Dub as the Light Rider of Phillips, everyone would surely fall in love with The Aurea. This is their latest offering in their Ambilight series. No longer would you just see the usual black panels of your TV with bulbs, now the Aurea 1080p has more than a hundred LEDs on its entire frame. This would result into an immersive light experience when you are watching.  

Another thing that you would enjoy with the Aurea’s is its massive size of 42 inches with over 26 speakers that are well hidden on its frame. It has subwoofers sitting on its frame. You will definitely enjoy watching an action packed movie with the Aurea with its full Hi Definition frolics. This baby is capable of letting its viewer witness the full color of every action with over four trillion real colors that would show sharp images the way you want it. 

Sad news for those who wish to have a bigger LCD TV because Aurea is offered only in 42 inches size. It is currently available at $6,000. This LCD TV has full features with 1920 x 1080p resolution with its response time at 3ms which means blurred images are removed in a very fast sequencing motion. The resolution offered by the Aurea is the highest HD resolution we have in the market which will bring every viewer the best picture quality there is. 

Rumors have been circulating before about this new sleek product of Philips and everyone has been anticipating its debut. Was it all worth it? You bet! It’s the best ever LCD in the market. It boasts of not only with its amazing resolution and sound, as well as its phenomenal design. With 100Hz of Clear LCD, the sharpness of every motion in every moving character on your screen is captured perfectly with vibrant images the way you would actually witness it live or even much better. Cool enough! Philips technology should be commended for its good job in bringing us the best movie viewing. 

You haven’t heard the best yet. The Aurea personalized settings or what you call settings assistant that will help you customize your viewing experience.  It has its own settings assistant, yes you read it right.  The settings assistant will act as a guide in personalizing your settings. From your setting for the Ambilight, viewing experience upto your picture quality, all of these is performed by your setting assistant. It will walk you through by showing different options on your screen and all you need to do is just choose. Even for non techie owner, everything was made easier. You are guaranteed of no hard to understand terms on performing your personalized settings.

Drum roll please. Presenting the new baby of Apple, the Apple TV. Yes, you read it right. Called the Apple TV Take Two, it is the new edition of the Apple TV that is tied up with iTunes Movie Rentals. This latest entertainment device will be available later this year. However, if you have the silver edition of the Cupertino’s, free upgrade is available by downloading it on googlebox.

The Take 2 update was completely revamped. It has a new makeover where it gives you full access to YouTube, has a new interface and gives you the liberty to both view your rental goodies and videos on your Mac. Once this becomes available, it will cost £269 for the 160GB version and a little cheaper for the 40GB version at £199.  

With Apple TV, renting movies directly from the comforts of your own TV is possible. You need not worry about traffic when going to your favorite rental store. All you need to do is to work it on with your remote. Yes, you read it right, you can rent easily from your own TV. The Apple TV make it easy for you to browse for your favorite movies. Isn’t it great?

Now when browsing movies, it is made easier with your Apple TV remote. You can browse on different categories by Genres and Top movies. All available in High Definition. Not only that, when you browse for movies,  a movie poster is displayed on your Apple TV. This would make it easier for you to choose then. Once you have chosen a particular movie, just click the detail and it will show the movie plot and even the list of actors and actresses.

Renting movies from the Apple TV is just right for everyone’s budget. Library titles cost $2.99 and a dollar higher for new releases at $3.99. Add a dollar more to enjoy the movie with Dolby Digital surround with High Definition titles.  You rent based on your format preference and just a click away. With this, your chosen movie will download instantly. A plus for Broadband users with fast connection would be enabling you to start watching almost right away after you have downloaded it.

Apple has given their followers another reason to celebrate. Collecting Apple gadgets gets better and better. For those who never gets tired of watching a particular movie multiple times, good news for you. You are given 30 days to start watching your selected movie. It even allows you to view it as much as you like. In the spun of 24 hours from the time you have hit play, you can enjoy the movie all over again. Be careful though, when rented movie expires, it just disappears. Don’t fret though for you can actually view if the movie rented is nearing expiration.

With Apple TV Take 2, not only can you enjoy online videos and TV shows, as well as your favorite photos and music.

Advancement in technology happens left and right and mind you, a photo frame was not spared. Presenting Parrot’s DF7220 Wireless Digital PhotoFrame, this hardware allows you to download pictures easily. You can either plug a USB directly on the frame or use the bluetooth of an enabled digital camera or mobile phone. It can support any GIF and JPEG formats.

