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D-Link boxes in Web TV’s Boxee

December 7th, 2009, 4:52 pm by

Corrected, 12/8/09: D-Link plans to launch the box in second quarter 2010 (not 2009)!
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D-Link Systems is jumping on the two hottest tech trends of social media and Web TV with … a box.

Not just any box. The Fountain Valley company is teaming with Boxee, an open-source software developer of free software that lets computer users watch favorite Web TV shows and videos on their home TV —  and share what they’re watching with friends online.

Here it is, the Boxee Box by D-Link:

Boxee Box by D-Link

Boxee Box by D-Link, backThis little black box — about 5 square inches — will let Boxee subscribers forgo connecting cables and laptop to a TV. Instead, the box sits next to the TV and pipes in Internet video to the TV. No need to remove it when done, as one would a laptop. Click photos on right to enlarge images.

A lot of geeks like Boxee because it lets them watch only the TV they want to watch via sites like Hulu.com, CBS.com, Netflix, etc.

Boxee adds a simple directory so it’s easier to browse what TV shows are available online. Also, since the box lives on the home computer network, Boxee can build a digital library of digital movies and music found on any computer connected to the same network. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Gadgets • Internet • Video & TV • Wi-Fi & networking • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

AT&T’s official list of Orange County cities getting U-verse TV

July 21st, 2009, 8:13 am by

Where is AT&T's U-verse service?

Readers, I’m heading to my second day of jury duty so posts will be on hold. But here’s something for Orange County readers who are hoping to get AT&T’s alternative TV service, U-verse, in their city.

To supplement an ongoing series of updates as to what happened to the AT&T U-verse rollout in Orange County, the company gave me this updated list of cities where it is building U-verse.

Keep in mind, service may not be available in all the cities yet, but AT&T is working on building the service there. 

Is your city listed? Or is it listed but you still can’t order TV service? Comment below or send me an e-mail and I will try to verify. If you have more information yourself, please share!

More on the U-verse impasse
  1. Aliso Viejo
  2. Anaheim
  3. Brea
  4. Buena Park
  5. Costa Mesa
  6. Fountain Valley
  7. Fullerton
  8. Garden Grove
  9. La Habra
  10. La Palma
  11. Laguna Hills
  12. Laguna Niguel
  13. Mission Viejo
  14. Orange 
  15. Placentia
  16. Rancho Santa Margarita
  17. San Juan Capistrano
  18. Santa Ana
  19. Stanton
  20. Villa Park
  21. Westminster
  22. Yorba Linda

Posted in: news • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 23 Comments »

Verizon’s FiOS TV rollout slows in So Cal

May 13th, 2009, 4:58 pm by

Verizon FiOS rollout slowing down for SoCal? Yikes!Verizon confirmed today that it has slowed expansion of its much sought-after FiOS TV service in Southern California to focus on adding customers where service is already available.

“We started in 2004 and have been really aggressive at getting fiber out there. But in order to get the return on our investment we need to focus on areas that we’ve already built,” said Jon Davies, a spokesman for Verizon FiOS.  ”We slowed down the build and really did a lot of direct marketing and door-to-door to get those customers to sign up.”

Davies says FiOS TV is still expanding in our area, just not as fast as planned. I guess that means if you’re getting FiOS sales people knocking on your door, you are still on the list to get service soon.

In Orange County, FiOS is in certain parts of Brea, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Habra, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and certain unincorporated areas.

This is a major detour from the glowing report the company gave two weeks ago to announce that FiOS service was now available to 1 million California households. Not to mention, the slowdown goes against the statement made by Eric Rabe, Verizon’s senior vice president of media relations, that Verizon is building as fast as it can.

Davies said Rabe was referring to the national rollout. This slowdown, as far as Davies knows, is specific to Southern California.

The delay has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, Davies said, despite notices like the one on the city of Walnut’s web site (and confirmed after a call to the city) saying otherwise: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 3 Comments »

How many homes in O.C. can order FiOS?

May 6th, 2009, 9:24 am by

Verizon FiOSAfter two years of digging up streets to lay fiber-optic cables, Verizon FiOS TV is now available to 85,000 homes in Orange County, according to Jon Davies, a spokesman for much sought-after TV service.

That’s up 35 percent from two years ago, when FiOS TV first entered the county and offered service to 63,100 homes. 

Now if we take the number of housing units in Orange County –1,023,194 in 2007, according to the U.S. Census — that means the county is about 8.5 percent FiOS TV-ready.

This is a hopeful, yet disappointing number based on the fact that last week, Verizon said 1 million homes in California were now FiOS TV-friendly. The majority of those were supposed to be in Orange County and Los Angeles. But with a scant  85,000 in O.C., I’m left to assume that L.A. nabbed the bulk of the FiOS installations. 

Davies also offered an updated list of O.C. cities that have some FiOS TV service (without actual numbers since he can no longer disclose them), which I’ve compared to the original figures from 2007:

2007 2009
Fountain Valley: 300 homes Brea
Huntington Beach: 40,000 Cypress
Westminster: 12,500 Fountain Valley
Garden Grove: 5,300 Garden Grove
Stanton: 1,500 Huntington Beach
Unincorporated: 3,500 La Habra
  La Palma
Total = 63,100 Los Alamitos
  Seal Beach, 5,000
  Stanton
  Westminster

(Note: Verizon began rolling out service in Seal Beach earlier this year. And according to one of my previous posts on FiOS TV expansion here, Verizon is still targeting Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel.)

