Denver, CO – CEDIA EXPO 2008 – September 4 – 7, 2008 – Booth #410 – When you take the best possible options for high definition entertainment and combine them into one seriously powerful media server, you’re going to need a new name for the experience you create. Life|ware™, makers of whole home automation and entertainment solutions, have done just that, unveiling a new “High Density Television™” initiative that brings in more high definition entertainment and distributes it around the home more effectively than ever before.

“High Density TV reinvents how we will move and/or view high definition entertainment around the home,” said Seale Moorer, Life|ware’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is the first solution to provide a whole house entertainment server that provides unparalleled capability in terms of HDTV tuners, HDTV streaming and Digital Media management for consumers.”

Life|media™ 810: 8 TV tuners, 10 Extenders, 12 TB of Storage
Several new Life|media units highlight the effort, headed by the company’s new Life|media LMS-810, which has 8 HDTV CableCARD™ tuners and can support up to 10 Media Center Extender devices.

“The 810 is a very powerful Media Server,” said Moorer. “It deftly handles the high-definition feeds from eight CableCARD tuners and provides HD streaming to ten extenders over the existing home network.”
The 810 provides an incredible 12 terabytes of RAID 5 storage which provide the disk space for a huge digital library of recorded TV, movies, music, photos and videos.

“The Life|media LMS 810 is the centerpiece of a digital entertainment solution as we all envision it,” said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate’s Consumer Solution Division. “Seagate’s Pipeline HD hard drives are designed specifically for this type of scenario. With HD video optimization, exceptionally quiet acoustics and power management, Pipeline HD drives enable the LMS 810 to provide a reliable way to enjoy digital entertainment.”

Life|tuner™ provides more video options
Also being unveiled at CEDIA is the Life|tuner series of HDTV CableCARD tuner devices that work with Life|ware’s Life|media media servers, allowing the addition of up to six additional HDTV tuners to the Life|media experience.

“Life|tuner is another product that makes life easier for our dealers,” said Moorer. “Obviously, TV tuners themselves are nothing new, but this product allows the easy addition of two, four or six CableCARD tuners to our Life|media servers.”

Life|media media servers feature two CableCARD TV tuners. By adding the six-tuner Life|tuner unit to a high-end Life|media, a consumer has a remarkable 8-tuner DVR solution.

Denver, CO – CEDIA EXPO 2008 – September 4 – 7, 2008 – Booth #410 – When you take the best possible options for high definition entertainment and combine them into one seriously powerful media server, you’re going to need a new name for the experience you create. Life|ware™, makers of whole home automation and entertainment solutions, have done just that, unveiling a new “High Density Television™” initiative that brings in more high definition entertainment and distributes it around the home more effectively than ever before.

“High Density TV reinvents how we will move and/or view high definition entertainment around the home,” said Seale Moorer, Life|ware’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is the first solution to provide a whole house entertainment server that provides unparalleled capability in terms of HDTV tuners, HDTV streaming and Digital Media management for consumers.”

Life|media™ 810: 8 TV tuners, 10 Extenders, 12 TB of Storage
Several new Life|media units highlight the effort, headed by the company’s new Life|media LMS-810, which has 8 HDTV CableCARD™ tuners and can support up to 10 Media Center Extender devices.

“The 810 is a very powerful Media Server,” said Moorer. “It deftly handles the high-definition feeds from eight CableCARD tuners and provides HD streaming to ten extenders over the existing home network.”
The 810 provides an incredible 12 terabytes of RAID 5 storage which provide the disk space for a huge digital library of recorded TV, movies, music, photos and videos.

“The Life|media LMS 810 is the centerpiece of a digital entertainment solution as we all envision it,” said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate’s Consumer Solution Division. “Seagate’s Pipeline HD hard drives are designed specifically for this type of scenario. With HD video optimization, exceptionally quiet acoustics and power management, Pipeline HD drives enable the LMS 810 to provide a reliable way to enjoy digital entertainment.”

Life|tuner™ provides more video options
Also being unveiled at CEDIA is the Life|tuner series of HDTV CableCARD tuner devices that work with Life|ware’s Life|media media servers, allowing the addition of up to six additional HDTV tuners to the Life|media experience.

