My Life in the Tech World

The family was at the mall over the weekend and decided to buy an Apple TV so that we'd be one step closer to having a complete set of internet TV devices. The current Apple TV device is a small black box about the size of a stack of a few fancy drink coasters. You know the kind with cork on the bottom. It comes with an aluminum Apple remote and a power cord. The packaging is amazingly spare and elegant. You need to supply the HDMI cable. Apple conveniently sells a matching black HDMI cable in the store. I was disappointed that the cable wasn't included in the box because you'll absolutely need one to connect to your TV. You might say cable length matters but honestly the Apple TV is so small that you won't have any trouble placing it near your TV or even velcro'd to the back. Getting the device out of the box and physically connected to the TV took no more than five minutes. I powered the Apple TV on using the remote. There is no physical power button. Then I...

A friend of mine just built a web store for her favorite kids clothes store. She tells me that little girls love Banana Cabana Bathing Suits . Check out Kids Only Los Altos if you have time.

Google TV got an update. The most important thing for me is the improved Netflix interface. It's now essentially the same as Netflix on Wii, Xbox, and PS3. I haven't noticed any other GTV changes that are significant to me. That said, the new Netflix interface is a great improvement. Sony Google TV Remote. It's got a wooz button! For the last few weeks I've been watching more Google TV. Since we're a Tivo/Comcast household we have all our broadcast shows stored on the Tivo. I tried to play some HD video pulled from my Tivo. I downloaded the video using a web browser, ran tivodecode ,  and copied it to a server. The video plays with VLC and Windows Media Player. It did not play on Google TV's media player. In fact, sadly, playing the Tivo video actually locked up the Google TV so that it wouldn't respond to the remote control or power button on the TV itself. Wow. Eventually the Google TV asked if I wanted to force quit the media player. This got me th...