Highlights of the SpaceX Dragon’s Historic Mission to the ISS

SpaceX Logo SpaceX released a video highlighting the historic mission of their Dragon capsule, launched on their Falcon 9 booster on a mission to the ISS. Dragon is the first privately developed vehicle in history to launch to the ISS. Previously only the US, Russia, Japan, and the European Space Agency had launched government developed vehicles to the ISS. I’m looking forward to future missions, and especially the Falcon Heavy – that should be quite impressive.

Posted in Aerospace | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

JVC Plans 55-Inch LCD HDTV With Embedded SlingPlayer

JVC Logo Consumer Electronics Daily reports that JVC is planning to release a new Internet connected 55-Inch LCD HDTV with SlingPlayer built in this fall, according to comments made by JVC parent Amtran Video Corp (AVC) during the recent CE Week in New York. The set will have 802.11n WiFi and support Netflix, Hulu, and Vudu, in addition to the embedded SlingPlayer app.

However, before you get too excited, according to AVC Product Manager Allan Hsieh, the TV will not support placeshifting from Sling Media’s standalone Slingboxes. Rather, it is designed to work with DISH Network’s placeshifting products. I expect that means the ViP922 SlingLoaded DVR, and the USB SlingAdapter used with the ViP722 and the new Hopper DVR. I don’t understand why companies do this kind of thing, what is the logic behind limiting the usefulness of the embedded SlingPlayer? I really don’t see this pushing people to sign up for DISH and their products. Placeshiting is already a niche, there’s no reason to artificially limit the product.

That aside the set is respectable. It uses a 55″ LG Display flat pattern retarder panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, and it will be packaged with four pairs of 3D glasses. It has 4 HDMI and 2 USB inputs, and 4GB of internal storage with 2GB of DDR3 RAM to run the built-in apps on a dual-core Mediatek processor. No pricing has been released as of yet.

Posted in Dish Network, HDTV, Place Shifting, Sling Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Win An ASUS Transformer Pad & Keyboard Dock From TechnoBuffalo

ASUS Transformer Pad 300 3 TechnoBuffalo is starting a series of giveaways called Tegra Tuesdays, where each week they give away a device powered by an NVIDIA Tegra processor. The first giveaway is an ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 with a keyboard dock. And it is open to anyone, anywhere. As long as you have an address they can ship to, you can win. To enter you leave one comment, and only one comment, a day. And you can enter once a day through 7/24. See the full rules in their post.

Posted in Android, Blogs | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farnborough International Airshow 2012 Video Roundup 2

Farnborough International Airshow 2012 Logo Following up my post from last night, another raft of videos has washed up from the Farnborough International Airshow 2012.

Boeing shared their highlights from Day 3:

Eurocopter shared this video of their EC175 helicopter flight display:

Airbus had a few things to share as well. Like their own Day 3 highlights:

Sharklets and the A320 NEO:

Alternative fuel efforts:

And this one is interesting, IMHO. Airbus and the low-cost airline EasyJet are working together on a new sensor, dubbed AVOID, designed to allow airliners to sense and, well, avoid volcanic ash clouds. You may recall that not long ago air travel in Europe was royally snarled by a volcanic ash cloud from an Icelandic eruption. Since there is no good way to detect the actual cloud and avoid it, and volcanic ash can do serious damage to an airliner (from stripping paint to sandblasting the windscreen opaque to filling the engines with glass and shutting them down), today authorities are forced to use conservative computer models of where the ash might be and shut down large swaths of airspace. If aircraft could sense and avoid the ash on their own the impact of eruptions on air travel could be greatly reduced, as not as much airspace would need to be closed to traffic. It is still early days of course, so this may not pan out. (I do like the way the test rig has been mounted – through the window openings.)

UPDATE: Coming a little late Lockheed Martin share this video from the show with three of the F-35 test pilots describing their perspective on the aircraft:

Posted in Aerospace | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Understanding the Bandwidth Needs of SlingPlayer

Sling Media Logo Sling Media’s SlingSupport channel released this video which helps explain the bandwidth requirements for SlingPlayer for streaming content. While tech geeks likely already understand everything in the video, I think it is useful for the less technical user who may not understand why their streaming quality will vary when streaming from their Slingbox.

The video also clearly states the requirements for streaming in high quality (HQ) mode. SlingPlayer for iPad and SlingPlayer for Android tablets require 800kbps over 3G or 4G networks, and 1200kbps over WiFi. SlingPlayer for iPhone/iPod Touch, SlingPlayer for Android phones, and SlingPlayer for Windows Phone requires 500kbps over 3G or 4G networks and 800kbps over WiFi. Note those are the minimum speeds required for streaming HQ, higher speeds will provide better quality. If you can’t get those speeds you should stream in standard quality (SQ) mode. If you leave SlingPlayer it ‘auto’ it should figure it out and set the mode correctly.

Posted in Android, iPhone, Mobile Devices, Place Shifting, Sling Media, Windows Mobile | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment