Gizmodo Australia » lifeware

iPhone: The Home Automation Remote Killer

John Mahoney — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:15:02 +0000

There are already a few home automation iPhone apps in the store, but here at CEDIA it’s clear that all of the home automation heavies have definitely discovered the obvious: the iPhone makes for a great universal touchscreen remote for everything from your AC to your living room blinds to your music collection. And most of them won’t make you pay the price of a snazzy dedicated touchscreen controller to get it, either. Most of them.

Of the apps by Crestron, Lifeware, Z-Wave and Control4 we’ve seen here at CEDIA, Crestron’s seems to be farthest along (pictured above). It can control multiple rooms in multiple houses all via Wi-Fi or AT&T data, and is a free download and add-on. Z-Wave, probably the most accessible system that you don’t have to have a Cribs-worthy home to run, will sadly charge you US$10 a month for the privilege of freaking out your pets while you’re on vacation or locking your doors from bed. Lifeware’s app is still in its nascent stages, but it will pack more Media Centre integrations (in case you’re running the baddest Media Centre in the world).
Control4’s app (above) is the least impressive–the first version will only work in your home on the same Wi-Fi network as your system, which is puzzling. And it’ll cost you a “license” that will likely be “over US$100 and less than US$500,” to make up for lost touchscreen remote revenue.

All the apps are currently getting finishing touches, but each will be available before year-end. For now, check out iViewer.

Lifeware’s LMS-810 Is the Baddest Media Centre PC Money Can Buy

John Mahoney — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:42:00 +0000

In a show full of ultra high-end home theatre installations, Lifeware’s LMS-810 Media Centre piece still manages to be a standout. Taking what they came with last year and doubling it, Lifeware has crammed eight CableCARD tuners (two on board and six more in the external Lifetuner box on top) into a dual Intel Quad Core, 12TB RAID 5 box that can stream out to ten Media Extenders (here, Xbox 360s driving Samsung LCDs). The box can record from all eight of its HD streams while streaming to all 10 Extenders at once, so if you’ve been wondering what to do with your home’s 8 spare digital cable feeds, now you know. No price yet for a pre-Christmas release, but last year’s model with half as many CableCARDs was US$15k.

Denver, CO – CEDIA EXPO 2008 – September 4 – 7, 2008 – Booth #410 – When you take the best possible options for high definition entertainment and combine them into one seriously powerful media server, you’re going to need a new name for the experience you create. Life|ware™, makers of whole home automation and entertainment solutions, have done just that, unveiling a new “High Density Television™” initiative that brings in more high definition entertainment and distributes it around the home more effectively than ever before.

“High Density TV reinvents how we will move and/or view high definition entertainment around the home,” said Seale Moorer, Life|ware’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is the first solution to provide a whole house entertainment server that provides unparalleled capability in terms of HDTV tuners, HDTV streaming and Digital Media management for consumers.”

Life|media™ 810: 8 TV tuners, 10 Extenders, 12 TB of Storage
Several new Life|media units highlight the effort, headed by the company’s new Life|media LMS-810, which has 8 HDTV CableCARD™ tuners and can support up to 10 Media Centre Extender devices.

“The 810 is a very powerful Media Server,” said Moorer. “It deftly handles the high-definition feeds from eight CableCARD tuners and provides HD streaming to ten extenders over the existing home network.”
The 810 provides an incredible 12 terabytes of RAID 5 storage which provide the disk space for a huge digital library of recorded TV, movies, music, photos and videos.

“The Life|media LMS 810 is the centerpiece of a digital entertainment solution as we all envision it,” said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate’s Consumer Solution Division. “Seagate’s Pipeline HD hard drives are designed specifically for this type of scenario. With HD video optimization, exceptionally quiet acoustics and power management, Pipeline HD drives enable the LMS 810 to provide a reliable way to enjoy digital entertainment.”

Life|tuner™ provides more video options
Also being unveiled at CEDIA is the Life|tuner series of HDTV CableCARD tuner devices that work with Life|ware’s Life|media media servers, allowing the addition of up to six additional HDTV tuners to the Life|media experience.

“Life|tuner is another product that makes life easier for our dealers,” said Moorer. “Obviously, TV tuners themselves are nothing new, but this product allows the easy addition of two, four or six CableCARD tuners to our Life|media servers.”

Life|media media servers feature two CableCARD TV tuners. By adding the six-tuner Life|tuner unit to a high-end Life|media, a consumer has a remarkable 8-tuner DVR solution.

Disney’s Innoventions Dream Home is a Big Ad For Microsoft and HP…But I Still Want It

Sean Fallon — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Recently, Disney announced the grand opening of their new Innoventions Dream Home located in Tomorrowland in Anaheim, Calif. The construction was a collaborative effort between Disneyland, Microsoft, HP, Life|ware and home-builder Taylor Morrison–so naturally the home functions more as a big advertising campaign for current products than an actual “home of the future.” Still I wouldn’t mind booting out the fictional Elias family from their 5000 sq ft home to get my hands on some of this tech.

I’d Rather Live in the Old Disney “House of the Future” Than the New One

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:30:00 +0000

Here’s two visions of our future home. One has wall-sized TVs, lots of plastic wares and all-electric grooming tools. The other, touchscreens everywhere, smart kitchen counters and auto-thermostats.

The first is Disney’s vision of now back in 1957, the second, its re-vision of the House of the Future with Lifeware, HP and Microsoft, which is debuting this May in Tomorrowland. We’ve more or less seen it every year at CES , and it’s not really all that fantastical or jaw-dropping. I didn’t feel teleported to some technological paradise that I couldn’t wait to blast through years of icky time to get to, anyway.

Give me wall-sized super HDTVs, plastic toilet paper and genuinely exciting, if tacky and the over the top, futuretastic baubles over intelligent lights and DRM’d furniture from Microsoft any day. (Now, or in the future.) [AP]

Life|Ware Shows Quad-Recording Media Center with Four CableCARDs

Charlie White — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:10:20 +0000

Life|Ware rolled out what it says is the first media centre PC running four CableCARDs at the same time, and it proved to us that the whole thing actually works today at CEDIA 07. Its life|media Media Centre PC is the new top of the line for the company, and it’s packing an Intel Quad Core processor, 4GB of RAM and 4TB of storage for a cool $15K. The money shot? It can record four HD channels while it’s streaming HD video to four Xbox 360 Elite boxes running the media centre extender at the same time. And, it does all this without even breathing hard.

See the performance monitor shots in the gallery above—it’s hardly working, using just 57% of its processing power while feeding and recording all that video. It’s doing that using NVIDIA’s highest-end graphics card, the 8800GTS (that’s DVI-only, but easily converted to HDMI).

We’re not sure who would really need to run four Xbox media extenders at the same time, recording all that stuff. Might be nice for a small hotel or a family with a dozen children. It was a fascinating engineering exercise nonetheless.