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Toshiba’s ultimate TV will make you want to dump your system

January 6th, 2010, 2:16 pm by

toshimg_7219That new HDTV you just bought? Outdated. Get ready to dump it after you hear what Toshiba America is coming out with this year: The CELL TV, which Toshiba announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It’s still an HDTV but every feature has been turbo charged.

It’s faster (480 Hz compared to existing 60 Hz TVs), brighter (1,000 cd/m2), blacker, more connected and converts 2D video to 3D video (see photos below from the press conference for some details). Gee, what else? It’ll include a 1 TB hard drive, built-in Blu-ray Disc player, Wi-Fi, DLNA (so it can access family photos, music, video and other files stored on personal computers) plus a high-quality video phone system.

The main feature: The CELL chip, which is the same chip that powers the PlayStation 3 and has been finding its way into certain advanced computers. Toshiba, which developed the chip with Sony, always intended to put it in a TV. This year, it will begin selling the CELL TV in the U.S. No specific date or price has been announced. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: news • • • • • • • • • • | 11 Comments »

Toshiba becomes very last company to offer Blu-ray player

September 3rd, 2009, 2:55 pm by

After killing off its beloved but unpopular HD DVD technology last year, Toshiba has finally come out with its first Blu-ray Disc player.

The company announced the BDX2000 today making Toshiba the very last company to jump into Blu-ray camp. Well, Toshiba at least has got to be the last major consumer electronics company to support the technology.

Toshiba's first Blu-ray player, BDX2000.

Toshiba, which has its computer division in Irvine, made a major push for the HD DVD format in 2006 and 2007 before giving up in February 2008. At the time, the company said it had no plans to support the competing Blu-ray technology or offer it in its computers.

But after 18 months, Blu-ray is apparently unavoidable. Blu-ray players are sold everywhere, including Wal-Mart. Every new movie is offered in this format. And even companies like low-priced TV maker Vizio sell a Blu-ray player.

How could Toshiba not support Blu-ray? Well, it does now.

The company’s new Blu-ray player has many of the usual features, including BD Live, which allows viewers to do stuff like chat about the same movie with others online. There’s also an SD card slot to share music and photos. Also, if you are using this with a Toshiba REGZA TV, the two can use the same remote control. The BDX2000 will be available in November for $249.99.

The press release announcing the new player manages to avoid any mention of its HD DVD interlude. But it does mention the technology: “This product does not play HD DVD discs.” Darn!

While there are reports that Toshiba is bringing Blu-ray to its laptops, the technology is still snubbed on the company’s web site. No laptops include the drive and it’s not offered as an add-on accessory. In fact, the site doesn’t even appear to mention Blu-ray at all:

Blu-ray still MIA on Toshiba's PC web site.

At least for now. We’ll probably hear from the computer folks any day now.

Earlier on Blu-ray:

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

SleeSpot: Toshiba laptop and HDTV bundle for $650

August 21st, 2009, 4:20 pm by

SLEEspot: Gadgetress intern Sandra Lee spots a tech deal daily.This month, Gadgetress’ summer intern Sandra Lee is posting a tech bargain, tip or fun fact every day at 4 p.m. Short, sweet and simple: It’s the SleeSpot!

Attention college students! This is your chance to save some huge cash. Best Buy is offering an exclusive package where two very important college necessities can be bought together for less.  The Toshiba 26-inch LCD HDTV and Toshiba Satellite Laptop can be purchased together for $649.98, a $230 savings.~ Sandra Lee

Got a tip for the SLEEspot? Tell me about it at slee@ocregister.com or Tweet me @sleespot.
Past SleeSpots:

Posted in: Computers • Video & TV • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

The SLEEspot: 17-inch Toshiba laptop for $348

August 14th, 2009, 4:00 pm by

SLEEspot: Gadgetress intern Sandra Lee spots a tech deal daily.Big welcome to Gadgetress’ summer intern Sandra Lee, a junior at Sonora High School in La Habra. She’s here for a few weeks and has come up with a daily feature: The SleeSpot. She’ll be posting a tech bargain, tip or fun fact every day at 4 p.m. Short, sweet and simple: It’s the SleeSpot!

Toshiba 17-inch laptop, $348 at Walmart on Sunday.This Sunday, Aug. 16, head to Walmart and look out for the Toshiba L355 17″ screen laptop for just $348! (And from an Irvine company!) Last month, Walmart sold a Compaq laptop for $298. Hey mom, can I borrow some money?  ~ Sandra Lee

Got a tip for the SLEEspot? Tell me about it at slee@ocregister.com.

Posted in: Computers • Gadgets • • • • • • | 7 Comments »

Recycle e-waste, get free tickets to Toshiba golf tourney

March 7th, 2009, 12:08 am by

Consumers should by now know better than to toss old computer monitors in the trashcan (it’s hazardous waste!). But if you need more incentive to be good to the earth, take your unwanted electronic waste to Newport Beach and get into this weekend’s Toshiba Classic golf tournament.

Consumers who recycle any electronic waste at the ”Swing for the Green” event will get two free tickets good for any day of the tournament, which starts today and ends Sunday.

Toshiba, which is based in Irvine, wants to collect thousands of pounds of waste at the event to surpass last year’s 6,500 pounds of e-waste.

::details::

WHAT: Toshiba’s Swing for the Green recycling event

WHEN: Friday, March 6 to Sunday, March 8
8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. each day

WHERE: Newport Dunes (satellite parking lot of the tournament), 1131 Back Bay Drive in Newport Beach.

WHY: Recylce old electronic equipment responsibly. Items accepted include desktop PCs, laptops, computer monitors, printers, camcorders, fax machines, cell phones, VCRs, DVD players, rechargeable batteries, MP3 players and stereos.

MORE: explore.toshiba.com/adps/swing-for-the-green

Past green-tech posts:

Posted in: news • • • • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

Tech toys at CES just for (wee) girls

January 12th, 2009, 5:27 pm by

The show ended Sunday. Here is the rest of what I saw at CES… To see more, visit Gadgetress@CES 2009

Girly gadgets and other frou-frou tech toys may not be the best tech around, but they are still fun to spot at CES. Here’s my roundup of fun stuff I saw:

1. The Barbie nail painter: From Mattel, this is a little fingernail printer that prints custom images directly on a wee fingernail. It’s definitely a relative of the industrial fingernail printer I wrote about in 2004 (where are these things anyway?). This offers an assortment of Barbie-friendly images, plus you can upload your own.

And better yet, it’s expected to become an actual product that people can buy at the store.  No price was available nor a launch date. I’m guessing it will be out my the holidays. I need one for my, uh, 1-year-old daughter. (Click images for larger view)

    

2. The Hello Kitty netbook. These mini computers have become very trendy, although I suspect they are more popular in Europe and Asia than here in the U.S. And what’s a world without Hello Kitty? With an Intel chip, no less. Comes with cute red bag. This one is apparently from Sotec (here are more details in Japanese).

 

3. Invasion of the Palachans: A strange assortment of USB storage creatures from Toshiba. Available in Japan only. These creatures were “born off the pristine tropical paradise of the Palau Islands.”

4. Bone bags: What started out as a silicon-based dog bone USB drive has developed into an army of cute things from the Fruitshop International Corp., which has a local office in Rancho Cordova. The USB keys are still cute, but a new product is a line of cases for iPods. On the back of the silicon case is room for headphones and cables. 

More images (click for larger view):

    

For the list of Gadgetress reports from CES, visit the headline page at gadgetress.freedomblogging.co

Posted in: Gadgets • iPods • • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

Toshiba unveils largest flash-memory drive

January 10th, 2009, 11:15 am by

For what’s next in computer storage, look no further than Toshiba Corp., which showed prototypes of 512 GB solid state drives during the Consumer Electronics Show (click image to view larger):

The solid-state technology is the same stuff inside tiny SD and other flash cards used in cell phones, digital cameras and MP3 players.

Toshiba’s new storage sizes are available in 2.5-inch drives, which are sizes found in laptops like the Apple’s svelte MacBook Air, currently at a mere 120 GB. The drives are thinner, lighter and more reliable because they have no moving parts, unlike traditional computer hard drives which rely on spinning platters to store and read data.

Other capacities include 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB, which are available in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch sizes. Speeds are up to a maximum sequential read speed of 240 MB per second, and a write speed of 200 MBps. The new drives will be available during the first quarter of 2009, with mass production beginning around April.

Toshiba’s U.S. storage division is based in Irvine.

To see headlines from earlier stories from CES, please visit gadgetress.freedomblogging.com/ces2009.

Posted in: Storage • • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

The best TV Toshiba has to offer

January 7th, 2009, 4:35 pm by

 A 240 Hertz TV? Toshiba says it’s possible with software. As higher-end TVs moved from the standard 60 Hertz to 120 Hertz last year, videophiles who demanded absolutely no blur during fast-moving video made the switch.

Translation: Less blur for fast-moving video, like sports and video games. Most TV viewers have 60 Hertz TVs, so viewers typically see 60 frames of video per second. While that’s pretty fast, the split second where the frame updates the image could cause a blur. Hence, 120 Hertz, or double the images in 60 seconds. The 120 hertz is becoming more prevelant in higher-end TVs today.

While it would take a finely tuned eye to see any blur at 120 Hertz, there, apparently, is some, causing Tosbhia to introduce “ClearScan 240.” 

Now ClearScan 240, said Scott Ramirez, Toshiba’s vice president of marketing for the TV group, isn’t really 240 frames of video per second. Rather, using backlight scanning “you perceive two frames for every one,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Since it’s not technically 240 hertz, Toshiba calls it “the 240 Herz effect.”

(Note: After Toshiba’s announcment, I stopped by press conferences for Samsung and Panasonic. Both, too, say they are or will offer TVs with a 240 Hertz refresh rate. I will have to explore this later.) Read the rest of this entry »

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

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