Consider this scenario from Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett.

Imagine a portable set top box, but with its own killer screen. When in the home, it would be docked in a cradle connected to iTunes via a wired broadband pipe. Navigation of programming guides and iTunes listings would occur on the iPad, using an intuitive touch interface. Output would go directly to the wide-screen TV on the wall…until you left the house. Then, you’d simply pop the device out of its cradle and take it with you. And in the process, you’d be taking your TV with you as well. A 3G (and eventually 4G) wireless connection would allow you to keep watching live TV in the back of the car or cab. Once you got on the airplane you could choose from a library of your favorite shows saved on your DVR…which also happens to be a half-inch thick ergonomically gorgeous high definition tilt-sensitive screen that fits comfortably in your hands.

A dockable, portable set-top box with LED-backlit widescreen display? Seems a bit of a stretch at this point. And it would be enormously bandwidth-intensive. But it’s not entirely inconceivable, is it?

UPDATE: Mark Sigal recently made a similar observation over at O’Reilly Radar, using MLB’s iPad app as an example:

Similarly, MLB (Major League Baseball) showcased their MLB app, which overlays graphics, information feeds, video clips and live game programming in a way that is simultaneously immersive, interactive and highly entertaining. It is both suggestive of a media-centric killer app for the IPad and a bellwether for the future of TV Anywhere, yet another reason that I believe Apple’s ambitions with respect to Apple TV remain very much alive.

The trusty radio has finally received an upgrade—to the world of high definition. HD Radio, which has been gathering steam for a few years, sounds better and offers more channels than traditional radio. It also sends properly equipped devices text data like a song’s title and artist name as well as traffic, weather and stock information. One HD Radio even lets you pause programming in mid-stream, so you don’t have to miss a song or NPR story just because you’re drying your hair. And future HD Radio devices will record programming like television DVRs do now.

The Sony (above) and Coby Electronics (below) devices use HD Radio technology to play more stations at better sound quality.

This week, I tested three HD Radio devices to see what all the hype was about: Best Buy’s Insignia $50 HD Radio Portable Player (http://bit.ly/75FcIc); Coby Electronics Corp.’s $100 Portable HD Radio System (http://bit.ly/6G6g4Q); and Sony’s $160 HD Radio with Dock for iPod + iPhone (http://bit.ly/8c0Bqf). I also talked with iBiquity Digital Corp., the company that developed HD Radio technology and licenses it to broadcasters and radio manufacturers, about how this works.

I found some worthwhile offerings in HD Radio, like commercial-free, sub-channels within existing stations and better sound quality. IBiquity claims that HD Radio makes FM stations sound like CD quality and AM stations sound like FM; to my ear, this seemed to be true.

Overall, I didn’t hear enough incredibly great content or sound quality to want to run out and replace my old radios. Washington, D.C., where I live, supposedly offers 41 HD Radio channels, but I couldn’t find as many as that. Over 2,000 primary HD Radio stations and some 1,100 sub-channels can be heard in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, but some areas won’t offer as many stations, according to iBiquity.

Tuning in each HD station takes longer, like the way changing channels on a digital TV takes an extra second. But in my tests, this process took five seconds or more per change of channel. This kind of delay is enough to try anyone’s patience.

It might help to explain the technology behind HD Radio. HD Radio makes it possible for local broadcasters to transmit content via digital signals on existing AM and FM frequencies. The digital signals are encrypted and eliminate static heard in analog broadcasts, resulting in better sound quality. But they take longer to be decoded by HD Radio receivers.

Many people mistakenly think that in order to listen to HD Radio, they must pay an extra monthly fee like with satellite radio. If you buy an HD Radio device, you’ll only pay for it because the service itself is free; its price is built into the cost of the hardware.

Besides boosting the signal, HD Radio offers extra channels of programming you wouldn’t hear on a regular set. It allows existing FM channels to play additional content on “multicast” channels. Most multicast channels are commercial-free, and they appear on the radio’s display as HD2 and HD3.

Don’t confuse HD Radio with the text data that scrolls across the screens of many current radios, like my car radio. This is a non-audio service called Radio Broadcast Data System that has been around for a while.

