displays

Here's a quick tip to increase page render speeds in Firefox. If you get confused, you can watch this tip on video at CNET TV.

As with most of these tricks, you'll need to head on into about:config.

The new Firefox 3 gives you a little warning when you go there and I will too. You need to be aware that messing about in about:config can destabilize Firefox. There, you've been warned. Now the fun part. Making your own strings.

By default, Firefox waits 250 milliseconds before it begins displaying a page. We can change … Read more

Tired of spending hours frantically trying to get that projector connected to your PC before your guests become incredibly disinterested in your summer driveway movie party? Or maybe you're having flashbacks to that last presentation you gave. You know, the one that just wasn't much of a presentation. I mean granted, you had no charisma or stage presence, but that's usually nothing a 90-page PowerPoint slide show can't fix. No, your real problem was that your assistant working the projector didn't know his VGA port from his LAN port.

Even if you're like me … Read more

I was planning to write about how much I'm loving the Amazon Kindle. I got one to try to consolidate some of the weight and clutter I routinely carry with me on trips in the form of books/magazines/newspapers, and spent several hours on my Cincinnati to London flight absolutely loving the device.

The wireless connectivity and other technological features of the Kindle are nice, but that's not where it shines, in my view. No, it's the feel of the Kindle that is amazing. I read for hours, surprised by how well it rested in my hands and by the exceptional display.

Well, the display was "exceptional" until it stopped working. I got to my hotel an hour ago and, since I couldn't yet check in, decided to open up the Kindle to read. Despite having used it just two hours ago on the train into London, and having done absolutely nothing that could have physically impacted the screen (Rode in a taxi? Checked in at my hotel? The Kindle was safely protected in my bag all the while...), the screen is apparently dead.… Read more

A couple months back I attempted to test two 30-inch displays--the Samsung SyncMaster 305T and the Gateway XHD3000 Extreme HD-- at the same time using CNET Labs' current distribution amplifier (DA), the Extron Electronics D2 DA4 DVI D2 DA4 DVI. This device allows up to four displays to simultaneously view the same video signal from one system. For years we've used this device to not only speed up testing, but to do accurate direct comparisons as well. Unfortunately the native resolution for the aforementioned 30-inchers is 2,560x1,600, and the maximum resolution the Extron supports is only 1,920x1,200. So, without a means to test them simultaneously at their native resolutions I was stuck in a bind. I could have tested them one at a time, but since our testing--which includes DisplayMate--has a high level of subjectivity to it, it's always best to do direct simultaneous comparisons, instead of testing one display today and then waiting a couple days to test the next. Testing them simultaneously allows you to see the exact differences between the displays.

So I delayed the testing and the review for a few weeks. In the meantime I got in touch with a colleague at DisplayMate, Ray Soneira. He put me in contact with a company called Kramer. Kramer manufactures a number of distribution amplifiers including the Kramer VM-2DVI. This particular DA is Dual Link compatible and supports each 30-inch display's 2560x1600 resolution. So now I could test both 30-inch displays simultaneously at their native resolutions in DisplayMate and in our current games test, World of Warcraft. However whenever I attempted to run either our Kill Bill Vol. 1 DVD or our Swordfish BD on both displays at the same time, the DRM gods reared their ugly heads and denied me salvation. So when testing how each display handles disc-based movies, I was forced to evaluate each display one at a time. The Kramer VM-2DVI is not advanced enough to circumvent DRM tomfoolery, unfortunately. That said, we're still very pleased that the VM-2DVI allowed us to do the bulk of our testing as fairly and accurately as possible.

The issue of not being able to view certain disc-based movies simultaneously on two or more displays may not be an issue for long, as CNET Labs is considering moving away from using movies--and even games-- to evaluate the quality of a display. The reason being that video images generally move too quickly to do a picture quality comparison, whereas static images such as high-quality photos can be studied as long as necessary in order to examine their quality. No decision has been made as yet, though, but look for more on this in a future Inside CNET Labs post.… Read more

Call us eternal optimists, but perhaps companies are starting to figure out that digital photo frames are among the most use-challenged inventions of the digital age. In recent months manufacturers seem to have begun trying to add functions that might actually make them worthwhile, whether they've built in a Webcam or used them for something like the "PhotoPhone," which displays a picture of the person who's calling.

Asus too seems to understand the concept, as it has introduced a 7-inch LCD frame with a "sub-display" feature that can turn it into a secondary screen … Read more

Tube TVs did best weathering an overall decline in television sales during the first quarter, largely due to a softening economy and a lower price point than their plasma display panel and liquid crystal display TV competitors.

Total North America TV shipments declined 34 percent in the first quarter over the previous quarter, according to recently released results from DisplaySearch, an NPD Group company. Plasmas fell by 38 percent, while LCD televisions dropped by 35 percent.

But in comparison, shipments of the old CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs slipped only 14 percent in the quarter, the study found.

"We … Read more

It's kind of curious that a company would send out a press release just to announce the new shape of an LCD, but that's exactly what NEC has done. And not just any shape, mind you, but a heart--and Valentine's Day is 9 months away.

It's actually being touted as another way that LCDs can be configured and used, as Engadget observes, not unlike the circular version we saw last fall. These prototypes are being showcased to exemplify the versatility of the technology, as flexible TFT displays find uses beyond traditional rectangular screens.

One reason … Read more

NEC made a splash when it showed off its 42-inch curved display at CES earlier this year, but there are others in the works that make it seem downright puny. Take Shinoda Plasma, for example. The Japanese manufacturer has trotted out a 125-inch prototype that's not only flexible but just 1 millimeter thick and weighing only 8 pounds. It's reminiscent of that wraparound OLED screen we saw from Sony a year ago, though the plasma obviously uses different technology.

Shinoda's prototype falls a bit shy of a 142-inch promise it made last year, as Engadget notes, but … Read more

Crave knows two screens are better than one. Many of us use twin 19-inch displays, while the real high rollers rock twin 30-inch Dell 3007WFPs. We don't need to--but that's just how we roll. So you can imagine just how intrigued we were when Samsung showed us its Dual Display 2263DX, a 22-inch monitor with a second 7-inch monitor poking out of the top.

It may look odd, but Samsung says it lets users have their favorite applications running uninterrupted in a totally separate, always-visible desktop space. It's right, too: We can definitely see ourselves running common … Read more