Apple has filed a patent for electric specs that will allow you to watch 3D movies on the move. The sunglasses-type device lets users watch content without the need for a TV.

The patent says the image would be equivalent to high definition quality.

Already the predictable nickname ‘iSpecs’ has been spreading across the web, while ChannelNews adds that users of the device will simply hook up their iPod or iPhone to the head-mounted gadget and be able to watch a 3D movie. A special “smart” lens in the iSpecs projects the image from the screen so that the user can watch the movie on the move. Continue Reading

Now while we here at Komplett Towers may not find ourselves on BornRich.org often, today we had to check out its report that the most expensive TV sets in history have been created by designer Stuart Hughes. His line of PrestigeHD Supreme Rose edition and PrestigeHD Supreme are diamond encrusted and cost $1.5 to $2.25 million (€1.65 to €2.46 million).

Coming soon to an episode of Cribs… the Supreme Rose.

For those still interested, the 55-inch LED backlit screen Rose edition is the pricier one with the base and outer frame crafted in “28 kilograms of solid 18ct rose gold, and adorned with 72 brilliant round cut 1ct flawless diamonds on the frame, with the remaining area set with Sunstone and Amethyst”. All that pales in comparison to our favourite detail though… the inner screen layer is made up from alligator skin, all hand sewn. Oh yeah.

Continue Reading

We chat to the people behind the online games retailer who have decided to open a new space for gamers in Dunboyne, Co Meath. Though they do get the odd crowd who visit just to do their knitting as well…

Pat Forde was hanging up a few signs in the windows of his new Gamesnash Live outlet in the middle of Dunboyne, Co Meath when he started noticing some funny looks coming from the local community. “I think there was a good few people concerned that there was a big arcade coming in and I reckon a few of them were on the verge of getting the banners together for an organised protest.”

Gamesnash Live aims to be a mixture of social centre, coffee shop and retail store, all designed to be as comfortable as any (admittedly well kitted out) sitting room.

They were, he says, “heading for the ‘careful now, down with this sort of thing’ territory” just before the Gamesnash Live launch earlier this year, but once the concerned locals in question came through the doors they seemed to change their minds, “they’ve seen it now and they know it’s bringing something different to the area”.

Forde’s Gamesnash brand, run with his wife Joanne, has, over the past two and half years become established as the country’s leading online games retailer (specialising for one thing in some excellent deals on pre-owned games). However, with a desire “to put some bricks and mortar into place” Gamesnash Live was born. Continue Reading

There’s no confirmation as to whether any similar moves will be happening on this side of the Atlantic but it appears that Panasonic may be just a tad worried that take up of 3DTVs won’t be all they expected;  and with this in mind it’s been announced that they will be cutting some 3DTV set prices by up to 50% in a deal with US shopping giant Best Buy.

An image from Panasonic’s CES2010 marketing blitz on their 3DTVs, will prices tumble for Europe too?

The Wall Street Journal reports that Panasonic will offer US consumers big discounts (when compared to prices on the same products in the Japanese market) on its sets in order to push adoption.

Continue Reading

The first thing we had to decide once the idea of focusing on Sony’s almost rudely successful Bravia line came up, was where along the price range to focus our attention – I mean if we wanted to we could go for something like the 52-inch €1,800 model or then again for those on a budget there’s the much-loved in review-land €507 32-inch Bravia LCD-TV KDL-32EX402.

The price for a TV of the 40V5500’s size is unexpected, thankfully very little is sacrificed on the features end.

However, all things considered we tried to land somewhere in the middle and that led us to the 40-inch (we did say ‘somewhere’ in the middle) Sony Bravia KDL-40V5500. Priced at just over €700, it’s been a wildly popular model since its release in mid-2009 and indeed it’s the relatively small outlay that attracted so many reviewers in its direction. The big questions were just how a Sony 40-inch could have such a small price, and indeed what exactly has been stripped away to get it there?

Thankfully, the answer, having dug through a considerable amount of expert opinion on the matter, is very, very little. As LCDTV Reviews said when it weighed up the 40V5500’s pros and cons, while being “relatively moderate in its pricing” it does that “without making any compromise on the feature part”.

Continue Reading

Researchers behind a survey of almost 3,000 people across the water have claimed that their result point towards the wasteful spend of £52 billion a year by Britons on gadgets that they simply “don’t know how to use”. The products that baffled the Brits include Blu-ray players, HDTVs and DAB radios.

Inspector Gadget, no doubt surprised and disappointed at the Sky-sponsored survey.

Indeed, the average Briton only uses half of the functions available on their gadgets, according to the by research by One Poll, who conducted the study on behalf of Sky HD.

Continue Reading

It seems that Sony is to discontinue sales of its OLED TV line in Japan, though for now it says that it intends to maintain availability in the displays in other regions.

It's a gorgeous device, but only eleven inches...

According to a report from Reuters, Sony’s aim had been for OLED to herald its renewed commitment to technological innovation, though for now it seems that that plan hasn’t quite worked out in its favour. Indeed, the fact that Sony was so early to market its OLED display has contributed substantially to the decision to stop selling the devices in Japan – the fact is that a display line with only one model available, at 11-inches and with a pricetag of roughly €1,600 isn’t likely to move too many units.