This year, digital picture frame has taken flight. Lots of digital photo frames came out but DF7220 is taking the lead. It boasts one of the good qualities in pictures with crisp output. It is even incorporated with wireless technology. You can easily transfer photos after they are taken. Your favorite photos deserve only the best. And here is where DF7220 Wireless Digital PhotoFrame comes handy.

It is a brave and wise decision for the Company Parrot to come up with this high-tech digital frame. It can hold up to 300 photos downloaded from an SD/MMCmemory card and easily adjustable in size. It gives you the ease and convenience of changing the photo in your frame anytime you want. And just like any standard photo frame, it can stand either horizontally or vertically, whichever you prefer. If you are someone who is not into much melodrama of sticking to a single photo and would want to see changes every now and then, Parrot’s DF7220 is the one for you.

You may be worrying about resizing your photos to fit the frame, however one of the exciting feature of this device is that it automatically fit the picture in its 7 inches frame size. It even has the 3 button user interface that even non geeks can enjoy. Isn’t that way too cool?

Now bring out the creativeness in you. Just like with any online photo albums, you can also create your very own slide shows of your love ones using the digital frame. The DF7220 can display 32,768 true colors and you can adjust the brightness just like when you do it on your computer. You can even set it automatically to turn on and off.

Other than being able to display your photos, you can share them easily to your love ones. It has a high resolution photo that makes it so amazing. Now you can see your pictures coming alive via its 7 inches screen display which automatically adapt the size of your shots to the screen.

What’s more, this is the kind of frame that you shouldn’t be shoving away on your drawer when you got tired of it. Because most of the typical photos are not reusable since pictures placed in a frame for so long tend to stick on the glass, this one is different. All you do is change the picture every now and then or just keep on adding new one.

When buying the digital photo frame, it will include the following: a mini USB cable, metal rod stand, wall mounting hook, four sets of clips you can use for customizing the digital frame and an AC power supply. This cost roughly around $200.

A plasma TV set that is practically as big as your wall. Imagine that. But if a wall doubling as a TV set is one of your dear fantasies, then you have got to rejoice at this new, beastly release from Panasonic: a 150-inch plasma TV.

I kid you not. It is really that monstrously big. At 8 feet by 11 feet, this new Panasonic baby can fit snuggly against one wall of your house. You had better devote one room to this TV set if you are setting your eyes on it for your very own home theater. That thing is sure to dominate your room and you need not decorate it with anything else. Just a couch, a table for your remote and your snacks and this TV set would be enough. Oh, and your DVD player and other gadgets for your home theater, of course.

You are probably thinking just how a TV set this big can perform. Will the pictures be sharp and detailed or will it appear to be overblown? Will motion be smoothly rendered? What about the blacks – are they going to stay black?

The answer to these are: the pictures will remain sharp and detailed, the motion smooth and the blacks very deep black, as can be expected from a plasma TV. After all, this baby has a 4K resolution – that is 4,000 on 1080p. Okay, close your mouth now and wipe your drool. And Panasonic says that this set is not going to be a power-guzzler for all its size. Energy consumption is going to be efficient.

Before you take out your credit card, though, know this: this new Panasonic monster is not going to be out until 2009. No news about the pricing was released by Panasonic either.

Photo courtesy of Engadget.com

Wireless access to the Internet can be as annoying as it is convenient. When the signal is blocked or is not too strong, you can get booted out of your connection. If your router is not secured, your next-door neighbor can help himself to your wireless access without you knowing. But then again, you can’t exactly be sure if it is just your next door neighbor that you are feeding with your wireless and not your entire block.

And then, there is the lurking fear of hackers stealing your data. Feeding the whole block with your wireless access does not sound as bad as the idea of hackers stealing your data as it streams through the network from an access point. Unfortunately, as researchers from Indiana University have reported recently, it is a fear that may become reality this year, as WiFi access is poised to become more prevalent in the coming years.

Lack of security, alas, is the one at fault here. The main issue that the researchers from Indiana University stated is that most WiFi routers installed in households are not really installed securely. Dan Grabham of Tech.co.uk pointed out that:

“most manufacturers’ instructions don’t even tell you how to change the admin username and passwords from the default settings, meaning anybody who can access your wireless network can change your settings.”

The bad thing about it is that even if your router is secure, it might not be enough to keep the hackers at bay and stop your wireless from being compromised. The scary thing about it is that it is far too easy to do. They only need to ferret out your passwords. Even scarier is that one single block of code may be enough to disable thousands of networks.

