Leather Island

English poet John Donne said “No man is an island,” but sometimes a man wants to feel as if he’s on his own private island—especially if that man owns a home theater. He wants to hide from the wife and kids, isolate himself from e-mails and phone calls, and just kick back to watch the big game or enjoy an Ice Road Truckers marathon.

The Privé Island, by Cassina USA, enables any man—or woman, for that matter—to do just that.

(not so) old school

From our everything-old-isnew-again file, comes a lineup of retro looking televisions that fuse modern electronics with old-school cool.

Based on the look and feel of the venerated Philco original from the 1950s, the new Predicta lineup is made by a Wisconsin company called Telstar Electronics.

The final installment of our epic two-part show coverage of the CEATEC show in Tokyo has pics and words on things you can’t even imagine.

Ok, you can probably imagine them. Even thinner LCD and plasmas, the next generation of processing, and apparently the next big thing in Blu-ray: VHS!

Think of it as a CES preview

It’s the rainly season here in Japan. Seeing as I live in what is effectively the desert, I love it.

CEATEC is sort of like a Japanese-only CEDIA. It’s fairly small, but each company shows their latest, and future greatest. Several years ago I got the first glimpse at Pioneer’s KURO before it was shown to western press. This year…

Behind the Screen

Digital Projection has announced their TITAN RP97, a rear projection screen system complete with a projector, mirror, screen, and all the hardware your installer needs to build one into your home.

The RP97 was designed for home venues where high ambient light is traditionally a problem.

Move over thin LCDs, here comes thin plasma.

Hitachi Home Electronics (America), Inc. has unveiled the 50-inch Ultra Thin Plasma Display Panel. It’s the first plasma in the company’s Ultra Thin 1.5 line, an appropriate name given its 1.5-inch depth.

At about one-third the depth of other plasma displays and with its 50-inch offering, it is one of the largest in the ultra thin category.

Down from Mile High

Most of the news out of the CEDIA expo this year was of an evolutionary nature. Bigger, better performing, changes in price, those types of things. That doesn’t mean there wasn't plenty that caught our eye.

Make the jump for an overview of what we saw.

The Custom Electronics Design & Installation Association Expo is here!

We’ll be posting throughout the show, click here to see everything.