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Television

AccuVoice speaker makes TV dialogue rise above the noise

Soundbars have become popular in recent years in part due to the declining quality of speakers that come with TVs. After all, today’s flat-panel TVs tend to be so thin that there is nowhere to put good-quality speakers anymore. That’s especially a problem for older TV viewers and others with hearing difficulties.

patent-claimedAccuVoice is a TV speaker from audio device manufacturer Zvox that goes a step further than one of its soundbars. That’s because AccuVoice has been specifically designed to help people with hearing loss hear dialogue from whatever show or movie they’re watching on TV. The aluminum speaker is only 17 inches wide and about 2.5 inches high and is simple to hook up because it only has one connecting cord.

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Television

Drive offers the warm glow of achievement by removing the warm glow of TV

Whether it’s being used for playing videogames or the binge watching of TV shows, the television continues to help adults and kids procrastinate.

patent-claimedDrive is an outlet adapter that connects to a home Wi-Fi network and receives instructions from its owner on when to enable or disable the use of a TV. It works in conjunction with an Android, iOS and Windows app. If parents don’t want their kids to watch TV or play games until they are done with their homework or household chores, Drive can be used to bar those children from using the TV for a set period of time. If adults make a New Year’s resolution to exercise and lose weight, but can’t manage to bring themselves to turn off the TV, Drive can be set to automatically block the TV from being used until they burn some calories.

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Television

Blipcast lets you cast any headphones as your TV audio player

Trying to watch TV at night can be a major hassle when there are other people in the house trying to sleep. A pair of wireless headphones can sometimes solve the problem, but not if more than one person is watching a TV at the same time.

Blipcast is a solution to the late night TV blues, enabling transmission of audio from a TV, home theater receiver or other source to smartphones and tablets via an accompanying app. The audio can then be heard using just about any headphones or earbuds. The small, black device hooks up to TVs and other sources via USB. The device ships in November at future pricing of $99, although early bird Kickstarter backers have been able to get one at pricing that starts at $49. Its makers are hoping to raise $100,000 by Feb. 1.

Blipcast seems to offer a pretty good solution for at least some late night TV watchers. But, as with all audio products, it’s hard to tell from a Kickstarter campaign just how good the sound quality is. Users must also have Android or iOS mobile devices to use the app, so those with other operating systems need not apply.

 

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Television

AfterMaster TV improves the quality of your TV audio

Audio quality continues to be the weakest link in the TV viewing experience for many people. That has only been enhanced by the dominance of flat-panel TVs, which typically can’t fit quality speakers inside due to their thin designs. Even many sound bars and the best multi-channel speakers can overcome such issues as sudden changes in audio levels.

patent-claimedAfterMaster TV is designed to overcome such problems. It’s a small, set-top device that gets hooked up via HDMI cables to a TV and an audio/video source including a cable or satellite box. The device uses patent-pending technology originally developed for the music industry, according to its Kickstarter campaign. It features a proprietary Digital Signal Processing chip, co-developed with ON Semiconductor, that can master and remaster audio to professional standards in real-time and, unlike other audio enhancement technologies, makes any audio source sound much better throughout its entire frequency range.

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Connected Objects Television

Klikr lets you replace all your electronic clickers with a smartphone

With the popularity of the Chromecast, many consumers are already controlling their TVs with their smartphones. But Klikr is a small Bluetooth LE device that takes the trend one step further.

By sticking Klikr on a TV, speaker, air conditioner or just about any other electronic device that uses an infrared remote control, a user can use an accompanying Android or iOS app to control any of those devices from their mobile device. Klikr gets stuck to a device next to that device’s infrared receiver using two sticky, reusable gel pads, and works as long as the user is within about 10 meters away. ,

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Television

HUBI Stick marries Android and your TV for big-screen bliss

With all this talk of the new Apple TV, it’s easy to forget that he Android platform is blessed with an unending amount of content made specifically for its many variations. While sheer variety is always a good thing, it’s not the best for the device ecosystem.

The result is a fragmented experience that the team behind the HUBI Stick wants to address. The device is a small HDMI dongle that comes in 8GB and 16GB varieties. By plugging it into a supported television, it gives users access to the entirety of the Google Play store. So all manner of internet TV apps—smartphone or tablet versions—along with the dizzying number of games are all fair game. Any smartphone and their embedded sensors (even iPhones) open up the opportunity to have a Wii-like experience when playing video games.

