Sellout.Woot! is offering a refurbished Toshiba Thrive 10.1” 32GB Android Tablet with Wi-Fi for only $319.99 + $5 S&H. This is a pretty sweet Android Tablet, back when I was debating what tablet to buy it came down to the Thrive and the ASUS Transformer. In the end I decided on the Transformer (though I ended up holding out for the Transformer Prime, which I now have and love), but it was a near thing.
The Thrive has specs pretty much the same as all the other Android tablets of the same generation. It has a 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, a 10.1? 1280×800 display, 1GB RAM, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, 32GB of built-in storage, etc. It is a little bulkier than the other tablets – but that is due to its unique features. The back cover of the tablet is removable and swappable for different colors, though the main reason it is removable is to allow the battery to be swapped. This is the only Android tablet I’m aware of with a removable battery.
The bulk is also due in part to the inclusion of full size ports. While other tablets may have microUSB, microHDMI, microSD – or may even lack some or all of these features entirely, relying solely on a proprietary connector – the Thrive has a full size USB port, a full size HDMI port, a full size SD slot, and a miniUSB port, in addition to a docking connector. The inclusion of full size ports allows you to use standard cables, and to connect standard USB input devices (keyboard & mouse) if you wish. Connect a keyboard and mouse to the USB port (using a USB hub if you need to), and connect the HDMI to an external display, and you can use the Thrive like a desktop machine.
The 32GB Toshiba Thrive sells new for $479.99 at Amazon, so this is a pretty good deal.
The new version 20.2 TiVo software update should now be available to TiVo Premiere units. If your unit hasn’t received the update, it should do so automatically the next time it calls home. You can speed up the process by forcing a connection to download the update. Once the update has downloaded the TiVo will reboot at 2am to install it (unless it is recording at 2am, in which case it waits to finish before rebooting). You can also force the install early by rebooting the box yourself. TiVo’s Vice President, User Experience, Margret Schmidt, confirmed the update is available to everyone via Twitter:
All TiVo Premiere boxes (purchased from tivo.com or retail) are now authorized for the 20.2 update. “Connect to the TiVo Service now”
This update, which began rolling out in early January, brings with it a number of enhancements, most notably to the HD UI. One of the most highly anticipated features in 20.2 is multi-room streaming (MRS) between Premiere units. Margret states that this will be enabled for everyone on Monday:
Multi-Room Streaming will be turned on for TiVo Premiere boxes running 20.2 by Monday.
So if you have multiple TiVo Premiere units in your home, prepare to receive MRS.
She also had a further bit of good news for a special subset of TiVo Premiere users; those who used the on-screen clock SPS9S backdoor. As I detailed at the end of my previous post on the update, the on-screen clock and elapsed time indicator backdoor is no longer usable as it appears in the center of the screen instead of the lower-right corner.
I mentioned this to Margret on Twitter back on the sixth, and she replied:
Yeah, sorry, it was a victim of tradeoffs. I’ll see what I can do to get it restored in a future release.
But on Tuesday she was asked about it again, and this time the answer was more specific:
You can still get it if you start with an extra S. *However* it will show up in the center of the screen. Fix expected Spring
So it sounds like the backdoor functionality will be restored to a usable state in the spring release, 21.x. That’s currently expected in late April to early May. So, for those of us who used the backdoor, that’s something to look forward to.
I’ve posted about the Lockheed Martin-Kaman unmanned K-MAX helicopter before. It is a program to take off-the-shelf Kaman K-MAX helicopters and turn them into unmanned cargo resupply helicopters to support troops in the field. Two of the aircraft are currently undergoing an operational evaluation with the US Marine Corp in Afghanistan, and so far they seem to be performing well.
Afghanistan has very little in the way of infrastructure, especially roads, and a lot of rugged terrain. When resupply by ground convoy is even possible it is risky, as convoy’s are prime targets for ambush and IEDs. Helicopters can fly supplies into areas without roads, or just avoid most attacks by flying over them. But they still expose air crews to risk, especially during arrival and departure as they’re closer to the ground and within range of small arms. Not to mention it is tedious work flying back and forth, shuffling cargo. Just the kind of risky, monotonous task that machines excel at.
The K-MAX has been successfully flying sling-loaded cargo to troops in forward operating positions in Afghanistan, with an 87% mission availability rate – which is very good in such an environment. For any system, let alone a developmental one. And it operates day or night – darkness means nothing to a computer. For human pilots night flying is much riskier. The K-MAX doesn’t care, it is all the same to the machine.
This unit seems to be the Mr. Coffee version of the Keurig MINI Plus unit I started out with. It served me well for a year, but I loved it so much my fiancee upgraded me to the Keurig B70 as a gift this past xmas and I passed the MINI on to friends. Anyway, this Mr. Coffee unit looks like it has the same basic features. Fill your mug with water. Open the top and pour it in. Insert a K-Cup. Place your mug on the tray. And hit brew. In a couple of minutes you have a fresh, hot beverage. Just dispose of the K-Cup and you’re done.
