Articles
Demystifying Wi-Fi Roaming: What You Need to Know to Avoid Costly Mistakes
04/27/12, Clark Roundy, Luxul
Building a Wi-Fi network that delivers uninterrupted coverage to mobile or “roaming” devices can be a significant challenge—especially as coverage requirements increase. This challenge becomes considerably more manageable when the issue and the deployment alternatives are well understood
When to Bring a Theater Designer on Board
04/27/12, Sam Cavitt, Paradise Theater
All too often, the contractors leave and there's a "room" in the basement for the home theater. The drywall's, up; the floors are down; then you get stuck. All too often, this is the (too late) point the home theater designer gets the call. See how it should be done.
Choosing a Display for Digital Signage
04/27/12, Mark Anderson, AVSystemsMag.com
This is Mark's second article in a series at AVSystemsMag about the Digital Signage process - a look at display technologies.
Smart Appliances - Have they come of age?
04/27/12, Len Calderone
Many manufacturers are now producing Smart Appliances. Are they useful, or just gimmicks?
Digital Signage in a Manufacturing Environment
04/27/12, Mark Anderson, AVSystemsMag.com
A manufacturing company was in search of a method for displaying shift assignment information (on multiple screens) for up to 300 temporary workers a day across 49 resources. After a rapid evaluation of several products, Noventri was chosen as the solution and it blew away many much more expensive solutions.
Are You Driving a Car or a Computer?
04/27/12, Len Calderone
Cars are getting smarter by the year. Are we at the point where we're now driving computers?
Proactive AV and Home Automation Monitoring
04/13/12, Mark Anderson, HomeToys.com
Break fix is perhaps the worst service model a custom installer can employ. An inexpensive pro-active monitoring system can be an installer's best friend.
Leviton Interview
04/13/12, Ian Hendler, Leviton
We talked with Leviton about their expansion in to automation technologies
Inside a Hi-tech Luxury Yacht
04/13/12, Willem Bok, BMB Electronics BV
Yacht building company De Scheepsbouwers Maritiem (The Maritime Shipbuilders) has reason to celebrate: They have finished building yacht number 1,000! As this was a special project De Scheepsbouwers went overboard (not literally!) and designed and built a rather special vessel, named the Stevenvlet 1500.
TempZone™ Electric Radiant Floor Heating Installed in a Universal Design Living Laboratory
04/13/12, Katie Scott, WarmlyYours Radiant Heating Inc
Recently, WarmlyYours had the unique opportunity of providing radiant floor heating for a Universal Design project with Dr. Rosemarie Rossetti and husband, Mark Leder. Dr. Rossetti, herself, with physical disabilities, and her husband constructed a Universal Design Living Laboratory (UDLL) home so they can live in a place that is accessible and comfortable.
Cooling the (almost) impossible enclosure
03/29/12, Frank Federman, Active Thermal Management
Active Thermal Management's CEO, Frank Federman, explains how to deal with challenging cooling projects
Content Insider # 217 - Protect Your Own
03/29/12, THE Insider
While it’s impossible to avoid the cloud with all the web services that are out there, it’s not a place we want to store anything we feel is important or private. Our new home cloud is a 16TB RAID that we hope will be enough storage and backup for a year or so.
Is Your Head in the Clouds?
03/29/12, Len Calderone
Basically cloud computing is a data center on-demand. It is an unstructured infrastructure owned and operated by someone outside of its customers’ company that accepts and runs workloads created by its customers. Previously, if a company needed more computing power, it added more servers, but for a small company, this is not cost effective. Using cloud computing, a company can plug into the Internet to access more computing power, which is scalable; meaning that as the demand changes, the cloud system will scale up or down.
Divergence of Content and Display Technology
03/06/12, Mark Anderson, HomeToys.com
Current and emerging TV technologies have the capability to display a color gamut far beyond that available in consumer content. Movie studios are not delivering better content that takes advantage of these new technologies and the world seems to be rushing headlong towards lower quality streaming as the preferred deliver method. Surely there’s something wrong with this picture?
Affordable Digital Cinema
03/06/12, Justin Eugene Evans, Founder & President , BryteWerks, LLC
Startup project company, BryteWerks' CEO tells us why a filmaker decided to build a projector and revolutionize digital cinema in the process.
Is Your TV Smarter than a 5th Grader?
