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Sears Black Friday ad revealed, we'll be sleeping off our tryptophan hangovers

Woe betide the Black Friday bargain hunter; where once there were stellar deals on giant televisions and hard disk drives now there are slight discounts on underwear and handbags. Sears' ad for this year has been unearthed and, while it naturally has an eclectic selection of goodies on sale ranging from power tools to KitchenAid mixers (and that's just on the front page), from a gadgety perspective we're not finding anything quite worth lining up at 3:00am in November for. There's a 40-inch Samsung 1080p LCD for $599, about $50 cheaper than we can find it for online, and a similar Sony model for $664 -- a whole $10 less than Amazon is asking for a comparable model with free shipping and no uncomfortable small talk with other half-frozen shopaholics. A raft of cheap but mediocre games and movies will be available, some soon to be obsolete GPS devices, and lots of other random things stuffed into the PDF scan linked below. Not into the whole hunting for deals thing? The other link has everything listed out, making for easy text searching -- and for guilt-free snoozing the day after Turkey Day.

Read - PDF scan of Sears 2009 Black Friday ad
Read - Listing of Sears 2009 Black Friday deals

Samsung's 30-inch 3D AMOLED TV won't make you dizzy, will leave you poor and silly

Feeling that 3D craze yet? No? Well what if we told you that Samsung was bringing stereoscopic 3D to its magnificent AMOLED panels touting a million-to-1 contrast? Today in Japan it's showing off its 30-inch AMOLED 3D television with Full HD panel measuring just 2.5-mm thick. Although much is lost in the Korean language press release, Sammy is claiming that itd panel plus shutter-glasses technology helps to reduce the dizziness felt by some 3D viewers. The set's just a prototype at the moment but its price will certainly invoke financial vertigo whenever it might hit the manufacturing lines. One more very serious picture after the break.

Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home

ESPN 3D camera
Avid readers of Engadget HD are up on the latest 3D display and display technologies, but the same can not be said for the general masses. And before you start on the whole "I'm not wearing any stupid looking glasses," because no matter what you say, there are more people paying extra to go 3D movies than ever and the reason is simple; it's because this isn't like the crappy 3D you saw during the Super Bowl last year -- or that our parents grew up with. No, the 3D that Sony, Panasonic, and others are promising next year is like nothing you've seen. We've come a long way since the old anaglyph red and blue glasses that come in cereal boxes. So if like most, you could use a refresher on the 3D technologies and when you might get to use them, you should head on over and check it out.

Samsung's 40-inch LCD is world's thinnest at 3.9-mm, attracts magic pencils

What measures 3.9-mm thin by 40 inches? If you answered the standard Korean product waif you'd be close. This time, however, we're talking about Samsung's LED backlit LCD featuring a 120Hz refresh and 5,000:1 reported contrast. Yup, that makes it the world's thinnest -- easily besting cross-town rival LG's 5.9-mm thick LCDs -- even if you can't buy it as a complete television package... yet.

[Via Akihabara News]

SamyGo project aims to add new features to Samsung HDTVs


There's something about the ability to access a command line interface on our hardware that is empowering and if that was the only thing that the SamyGo project was trying to accomplish, we'd still find it interesting, but it's not. The must practical goal is the new found ability to use other WiFi dongles besides Samsung's $80 one, but SMB and other things make it easier to get more content on your HDTV. Either way, we love to hack some stuff up and only wish we had a Samsung TV to try this out for ourselves.

[Via Hack A Day]

Samsung develops first chip for US mobile digital TV transmission, provides no release date

Mmm, nothing like a pinch of predictability to wake us in the morning. Just days after the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) finally announced that a North American mobile DTV standard was struck, Samsung has jumped in with what it's calling the planet's first single chip solution designed to handle those very transmissions. All we're told is that the solution combines RF and "digital chip components" into one 65 nanometer chip, making it ideal for smaller devices such as smartphones, car-mounted televisions and portable media players. Of course, Sammy doesn't even bother to mention a mass production date, so we're guessing we all just rise awkwardly and start a roaring slow clap to celebrate the accomplishment.

Samsung rolls out Amazon, Blockbuster video store access across HDTVs, HTIBs and Blu-ray players everywhere


Just as promised, the (still SD only) Blockbuster OnDemand service is now available on a slew of Samsung hardware via firmware update, while the Internet@TV lineup (LCD and Plasma HDTVs Series 650 and above and LED HDTVs Series 7000) has a brand new toy with the Amazon VOD Yahoo! widget (which does support HD.) Both services offer a slew of rental and/or purchase options for the digital delivery fanatic, though we still hunger for the audio and quality of VUDU plus the all you can eat goodness of Netflix Watch Instantly, of the millions of TVs out there, there's surely someone willing to sift through those menus for the ease of viewing Ghosts of Girlfriends Past without resorting to cable VOD -- or getting up from the couch. The "convenience" goes both ways, since they'll also be able to pick up compatible Samsung blu-ray players at Blockbuster stores, right next to the TiVo section -- check for exact model #s supported in the PR after the break.

Samsung showing off 55 inches of 240Hz 3D LCD glory

Look, we know this 3D thing is as likely to sink as it is to swim right now, but we have to hand it to Samsung -- it's pursuing the idea with some pretty hefty ambition. A 55-inch 1080p panel with a true 240Hz refresh rate is a decent base on which to build your paradigm-shifting new offering. Using a set of "shutter" glasses, which rapidly alternate between blocking out the left and right eye, the set is capable of delivering the full 240Hz quality, debatable as its benefits may be. Of course, the value or otherwise of a TV like this is going to be found only by experiencing its output in person, so if you're somewhere near Seoul this week, head on down to the IMID 2009 conference to get an eyeful of an early model.

