Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has announced it’s planning the first public showing of its long-gestating high-definition television with an embedded Cell processor at next month’s Ceatec trade show in Japan on October 5. Toshiba has been quietly demonstrating prototypes of televisions with Cell technology since at least 2007, but has not made any concrete moves to bring the units to market. A public showing at Ceatec suggests the company is preparing to enter at least the Japanese market in the short term, although no pricing and availability information has been released.
The Cell processor is the same technology that drives Sony’s PlayStation 3 console; however, instead of offering a gaming capability, Toshiba is using the chip’s computational power to drive DVR functions and provide real-time upscaling of standard-definition content—plus the capability to upscale high-definition content to 4,000 by 2,000-pixel resolution. Previous demonstrations have shown the system playing multiple excerpts from recorded TV programming so users can more easily recognize what they want to watch; the hard-drive based system could also record up to six high-definition channels simultaneously. Toshiba has repeatedly stated it does not plan any tie-ins with Sony’s PlayStation products.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
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