03/06/12, Len Calderone
3-D did not take off as the industry thought that it would, so the manufacturers are putting emphasis in developing a Smart TV, which has been on the back-burner for years. The concept is to make it easy to surf the Web, check the weather and locate news pages, as well as using other apps, all while watching TV.
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Reviews
WarpiaTV Review
04/13/12, Mark Anderson, HomeToys.com
There are a number of WirelessHD streaming players on the market. I unleashed the WarpiaTV Wireless Edition - SWP550 with my 50” Pioneer Kuro and got somewhat mixed results.
Mirage MMS-2 Media Server Review
03/29/12, Mark Anderson, HomeToys.com
We took the cloud-connected MMS-2 media server for a spin for a number of weeks. It turned out to be a well-preforming, well-connected device.
Interviews
Leviton Interview
04/13/12, Ian Hendler, Leviton
We talked with Leviton about their expansion in to automation technologies
QDEF - A Stepping Stone or Alternative to OLED?
03/29/12, Jeff Yurek, Nanosys Inc
A new LCD backlighting technology from material science company, Nanosys Inc, delivers the promises of OLED displays at LCD prices.
Crestron and Kinect
03/29/12, Kor Baydurcan, HomeToys.com
After seeing Crestron’s Kinect demonstration at CES, we asked Crestron’s Director of Software Products and Enterprise Solutions, Kor Baydurcan, about the integration and future plans.
Using WiPNET to Connect the Home With the Existing COAX Network
03/06/12, Interview with Adam Lenio , Wi3
WiPNET at its simplest is Ethernet over coax. This means we can provide high speed Internet access to every location in a home with little more than the replacement of existing coax cable wall plates with WiPNET ports.
Digital Audio Formats
03/06/12, Interview with Robert Altmann, OliveMedia
Robert Altmann is Senior Vice President, Business Development & Operations, and co-founder of Olive Media Products. Robert is directly responsible for Olive's revenue generation efforts as well as its day-to-day operations. As a lifelong music and technology fan, Robert is following his passions to drive the full potential of music in the digital home.
3D Projection Technology
Feb 17/12 - Wayne Kozuki, Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions America, Inc.
The future of 3D will grow with more engaging content (movies/games) and the effects/experience of 3D to be even immersive (almost like a virtual reality experience). And we (Mitsubishi) continue our trend of making the 3D experience even more engaging (i.e. our recent example of our HC7800D implementation of 3D).
Foundation™ Platform for Residential Demand Response and Home Energy Management
Feb 17/12 - Energate
Foundation combines not only multiple features, but also, in effect, multiple devices. It is both a smart thermostat and an in-home display integrated into a single device. It is also extensible with the ability to control other loads, receive over-the-air (OTA) upgrades and add support for another network, such as Wi-Fi, with a USNAP (Universal Smart Network Access Port) module.
More Articles
Z-Wave Snowballs to 600th Certified Product
02/28/12, Mark Anderson, HomeToys.com
Six months ago, saw the 500th certified Z-Wave product: a goal that took almost 6 years to reach. Today, the announcement of a 600th product indicates rapid growth in Z-Wave. What are the primary factors for the growth?
Is Windows Media Center Alive?
Feb 17/12 - Mark Anderson, HomeToys
Windows Media Center is one of the best and most underrated products produced by Microsoft. As a cord-cutter, I use it as my TV guide, DVR and a whole lot more. In the last few months, I’ve attempted to find three key plug-ins. Not one exists. It seems developers interests lie elsewhere these days. So is this a nail in WMC’s coffin. I hope not.
Spotlight on Ultraviolet
Feb 17/12 - Mark Anderson, HomeToys
Ultraviolet promises to be the digital movie locker in the cloud. Momentum seems to be gathering with a few major players (Samsung, Amazon and Paramount) signing up recently. I decided to take it for a spin and see if the reality matched the PR hype.
NFC coming to a smart phone near you
Feb 17/12 - Len Calderone
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. So, what does this mean? If you attend a trade show and meet someone, whom you would like to exchange business cards, you both can touch your NFC smart phones to the other’s show badge and the information is exchanged. You no longer have to carry a pocket full of business cards, or have to sort cards after the show.
2012 will be the year of Home Automation
Feb 7/12 - Mark Anderson, HomeToys
I know what you’re thinking: another “year of X” prediction that has as much chance of coming to fruition as I have of winning the lottery. (I’m still waiting for smell-o-vision.) So, why am I so keen to stake my reputation on this? One reason: the number of entry level systems appearing on the market.
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