Gadgetory

this episode of TechnoBuffalo is brought to you by gamefly apples going to tackle TV and what's the deal with the tablet that just won't die hide the kids round up the neighbors or maybe vice versa it's techno Buffalo's rumor roundup happy Labor Day weekend to you everybody and welcome to the roundup for the week ending today Friday September second 2011 man it's September already where does the time go and I thought some rows supposed to be quiet in the tech industry anyway not this year this episode of techno Buffalo's rumor roundup is brought to you by our good pals at gamefly I want to take a second here to wish everybody a very happy peaceful and you know mindful labor day weekend whether you're in the United States or not it's Labor Day weekend this year in the US which traditionally marks the end of summer at the beginning of the back-to-school season but also you know I implore you to take a minute out of the front of festivities this weekend and you know just be mindful about what Labor Day means to you and what you can do to make the world a little bit of a better place this coming fall and additionally to all of our friends on the east coast of the United States cleaning up after Hurricane Irene on behalf of myself the entire TechnoBuffalo crew and the entire herd of TechnoBuffalo followers we wish you nothing but the best hopefully whoever you are wherever you are you're cleaning up whatever was damaged or lost is replaceable and please know that our thoughts my thoughts are with you now that onto the roundup the Apple Google Wars get ready fanboys may be headed to new territory your TV set we already know Apple and Google Apple and everybody going everybody going toe-to-toe in the smartphone area as well as the tablet desktop laptop everything you can think of now the focus may be shifting or at least expanding to televisions we already know google has launched the Google TV platform and while the first version of Google TV wasn't arousing success the previews of the new version of google TV set to launch very very soon in fact I hear there's some demos going on some preview demos over at IFA in Germany where our own jon rettinger is with a bunch of the revision three crews to check out the rev3 IFA coverage on techna Buffalo and elsewhere but anyway I heard there are some demos of the new version of google TV over at IFA and apparently the rural is heated up again that Apple is aiming to get into the television business in a bigger way than its so-called hobby the Apple TV set-top box I love doing that it's just so much fun Apple's got the apple TV right now it's the second generation of the box this generation 99 bucks there's a not really a hard drive on board it's got a little bit of local storage but mainly it's a conduit for streaming stuff from the iTunes Store and from YouTube Netflix a few other online sources to the TV you have it connected to in addition to also being a receiver for airplay stuff coming from an iOS device well the new rumors are pointing to Apple getting into the TV game in a much bigger way somewhat similar to what they did in totally disrupting the music industry with iTunes apparently Apple has been having talks for a long time now with TV studios content distribution partners you know the networks everybody's NTV you name it to try to get some kind of a subscription-based TV service available through Apple the big players on the other side have balked at the whole thing they've seen what Apple's done to digital music they're not quite sure what to do what's gone with cable satellite online video all that stuff but you know Apple it's not going to stop them the rumors that Apple is actually now building a TV set that would have functionality that's similar to but greater than what's available in the Apple TV product right now built into it so some kind of an iTunes esque thing for TV different but bigger than what you can do now with buying shows from Apple TV in the iTunes Store kind of makes the head spin just thinking about it and it's Apple so who knows you know they have this way of reinventing the wheel without actually reinventing anything but then making you think they totally reinvented it so again just the rumors are dizzying but apparently Apple hard at work on an actual TV set just the Apple TV box one of the most interesting spins on this rumor however is that the first iteration of the project is going to be a smaller screen so they're not going to look to get in to the very low margin highly competitive world of making giant flat panel TVs because I you know if you've gone shopping and that you know in the past couple of weeks little in the past couple of years you know that the prices on giant high-def panels have just been falling falling falling falling falling while functionality gets greater in these things Smart TVs from all the companies vizio Samsung LG everybody's Sony everybody's got a smart TV out there so if Apple is going to get into this game they would make a premium product most likely because that's what Apple does but they might look to get in to the bedroom as opposed to the living room the kitchen the smaller set your second set your third set so you could have your Apple TV box hooked up your giant flat panel that some other company made and is suffering through the you know the price wars and the low margins but then Apple would cook up a very high quality smaller set 27-inch 23-inch something like that with this new functionality built in and get into your kitchen get into your bedroom first kind of makes a lot of sense especially when you consider that Apple already makes smaller high quality TV sets just without the functionality they make the cinema displace to make the imax for that matter they make the iPad and the macbook lines for that matter if you want to go real small so it would be pretty easy for them to take an iMac and turn it into a 23 inch or a 27 inch screen suitable