Each of the radios I tested offered an HD Seek feature—a way of skimming through all stations to find and play those that could be heard in HD. But HD Seek didn’t stop on multicast channels; to get to those on each radio, I had to press buttons to tune up or down while listeningwhile already listening to to a main HD radio channel. Some HD Radio models have HD Seek tuning functions that find HD1 stations as well as HD2 and HD3 channels. I saved these HD2 and HD3 multicast channels in my radio presets so they were easier to find again.

While a radio was tuning in, or linking into, a channel (the process that took several seconds), an “HD” logo flashed on each radio’s display. This logo turned solid when the station was found and finally started playing. I listened to multicast channels like a bluegrass/country station from my local NPR channel. Another station’s two multicast channels played “South Asian” music and the Mormon Channel.

As its name suggests, Sony’s HD Radio with Dock for iPod + iPhone has a built-in dock for iPods, iPhones and iPod Touches. If, while using this radio, you hear a song on an HD channel that you like, you can hit a “Tag” button to save information about that song. The next time you dock an iPod, iPhone or iPod Touch into the Sony radio, these tags are transferred onto the portable player. When you plug that device into a computer and open the iTunes Store, a list of the tagged songs appears, making it easier to recall songs you liked and may want to buy. This radio is a tabletop model and has the largest display screen of the three radios I tested. It also comes with a remote. It saves up to 20 FM and 20 AM presets.

The Insignia HD Radio Portable Player is a much smaller unit that comes with earbuds and an armband for exercising. If this radio tuned in an HD channel that offered multicast sub-channels, these were indicated on the display with a “+” sign, like “HD1+.” The Insignia radio stores 10 preset stations.

The Coby Electronics Portable HD Radio System resembled a single, lightweight speaker with a wheel, six buttons and a digital display on it. IBiquity Digital said this model uses an older HD Radio technology that doesn’t offer as much reception sensitivity as the Sony and Insignia. Still, it was simple to use, and its wheel made it a cinch to tune in HD2 and HD3 channels. It stores up to 10 presets.

In September, when Microsoft’s Zune HD was released, I tested its built-in HD Radio, the only such device capable of pausing live radio content. I paused music and talk radio on the Zune’s HD Radio when my phone rang, then un-paused the station to resume. This doesn’t work if the device is turned off and on again before resuming play.

Along with stand-alone radios, HD Radio receivers also are becoming more common in home audio systems and in cars. But while HD Radio’s sound quality and extra channels are definite pluses, the number of available stations needs to improve to make the wait for the HD channels to start playing more tolerable.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Steve Ballmer is delivering his annual state-of-Microsoft address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight–his second since assuming the duties of former CEO Bill Gates.

If anything like last year’s, Ballmer’s address will offer a broad overview of Microsoft’s (MSFT) consumer strategy for the year, touching on everything from the company’s hardware-software ecosystem to its home entertainment offerings.

Likely to figure prominently in tonight’s address: Windows 7 and the new touch-enabled PC form factors it has evidently inspired; Bing; and Natal, Microsoft’s controller-less game control system, which will launch in time for the 2010 holidays.

• The keynote begins with, what else, some introductory remarks from Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro: “Happy New Year and welcome to 2010 CES, the World Cup of innovation. The past year has been a challenge. The global recession has affected all companies. Fortunately, signs are pointing upward, and I believe CES will be remembered as a turning point.”

  Let’s hope so.

• Shapiro welcomes Steve Ballmer to the stage, and the Microsoft chief begins by noting that 2009, in case you hadn’t noticed, was a year of profound economic turbulence. But innovation persisted. And with that, he rolls a first video designed to demonstrate his point. It features “one random guy’s” experiences with technology this past year, namely Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live.” Seth talks to his grandmother on a Web cam. He plays videogames with a kid and loses. “Before texting existed, I never sent the wrong person a letter telling them they’re a jackass. Thanks, technology….Before Twitter, if I knew what someone’s cat was thinking, I would have had to be an idiot.”

• Ballmer: “We’re going to focus on three things tonight. The [first is the] increasing importance of the small screen, the ever-evolving PC and the future of TV. The second is the cloud. Third is natural user interface–NUI technology. The last few decades have been absolutely stunning in the changes they’ve brought.”