Samsung's new SH-B083 drive doesn't write Blu-ray, but it kin reed gud


Say hello to Samsung's first internal Blu-ray combo drive for PCs, while the SH-B083 isn't a super fast writer like some of its classmates, it does feature 8x BD-R and BD-ROM read speeds. Also a capable 40x / 16x CD / DVD burner, if all you want to do is watch movies, this should be a considerably cheaper option to the Pioneer BDR-205 12x burner or other 8x recordable drives when it hits shelves (specifically Amazon and Newegg) in November, though exact date and price remain unspecified. Plus, it has that "chic mirror front door design" we can't believe we've lived without for so long, making the 350ms access speed a mere afterthought. This could fit nicely inside that new C-200, right? Specs follow after the break.

Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony align on Mobile High-Definition Link

Say it with us now: "Yippee!" Why such joviality? We'll tell you why. Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony and Silicon Image have all teamed up to create yet another new connector, with this one hoping to forever harmonize the strained relationship between mobile phones / PMPs and high-def displays. The so-called Mobile High-Definition Interface Working Group is seeking to create a new "industry standard" for connecting handsets and other portable consumer electronics to HDTVs and displays, though we're still wondering why exactly we need a replacement for HDMI, DisplayLink and the forthcoming Light Peak so soon. As with most of these things, details about the actual product(s) are slim, but trust us, they're working on it. And they're working hard.

Samsung 65-inch LCD observed in its unnatural habitat at CEDIA


Just when you thought it was safe above 60-inches, Samsung's showing off a new LCD at CEDIA with the best old-school CCFL tech has to offer. It may not have the sexy side profile of its edge lit-LED brethren or the cachet of certain plasmas but with the sheer size of the LN65B650, even shrouded by foliage in Samsung's booth setup, we're more than ready to catch a game on this baby.

58 percent of salespeople recommend Samsung HDTVs, 100 percent like big commission checks

Survey finds salespeople love Samsung HDTVs, commissions
We're sure that none of our stunningly attractive, gadget-expert readers would ever think about walking into an electronics retailer and asking the opinion of the teenagers in blue shirts and name tags. But, we also know that there are plenty of other folks out there who do, and when they do they're told to buy Samsung HDTVs a whopping 58 percent of the time. There's certainly nothing wrong with Samsung sets, but there are certainly plenty of options out there, too. These numbers come from the always quotable J.D. Power and Associates, which also found that salespeople are becoming less likely to recommend LCD sets over plasma sets, which goes against the industry trend. We'd never hope to be able to get inside the head of one of those doing the recommending, but as always we would recommend reading a few reviews and going to the store to see what you like best -- after you ask to turn down the lights and use the right cables, of course.

[Via PC World]

Samsung's LN65B650 LCD takes a 65-inch bite out of CEDIA, no LEDs harmed

Samsung LN65B650 LCD TV
Plasma TV's have been retreating from LCDs to the safety of sizes larger than 50-inches, but emboldened LCDs are striking into that territory as well. Embarking on recon from CEDIA is Samsung's LN65B650, a 65-inch behemoth sporting a 4ms response time, 120-Hz Auto Motion Plus frame interpolation, Medi@2.0 connectivity, and Samsung's Touch of Color treatment in grey. All the latest wizardry, you say? Not quite -- it's CCFL backlit; but even without LEDs -- the LN65B650 is probably too big for edge-lighting to cover, and would take roughly a gazillion LEDs to backlight directly -- the real plasma killer here might be the little check mark in the "Energy Star qualified" box. The $6,000 price (and we'd guess ultimate picture quality, too) means that biggie-sized plasmas are safe for now, but we know how prices and performance go with time. Full details on this beast after the break.

Samsung's LED TV Couple packs a 7-inch tablet remote for streaming TV and so much more


Without much fanfare, Samsung has released a TV / tablet combo in Korea that seems to deliver on all the untapped promise in Toshiba's JournE touch tablet. Dubbed the LED TV Couple, Samsung has paired a 55-inch LED baclkit LCD TV with a brand new 7-inch touchscreen tablet, which communicates with and controls a full home theater over 802.11n WiFi. The tablet offers a visual program guide, including video previews of TV shows, along with access to media stored on a PC -- which can in turn be "tossed" up to the full TV -- and even a few widgets. But the real money is in the pair's ability to stream live TV and Blu-ray content from the home theater to the tablet, making that next trip to the kitchen for munchies so much less painful. No word on a US or Europe release, but we hope to see a lot more of this pair in the near future. Peep them in action after the break.

Samsung Blu-ray players adding YouTube, MKV support (Update: Right now!)


Samsung hasn't been shy about sliding streaming video into its Blu-ray players with Netflix and Blockbuster OnDemand already making an appearance, and it announced at IFA that YouTube will be joining them in Q4. Whether watching grainy webcam footage (or even possibly renting movies) is your thing, we're a bit more surprised but no less pleased to hear MKV container support is also making its way into new hardware, while owners of existing players (no word which ones) can add the functionality via upgrade.

Update: Samsung's official PR states BD-P1600, BD-P3600 or BD-P4600 owners can get the YouTube update right now (as several commenters already have,) no word on the MKV support yet.




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