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Television

Skreens puts multiple video sources on the screen at once

Hulu, Nerflix, Twitter, Xbox One. There’s so much worth watching and so few big screens in the living room. Unfortunately, TVs can normally display only one.

The makers of Skreens seek to change that limitation. The device looks like any number of devices that let you switch between different HDMI sources, but can display those sourced on the TV at the same time. So, for example, one family member can play a videogame with the sound off while someone else catches up on a DVR recording. Or a sports fan can keep tabs on a game while catching the Twitter buzz about it.

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Displays Tablet Accessories

Project Wedge is a cheap, portable projector for tablets

Lots of young millennial have figured out that televisions are expensive. However, with the right cables and devices, they can project television shows and movies onto a blank wall or screen for entertainment. Since companies would rather have consumers spending money on expensive equipment, the typical project model is lagging behind in innovation.

Project Wedge is a mini projector for the young adult consumer in mind. Working with tablets and smartphones via an HDMI cable, Project Wedge projects images from these devices. It looks sharp on a screen or wall up to 60 inches. With a battery that lasts for four hours, it’ll be easy to watch a move on the big screen, perhaps streamed from Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Not only is Project Wedge easy to use and compatible with a wide range of devices, but it’s also quite compact, not much bigger than a tablet with a stand. All in all this is a nifty little product, perfect for those who don’t care for cable or flatscreen televisions. One will cost backers $150 for delivery in September 2015. This product is looking to raise $100,000 with the help of Indiegogo.

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Television

SkreensTV offers pictures-in-picture, turns big TV into many little ones

There’s so much content in the world to consume, but no matter how much there is, there will always just be just one screen in front of us to do it on. Even the largest screens, those 60-inch flat-screen television present across the United States, are guilty of being able to only support one input. It may support it beautifully, but truth be told it’s a horrible waste of screen real estate.

Until SkreensTV came along, there wasn’t much that could be done besides a lousy picture-in-picture interface. What SkreensTV offers is the ability to connect up to five different sources of content, whether it be an cable box, a game console, or an Apple TV, and have them all displayed simultaneously without any degradation in picture or sound. Although there will be one primary audio stream represented, other audio sources can be streamed through Wi-Fi, into smartphones and tablets, and out through headphones.

Everyone has different needs when it comes to content and would use all that space differently. Customizable layouts can be created with the use of the SkreensTV iOS/Android companion app based on user preference, easily confugurable whenever needed. So sports fans can load up three games, their fantasy football website, and ESPN all on one screen, or a games enthusiast can play a game while having tips displayed alongside a Skype call and a Twitch stream, all at 1080P. The 4GB version of SkreensTV can be had for $399 and, provided the campaign reaches its $200,000 goal, will ship the product out by December 2015.

The SkreensTV idea is outstanding, but in practice will probably not see as much use as it claims unless a family is that heavily connected and already have a ridiculously large TV to trult take advantage of it. The sports and gaming market are definite buys, but only if their marketing works out for them. Although sports fans are more mainstream and can be catered to, gamers are usually more tech-savvy and can achieve this same effect at probably a fraction of the cost. In any case, the platform will have an app store with an SDK which will no doubt evolve it in interesting ways.

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Television

Vega Android TV box apes Sony’s 4K set top puck

Like the original transition from black and white to color TVs, and then SD to HD, the time has come for people to start the upgrade to 4K TVs. With Sony pioneering the technology, getting an alternative product may be difficult at first.

The Vega S82 4K set top box is incredibly similar to Sony’s 4K set top in terms of functionality, features, and even design. The key difference between the two is that the Vega S82 runs an Android OS on a Quad-Core processor and has customizable user interfaces and more. The campaign is looking for just $5,000, though the purpose for those funds is not stated. Supporters can get a Vega S82 for $200 in December.

Having more options for 4K media is a welcome addition to the market, but there just aren’t enough details about this product to instill consumer confidence. With a few technical specs, a very unimpressive pitch video, and not much else, it’s difficult to make a determination if this is a worthy competitor to Sony or just a product that’s more concept than reality.