• And here’s the sound byte of the evening: “We Bing. And we Bing. And we Bing Bing Bing. At least in my world.” Ballmer says 2009 is a year in which the company has made incredible progress with Bing. “We added 11 million new users….We redefined what search should do for users–we work to understand user intent and anticipate what users are really looking for. We know we’re at the beginning of a long journey, but we think we’re off to a good start.”

  There’s some news about Bing today, a distribution deal that makes it the default search engine on HP PCs in 32 countries.

• Also figuring prominently in 2009: Xbox. Microsoft first launched it at CES in 2001. Today, there are over 39 million Xbox 360s around the world. And more than 500 million games. The console has generated $20 billion in total game revenue.

• Ballmer is moving on to the mobile space now. Windows Phone–technically Windows Mobile 6.5, a necessary stopgap on the path to 7.0–which debuted last fall in a nimbus of disappointment. Ballmer notes that Microsoft is announcing a new Windows Phone partnership today with T-Mobile, which is bringing HTC’s HD2 phone to the U.S. He says little about Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft’s “modern” mobile operating system, which at last check was scheduled to arrive at market sometime in late 2010.

• Ballmer is talking up Windows 7 now. PC sales jumped 50 percent the week the OS debuted, he says. And according to research outfit NPD, sales of Windows PCs grew 50 percent over the 2009 holidays and retailers sold 63 percent more PCs than they did this time last year. Gartner (IT) now sees three percent PC unit growth in 2009–nearly 300 million PCs shipped in 2009. For 2010, Gartner sees a jump of more than 12 percent.

  “Windows 7 is by far the fastest-selling OS in history,” says Ballmer. “Clearly, consumers are saying there’s never been a better time to be a Windows 7 PC….Windows 7 is a rising tide that’s lifting all boats in the PC business.”

• Ballmer calls Ryan Asdourian, senior product manager for Windows, to the stage. “We’re going to see some of Ryan’s favorite hardware and software,” he says. Among them the Sony (SNE) Vaio L–an all-in-one built for high-definition entertainment–and the Asus NX90, a slick-looking laptop designed with help from legendary audio firm Bang & Olufsen.

  “Being in Vegas, you’ve got to look sexy,” says Asdourian. Ballmer: “Good thing we brought some PCs.”

• Next, some software demos–Ray Kurzweil’s Blio Ereader App?, then a new Skydrive collaboration in Windows Live. Ballmer: “Developers baby! Developers! I love the people who’ve built this stuff.”

• Ballmer moves on to Windows Media Center and Mediaroom 2.0, which will now deliver live and on-demand TV through set-top boxes, PCs, and Windows Mobile devices like the HD2. It is coming to AT&T’s (T) U-verse. Streaming video on the HD2 looks pretty slick.

• “The world of entertainment and content will come in different forms and flavors. But no matter what the source, Windows PCs will offer the greatest entertainment experiences in the world,” says Ballmer. And with that, he shows offs some new slate PCs. Sadly, the Courier–the dual-screen multitouch device that many had been hoping to see–is not among them, as BoomTown reported earlier today. There are, however, some cool-looking offerings from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Archos.

• Ballmer rolls another Seth Myers video, “Milestones in Technology.” Not funny. Yeah, I don’t really miss “Saturday Night Live” at all anymore.

• Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, takes the stage. “Computer science is the only science bounded solely by our imaginations,” he says, referring to Xbox. “2010 is going to be a landmark year for Xbox customers. We’ll be offering the best line of Xbox 360 games.” Examples: Mass Effect 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction. Also an episodic “psychological action thriller” called Alan Wake. “Imagine ‘Lost’ written by Stephen King, filmed by David Lynch,” implores Bach.

• Bach: “What ‘Star Wars’ is to film, what Harry Potter is to fantasy books, Halo is to videogames.” And with that, he rolls some video of Halo Reach that I can’t see because I’m watching the event remotely. The game is coming in the fall of 2010, but will be available as a multiplayer beta on Xbox Live this spring.

• Bach announces Game Room for Xbox Live! More precisely, a vintage gaming service that offers 30 classics from Atari, Intellivision, etc. The company plans to add over 1,000 games to Game Room over the next three years.

