IBLOG SPACE

With the summer now upon us, it's time to start debating whether you want to buy the DVD box set for last season of your favorite show. To help, I've put together a list of release dates for shows across all of the networks, as well as links to Amazon so you can learn more about the box set details or pre-order the DVDs. Some shows are available for pre-order but don't yet have release dates. If your show is not listed below it's because I couldn't find the release date or the pre-order link. Some networks haven't announced many release dates, but we'll update the list below as the information comes in, so make sure to check back. ABC (Amazon Link in given below) Body of Proof: Season 1 DVD - September 20 Brothers & Sisters: Season 5 DVD - August 23 Castle: Season 3 DVD - September 20 Cougar Town: Season 2 DVD - August 30 Desperate Housewives: Season 7 DVD - August 30 Grey's Anatomy: Season 7 DVD - September 13 The Middle: Season 2

Damn. Scott cannot catch a break can he? Last night's Teen Wolf gave us our first battle between werewolves, which had my Twitter and Facebook feeds going off the rails with buzz. Personally, I thought the fight between Scott and Derek was just a sampler of what's to come, which has to be epic given the information that was dropped concerning more werewolves descending upon Beacon Hill. This is where Scott finds himself yet with another dilemma to add to his collection of mishaps he's incurred since his trek on the wild side began. Not only was it revealed that Derek is NOT the one who bit Scott, but Scott actually belongs to a "pack" now and the alpha of the group wants our teen wolf to follow rank as well. So Scott basically has sort of passed the hazing to get into this brotherhood, but does killing someone seal the deal? Will Scott get his full fur coat for such a deed? Ay-yi-yi! So in actuality, 'the dream' Scott thought he was experiencing was

I have to admit, I am beyond excited for the season 2 premiere of Pretty Little Liars. In fact, I think I might be a bit too obsessed with the show, but it's been a long time since a drawn-out mystery has been able to hold my attention for so long without frustrating me. Couple that with the fact that the season 2 premiere, which I've already watched, is a terrific and fitting return for the show, and I think you will all be as happy as I am about the return of Pretty Little Liars. I don't want to spoil anyone about tonight's season 2 premiere, but I will give you a few hints about what you'll be seeing in tonight's episode. Where is Ian? As I mentioned in the season 1 finale recap that I posted earlier today (read it here), the biggest mystery that tonight's premiere has to tackle is "what happened to Ian?" Did he somehow manage to survive the fall and his apparent death? If not, then why stole his body and why? The premiere tonight picks

There's a difference between being a mediator to a minor squabble between friends and putting two bloodthirsty predators that just don't like each other in the same vicinity. Unfortunately for Basketball Wife Suzie Ketchum, she went into the Meeting from Hell attempting the first and got the second instead. Yes, we had our first physical altercation of the third season of Basketball Wives and strangely enough, it's kind of Suzie's fault. Of course, the sort of awkward, well meaning (and uber naive) Suzie didn't have any malicious intentions going into things, as she was just extending the same courtesy to Royce that Royce gave her last season, but she was the only person at that meeting without malice. She obviously isn't the root of the tension between Royce, Jennifer, and Evelyn, but the three women were doing their best to stay away from one another and the only reason Royce agreed to meet Jen and Evelyn was to appease Suzie. It seemed like just as Royce sat

Pretty Little Liars returns tonight for its second season. Fortunately, we haven’t had to wait too long since the cliffhanger at the end of season 1. Pretty Little Liars had some terrific twists and turns revealed to us throughout its first season, so I’ve prepared a short summary of what happened in the season 1 finale and where we left off going into season 2.

We have been following the Lodsys saga since it began. Lodsys has filed suit against a bunch of developers that work on iOS and is eyeing Andorid developers as well. Lodsys maintains that the devs and other companies are infringing on its patents. There are several large companies in the tech and businesses world bringing their considerable resources to the legal battle against Lodsys and two more have now joined the fray. I mentioned last week that ForeSee had filed a claim seeking to invalidate the patents at the core of the legal battle. We have learned today that the New York Times and OpinionLab have sued Lodsys in an effort to have the patents invalidated as well. Apparently, the plaintiffs in the new case against Lodsys are seeking a declaratory judgment that the patents are invalid before Lodsys could sue them. The OpinionLab complaint alleges that Lodsys is violating the Illinois fair competition laws and committing tortuous interference by frightening investors away from the

