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Netgear’s NeoTV Pro HD Media Streamer Can Throw Your Laptop Content To Your TV… Wirelessly
Facepalm: The Wii U Games We’re Seeing This Week Are Stuck At 720p
Quirky Unveils The App-Enabled Milk Jug Of The Future: The Milkmaid

Netgear’s NeoTV Pro HD Media Streamer Can Throw Your Laptop Content To Your TV… Wirelessly

Posted: 07 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Streaming media players are no joke. In fact, cable has become the joke. Just take a look at this “Shit Silicon Valley Says” video — the first joke is, “are you cancelling cable?”

But at the moment, it’s still difficult to do so. You can’t get everything that you could possibly want through a streaming set-top box. The only place you can get everything you want is on the TV, or (cough cough illegally) on the internet. But what if you could get everything a streaming media player has to offer, like Netflix, HuluPlus, etc., but also wirelessly stream all of the content on your laptop to your big screen TV?

That’s clearly the question Netgear asked itself before building the NeoTV Pro HD streaming media player, which is one of the only media players on the market that can wirelessly stream your laptop display up onto your television screen. Of course, there are some limitations, as you’ll need an Intel-based Wireless Display laptop to play along. Sorry Mac users.

Past that, there are plenty of channels offered through the NeoTV Pro HD, including Netflix, HuluPlus, YouTube, Amazon Video, and Vudu and hundreds more. It also comes with built-in 300Mbps Wifi, an Ethernet port, and supports 1080p HD video resolution.

You’ll be able to download an iOS or Android app that will let you control the media player straight from your smartphone. And if you don’t have a smartphone, a regular remote comes in the box.

The NeoTV Pro HD is available now for $69.99.

Facepalm: The Wii U Games We’re Seeing This Week Are Stuck At 720p

Posted: 06 Jun 2012 02:37 PM PDT

According to WiiUDaily (and we’re confirming), the games shown at E3 are native at 720p resolution, a considerable step down from the 1080p, 3D-pumping action coming out of the 360 and the PS3 in many cases. Although there is no absolute proof that the Wii U launch titles will all be 720p, the site noted that “the representative couldn't confirm whether the games can be upscaled to 1080p, only that the ‘native resolution is 720p for all titles showcased.’”

Does it really matter that the Wii U is showing off 720p titles? Not particularly, but 1080p would definitely be a nice to have. Nintendo sells all over the world, even to folks who may not have HD TVs. To stymie resolution offers a cost and processor savings that can be rolled back into gameplay. But shouldn’t this be a showcase of what this thing can do out of the gate?

Does it make me particularly happy to learn that it’s showing games at 720p? Not really. The Wii has long been hampered by its standard definition roots and it’s going to piss off a lot of fanboys. Here’s hoping this is just growing pains.

UPDATED – Points fixed for clarification.

Quirky Unveils The App-Enabled Milk Jug Of The Future: The Milkmaid

Posted: 06 Jun 2012 12:27 PM PDT

Back in early May, Quirky and GE announced a contest that had users pitching ideas for everyday objects that could be improved by adding software to the mix.

The eventual winner was — surprisingly enough — a smart milk jug that could tell users when their milk was going bad as well as when to buy some more. It may not have been the sort of project that most of us had expected, but Quirky has given TechCrunch the first glimpse at what they managed to come up with: the Milkmaid.

And here’s the kicker — it’s gorgeous.

Here’s how the Milkmaid works. The milk goes into the vessel (in its current form, it can hold up to a quart of milk), and as it begins to turn sour in the fridge, a set of pH and temperature sensors located in the vessel's metal base will periodically take readings and relay that information to the pedestal that the vessel sits in.

That white pedestal — they call it the SmartBase — is where most of the magic happens. When a microcontroller in the base receives the information from those pH sensors, it slowly changes an LED mounted on its front from green to orange to signify how nasty the milk is getting. Also nestled inside the SmartBase is a weight sensor meant to detect how much milk is left in the vessel, along with a GSM radio module, an antenna, a SIM card, and a hefty rechargeable battery to keep the whole thing humming along.

Once the weight dips below a certain threshold, or when the pH dips to a point where the milk has gone bad, the base will send a text message to a user's phone to remind them to buy some more.

To round out this package is a not-yet-final app that connects wirelessly to the Milkmaid to deliver on-demand stats about your milk — think temperature, expiration date, and how much milk is left in the vessel. The app also includes recipes for both regular and spoiled milk (I didn't know those existed), as well as the ability to re-order milk from app-friendly grocery delivery services if schlepping down to the supermarket isn’t your thing.

If I drank milk, I'd be all over this.

Though plenty of crafting and design went down when the Quirky team set up shop at the San Francisco Maker Faire, they had their share of help from their community too. Quirky design team member Jess Fugler noted to me that the while the Milkmaid's industrial design was mostly handled by their team, the ideas of having the Milkmaid sending text messages and putting the "brain" in a separate base came from fans of the project.

For those unfamiliar with Quirky's M.O., they've just wrapped up design and engineering phase by completing the working prototype. With that complete, now their focus now turns to determining whether or not people would actually buy the thing, which also involves getting Quirky users to share how much they would pay for a mass-produced Milkmaid. With any luck the Milkmaid the will soon become a real product with a non-obscene price tag, if only because it would open the door for new and more ambitious crowdsourced products to come.

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