I love it because I don’t drink enough coffee or tea to bother making a full pot, but I enjoy it often enough that being able to brew a cup whenever I want makes me happy. Simple pleasures. And my fiancee likes it for a fast cup of hot cocoa on a cold winter’s day. It’s also nice for offering guests a cup any time.
This Mr. Coffee unit has an MSRP of $99.99, and sells new for $88.04, so this is a solid deal – 50% off MSRP. Join the Keurig Kult.
One of the recent bits of news out of CES was DISH Networks introduction of their whole-home DVR. Rather than model number like DirecTV’s oh-so-catchy HR34, they’ve reached down under to give their units cute names. The main DVR is the Hopper and the client units for other rooms are Joeys, and the logo/mascot is a kangaroo, of course. I have to admit, it has a lot more consumer appeal than a cold model number.
The Hopper is only a three tuner DVR, which seems kind of meager given AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and TiVo all have four tuner units, the DirecTV HR34 has five tuners, and Arris has a six tuner Moxi DVR available for cable MSOs. Especially as the Joey boxes rely on the tuners in the Hopper for live TV. However, the Hopper does have one unique trick up its sleeve – PrimeTime Anytime:
The Hopper’s exclusive feature, PrimeTime Anytime, gives you instant On Demand access to your favorite shows on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in HD. Over three hours per night of HD primetime programming are available to you On Demand anytime for up to eight days from the initial air date.
How does it manage this trick? Well, you may notice the product page states:
The Hopper is a three–tuner Whole–Home HD DVR that lets you record up to six HD channels at once* and play them back from any room in your home.
Three tuners, but it can record up to six HD channels at once? What kind of dark voodoo is this? Well, note the asterisk:“*DURING PRIMETIME HOURS”. And now note this from the quote above“ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC”. How it manages this trick is actually pretty simple, but requires a little explanation.
I’ll oversimplify a bit, but for analog broadcast TV you have one channel per frequency. A tuner did just that – it tuned a given frequency and therefore a program. But with digital content frequencies and channels have a more nebulous relationship. A single frequency block may contain several digital channels all multiplexed, or MUXed, together. And this is precisely how satellite works. They can’t use a dedicated transponder and frequency for each channel, rather channels are MUXed together. So ‘tuning’ a single channel is actually a multi-step process.
First the tuner tunes the desired frequency and this allows the unit to receive the data stream that is the MUX. Normally the next step is that the signal is de-MUXed and the desired channel is extracted, with the other data being discarded. This one channel is then saved to the drive as a recording. Can you see where I’m going?
Since DISH controls everything end to end, what they’ve done is place ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in one MUX. And instead of de-MUXing the data as it is received they’re saving the entire MUX to the drive, all four channels. Then it is de-MUXed at playback time, not record time. That’s how it can record up to six channels with three tuners. You have one tuner recording the MUX, for four channels, and two tuners each recording a single channel.
But this is limited. As the page states, they do this during prime time hours only. And recording four channels takes up four times the space, even if you’re never going to watch all four channels. The Hopper has a 2TB drive, but only half is available for user recordings – up to 250 hours. The other half is used to store these PrimeTime Anytime MUX recordings, as well as pre-cached OnDemand content pushed the the box. And you can’t record up to six programs you select, you can only record up to three individual programs. Or two programs while the third tuner is occupied recording this MUX. It isn’t clear what happens if you want to record three programs not on these four networks during prime time. Does it only allow you to schedule two recordings? Or does it not record the mux and thus not offer the PrimeTime Anytime content for that night? I suspect the former.
It is a clever trick, but it clearly has some limitations. I’d rather have more tuners at my disposal.
The Hopper does offer Blockbuster OnDemand via broadband, not surprising since DISH purchased Blockbuster. It also has SiriusXM Radio, which is a nice feature for those who subscribe. And while the Hopper is not SlingLoaded, like the ViP922, it is compatible with the USB Sling Adapter, like the ViP722. So you can add the Sling Adapter to enable place shifting. That is a nice feature.
What about MoCA? Well, that’s how the Hopper and Joey units work together to provide the whole-home DVR. MoCA is the new industry standard for whole-home DVRs. It is being widely adopted by cable MSOs, CE vendors such as TiVo, and satellite. DirecTV is also using MoCA for their whole-home streaming. (And before you leave a comment and ‘correct’ me by saying they use DECA, read this post.) I suspect DISH is using Mid-RF MoCA, just like DirecTV.
Overall the Hopper & Joey look like the best DISH Network has to offer, and worthy of being flagship products. However, I think they would’ve been better off bringing a DVR with more tuners to market rather than playing games with the MUX recording for prime time content. There’s no reason they couldn’t do both.