Continue Reading

LG may well find itself in some trouble with studios after its user manuals were found to contain details of how to watch illegally downloaded material on LG’s hardware.

Seems like a bit of a misstep...

The whole kafuffle stems from the release of a line of HDTV’s from LG that boast USB ports, allowing users to plug external storage directly into their displays and watch any content that they’ve got stored on those drives directly on their LG TV. Of course, the assumption might be that such content has been legally obtained, but LG’s own manual doesn’t seem too fussy, showing pirated content in its diagrams of the functionality.

Continue Reading

It seems that those who’ve found that they have issues with Bioware’s phenomenally successful Mass Effect 2 on standard-definition TVs are out of luck, with the developer indicating that a fix is impossible.

For those who’ve been blissfully unaware of the trouble, it seems that anyone trying to play Mass Effect 2 on a TV that doesn’t display in some flavour of high-definition (it seems that 1080p isn’t a requirement, you should be fine with 720p) has been having trouble with text. The issue stems from the face that the text in Mass Effect 2 seems to have been sized with high-definition TVs in mind, meaning that it’s so small that it essentially becomes unreadable on older displays.

Continue Reading

Speaking as someone who, due to circumstances beyond my control (I’m poor), presently watches TV on a late ‘80s Panasonic behemoth that has outlasted Governments, wars, Glenroe and the Police Academy franchise, looking through the types of TV tech that will make a mark over the coming year became just a rolling series of me finding a product, going through the specs, and screaming ‘I want, I want, I want’.

For now, I’ll have to stick with the Panasonic (a machine so sturdy I’m nearly certain it could survive a nuclear attack ala that fridge in Indiana Jones), but for those with a little change in their back pocket there’s some great options out there. For one, we can start well away from enormo-screens or 3D hype and take a look at the Kula TV, announced last week by US-based Sungale and available in March.

The little fella delivers up TV treats via a modest 4.3-inch LCD screen and Wi-Fi connectivity “The Kula is the next big thing that will revolutionize the way people watch TV,” enthused Sungale vice president of sales Gary Bennett. Though he remained tight-lipped over any model for usage fees, TheTechHerald did report however that, “Content will be offered to prospective users through a number of different packages, which include Basic, Kid and Grand. While both the Basic and Kid options provide free access to between 20 and 30 channels, the fee-based Grand package will have more than 300 channels to choose from.” A similar system should be reasonably easy to set up this side of the Atlantic.

Continue Reading

Good afternoon all, hopefully the return to work from the weekend hasn’t been too hard on you. Things are going quite well here, even the weather seems to have cheered up a little. Anyway, every Monday afternoon we post a list of our special offers for the week. It means you guys have as long as possible to check things out before deciding if you’d like to pick them up while they’re at a reduced price.

Anyway, this week we’ve got a few really nice bits and pieces on offer, including Intel’s X25 SSD, Belkin’s Gigabit Powerline HD starter kit, a Radeon 5670 and a Pioneer surround setup.

Intel X25:

For a very long time indeed, the SSD was a very expensive option indeed, but Intel has attempted to remedy that, offering solid-state storage on a wider scale for less-than-bankrupting sums… which is always nice.

Click through to see our page for Intel's X25 80GB SSD

Intel’s X25 is, in case anyone missed it, a solid-state drive. As with the vast majority of SSDs, it’s a 2.5-inch drive, so it should fit into a laptop without any real bother. Moreover, because it’s solid-state you’ll see faster read and write speeds than most standard hard-drives, which should mean a quicker boot… which is always nice. Your data will also be that bit more secure when it comes to the drive being knocked around a little in transit, thanks to the fact that the drive has no moving parts.

All in all, it’s a solid drive, and one that we’re genuinely pleased to be able to have on offer, because it’s attracted an awful lot of attention over the last couple of months.

Intel’s X25 80GB SSD is down to €199 this week, which isn’t bad at all when you consider the upsides of a nice SSD.

Continue Reading

Skype has announced today that, as part of a partnership with Panasonic, it wil be adding its voice over internet protocol (VOIP) software to Panasonic’s line of Viera HDTVs.

Panasonic’s new line of Viera cast-enabled tellies is set to hit during the still-vague “2010″, and with Skype coming pre-installed the company will be able to boast free Skype-to-Skype video calling out of the box, which is no mean feat at all. It’ll also be attractive to those who’ve been looking to ditch their house phones but can’t quite get around to it or for some reason or another don’t like the idea of a physical Skype-phone.

In a market with an atmosphere like the current HDTV market, where many products appear (to the casual observer, at least) to be fairly similar, the ability to make calls directly from one TV to another for free could well be a big selling point for the folks at Panasonic, to say nothing of the positive effect that broadening the software’s userbase will have for Skype, which essentially trades on the fact that it’s so widely used and relatively cheap.

Naturally, a wider userbase increases the likelihood that people will use some of Skype’s fee-based services too. While the option to call or videocall other Skype users is a pleasant one, the real bonus is, of course, in the ability to call other phones for less than the normal charge. It might well be a bit of a hard sell for some, but it’s not bad if it’s something that just comes as an add-on for a TV.

We’ll be curious to see how well Panasonic does out of the deal; it certainly won’t hurt the company to be able to offer something that others aren’t though, and cheap phone calls are a big draw.