| Roto-Rooter Develops Hi-Tech Toilet With TV, X-box, DVD Player ...
New York, NY (AHN) - If you're not enjoying your toilet time, a leading U.S. plumbing company has the solution. Roto-Rooter, an Ohio-based plumbing and draining service company, has brought all the latest technological gadgets right to the toilet. Roto-Rooter will be giving one lucky person a Pimped Out John - a luxurious potty that comes with a 20-inch flat-panel LCD TV, an X-box 360 gaming system, a DVD player with a Star Wars DVD, a refrigerator stocked with drinks and snacks and an electric cup warmer/cooler, to name a few of the toilet's accouterments. The Pimped Out John also provides an iPod with its stereo docking station equipped with a must-have toilet paper dispenser. "The average person spends 11,862 hours in the bathroom - which equals one year, four months and five days - in a lifetime ...
Fujitsu Enter High End LCD TV Market
Known for their high quality plasma Fujitsu General will initially launch a 37-inch LCD TV with 120 Htz screens in several markets including Australia, North America and Europe. "They are making a late entry into the fast-growing but highly competitive market". The Nikkei business daily said on Saturday. In Australia the Fujitsu PC division has made a botch of trying to sell a combined Fujitsu LCD TV screen and Windows based media centre with retailers discounting the product out through lack of interest, poor marketing and a failure by the Fujitsu PC division to understand the CE TV market. Fujitsu General, which already offers plasma televisions, plans to start selling the advanced full high-definition, liquid crystal display (LCD) TV for home theatre use, the newspaper said.
CableLabs names 15Mbps as "safe harbor bitrate" for MPEG2 HD VOD
We already know how fond CableLabs is of HD VOD content, so it makes perfect sense that the gurus behind the scenes are aiming to provide media that satisfies the discerning eye of the HD viewer. Considering that nearly every HDTV owner has a sneaking suspicion that they're not getting the bandwidth they're paying for at times, CableLabs new specifications hope to ensure that HD VOD viewers don't get the "HD Lite" experience. While the recommended SD VOD rate remained steady at just 3.75Mbps, CableLabs has named 15Mbps the "safe harbor bitrate" to allow all forms of HD VOD content (including talking heads and fast-moving action films) to be seen at a quality that represents what HDTV should be about, including 5.1 audio and an absence of pixelation. Of course, these latest suggestions are entirely based on MPEG2 transfers, and could very well change if MPEG4 starts running the show, but at the very least it's good to see someone making sure we get our due bandwidth.
Super Bowl boosting HDTV sales
As sports fans host Super Bowl parties this weekend, there's nothing worse than having 20 friends squinting at a 13-inch TV set or tuning into the most-watched sports event without high-definition. Around San Antonio, consumers have been hitting the stores hoping to get high-definition televisions, or HDTVs, installed before the big game. The Best Buy at The Rim plans to have extra installers on hand to meet customer demand before the game — even if a television is purchased as late as 7 p.m. Saturday, said general manager Herb Garza. "Every year, the Super Bowl triggers the need for a new TV. A lot of customers have been in the market for a TV, and the Super Bowl helps them pick it up," Garza said. "A lot of them ask if we deliver and can install it before the Super Bowl." Sports fans are driving sales of HDTVs, according to a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association and the Sports Video Group.
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