Logitech’s CEO Guerrino De Luca has admitted that the Revue was a “mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature.” That is as close as we are likely to ever hear a CEO come to saying their product sucked. The Revue was part of the reason for a giant $100 million loss in operating profits for Logitech.

The Revue is being phased out and once the final stock of the device are sold this quarter, it will not be replaced. My favorite quote and perhaps the most honesty seen form a CEO in a while is De Luca saying, “To make the long story short, we thought we had invented [sliced] bread and we just made them. [We made a commitment to] just build a lot because we expected everybody to line up for Christmas and buy these boxes [at] $300 [...] that was a big mistake.”

[via The Verge]

This new device from Marvel Digital is called the Smart TV Enabler, and it can play 1080p HD content through an Internet connection or an attached USB device (HD, memory card, USB flash drive).

The box also allows you to browse the Internet from your TV. It will also allow you to run Android Apps from the Android Market, albeit on a large screen.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It will be released at the end of August and cost $110 at the Marvel store (but don’t expect any Superheroes to be there.)

When Google TV first hit the market, I wanted it pretty bad. I want to be able to get lots of online content like Hulu and other video sites on my TV in the living room, but I don’t want a PC in there. I was really interested in the Logitech Revue box until the sites I wanted like Hulu and networks blocked users from accessing video using Google TV.

Things aren’t looking good for Google TV right now. Google has told partners to not unveil any new hardware at CES while it gets new software ready for Google TV. Presumably, the software is to fix the gripes reviewers and early users had with the system like poor search layout and other complaints. I hope the fix will also come with a deal that lets Google TV back into video streaming sites or Google TV will still be worthless to me.

DigiTimes is now reporting that Logitech has told Gigabyte, who makes the Revue box, to temporarily stop production until the new version of the Google TV software lands. That software update is expected sometime in January.

This will be the first UFC PPV event to be aired on the new Roku UFC channel for users of the device. Moving forward all UFC events will be offered and the Roku device will have archives of events and will show unaired preliminary fights.

I wonder if those prelim fights will be different from the ones typically shown on Spike ahead of UFC cards. Now that I think about it, the last couple UFC cards has had no prelims shown on Spike, I wonder if this deal has anything to do with that.

By using a technique ZeeVee calls “localcasting”, the ZvBox uses your current in-house cable TV network to send the signal to all of your sets. Just plug the ZvBox in between your computer and any open wall jack on your cable line (or splice it into an existing cable), and the system detects an open channel to send content over. Your PC signal simply becomes a new channel on your TV. The box converts the VGA output of your PC into a digital HDTV channel (using real-time MPEG2 compression) and injects it into your cable signal. The signal can even include Dolby 5.1 digital surround sound if the original video supports that format. (I’m assuming that audio somehow flows through the ZvBox’s USB port.)

To connect to each TV, just place a coax splitter (included) between the wall jack and your cable box. One side of the split goes back into the cable box, and the other goes directly into your TV’s RF input. Flip to the proper input on your TV, and voila, high-def computer video on any set in the house with a digital (QAM) tuner. At this point, it looks like the signal will only work alongside cable television, as satellite signals interfere with the Zv localcast channel. Hopefully, they’ll find a solution for those of us with DirecTV or Dish at some point. I’m also a bit surprised that the PC video inputs on the box are VGA – not DVI – so your source signal won’t be digital.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Once connected, any video that’s available on your computer can be viewed on your TV, retaining the the high-def resolution of the original content. The system also ships with a special widescreen menu application called Zviewer, which provides big-screen optimized navigation of all your media.

Also included in the box is the ZvRemote, which lets you control your computer’s mouse and desktop interface from up to 150 feet away. As an added bonus, you can access any application on your PC from the convenience of your couch.

Of course, the real “secret sauce” here is that a single ZvBox can send its signal to all of your TVs, so you only need one for the whole house. Plus, you won’t need to do any new wiring, assuming you’re already set up for cable TV, and you’ve got a cable jack somewhere near your PC.

The ZvBox, including the ZvRemote and Zviewer application will retail for $499 when it ships this June. More product information will be available at www.zeevee.com.

According to this post (UPDATE 1/6/07: this link is no longer active) on The Mercury News, it’s expected that Microsoft will be announcing plans during their upcoming CES keynote speech for the gaming console to act as an IPTV set-top box for high-definition digital television.

So now that Microsoft has 10 million+ Xbox 360′s in living rooms all over the world, they certainly could be the bait for people to adopt upcoming Microsoft IPTV based television services (such as AT&T’s U-Verse service) by offering a single device that can play high quality games, online community, media downloads and storage, and now, stream live television.

[UPDATE 1/6/07: It appears that the original Mercury News story has since been removed, leading me to believe that this information was, in fact an early leak that wasn't supposed to hit the press until after the CES keynote]