Toys R Us launches website sell kids' movies

Toys R Us, which for years has done a big business selling videotapes and DVDs of children's movies, is launching a sales plan for the digital age, a website where parents can rent or purchase more than 4,000 kid-friendly movies and television shows.
The website, ToysRUsMovies.com, went live Thursday, and the movies and television shows will initially be available for streaming and downloading on personal computers, Macs and Adobe Flash-enabled devices. Toys R Us plans to expand availability to tablet devices, TVs and Blu-Ray players later this year.
The application for the site will be loaded onto the Tabeo, a tablet device Wayne, N.J.-based eevee plush  R Us created as its exclusive version of a tablet computer for kids.
Toys R Us is entering the $750 million video-on-demand market with the launch, going up against established online movie sites like Netflix and the digital download services from Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Analysts and industry experts called the launch a logical move for Toys R Us, and said it could attract parents who want to use a site that offers only safe family fare.
"Even for families that have access to Netflix and other services, this looks like a nice way to get to curated content," said Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst for Needham & Co. Unlike Netflix, which itself announced a Just for Kids dedicated site for Xbox, ToysRUsMovies users will not have to pay a subscription fee, which is a plus, McGowan said.
"It's a nice, logical add-on for the tablet, but they've (consumers) got to buy the tablet first," said Chris Byrne, a toy consultant and writer known as The Toy Guy. "It's going into a crowded and challenging market. More and more parents are giving up their cable and switching to Apple TV or some mechanism for downloading movies."
Shelby Cunningham, an associate analyst for Digital Tech Consulting in Dallas, said the success of the Toys R Us movie site will depend on whether the company gives people something different. "Parents can already go on iTunes or the Disney site and download movies," she said. "They have to make it easier for people and unique in some way."
The asset for Toys R Us, Cunningham said, is "they have an audience. Toys R Us has been around forever. That helps, having a built-in audience to sell to."
Michael Scharff, senior vice president, new ventures, at Toys R Us, said the company has been discussing creating such a website for some time, as "we've seen the DVD business shift to digital, much like music and books have over the years." The ToysRUsMovies website has been in the works for about a year, he said.
The company will be promoting the new website as part of its store advertising campaigns, and also will promote it on its social media sites and with in-store displays. Movies will be priced starting at $2.99 for a 24-hour rental and $5.99 for a digital download. Most television shows will cost $1.99.
Scharff said Toys R Us hopes to eventually use the site to offer exclusive content through partnerships with movie studios.

Developing next generation of batteries for improved mobile devices

Steven Arnold Klankowski, a doctoral candidate in chemistry, La Crescent, Minn., is working under Jun Li, professor of chemistry, to develop new materials that could be used in future lithium-ion batteries. The materials look to improve the energy storage capacity of batteries so that laptops, cellphones, electric cars and other mobile devices will last longer between charges. Additionally, lithium-ion batteries that can store energy and deliver power more rapidly will be a more viable alternative power source for vehicles and machines powered by alternative energy, Klankowski said. For example, solar- and wind-powered technologies could switch to the battery in the evening when there is a lack of wind or sunlight to produce energy. "The rechargeable batteries market is moving very fast these days as everyone is trying to get an advantage for their electric vehicles and cellphones," said Klankowski, who also has a background in materials engineering. "As our devices get smarter, so must our methods to supply greater amounts of portable electrical energy to power these devices." For his research, Klankowski is developing and testing a high-performance nanostructure of silicon coated onto carbon nanofibers for the use as an electrode in lithium-ion batteries. The electrodes, which look like a dense brush, give the battery greater charge capabilities and storage capacity. This is anticipated to replace current commercial electrodes that are made from simple carbon-based materials. The material being developed and improved by Klankowski helps the electrode store roughly 10 times the amount of energy as current electrodes—giving the batteries a 10-15 percent improvement in current battery technology.
"We're trying to go for higher energy capacity," Klankowski said. "To do that we're looking at if we can store more energy per the electrode's size or mass, and if we can use that energy more quickly to make the battery like a capacitor. Batteries and capacitors are on opposite sides of the energy storage field. We'd like to move them both closer together." In the lab, Klankowski looks at how the characteristics of the lithium-silicon-alloy material differ with each production cycle and how those characteristics can be improved to move lithium-ion batteries closer to capacitors. The material is also studied for its ability to store energy. Tests, which simulate a battery's operation, repeatedly charge and discharge the material with energy. According to U.S. Department of Energy's requirements, a battery must remain at 80 percent capacity after 300 charge-discharge cycles. "A battery today tends to die after 400-500 cycles or three years," Klankowski said. "One of the things we'll want to improve on is that lasting performance. It won't be much of an advantage if your phone's battery can last for 36 hours for the first few months but then only two hours after that. With the progress we are seeing, I hope one day to drive from Manhattan to my folks' house in Minnesota on a single battery change." A patent application for the material has been filed with Kansas State University Research Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit corporation responsible for managing technology transfer activities at the university. Klankowski was one of five doctoral students at Kansas State University to recently earn a scholarship from the research foundation to help him further develop his research.