• And here comes the pitch for Project Natal: “We’re at an exciting inflection point in tech, where we can create an experience that is more intuitive. With Natal we’re freeing you from the last barrier, the game controller.” Bach rolls a video of the folks behind the Xbox’s new natural user interface, or NUI, which is due out later this year. “Project Natal will be available this holiday 2010….It will work with your existing Xbox 360.”

• “When I said 2010 was going to be a big year for Xbox 360, I was lying: 2010 is going to be the biggest year in Xbox history!”

• Bach wraps things up with some big-picture remarks and–well, I guess that’s it. He leaves the stage and the house lights come back up.

The studios resolved their next-generation DVD format war almost two years ago. So far, though, the take from Blu-ray has been underwhelming. The high-definition home-video format, now four years old, will produce just $1.3 billion in revenue to studios this year, says Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research. That’s about 14 percent of anticipated sales of regular DVDs this year, and half what the older format produced in its fourth year, in 2000.

But in this last month of the year, the studios have a chance to make signficant inroads with Blu-ray.

If they can nudge Blu-ray up a few percentage points over the 11.5 percent of studios’ home-video sales revenue that the format represented over the first nine months of 2009, it could take some of the sting out of slowing sales of regular DVDs, their traditional cash cow, Mr. Adams says.

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This week, I tested the device that hopes to do that: FlipShare TV (www.theflip.com). This is a $150 box that’s available as of Wednesday at Amazon.com (AMZN). It plugs into any TV and receives videos that are wirelessly shared. These videos can come directly from the hard drive of a nearby Windows PC or Mac, or via “channels” that you create so you or anyone else can post and share videos via the Internet by simply entering an email address.

The $150 FlipShare TV consists of a box (top), remote and USB key.

FlipShare TV would be a useful gift for friends or family members who don’t want to bother with logging onto a site to watch shared videos or photos. It takes just minutes to set up, thanks to straightforward plug-and-play software, which originally made the Flip video cameras so popular.

I tried FlipShare TV using Windows PCs and Macs, on an analog TV (using the included red, white and yellow audio-video cable to connect the box to the TV) and on a high-definition TV (using an HDMI cable, which is sold separately, usually for between $10 and $20). Included with FlipShare TV are a simple white remote control and a USB key that plugs into the computer to communicate with the box.

My FlipShare TV box occasionally dropped the signal of a computer that was just 10 feet away, forcing me to unplug and re-plug its power cord to get it to work. Cisco said this was a problem in the pre-production unit that I tested and that this issue was fixed in final-production boxes. The company recommends that the FlipShare TV box be within 200 feet of the computer with the plugged-in USB key. When it worked, I enjoyed watching videos, like those from a friend’s Thanksgiving charades tournament, on the big screen with such little effort.

A few obstacles stand between you and the nostalgia of once again watching home videos from the couch. For starters, only videos that are captured with a Flip video camera (the least expensive model costs $150) definitely can be shared via the FlipShare TV box. (A techie workaround may be used to convert some other videos into a different format for viewing, but the company isn’t advertising this.)

Another problem is that to receive new videos on the FlipShare TV box, your corresponding computer must be on, its USB key must be plugged into it, and the FlipShare software must be running.

But the most irritating issue with the FlipShare TV is that this box lacks an indicator to notify users when new videos are available for viewing. Instead, people must rely on text messages, emails, or Facebook notifications to know when someone has shared a new video. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of notifications—at least not for frequent users of email, Facebook and text messaging. But I imagine my grandparents or my parents using FlipShare TV, and none of them would want to be told about new videos via text message or Facebook. My parents would likely be checking email on a different floor of our house, not near the main TV where this box would sit.

Assuming all systems are go, you need only to hit the “Input” button on your regular TV remote to switch over to FlipShare TV. The box creates its own point-to-point wireless network linking it to the USB key on the computer, so it doesn’t depend on the quality of your home Wi-Fi network, or even require that you have one.

FlipShare software, which installs on a Mac or Windows PC as soon as the USB key is plugged in, is easy to learn if you’ve never used it. If you own a Flip video camera, this software was automatically installed when you first plugged the camera into a computer, offering to save the camera’s videos. It even auto-sorts video clips in folders like “September 2009″ according to when they were captured.

