Trick question

How many TVs do two people need?

Sony has demoed a new TV which allows two people to see two different pictures depending on their viewing angle. One of the obvious uses is in video games with two people competing against each other. They can be sitting side-by-side but still only see things from their point of view.

Jaguar utilizes a similar concept in their Dual-View Touch-Screen so that the person sitting on the passenger side can watch TV while the driver is viewing menus for the car controls or the navigation screen.

http://www.jaguarxjmedia.com/ENG_ENG_dualscreen.html#/dual-screen

(Unfortunately, Jaguar does not allow direct access to the link above, so you have to first select your preferred language, then click on Dual-View Touch-Screen when the interior of the car is shown.)

With the Sony TV, this means a couple no longer has to fight for the remote control. In theory, they would be able to sit side-by-side and each watch what they want. (Of course, this would not be practical until dual audio is perfected...)

Reference: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/38703/sony-killzone-3d-spilt-screen-dual-view

Now back to my original question, how many TVs do two people need?  One? Not yet. Two? Don't make me laugh. At a minimum, you have to consider a TV in the guest room. Three?  Not even close. Remember, there's also a media room. Four?  Getting warmer.  Five is the right answer.

Not bad for a household with an analog wife.  When we bought our latest TV, she at first told me it would be the last TV for the next 10 years. *Gasp* Who makes up these rules?  And later, she told me it would be our last TV ever... I think she makes up these rules as we go along... But actually it helped me focus my attention on the objective on hand. Since the TV we were buying was for our family room, my original goal was to get the largest TV possible which could fit in the entertainment nook. I was even leaning toward a projection TV from a cost point of view. However, when she told me it would be the last TV for the next 10 years/forever, I realized I needed to think outside the box... or at least outside the entertainment nook. With an articulating arm from Draper, we were able to get a plasma TV much bigger than the entertainment nook.

I guess having an analog wife is not so bad after all. But I still think the TV is too small.

NEC has announced a new phone which is 7.7mm thick.

Unlike other phones which tell you how thick they are at the thinnest point, this phone is 7.7mm thick the entire length of the phone.

How thick is 7.7mm to us normal people?

(OK, just kidding about the "normal" bit.)  It's approximately 0.3 inches. Or you can lay 3 of these on top of each other, and it'd still be less than one inch. In comparison, my Sony Ericsson x10 mini is about twice as thick. Unfortunately, there are no plans to bring this phone to the US.

Typical conversation with my analog wife:

Me:	NEC has announced a phone which is 7.7mm thick.
Her:	But it won't work over here (in the US), right?
Me:	Are you implying that there's supposed to be some sort of relationship between it working in the US and me buying it...?

Unfortunately, she has a point. I hate when that happens.

Reference: http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/2011_newmodel/index.html

There's something sexy about pinch to zoom

I'm not a big Apple fan. However, one thing I will gladly admit is that they did raise the bar to improve the quality of devices and how we can interact with them.

My wife has a Sony Ericsson Xperia x10. Finally, they released the update which allows multi-touch. Actually, it's not true multi-touch but it does recognize when more than one finger is on the touch screen at a time. That's pretty close.

So now, my wife can now do pinch-to-zoom. She's happy. And when she's happy, I'm happy.

By the way, not that she's actually used pinch-to-zoom yet... But it seems she's happy just knowing she can use it. And unfortunately, the hardware on my Sony Ericsson x10 mini cannot support multi-touch, not even fake multi-touch. Forget what I said about when she's happy, I'm happy. When she's happy, I'm jealous!

Home entertainment strategies

As a gadget-loving guy, I'd love to have an integrated home entertainment system, something which allows me access to my local content as well as any entertainment out there on the Internet plus subscription services.

Currently, our home entertainment system consists of 6 ReplayTVs. Some of you may be wondering, even for a gadget-loving guy, aren't 6 ReplayTVs for two people a little extreme?  My initial reaction to such a question would be "Hell no", but there is also a logical explanation. The original plan was to only buy four ReplayTV units. Two for us, and two for my mom.  For my mom, one was to be for her house in Illinois and one for her condo in Florida.

Two of the units I bought were 320GB ReplayTV 4000 units.  However, when they introduced the ReplayTV 5000 units, the ReplayTV 5000 units were not compatible for video sharing in your home network with ReplayTV 4000 units. The company offered a free upgrade to the ReplayTV 5000 units. Super!

In addition, they did not offer a 320GB ReplayTV 5000 unit... So for customers who had bought a 320GB ReplayTV 4000 unit, they offered TWO 160GB ReplayTV 5000 units! Super super!

So that is how we have 6.  And since my mom no longer has house in Illinois, my mom theoretically only needs one in Florida.  At the moment though, she does have two as she has been having some problems with the ReplayTV unit on occasion so the other one is acting as her backup.

ReplayTVs are something which my wife has been able to enjoy using. Recording shows is very easy with the program guide and finding recorded shows is also very easy. ReplayTV lets you pause live TV at any point (such as when there is a phone call) and lets you watch recorded shows while it is recording a new show. Despite how much she enjoys using the ReplayTV units we have at home, she is against me trying to get a unit to her parents in Japan. I'll have to continue to work on that.

One of my major objectives, besides having a seamless approach to a home entertainment system, is to have an easy way to view the archive of recorded TV shows.

To me, having the proper "eye candy" is important. This is where something like Boxee, XBMC, and MediaPortal, could come into play. I'm still struggling with the solution though. Recently, Plex has announced a media server which works on Windows. The advantage of a separate media server is then it is not tied to the client, providing more flexibility in choosing the client. Of course, the client will have to be compatible with the media server.

Part of the problem of having an analog wife is that I have to figure out what the strategy is before buying the components. It's not as if I can play around with something and then later decide to go in a completely different direction, so it looks like I'm no closer to this solution than I was several years ago. Sigh.