Apple iPhone 5  Battery Life May Be Affected By Cellular Signal Strength

Embedded in iLounge’s lengthy review of the iPhone 5 is a section about battery life. In it, iLounge’s Jeremy Horwitz reports that the iPhone 5’s battery life, while similar in performance to that of the iPhone 4S, is actually largely affected by the strength of the cellular signal.
“If you’re using your iPhone 5 in places with a very strong (4- to 5-bar) LTE or 3G signal, your cellular battery life may approach that [“8 hours of rechargeable batteries life”] number, but if not, the cellular antenna will struggle to maintain a signal, and fall well short,” Horwitz reported. “Because LTE and 3G/4G towers are in a state of build-out flux right now, our tests suggest that many LTE users won’t come close to Apple’s promised numbers.”
Apple says the battery life in its all-new iPhone 5 is roughly equivalent, if not slightly better, than the battery power in its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. Apple says the iPhone 5’s battery, on a full charge, provides 8 hours of talk time on 3G, 8 to 10 hours of Web use, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of audio and music playback, and roughly 225 hours of standby time. Without a quality LTE or Wi-Fi signal however, the iPhone 5’s performance suffers greatly. Here’s Horwitz with more:
“Each with 2 bars of LTE signal—the best our phones could achieve in the primary location where we’ve tested every past iPhone—our AT&T iPhone 5 achieved a meager 4 hours and 44 minutes of continuous cellular data browsing in our standard Internet test, while a Verizon iPhone 5 hit 5 hours and 15 minutes, well below Apple’s rosy estimates,” he wrote. “Both numbers were below the just-shy-of-6-hour run times of the AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4S models when they were on 3G/4G networks last year, though it needs to be said that both iPhone 4Ses had 3G/4G signals in the 3- to -bar range.”
Horwitz added that while last year’s iPhone 4S accomplished about 8 hours and 30 minutes of Web use on a Wi-Fi signal, a Verizon-powered iPhone 5 lasted only six hours and 24 minutes under those same connectivity conditions. When the cellular antenna was turned off, that same iPhone 5 ran for 8 hours and 26 minutes, so it’s quite clear that big drops in battery life are likely a result of poor cellular signal strength.
Apple iPhone 5 Features: Battery Life May Be Affected By Cellular Signal Strength
iLounge’s battery tests also discovered that the iPhone 5 battery performed worse than the iPhone 4S in terms of voice calling time – AT&T users will have about one hour less to talk, and Verizon customers will have about two hours less – but Horwitz believes “the lower numbers may again be attributable to the weaker AT&T and Verizon signal strengths we saw during testing (2-3 bars).”
The iPhone 5’s battery loses to the iPhone 4S for FaceTime chats, but besides that, the sixth-generation iPhone beats out its predecessors in terms of battery life for video recording, video playback and audio playback. While some of the actual figures fell short of Apple’s estimates, iLounge discovered that the difference in battery life was “astonishing” when the iPhone 5 was put in to Airplane Mode, which ensured it wouldn’t connect to any cellular or Wi-Fi networks during its test.
Unfortunately, no matter how you slice it, the iPhone 5 cannot be considered an “all-day” phone. It’s best to keep the iPhone 5 continually recharging throughout the day, either by connecting to a power source or a battery pack designed for iPhone, but if you’re really worried about conserving battery, it might be best to turn off your cellular connection, or simply enter Airplane Mode, when the iPhone 5 isn’t in use.

