slingbox, which was first introduced in 2005, already offers software that works with Windows Mobile and Palm smart phones. The Slingbox also allows you to watch TV on an Internet-connected Windows or Macintosh laptop or desktop PC.

To use the service you must first connect a Slingbox to whatever source you use for TV. It can be a cable or satellite box or a Tivo or other personal video recorder (PVR). The $300 Slingbox Pro HD has a high-definition tuner and four video inputs so it also allows you to connect it to an antenna for over-the-air signals as well as to a DVD player. The $180 Slingbox Solo connects to a single standard or high definition input source.

The Pro allows you to watch programming in HD on a remote device while the Solo down-samples the signal to standard definition which, frankly, still looks pretty good on a tiny smart phone or even a small laptop screen.

There are no monthly fees to use a Slingbox but Sling Media typically charges $30 for software to use it o…

Who will the financial crisis hit next?

Tribune recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and National Amusements violated a debt covenant. The moves beg the question: Who, if anyone, could be next in the broader media and entertainment industry?

The global financial crisis has made debt harder to access and more expensive, leaving Wall Street wondering who might run into trouble — and even file for bankruptcy — in 2009.

Besides newspaper companies, Charter Communications, the cable operator controlled by Paul Allen, is high on people’s lists of concerns.

The St. Louis-based company has long been the most indebted major cable firm, with net debt of slightly more than $21 billion as of Sept. 30, and it has said that it might need to go into bankruptcy to deal with that burden.

President and CEO Neil Smit has focused on boosting revenue and operating cash flow, but to survive under its debt pile Charter has refinanced and extended its maturities every year since 2004.

“Charter is surviving by using debt exchanges to push back maturities,” Gimme Credit analyst Shelly Lombard said in a recent report. “Even at the current revenue growth rate, Charter won’t be able to grow into its capital structure.” She predicts that the company might need to sell “a considerable amount of assets to avoid bankruptcy.”

Just before Christmas, Charter said it asked longtime financial advisor Lazard to start talks with bondholders to boost its financial flexibility.

Other ratings agencies also suggested tha…

All News… Wifi service set to save lives

A new wireless internet service is to be trialled in Maidstone and it could save lives.

The county town has been chosen for a national pilot of WiMax broadband.

Over the next three months it will be used to beam images from fire engines to a control room at Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue headquarters, in Tovil, Maidstone, to speed up the response to major incidents.

It will also be used to link the county town’s CCTV cameras to Maidstone council’s control room.

About 50 students in the town will also be given pre-paid cards to allow them to use the service on their laptops, to research coursework and download music and video files.

If the trial is successful, Maidstone is likely to become one of the first towns in the country to have a full WiMax service.

WiMax is similar to wifi broadband – the kind that is offered in coffee shops and hotels – but is faster, up to 10MB per second, and has a wider range.

iT Bus Service Announced

The West Virginia Division of Public Transit have announced a new bus service connecting Huntington and Charleston.

Specifically designed for the business or college commuter and complete with handicap accessibility, bike racks, WiFi connectivity and complimentary newspapers, the new Intelligent Transit (iT) commuter service is set to leave Huntington’s Pullman Square at 6:40 a.m. and will make stops at the TTA Center (6:45 a.m.), Merritts Creek Park and Ride (7:05 a.m.), Crooked Creek Park and Ride (7:30 a.m.), the Charleston Transit Mall (7:50 a.m.) and end at the State Capitol Building #5 at 8:00 a.m. before making the return trip to Huntington.

Additionally, iT will provide return service in the evening departing Building #5 at 5:15 p.m. and make stops at the Charleston Transit Mall (5:30 p.m.), Crooked Creek Park and Ride (5:55 p.m.), Merritts Creek Park and Ride (6:20 p.m.), Pullman Square (6:42 p.m.) and ending at the TTA Center at 6:45 p.m. before returning to Charleston.

For route and schedule information please call (304)343-7586 in Charleston and (304)529-7433 in Huntington or check iT out online at www.ridesmartwv.com.

The fare from Huntington to Charleston is $3 (either way). If riding from Crooked Creek to either Charleston or Huntington, the fare is $2. Value Cards are also available in $30 and $40 denominations. During the first week of service (January 5th-9th) iT is free!

There will also be free giveaways, so save gas money, save wear and te…

Quad-Core Acer Notebook for Gamers

Acer unveiled its latest notebook PC Tuesday — the Aspire 8930G-7665, featuring Intel’s (Nasdaq: INTC) new powerhouse mobile chip. The chip, the Core 2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000, makes Acer’s new laptop one of the first notebooks to offer users four processing cores.

The Core 2 Quad processor offers 6 MB of shard L2 cache, 4 GB DDR3 1066 MHz Dual Channel Memory and clock speed rates up to 2.0 GHz. The new Aspire is priced at US$1,799.99.

“This is one of the first quad-core laptops on the market. Tapping into the performance of a quad-core, while still managing the temperature budget for a laptop, is an engineering challenge. As such, certain compromises have to be made, so naturally it can’t be run at 3.2 GHz like the high-end desktops and is set to 2.0 GHz. Also, it’s the last generation of a CPU with a front-side bus (FSB), albeit a very fast FSB,” Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, told TechNewsWorld.
Mobile Desktop

Aimed at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, the Aspire 8930G-7665 also includes high-definition (HD) functionality with a 18.4-inch HD CineCrystal widescreen display with 16:9 aspect ratio. A Blu-ray drive is also featured.

The system sports the Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics card, a webcam, Dolby Home Theater audio and a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

“Acer now has a high-end gaming platform to compete with other vendors’ gaming platforms, such as systems from Lenovo,” said Ian Lao, an analyst at InStat, told TechNewsWorld.

The …

T-Mobile may ship free battery upgrade

A T-Mobile rep hinted that the company will be shipping ta 2400 mAH battery and a new cover to every G1 owner in January.  GearDiary spotted an extended battery for the G1 that Boxwave is selling for $59.95, shown above.  With the extended battery, the G1 turns into something that looks to be as thick as a Canon Powershot SD1100.

Matthew Miller over at ZDNet says that in order to extend the G1’s battery life, users need to turn everything off. “…turning off the 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and auto-syncing will conserve your battery.” states Miller.

The future of in-flight Net

That’s the subject of a Travel Q&A session in today’s newspaper, where USA TODAY’s Roger Yu writes: “U.S. airlines may be cutting back flights, but their race to provide in-flight Internet continues unabated. Our conversation this week is with John Guidon, CEO and founder of Row 44, one of the companies hoping to capture a share of the nascent market.”

One question posed to Guidon: What changes can we expect in your industry in the coming years?

Guidon’s answer: “There will be growing expectation that (in-flight connectivity) will be ubiquitous. We’re starting to see good demand from major airlines. Airlines right now have to spend money to provide in-flight entertainment. They spend a lot of money on movies and so on, and there’s no revenue to offset the cost. We believe revenue from connectivity can turn that around, and make in-flight entertainment experience a profit center. The overhead and effort required to establish to large international networks probably means that there isn’t (going to be) multiple networks. You might see a lot of companies say they’re going to try (in-flight WiFi) and you’re going to see that stabilize to a very low number — one or two.”

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