Inside CNET Labs Podcast

Sony Bravia Internet Video Link now supports Amazon VOD

Sony announced on Thursday that Amazon Video On Demand, a service that offers immediate access to commercial-free and hi-def content from Dailymotion are now available through the Sony Bravia Internet Video Link. Sony says it will make tens of thousands of premium movies and shows available for you to stream onto your TV screen over the Internet.

Amazon announced Video on Demand in July as a rebranding of its Unbox service.

Amazon users can purchase or rent movies and TV shows through the Bravia Internet Video Link's interface or from Amazon's Web site and begin watching the streaming

Toshiba 1.8-inch hard drive hits the 240GB mark

Toshiba announced on Tuesday two new 1.8-inch hard drives, including the single-platter 120GB (MKxx31GAL series) and the world's first dual-platter 240GB (MK2431GAH) internal hard drives. The single-platter version also includes an 80GB offering.

Generally speaking, 1.8-inch hard drives are small form factor portable hard drives, where the regular size is 2.5-inch--and used mostly in portable media players, camcorders and compact ultramobile PCs.

These two new hard drives use the Parallel ATA interface and feature the industry's highest area density at 344 gigabits per square inch. They incorporate the fourth-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology, which Toshiba

DeviceAnywhere now supports iPhone 3G

DeviceAnywhere, a global provider of end-to-end solutions for the mobile development, announced Tuesday its support for the iPhone 3G. This doesn't mean much for the average consumer, but this is good news for developers.

DeviceAnywhere is a service that lets developers access about 1,500 different mobile devices located throughout the world in real time. They can interact with the devices to ensure all development, porting, testing, and monitoring needs are met.

The service offers complete control over the devices as if they were in your hand. This is a solution that lets developers create software with different or

Wrex the dog unleased on U.S. e-tailers

While we covered WowWee's Wrex the unruly robo-dog a couple months back, he is finally available at U.S. e-tail stores. I know we've all been waiting for an unruly, uncouth, ill-behaved robot dog to complement our unruly, uncouth, ill-behaved real dogs, so wait no longer.

Amazon.com has him for $141 and is currently listed as in stock.
Buy.com has him for $150, but currently lists him as out of stock.
Hammacher Schlemmer has him listed for $130, but has an expected ship date of September 26.
Major retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart don't

HP laptop claims to break 24-hour battery life barrier

Hewlett-Packard says it has achieved a mobile-computing milestone by getting the HP EliteBook 6930p to operate continuously for 24 hours on a single battery charge. The laptop used in the test is, however, rather different from those consumers would pick up at the store, at least for now.

The machine's equipped with high-end components including Intel solid-state hard drives (SSDs), a mercury-free LED display, and an optional ultra-capacity battery.

The cream-of-the-crop components played a crucial role in making the 24-hour battery life possible. HP says the Illumi-Lite LED display, by itself, boosts battery run time by up to four more

Inside CNET Labs 12: A little off-topic

Dong and I get a bit off-topic to briefly discuss...dumm dumm DUMMM!! Politics. You've been warned. We also take you a bit more behind the scenes of testing printers and monitors. Really, really exciting stuff...

Last, but not least, we make some dreams come true by answering a few e-mails. And, our very first voicemail! Although we don't actually answer it (blame Dong for that).

To subscribe to this podcast, visit us at our main page and click the link on the right.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

DisplayLink powers new Sony notebook dock

On Monday, DisplayLink announced that its network display technology is now available in the new Sony Vaio USB Docking Station VGP-UPR1.

The DisplayLink technology that allows users to connect multiple monitors to their systems via USB 2.0 is embedded in the docking station. The dock is compatible with Sony Vaio notebooks as well as other notebooks that have USB 2.0 connections. This could be useful for mobile users and travelers that have the rather rare and unique need of using more than one monitor to do their work.

The dock can be used with any display with an

Stephen Colbert's DNA to back up the human race

Should anything happen to Earth, the human race will now be insured.

Comedy Central announced Monday that the host of The Colbert Report will have his DNA digitized and sent to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the Associated Press, Stephen Colbert's gene package will be carried there by famed video game designer Richard Garriott, who will travel to the station in October.

Garriott will deposit the "Immortality Drive," a time capsule that will include human DNA and records of humanity's greatest accomplishments, along with personal messages collected specifically for the project.

This will be the second

Lenovo external hard drive responds to touch

I reviewed the WD My Passport external hard drive recently and thought it was really cool with the storage gauge that lights up when plugged in to show how much storage space has been used. Lenovo has gone one step further with an external hard drive concept that can reveal the same information without even being plugged in.

The concept external hard drive features a finger-touch access button, much like a biometric reader, and an external display. Once you touch the button, the display will show the remaining storage space in the form of simple digits.

It's unclear how more

QNAP steps up its support for Mac with QGet Utility

QNAP Systems announced on Thursday its QGet Utility application for Mac. The software, which used to be available only to PC users, allows for managing the Download Station features of its Turbo NAS series from a computer.

The Download Station is a function of QNAP's Linux-embedded Turbo NAS which supports BitTorrent, FTP, and HTTP downloads. This lets users download directly onto the NAS drive without having to leave a computer running, thereby saving energy. Generally, you can access a NAS's Web interface to manage the downloads; however, it's more convenient to do this via a desktop application. more