Wikipad Hands-on with the gaming tablet

The Nintendo Wii U is not the only tablet-based gaming hardware launching this fall. Wikipad is a new 10-inch Android tablet designed from the ground up to work with a proprietary game pad dock. Having had a chance to try out a preproduction unit, I found it an interesting hybrid of general-interest tablet and specialized handheld gaming console. But the $499 price may make it hard to compete with products such as Apple's iPad, the latest Amazon, Google, and Barnes & Noble showtone 777r tablet, or even Sony's handheld PlayStation Vita.
Wikipad is part of a growing trend of independently developed game consoles outside of the major Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft axis. Ouya, an Android-powered set-top box, recently made a big splash on Kickstarter, raising millions of dollars from individual gamers, while streaming-game service OnLive released a set-top box last year, and used a standalone Android app to bring its games to handheld devices.
Powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, the Wikipad can download games from Nvidia's Tegra Zone store, Google Play, the PlayStation Mobile platform, and other app stores. Unlike other Android tablets that can also play a wide variety of games, the Wikipad's unique selling point is its custom handheld controller dock, which adds two analog sticks, shoulder triggers, a directional pad, and four buttons -- all of which makes it look a lot like a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 controller.
The tablet itself is very thin and light, weighing 1.2 pounds and only 0.3 inch thick. The back surface (which is matte black plastic) has a small inset ridge running around it, which acts as a finger grip, and also helps guide the tablet into the game pad dock.
From the front, it looks like a stock 10-inch Android tablet, with a thick bezel and glossy screen that is covered with Gorilla Glass, and supports 10-finger input. It's an IPS screen, which looks good from off-axis angles, but the screen resolution is 1,280x800 pixels, which is low compared with other current 9- or 10-inch tablets.
A custom dock connector plugs it into the game pad dock, and also connects to a power adapter. There's a standard Micro-USB port, but the company tells us it's not for charging. The Wikipad includes 16GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage, but a microSSD slot will allow you to expand that with up to a 32GB SSD card.
As of right now, there are no exclusive games for the Wikipad, and there may never be, as it bills itself as an "open" platform. A custom software browser, built into a spinning 3D carousel, shows off highlighted games from the Google Play store, Nvidia's Tegra Zone, and Sony's PlayStation Mobile platform, among others.
Slotting the two parts together resulted in a solid-feeling package, and I didn't worry, even on this preproduction unit, about the tablet sliding out. The game pad dock was also very lightweight (like the tablet, it's mostly plastic), and the analog sticks, buttons, and triggers felt very familiar. The company says the final version will have a better trigger response and coated buttons, but the version I tried worked just fine.
While playing the popular Android shooter Dead Trigger (as seen in the video above), I found using the two analog sticks to be vastly superior to onscreen controls that attempt to mimic a traditional game pad. I didn't feel any lag (it may help that this is a physical dock connection, not a wireless Bluetooth one), and the controls mapped easily -- as they should in any game that uses the standard Android game pad API.
With games that are available elsewhere, and tablet hardware that isn't as advanced as some competitors, the real selling point here is the symbiotic nature of the game pad and tablet, and how the two work so well together in tandem.
Price is probably the $499 Wikipad's biggest hurdle. Apple's current-gen iPad starts at $499, and both Amazon's 9-inch Kindle Fire HD and the new Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ start at less than $300 (each without a bundled dock, of course). Even the three major living-room consoles, as well as Sony's PlayStation Vita and Nintendo's 3DS, all cost less (as will Nintendo's Wii U).
The Wikipad's physical game controller add-on is something long overdue, and it works very well in hands-on testing, but the system has a big job in convincing gamers to spend that much. The Wikipad will be released on October 31, and we'll bring you a full review when we have the final hardware version.

Find Green Exercise Equipment from Sports Art Fitness at Club Industry Show 2012

Fitness revolutionaries, SportsArt Fitness, will be taking their innovative products to show at the Club Industry Show 2012, in Las Vegas, NV. Club Industry 2012 is a convention and expo for fitness business professionals and has been has been the leading independent event for fitness professionals for 27 years. Fitness professionals who attend the Club Industry conference have the chance to choose from active training, lectures, panels and roundtable sessions.
The location of the Club Industry 2012 expo is one of a series of updates to this well known convention. Normally held in Chicago, the show's director, Adam Andersen, believes that moving the show to Las Vegas will help create more of a national excitement, and attract a better audience. For exhibitors like SportsArt Fitness - the leader in human-powered fitness machines, this translates into wider exposure as the show highlights the best of the industry.
With more than 20 years of design and manufacturing excellence to their credit and a Nova 7 award for best cardio supplier in the industry, SportsArt will offer iPod-compatible cardio products, their award-winning strength line, and the unique S770 Pinnacle Trainer. Buyers will also be able to preview the "Green System" which debuted International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) show last week in San Francisco. The Green System is a pod of products attached to an inverter that harnesses power generated by exercisers and feeds it back into the power grid as usable energy.
SportsArt product manager, Bob Baumgartner notes that a typical health club that replaces its ellipticals and cycles with Green Systems will save thousands of dollars in energy costs. The company hopes to spark a green revolution, bringing more innovative and eco-friendly exercise fitness equipment to facilities that would otherwise consume enormous amounts of electricity. Gyms that install the Green System are a draw to eco-conscious consumers, who will often choose self-generating fitness equipment over traditional machines if possible.
SportsArt was one of the first manufacturers of self-powered elliptical trainers. Their Eco-Powr treadmill uses 32% less energy than traditional club treadmills, and the completely self-generated ellipticals and cycles require no outside power source to operate.
SportsArt Fitness will be showing these products and more at the Club Industry 2012 expo, booth number 1011