for the bedroom suitable for the den suitable for the kitchen something like that but bake all this new functionality into it as another way to get their stuff get their itunes store in your home very interesting it's going to be an interesting fall interesting next year I think in particular in terms of the battle for the future of online video at digital television so stay tuned I keep saying stay tuned but seriously stay tuned for that gamefly is the largest online video game rental service with over 7,000 new and classic titles available across all consoles and handhelds with plans starting at just 15 dot 95 cents per month gamefly members can rent one to four games at a time and keep them for as long as you like there late fees no due dates and shipping is always free once you're done playing a game just send it back and gamefly will send you the next available game from your list and if you really like the game you're playing just click keep it click keep it click keep it on the gamefly website like saying that but seriously if you like the game just click keep it on the gamefly website and you can buy the game at a discount price and gamefly will even send you the case and the manuals free of charge technobuffalo fans can get a 15 day free trial just by going to ww gamefly / TechnoBuffalo and last but certainly not least is the curious case of the HP TouchPad as you probably know by now HP announced that they were killing off hardware support for all web OS devices including the pre three smartphone which still hasn't shipped in the US and never will apparently and the touch pad tablet not long after they announced they were killing off the touch pad tablet the thing one on fire sale all over the place the tablet that started out at 499 for the base model and then was cut to 399 was suddenly on sale for 99 bucks with the higher up model with double the internal storage going for 149 the thing sold like hotcakes everywhere through HP through amazon in stores you couldn't get a touch pad because they all went flying off the shelves suddenly the touch pad was by some accounts the second most popular tablet computer in the world behind apple's ipad line all of a sudden all this interest in the touch pad now HP has come back and said that they're going to do another limited run of touch pads why maybe to meet consumer demand maybe because they already have a bunch of parts lying around or a bunch of contracts with suppliers for components and they figured you know what may as well cut our losses assemble the things ship them out and sell them because there's demand there or maybe it's some kind of weird we don't quite know what we're doing but we're going to just ride this thing out sneaky sort of you know figuring things out on the consumers dime plan to get back into the hardware side of webos who knows HP's taking a loss right now selling these things at ninety-nine bucks or 149 some reports say that it costs HP around three hundred three hundred eighteen dollars each to actually produce the touch pads so selling them in ninety-nine bucks they're taking a loss for sure but at least they're recouping some money as opposed to just having these things sitting around if you recall not you know just a week or so ago there were reports that there were some 270,000 touch pads sitting around best buy the best buy wanted to give back now these things flew off the shelves they're going for upwards of 300 bucks on ebay and suddenly HP might be thinking huh people actually like the touchpad you like us you really like us maybe we should get back into the game or maybe there are a ton of irate investors who've been coming after HP CEO and executive saying what are you talking about you're getting out of hardware what you're getting that consumer computing no no that's not why we invested in you we're big-time institutional investors we put a lot of money into HP stock you guys are making computers you're making touch pads you didn't buy palm for a billion dollars a year ago just a cut and run so get back in it however you have to we don't care just do it I don't know it's all rumors at this point we'll see it'll be interesting to see how many more touch pads HP makes and if they actually stick to their guns and saying then I don't know we just had the components lying around to make a few more but we're getting out of the business it's all going to wind down q4 this year like we said or if webos could rise from the ashes I'll tell you what palm on the brink HP buys them HP kills off webos if HP comes back that would be like a double Phoenix story I don't know if my head could handle it my head is pretty big and shiny it can handle a lot interesting to see what happens in the meantime like I said keep your eyes on TechnoBuffalo and rev 3 for all the news coming out of IFA over in berlin germany not to mention the long awaited arrival of the samsung galaxy s2 smartphone line in the US are unlike perlman was at the launch party in New York City earlier this week so check out his hands on coverage on TechnoBuffalo calm and you know what whatever happens between now and next Friday will bring it to your rumors news we got you covered on rep three three times a week again thanks very much to our sponsors at gamefly for making this week's episode of the roundup possible happy Labor Day weekend to you whether in your in the US or not and one more time if you were affected by the Hurricanes last week or really anything else going around the world our thoughts are with you hang in there and you know if we can provide you a little bit of entertainment and a little bit of news and insight into the world of technology and that helps you through your day or just that we're just grateful to be able to do it for you till next time my name is Noah thanks for watching this has been rumor roundup we'll see you later bye bye touchpad as we reported on earlier this week last work last bit of a little