Walt says the Slingbox — a new gadget that allows viewers to watch TV shows they receive at home in other locations, and on devices other than their TV sets — is a very good product that makes place shifting a reality.
The new Mac Mini runs Apple’s Front Row software and can stream music and videos from Windows computers. It is still too much of a regular computer to be a true media hub, but makes a solid addition to any entertainment center.
For HDTV owners who want a digital video recorder, the choice can be tough. The Comcast high-definition DVR is a cheaper, but flawed product and the TiVo Series3 is an excellent, but overpriced one.
The iPod Touch is an elegant and capable music player, but this cousin of the iPhone is short on battery life and lacks some important software features, writes Walt Mossberg. (Video)
Gateway One is striking like the iMac but offers smaller screens and lower resolution — huge factors in an all-in-one machine — for prices that can exceed the iMac’s, says Walt Mossberg. Video
Two new business-card scanners make it easier than ever to organize those cards piled high on our desks, but their software isn’t as easy to work with when manipulating the scanned images.
Dell’s new all-in-one PC, the XPS One, is a stylish Windows Vista machine that runs well and won’t cost a fortune. If it didn’t have the Dell logo on it, the XPS One might be mistaken for a product of the PC industry’s design leaders, Apple or Sony.
Verizon’s new Voyager looks remarkably like the iPhone and even beats Apple’s product in certain respects. But Walt Mossberg says the Voyager suffers badly in the area where Apple’s phone shines: software.
Apple’s new Time Capsule packs both a giant hard disk and a speedy Wi-Fi wireless router into one slender case, allowing computers to easily back up their hard drives wirelessly.
Hulu.com, a site that aims to be a legal, one-stop shop for streaming of TV shows and movies, is far better than the typical network or studio Web site. But the site’s offerings lack depth.
Forrester Research imagines the Apple products of 2013 in a new report. Their conclusion: While much of Apple’s great successes have been mobile products, the company will seek to colonize rooms throughout the home.
Guest columnist Nick Wingfield is filling in this week for Walt Mossberg, who returns June 5.
Hewlett-Packard is rolling out a new TouchSmart, a desktop computer with touch-controlled software. The hardware and software are better. It’s attractive, more versatile and fun to use. But the latest effort still has some problems.
Two set-top boxes have been launched to try to marry the Internet and the TV. Both adapters, from Sony and Roku, worked well in tests, but each has limitations.
Netflix was a pioneer in the business of movie rentals — getting consumers to rent DVDs online and mailing them out in cheery red envelopes. Recently, it has put a lot of effort into a service that delivers movies digitally over the Internet to subscribers, preparing for a day when getting movies on a physical disc will become outmoded.
Edited by Walt and written by Katie Boehret, this is a guide to gadgets, web services and other consumer technologies.
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