LED Headlights Shine Light Review

The automotive lighting industry has undergone a massive transformation with the growing trend toward LED-based light sources. As recently as 1990, the standard headlight assembly used only incandescent sources with very basic functionality: low beam, high beam, and off. Other functionalities, such as the turn signal, sidemarker, and position lights, were performed by separate incandescent sources. More advanced functions, such as separate cornering lights, race lights, and lighting features for advanced driver assistance systems, were not common or didn't even exist.
In 1991, the first high-intensity discharge (HID) xenon-based headlight was introduced, shifting the front lighting landscape into the power electronics realm. This shift to HID-based fixtures yielded a more efficient and longer-lasting system than its incandescent counterpart. However, HID lamps were far more complicated than incandescent sources, as they required extensive power electronics to operate. Like fluorescent lighting, HID lamps needed an ignitor to ionize the xenon gas, creating a conductive path through the lamp. Then a ballast comprising one or more switch-mode power conversion stages was required to regulate the lumen output in steady state. Unfortunately, this increase in complexity yielded little benefit in size or performance over the incandescent light.
Today's headlight systems typically use a single-stage power architecture.
In 2007, the first light-emitting diode led headlamps became available in new automobiles. LED-based systems also require some method of power conversion. An LED driver is required to convert the battery voltage source into a constant current drive for a series or series/parallel string of LEDs. While the LED driver also adds cost and complexity to the headlight system compared to incandescent sources, there are many benefits to the LED system, including size reduction, much higher controllability of intensity and color, efficiency improvement, and longer lifetimes. Over the past five years, it has become increasingly evident that the LED headlight should eventually dominate the automotive marketplace due to its inherent advantages over other light sources.
Existing front lighting systems
Today, LED-based automotive headlights typically are designed with single-stage power converters that take the available input battery supply of 12V and convert it to a regulated constant current output. This single-stage design usually requires a buck-boost topology of some type in order to provide regulation during load-dump and cold-crank conditions. Load-dump is when the battery or some other significant load is disconnected from the alternator during charging. During load-dump, the remaining connected automotive systems can see voltages of more than 60V for hundreds of milliseconds. Cold-crank refers to starting the engine at 0C when the battery can droop as low as 4.5V -- and in some cases lower. The buck-boost topology allows for the input to rise above or drop below the output voltage of the LED array while maintaining regulation. Converters that can buck or boost can be implemented in many ways, but some common configurations are the floating buck-boost (or boost to battery), the SEPIC converter, the flyback converter, and the Cuk converter.

Nicklaus weighs in on golf ball, belly putter

As one of the all-time greats, Jack Nicklaus is ought to have a pretty weighty opinion on all things golf. So when he tosses that weight on one side of the equipment debate, we'd do well to listen.
The Golden Bear offered his opinion Wednesday on ESPN Radio 980 in Washington D.C. So where did he fall? Well, not only does he think the golf ball should be rolled back -- he expects it to happen. And he doesn't rely on any abstract "integrity of the game argument." For Jack, it's cold, hard cash:
The game of golf has three problems. It’s too hard, it’s too expensive and it takes too long. If they dialed the golf balls back it would reduce all those costs. The costs of maintaining the golf course, the cost of land and all those things would be dialed back and as an added benefit there’s only one golf course in this country that is not obsolete to the pros and that’s Augusta National, they’re the only people that have enough money to build the golf course and do the things they needed to do. Every time they have an event what do they do? Build new tees, new bunkers and do everything. It doesn’t make any sense. The simplest thing to do is fix the golf ball.
And how about the belly putter, that other controversy-of-the-moment? Jack doesn't seem too concerned.
I’m sort of in the middle of the road. I don’t know how much it really helps and I know a lot of guys, Arnold (Palmer) is very strong that it should be banned, I think something anchored to your body is probably not in the nature of what the game of golf is and up until Keegan Bradley won, nobody had ever won a major with one so I didn’t think much about it but my guess is it will probably go.