gears

This is the golden era of new ways to watch TV. From online to Blu-ray to streaming games and more, it's a great time to be a television--or watch one. This is the best stuff to connect to your HDTV.

CNET's latest home theater essentials list is always a great road map to killer viewing.

If there's one thing that I recall more than any other from "Zero Hour," the 30-hour Xbox 360 launch event on November 20 and 21, 2005, it was the sight of dozens of gamers literally passed out on beanbags, their controllers still in their hands.

Despite absolutely frigid conditions, more than 2,000 gamers showed up in Palmdale, an aerospace town about an hour northeast of Los Angeles, for the chance to be among the first ever to play and buy an Xbox 360.

And after those 30 hours, their patience was rewarded: a fleet of Best … Read more

And just like that, the Xbox 360 is five years old.

Five years ago yesterday I was one of about 2,000 people who spent 30 very cold hours inside a giant hangar in the Southern California desert celebrating the launch of this brand new video game console. The so-called "Zero Hour" event was the start of something that has helped change the industry forever.

It's hard to believe that five years has gone by so fast, but sure enough, the Xbox 360 has officially reached the age at which previous generations of video game consoles would be retired in favor of the next round. But the new Xbox was the first to hit the playing field of what quickly became known as the "next-gen" consoles: the Xbox, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, the latter two of which would be released in November 2006.

Amazingly, on that frigid Nov. 21, 2005, Sony's flagship console was still the PlayStation 2, and no one had yet even heard the name "Wii."

Along the way, the Xbox 360 has become a major part of Microsoft's stable of products, and has helped spawn (or enhance) some of the biggest and most important exclusive titles and accessories in video game history: the Halo, Gears of War, and Fable franchises, among many others; the Kinect motion-sensitive controller; and of course, the massively popular Xbox Live service.

But the Xbox has also had issues, most notably the infamous Red Ring of Death failures, and the resulting $1 billion warranty program Microsoft instituted to handle the resulting thousands of dead Xboxes. Many gamers also scoffed at its original behemoth power supply. … Read more

A report suggesting Apple acquired wireless headset maker Wi-Gear is inaccurate, the company's CEO told Barron's in an interview today.

"The rumor is false," Wi-Gear CEO Mark Pundsack told Barron's.

Pundsack was responding to a report from 9to5 Mac claiming his company was acquired by Apple two months ago. The Apple blog claimed to have a "source" confirming Wi-Gear's sale to Apple. The blog also pointed to a LinkedIn page of Wi-Gear employee Michael Kim, which claims that he started working at Apple two months ago.

As CNET noted in its report … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Windows Phone 7 launches and so do the new Windows Phone apps

Google announces Instant Preview, a feature that lets you preview Web sites before clicking n them

Ask.com shuts down its search efforts to focus on Q&A services

Apple has reportedly purchased Wi-Gear, a wireless headphone maker

Android users can control YouTube videos on their GoogleTV with the new app

AT&T users with non-Apple smartphones can get apps from GetJar

RIM claims that the BlackBerry PlayBook will cost less than $500

A court in Connecticut is set … Read more

And now, for your dose of morning cute..."Sesame Street" is making its way to video game and audio accessories.

The products, featuring the likenesses of iconic "Street" stars like Elmo, Grover, and Oscar the Grouch, come courtesy of a new partnership between game accessory maker DreamGear and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind "Sesame Street."

The first officially licensed gaggle of gear, released late last month and selling at Toys "R" Us and Best Buy, includes cases and decals for the Nintendo DSi, DS Lite, and DSi XL; Elmo and Cookie … Read more

Sports fans can easily find the live stadium experience to be paradoxically out of touch compared with the instant stats, superior commentary, and HD replays available to home viewers. DVRs, HDTVs, and smartphones can't follow you to the live game. At stadiums, it's hard to get any smartphone to work properly. Streaming radio apps black out live game broadcasts, unless you're using Sirius. As for video, unless you've got some portable TV with an HDTV antenna converter box, you're out of luck.

This is the promise that NFL FanVision offers to a seasoned fan. At first glance, the device--a dedicated ruggedized handheld with a 4.3-inch screen formerly used at Nascar events--looks like a castoff from the early '00s, some idea of a personal media player from the early age of iPods. Purportedly waterproof (though we didn't test it) and boasting a 6-hour battery life for streaming, it's a bit too big to pocket and hangs from a lanyard around one's neck. Sure, it's not nearly as elegant as an iPhone. What it does, however, bears consideration. A live TV feed of the current game (plus audio commentary), multiple viewing angles, instant multi-angle replay after every play, plus live video of other games around the league, the NFL Red Zone channel, and stats...it's compelling for a hard-core fan.

How it works Others might ask, why not just watch the real live game in front of you? That's a valid point, but not for me. I'm a New York Jets fan, and my dad has been one for 45 years. We know the players, and we like to know what's happening down to the fine details. FanVision's audio commentary and stats offer more than what's given via the minimalist PA system and the infrequently updated HD megascreens. And instant replay, the killer app for the home user, is offered up at the press of a button.

Even better, FanVision seems to be set up to be overload-proof. FanVision works via a dedicated local UHF channel that's licensed to broadcast in the stadium and the parking lot area. The device is really a higher-tech TV, one that can receive up to 10 channels of digitally compressed video and stat data and cache highlight videos for replays. Once booted up via a small power button, the device locates the nearby broadcast tower and downloads team-specific data and channel programming. After a few minutes of initialization, the device is up and running. By avoiding Wi-Fi or 3G, FanVision's broadcast concept shouldn't suffer from slowdown.

It all sounds great on paper, but we wanted to test it for ourselves.… Read more