“Life|tuner is another product that makes life easier for our dealers,” said Moorer. “Obviously, TV tuners themselves are nothing new, but this product allows the easy addition of two, four or six CableCARD tuners to our Life|media servers.”

Life|media media servers feature two CableCARD TV tuners. By adding the six-tuner Life|tuner unit to a high-end Life|media, a consumer has a remarkable 8-tuner DVR solution.

Sikorsky Chief Test Pilot Kevin Bredenbeck maneuvered the prototype for 30 minutes in a few basic tasks: hover, forward flight and hover turn. The project is coming slowly into final shape but when finished, it will be able to cruise easily at 250 knots while maintaining the same features of traditional helicopters, like low speed handling, hovering, and autorotation. [Sikorsky]

[Ed's Note: Today's review of the Peek email device is written by Wired.com copy chief Tony Long, who in addition to ensuring every sentence posted on Wired is clean, correct, and contains a witty headline, also chimes in on the state of technology and culture as the Luddite.]

Sometimes, Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. In an industry that offers an endless supply of tarted-up gadgetry as phallic substitutes for Freud's cigar, the Peek handheld represents a refreshing, if puzzling, exception to the rule that says, the more crap you can cram into a small device, the better. 

The Peek, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the classic calculator, was built to send and receive e-mail. That's it. It doesn't do anything else. Nothing. No phone. No internet access. No instant messaging. No camera. No music player. Zilch. Nada. Nichts. Just e-mail. It's about as stripped down a tech device as exists — or has ever existed.

That's why, when the editors of the Gadget Lab were looking for someone to review this oddity, they settled on the lowest-tech editor in the joint — me. It makes sense, seeing as how this device will have little appeal to people who equate being connected in every way possible with their quality of life. That certainly isn't me.

That said, the only real advantage to owning a Peek is that you can check your e-mail away from a computer. The thing is, of course, is that a lot of other devices already do that, while giving you all the other stuff to boot. Because the Peek is limited to a basic function, using it is a breeze. Even without operating instructions, this Cro-Magnon was able to figure out how it worked with only a minor assist from the Gadget Lab. ("Push the scroll wheel in, Tony.")

Bottom line: If you're a Luddite at heart but still have reason to fiddle with e-mail from time to time, or if you believe that simplicity in all things is the key to life, the Peek is for you. If dining a la carte at the tech buffet is not your idea of a square meal, then skip it.  —Tony Long

WIRED Not much, really, except that the Peek does exactly what it's meant to do, and does it well. Among my kind, that's Wired enough. It's also slim, lightweight and portable, which is nice, albeit somewhat unnecessary since people like myself don't have pockets brimming ith gadgets .

TIRED  The Peek does e-mail, period, so no matter how efficient it may be, it lacks a lot of stuff that the modern consumer has come to expect from devices of this size and shape. It could also use a stylus to make navigating the tiny keyboard less of a chore.

$100, getpeek.com

(Image by Peek)

Line Rider, the simple line-drawing game, is being turned into an iPhone game, according to Brian Fargo, chief executive officer of inXile Entertainment.

Developers at the Newport Beach game company, which owns the rights to Line Rider, are putting finishing touches on the game and still need to go through the Apple approval process. Fargo hopes that it’ll be available at the Apple Apps Store later this month.

The $2.95 iPhone Line Rider will look pretty much the same and play the same as what’s available at linerider.com for free. Fans have been enamored by the flash-based “game” where users draw on a screen and then hit ‘play’ to watch a bobsledder ride the lines until he crashes or comes to a smooth stop.

In the iPhone version, players use their finger to draw lines. Also new: Sharing creations online will be instant, unlike the current Web version that requires messing with separate software to capture the video and upload it to YouTube. The videos will be hosted by inXile, which was already getting its sharing system ready for the upcoming launch of Line Rider 2 for Nintendo’s Wii and DS and PC.

But what is missing from the iPhone version is something Fargo told me was the whole reason he was attracted to the iPhone: the accelerometer.

“It’s the ‘A ha!’ factor, like when you first tried the Wii. The interface on the Wii is what really makes it so great. For the iPhone, you start picking it up and playing the games and it’s ‘A ha!’ That got me excited and when something gets me excited, my instinct is that others will get excited,” Fargo said. (more…)