Sony dash Personal Internet View Tunes into Netflix

By Geoff Duncan February 16, 2010

Sony’s forthcoming dash “personal Internet view” got its debut at CES, but didn’t raise a tremendous number of eyebrows: although the device features a 7-inch touchscreen display, built-in WiFi, and is designed for convenient use in places like countertops and nightstands, rather than offering a true OS and an application ecosystem to drive it, the dash relied on a series of custom widgets: if the widget did what you wanted, great, but if you wanted something else, tough luck.

Sony Dash — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Now Sony is upping the ante on those built-in widgets, announcing today that the dash will feature a dedicated application for Netflix, enabling Netflix subscribers to tap into thousands of movies and TV shows that can be streamed to them over their existing home broadband connection. In addition, Sony says Demand Media offerings eHow, Golflink, and Livestrong.com will be available as part of the dash’s content lineup. The Netflix and Demand Media offerings supplement content that will be available via Sony’s Bravia Internet video platform and a content channel from chumby industries.

“We’re continuing to develop innovative products that bring online music, news, video, and more into our customers’ homes in real time,” said Sony Electronics senior VP for personal imaging and audio Brennan Mullin, in a statement. “By adding content from Netflix and Demand Media to our dash product, Sony is giving consumers a new, convenient way to enjoy some of the highest quality entertainment and most useful information available on the Internet today.”

Sony says the dash will be available in April for a suggested price of $199. As with other devices capable of tapping into Netflix streaming, a separate Netflix subscription is required.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Mobile

4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon

Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.