Podcast #855: Roku Wireless Speakers and AI

"This solves the conundrum that lies at the heart of modern technology, threading its way from your phone to your dishwasher to your air conditioner: “Currently you need to be smart to use a smartphone,” ...At this stage AI is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going to happen in the future, When we talk about AI many people think of voice assistants, but it’s much more than that. It’s going to be voice plus vision plus gesture recognition, plus context, plus knowledge … You need to understand what the user wants, in a seamless way.”

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Podcast #778: Is Your TV Spying on You?

Much has been made about a recent complaint filed by the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General alleging that while you’ve been watching TV on your Internet connected Vizio HDTV, unbeknownst to you, it has been watching you back. As Ara and Braden are both owners of Internet connected Vizio televisions, they are both victims of this snooping. But what did Vizio actually do? Is it a terrible invasion, or not really that big of a deal? Are other manufacturers doing the same thing? Let’s dive in and find out.

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Podcast #658: VIZIO P702ui-B3 Ultra HD TV Review

We have been talking about 4K TVs for what seems like an eternity. This week Ara finally took possession of his VIZIO P702ui-B3 70-Inch 4K UHD. Now before you all say "no one can see the difference on a screen that size sitting at a normal distance", hang on until we get to the performace part of the review. As soon as Vizio announced this set at CES Ara knew it was going to be his first 4K TV.

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Podcast #545: Vizio Co-Star with Google TV

The Vizio Co-Star may have the Logitech Revue to thank for the uphill battle it faces in convincing consumers that Google TV is the right choice for their living room. When we reviewed the Revue almost two years ago, there were some aspects of it we really liked. But it never quite caught on with the masses. Vizio is hoping that the Co-Star can change expectations; and at a price of only $99, it sure is a lot easier for many of us to at least check it out.

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Podcast #501: TV Reliability

We recently read and discussed an article by the HD Guru about disposable TVs (Vizio Disposable HDTV Sellers: Do They Have Your Back?) and thought it might be a good idea to discuss TV reliability. Armed with this information you can decide whether its worth paying a bit more for a TV that will last longer than some of the cheaper “Disposable” brands. This information comes from Consumer Reports. They surveyed 209,000 readers between 2007 and 2011 to determine Brand Reliability.

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Podcast #440: Vizio XVT553SV LCD HDTV Review

With football season just around the corner you may be in the market for a new HDTV to watch your favorite team try and make it to the Superbowl. We’ve seen a few technologies come and go and each of them try to produce a picture that’s as good as plasma. The latest is LED. The Vizio XVT553SV will run you about $1900 for the 55 inch version and its loaded with all kinds of goodies that we can finally say that Plasma may have finally met its match.

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