A category called Flip Channels creates a private place online where you can drag and drop any video for instant sharing with selected people, who receive notifications that a video is available for viewing on the channel. Those people can revisit the channel online whenever they want, unlike the traditional method of sharing videos via email, which requires digging up the original email to locate a video link again. And if the original “sharer” allows it, you can “re-share” a video via the Flip Channels with other people. Flip Channels also serve as a Web-based storage place for your videos, so you don’t have to worry about your hard drive crashing and losing all of the Flip videos you’ve off-loaded onto a computer.

A menu button on the FlipShare TV box remote displays a simple list on the TV screen with the option to view favorites (like a special video you saved), videos stored on the computer or videos shared via channels.

As soon as a new video is posted to a channel you have acces to, it appears on the TV menu in a section labeled “New Items.” Two friends shared several videos with me and thumbnail images representing each clip appeared instantly in New Items on my TV screen. After I watched a new video, it no longer appeared in that section but instead was placed into a section with the channel name given by the person who shared it. Along with videos, I also imported some JPEG photos to my personal channel.

After 10 minutes of sitting idle, the screen of the TV connected to your FlipShare TV box will fill with still images representing each video, like an ever-changing collage.

So as it is now, this box helps people circumvent the computer and go straight to the living room—but only as long as they are aware that someone shared a new video with them; their computer is on with its USB key plugged in; and the FlipShare software is running on a computer within range. Cisco says it will introduce a version of the FlipShare TV next year with an indicator so people will know exactly when someone has shared a video with them.

FlipShare TV makes a lot of sense as a simple way to watch videos and look at photos in the living room. But it needs to be more intuitive for all users before family and friends can really sit back and enjoy the show.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

But Microsoft’s (MSFT) historic rival, Apple (AAPL), isn’t sitting still. After releasing its own new operating system, Snow Leopard, in August, Apple this week is rolling out new versions of two of the best- known Macs: its iconic all-in-one iMac desktop, and its least-expensive laptop, the MacBook.

Though both new Macs sport important improvements, they are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and neither follows the industry trend toward bargain-basement prices. The MacBook is still $999, and the iMac still starts at $1,199, though the company is giving users more power and features at those same price points. You can pay much less for laptops and desktops from competitors like Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Apple is, however, introducing one revolutionary product this week: a $69 mouse called the Magic Mouse. It’s the first mouse I’ve seen whose entire surface acts like a laptop trackpad, and allows fingertip multitouch gestures for scrolling and flipping through lists, photos and Web pages on the screen, while still performing traditional cursor movements and clicking. This mouse comes with the new iMac and will be usable on most other Macs as well, once Apple offers a software update for them. It worked well for me.

I’ve been testing these new computers for a few days, and I can recommend both. The new iMacs have spectacular screens that are larger and sport much higher resolutions than those on their predecessors. They also add more memory capacity, bigger hard disks and faster processors.

The new $999, 13″ MacBook now includes most of the key features of the similar-sized MacBook Pro, which costs $200 more. These include a large multitouch trackpad, significantly enhanced battery life, and a brighter screen. Despite its lower price, the lowly MacBook comes with a 56% larger hard disk (250 gigabytes versus 160) than the Pro model.

The New iMacs

Apple has kept the basic design of the iMac, which looks like a stand-alone monitor but has a powerful computer built in. But the new models have larger, wider screens that have been re-sized to match up with high-definition video. The $1,199 base model has a 21.5″ screen, compared to the old 20″ screen, and has 17% higher resolution.

The highest-priced models, at $1,699 and $1,999, have huge 27″ screens, versus 24 inches for the older models, and they have a 60% increase in resolution.

The $1,199 base iMac has 4 gigabytes of memory, double the amount in the prior base model, and a 500 gigabyte hard disk, up from 320 gigabytes. The costlier editions have a one terabyte hard disk, which is roughly 1,000 gigabytes. The top model has a more powerful graphics card and a heavy-duty processor.

All the iMacs now have slots for SD flash memory cards, and the large-screen models can act as external monitors.

In my tests, using a 27″ model, the machine was fast and the screen was brilliant at displaying hi-res photos and high-definition video. Its width allowed me to treat it like two monitors, with, say a Microsoft Word document on the left and a Web page on the right.