Not a nice scenario to start the New Year with, but we’ll never really know.

I am not really surprised that Windows Vista snagged the top spot. Really, I am not. After all, I have been ranting about Vista for the past few weeks now myself.

So, what according to PC World are the 15 biggest tech disappointments of the year? Here is a rundown:

15. Amazon Unboxed. Apparently, Amazon’s attempt to enter the fray of entertainment on demand resulted in something clunky and inconvenient.

14. WiMax. All deals are off. Sprint and Clearwire will not be pushing through with their plans to bring WiMax to a broader base in the US anymore.

13. Social networks. There are just too many of them out there already, and they all look the same.

12. Internet security. It simply does not exist.

11. Microsoft’s Zune. The self-proclaimed iPod killer can’t even get close to its prey.

10. Wireless networks. All the nice new mobile phones that came out in 2007 are beyond awesome. The same cannot be said, however, of the wireless networks that carry them.

09. Office 2007. Some people are still trying to figure out how macros work in older versions. And then Office 2007, with its notorious Ribbon, shows up.

08. Apple Leopard. Who would have thought that the makers of the iPhone and iTouch would have a bad hit here?

07. VoIP. It was simply a bad year for VoIP.

06. The broadband industry. The big broadband ISPs in the US interfere with P2P downloading, to which they certainly do not have the right.

05. The iPhone. Even a thing of beauty has its flaws.

04. Yahoo. Stuck behind Google and got in a fix for supplying information on dissidents to the Chinese government. For shame.

03. Facebook Beacon. Creepy in the way they get info about you behind your back.

02. The High-Def Format War. Blu-ray vs. HD DVD? Who cares?

01. Windows Vista. Enough said.

Engadget.com’s Holiday Gift Guide: For Him is already out, and it certainly got my gears going. If I can afford it, or if someone I know would be sweet enough to give it to me, here are the gadgets I want to get for Christmas:

1. Logitech Orbit AF robo-webcam. Whenever I go videoconferencing, I am certainly not afraid to show people my homely face in full, glorious VGA mode. And I certainly want to see all the freckles on the face of the person on the other end.
2. Erector Spyke WiFi Robot. Do I want to know what my roommate is up to, or if he’s messing with my stuff while I am in the other room? An Erector Spyke WiFi Robot will do the trick. It can annoy my roommate to death and send me a wireless video stream of how it is doing it.
3. HP MediaSmart Home Server. Data storage is always a pain. I can never have enough space for all the music and the movies that I keep downloading almost compulsively. That thing lugs 1TB around? Sweet.
4. Samsung BD-UP5000. Which one is better, HD DVD or Blu-ray? I seriously don’t care; I just want my videos pretty. This gadget is great because with it, I really don’t have to choose.
5. Garmin nuvi 760. I hate getting lost, I hate getting lost in traffic, and I hate losing my car in the parking lot. How do I get over that? By getting myself a GPS gadget, and Garmin nuvi 760 is it. With it, I will never be lost again, and I get to play some music on it, too.
6. HP Blackbird 002. I want a PC that will not conk on me when I beat it hard with my serious games. I heard HP Blackbird 002 is the magic for my gaming needs.

Father Christmas, I’ve been very good this past year. Please give me one of these.

People say that one of the instances wherein a person’s true colors appear is when he is angry. I guess it applies to companies as well, particularly to Verizon Wireless, the second largest telecommunications services provider in the United States.

According to this report, Verizon Wireless just filed a case at the United States Court of Appeals at the District of Columbia Circuit against the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to make the FCC do a 180-degree turn and take back its ruling that whichever telecommunications company wins the chunk of the 700 MHz spectrum that will be auctioned next year should allow for it to be accessed by any wireless device and applications so long as it is not harmful.

This FCC ruling certainly will not sit well with telecommunications companies seeking to have a share of the 700 MHz spectrum that will be auctioned off, but it is definitely a winner for consumers. After all, with the open access ruling, the consumers will get a wider choice as to what mobile gadget they want to buy, which networks they want to patronize, and what applications they want to download for their use, as long as these are legal and harmless.

Obviously, Verizon Wireless does not think that way. The company claimed that in upholding the open access ruling, the FCC “violates the US Constitution, violates the Administrative Procedures Act, and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law.”

Okay. So here we go. Unless either Verizon Wireless or the FCC budges in this hullaballoo, we can entertain ourselves with a little courtroom action. It is going to be messy, and we the consumers might end up being the losers.

Way to go, Verizon Wireless. It does not always have to be about profits, you know?