Where is FiOS and U-verse in Orange County?Thank you to all who have e-mailed me about FiOS or U-verse service in their neighborhood. I’m using the information to create something better than this previous map showing where these alternative TV services exist in O.C. 

More FiOS TV news:


Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services 

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 12 Comments »

When cameraphones and O.C. tech mix, expect prizes

March 10th, 2009, 6:00 pm by

If you like taking funny photos or entertaining videos with your cameraphone, submit them for a chance to win everything but a cell phone in a new wireless contest sponsored by Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co. and friends.

The memory company plans to give away a bunch of memory cards and flash drives, while neighbor D-Link Systems has a 10-inch digital photo frame and wireless routers up for grabs. Western Digital, in Lake Forest, is tossing in one of those nifty WD TV HD Media players, and Plantronics has a few 925 Bluetooth headsets.

The contest categories are: dance/pose, fun pet tricks, travel/vacation and sports. There will be 32 prizes awarded.

All entries must be received by March 31. Photo submissions can be made at www.kingston.com/mobile while video submissions are accepted at www.youtube.com/kingstoncontest.

Prizes are listed below: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cell phones • • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

O.C.’s bamboo drives, laser TVs, more get nod from tech industry

February 6th, 2009, 12:05 pm by

The Consumer Electronics Association, best known for hosting the annual tech show CES every January, named a handful of Orange County companies today as finalists for its “2009 Mark of Excellence Awards” for custom home electronics.  While there is a ton of competition, O.C. has a good showing:

Best Control System:
NevoS70 Controller (pictured on right) from Universal Electronics in Cypress. This super-sized all-in-one remote can control everything from your stereo system to computers on the home network. 

Best Green Product, Service, or Corporate Policy
D-Link Systems in Fountain Valley, nominated for its corporate policy, which includes building Energy Star-approved products, and supporting local recycling, reuse and reclamation of consumer goods. Offers “green Ethernet” products, which put unused cables in sleep mode.

Fabrik’s [re]drive is made from bamboo

SimpleTech, a Fabrik Company, in Santa Ana, introduced the [re]drive (on left) last year made partly from bamboo grown near its manufacturing plant in China. The drive also has a fanless cooling system and a low-powered drive and an Energy Start adapter to help cut energy usage by 90 percent over comparable drives.

Best Video display
LaserVue TV from Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. in Irvine. A new type of flat TV that uses laser technology to produce the video, which is touted as offering twice the color while using half the power as comparably sized TVs.

For a complete list of finalists, visit www.CE.org/MOE. Winners will be announced on March 13, 2009 at the Electronic House Expo Sprint 2009 in Orlando, FL.

Recent Gadgetress stories:

Posted in: Gadgets • Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

A smaller, cheaper CES: Will it be better?

January 6th, 2009, 3:27 am by

If you’ve attended the Consumer Electronics Shows in years past, you know the drill. Book a hotel, try not to flinch at the $400-and-up nightly rate, arrive at McCarran International Airport and wait two hours for a taxi to your hotel. And when you’re finally in Las Vegas? You’re joined by thousands of attendees wasting too much time in lines — for a cab, coffee, dinner, the CES shuttle bus, the bathroom.

But, possibly, maybe, I sure hope … not this year. The first sign of a smaller, quieter and cheaper CES, which opens Wednesday night, was lower hotel rates. The official CES hotels starting reducing prices months ago. Places like Bally’s, which in 2006 (the last year I attended) charged $400/night, were still offering $139/night specials before Christmas.

Then I noticed that some Orange County tech companies that for years showed up in big, splashy booths were missing from the show floor.

A third sign? Bill Gates isn’t the opening keynote, as he has been for the last 12 years. What is this? Macworld? (Oh yeah, Gates retired in June.)

After a rough year for the consumer electronics industry –- one where Circuit City filed bankruptcy, Best Buy began layoffs and others went kaput –- CES is expected to be smaller and cheaper. Still, the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the annual event, is optimistic about the show and is pushing quality over quantity.

“We’re seeing pre-registration for the show that is stronger than in 2008,” said Jason Oxman, CEA’s vice president of communication. “Will we break a record this year? Probably not. But at the same time, trade shows take renewed interest in a down economy because business gets done.”

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Will a smaller, cheaper CES be a better show?
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CES expects at least 130,000 attendees this year, down 14 percent from the 2006 high of 152,000. While this year’s lag could be blamed on the depressed economy, CES organizers began taking steps two years ago to eliminate consumers trying to sneak in at the industry-only event. It closely scrutinized attendees living within driving distance to Las Vegas.

“That reduced attendance by 8,000,” Oxman said. “The message we’re trying to send is not to have the maximum number of people, but the best quality of people.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: news • • • • • • • | Comments Off

O.C. wants to know: When is FiOS coming to my city?

December 5th, 2008, 5:06 pm by

Verizon FiOSOrange County residents were some of the first to get Verizon’s fast FiOS Internet and TV service that is on par with cable companies. But still, I hear, “When is FiOS coming to my city?”

Time for an update. I asked Verizon FiOS for detailed launch by city. Of course, they didn’t give that to me. Too many unknowns (city permits, construction schedules), they said, not to mention that they dont’ want their competition to know.

But here’s what they could tell me:

Right now, FiOS is available in parts of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Westminister, Stanton, Fountain Valley and some unincorporated areas. In the next month, the first Seal Beach residents will be able to order FiOS.

Earlier this year, Verizon announced a long list of cities that it was given the go-ahead to launch FiOS. In Orange County, those cities include Brea, Dana Point, La Habra, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel. A complete list of Southern California cities is available HERE.

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

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