One downside: the $1,499 model now has a smaller screen—21.5″ versus 24″—though it has a larger hard disk and better graphics card.

The New MacBook

This 13″ laptop, like its predecessor, is shiny white plastic, but has been redesigned to have more-rounded edges and a rubbery non-slip bottom. It now has the Pro’s large Apple trackpad, which acts as both a huge mouse button and a surface for fingertip gestures like two-finger scrolling, and resizing and rotating photos. It’s still 1.08″ thick—but is a bit longer and wider than the older model, though it weighs less: 4.7 pounds versus 5 pounds.

Apple has dropped the FireWire port from this machine, as well as its ability to be run via a remote control. And it still lacks an SD card slot. But it now has a large sealed battery that Apple claims can last up to 7 hours between charges. On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play music constantly, the MacBook lasted just over five hours. In normal use, I estimate it could easily top six hours.

In my tests, this MacBook was fast and reliable using a wide variety of programs. It started up cold in a mere 22 seconds, and was ready to go after a restart, with several programs running, in 44 seconds. For anyone on a budget, it’s a better deal than the 13″ MacBook Pro, especially considering its larger hard disk.

These new models now round out a full line of refreshed Macs, but they will face stiff new competition from a horde of PCs running the new and better version of Windows.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091021/apples-new-imac-macbook-grow-better-brighter/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091008/panasonic-cites-hurdles-for-3-d-television/ http://allthingsd.com/20091008/panasonic-cites-hurdles-for-3-d-television/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:45:09 +0000 Daisuke Wakabayashi http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=16382 Even as the electronics industry pushes televisions for watching three-dimensional videos as a future growth area, Panasonic Corp. (PC) acknowledged that it will be challenging to get consumers to upgrade to 3-D sets so soon after many purchased new flat-screen TVs.

The electronics company also said it is sourcing more components from places where the currency is tied to the U.S. dollar to offset the strength of the Japanese yen, which it said was putting the company at a disadvantage to rivals, particularly from South Korea.

Japanese electronics makers, along with South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics Inc., see 3-D as the next major technological breakthrough to spur sales of televisions and Blu-ray players, similar to how high-definition video helped to drum up demand for LCD and plasma TVs.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091008/panasonic-cites-hurdles-for-3-d-television/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091005/cellregza/ http://allthingsd.com/20091005/cellregza/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:19:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=25985 Toshiba has seen the future of television: A 55-inch, liquid-crystal display jacked into a three-terabyte set-top box capable of displaying eight high-definition broadcasts at once.

The unit boasts 14 different tuners compared with the typically high-end set, which has about three. Its speakers are reportedly comparable to those of a high-end stereo system, and with its Cell chip and image-processing technology, it is capable of improving the resolution of a crappy YouTube video to near high-definition quality. Finally, in addition to displaying eight high-def broadcasts at once, the TV can record them–simultaneously. Oh, it can time-shift them if you’d like, too.

What is this TV among TVs, this holy grail of couch potatoans called? the Cell Regza 55X1. And it costs $11,115.

$11,115? For a TV? In this recession? When TV prices are declining?

Damn right. And Toshiba expects to sell about 1,000 of them a month in Japan before bringing them to market in the U.S. and Europe in 2010.

[Image credits: Toshiba and AVWatch]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091005/cellregza/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091002/what-happens-when-games-go-to-the-cloud/ http://allthingsd.com/20091002/what-happens-when-games-go-to-the-cloud/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:00:53 +0000 Nick Wingfield http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=16134 On Wednesday, a startup called OnLive that’s generating a lot of buzz–and skepticism–in the videogame world raised a new round of financing from AT&T (T), Warner Bros. and others. We spoke to OnLive founder Steve Perlman, a well-known serial entrepreneur, about the investment (which wasn’t quantified) and some of the implications if OnLive or startups like it are successful.

OnLive has developed technology that it says will allow consumers to play graphically rich videogames without owning high-end PCs or consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that are normally required for such titles. Instead, OnLive plans to run games on powerful remote servers in data centers and pipe high-definition game graphics over the Internet to consumers, who can play them on low-end PCs and Macs or through an inexpensive OnLive device connected to their televisions.

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