CTIA 2007: Vista TV with Windows Mobile Remote Control

Wednesday March 28, 2007

Categories:

Cell Phones & Smartphones, HDTV & Home Theater Systems

Tags:

Welcome to Bill Gates' dream world: a Windows Vista TV with a Windows Mobile 6 remote control. That's i-Mate's vision here at CTIA, where they're showing off their XStream, a line of 37", 46" and 60" LCD TVs with full-fledged Windows Vista PCs built into them. The idea behind these $2500+ devices is to streamline the living-room PC by eliminating cable connections to TVs, and the associated loss of quality. They're working on CableLabs certification so they can get a CableCard in there; they're also looking at integrating an HD-DVD player and bringing the existing 720p resolution sets up to 1080p for the ultimate (Vista Ultimate?) media experience. Mad BitTorrenters should probably be thrilled by this: now you can download your HD XVID files and immediately play them on your living-room "TV." The XStream is destined to come out by the end of the year, i-Mate says.

Along with the XStream, i-Mate was showing Windows Vista SideShow running on several of their Windows Mobile PDA/phones, including both the upcoming Ultimate line and the existing JAQ4 and PDA-L. If you're within Wi-Fi or Bluetooth range of your Vista PC, you'll be able to use your PDA/phone to browse or stream content from your PC, view documents and manipulate the PC's media player. I'm surprised I haven't seen more SideShow action from other vendors, because it's a neat trick that gives your PDA/phone another thing to do when it's at home. The SideShow software will come this summer as an upgrade for the JAQ4 and PDA-L, i-Mate said.

Mixx It

Digg It

Stumble

More...

Posted By: Sascha Segan

Comments (1)

Tell a friend about this post

Name:*

Email Address:*

Your URL: (optional)

Remember Me?

Comments:* (you may use HTML tags for style)

Please keep your comments on topic. Intelligent, thoughtful comments and questions are appreciated. Comments that contain personal attacks or profanity may be edited or removed. Comments containing personal information such as phone numbers, credit card numbers, or addresses may be edited or removed. Comments with advertisements will be removed.