Western Digital has announced a new case that turns your WD My Passport external HDD into a rugged device that can survive a rough life of bumps, spills, and drops on the road. If you take your external storage device with you to archive your data on the road or to store photos you take keeping the drive safe is a big deal. One spill on an unprotected drive and you might lose all of your data, which could mean lost memories and lost business. WD has unveiled a new case that is made specifically to fit the MyPassport HDD called the WD Nomad. The case has a polycarbonate exterior and a shock absorbing cushioned inner layer. It meets MIL-STD-810G for ruggedness and has a heavy-duty latch and silicone liner to seal out dirt and moisture. WD is aiming the case at anyone that is on the road a lot, but photographers that move photos from a computer to a MyPassport drive on the road will be particularly interested in the offering. Another cool feature of the case is that it has an opening for

Viewsonic has announced a new line of computer displays that all are energy efficient and use LED backlighting. The screens promise better image quality and energy savings as well. The high-end screen is the one pictured below called the VX2753mh-LED . The screen has some impressive specs with 1080p native resolution and a 30,000,000:1 mega dynamic contrast ratio for clarity and definition. The screen is 27-inches wide, is made using a RoHS production process, and has an eco-more option with Windows 7 certification. “This 27” monitor delivers the desktop space that gamers, casual users and businesses are requiring to get the best from their applications, at the right price point. Getting LED monitor technology mature enough to deliver our display standards across our entire portfolio is a challenge but we commit to not compromise and this monitor is the latest addition to our already successful range,” says James Coulson, European Marketing Manager. Along with the big 27-inch unit, Vie

HTC has reversed its position on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire , with the company now saying it will indeed be offering the new software for the smartphone. Emotions ran high yesterday when HTC announced that , contrary to original promises, Gingerbread was a no-go with the amount of memory that the Desire had to offer. “Contrary to what we said earlier,” HTC’s short statement says, “we are going to bring Gingerbread to HTC Desire.” The reasons behind the decision are not given, but we’re guessing very vocal customers saying they’ll never buy HTC handsets again proved to be quite the motivator. HTC is yet to announce a timeline for when the Gingerbread update for the Desire will be released. The company’s argument yesterday was that the Desire had insufficient memory for both Gingerbread and a satisfactory HTC Sense experience, a statement that met with ridicule when owners pointed out the various unofficial ROMs on offer which delivered just that. We’ve check

The gang at Sony has had a rough time the last few months, but the users of the Sony PSN and Qriocity music service have had the rougher time with much of their personal information making it into the wild thanks to the massive hack that Sony was victim to. Sony is trying to woo users back to the PSN and its unlimited music service Qriocity with free offers and many will gladly go back. The Qriocity network was down longer than the PSN. Sony announced earlier this month that the Qriocity network was online in all areas but Japan. To go along with the service restoration Sony has an app for Android users that gives access to the Qriocity network for streaming music. The app is called Music Unlimited and it is free. The first 30 days of service is free as well with charges kicking in after the first 30 days. The app works with basic and premium accounts. The basic plan lets the user access personalized channels of music and listen to tunes synced to their computer using the app. It als

We already know all the details on the HP TouchPad that will launch on July 1 if HP sticks to the launch date. You can bet that HP already has other TouchPad tablets in mind for the market, though the future devices might change based on how well received the first TouchPad is. I’m still not convinced that another major tablet OS will do well on the market with Android and iOS already available and garnering most of the developer support between them. HP has filed for trademarks on the names of some of the future tablets that it might build. The six new names HP has filed a trademark for include TouchPadFlex, TouchPadPro, TouchPadTwin, TouchPadGeo, TouchPad7, and the TouchPadGo. What sort of hardware will go into those machines is anyone’s guess and the names may never be used at all. The TouchPad7 would presumably be a 7-inch version, though it could possibly be a tablet with Windows 7 too I guess. TouchPad Pro sounds like a good name for a tablet that packs a keyboard aimed at the p

Nokia’s Maemo plans will see a final device running the OS launched on June 21, according to the latest batch of rumors, though the handset will be very much a niche product. Eldar Murtazin claims Nokia will produce a mere 92,000 units of the Maemo handset to satisfy all markets, a far cry from the sort of volumes the company usual expects. It’s not the first time Murtazin has talked about an imminent Maemo phone. Last month he claimed Nokia was readying a Maemo 6 device as part of a final hurrah for the platform, the company’s first handset since the N900 released in 2009. Maemo was the forerunner to MeeGo and Nokia’s half of the project that joined with Intel’s Moblin and was – until Windows Phone came along – the Finnish company’s intended salvation for smart devices. Previously a Maemo “Harmattan” 6 device was expected to be discussed at the MeeGo Conference in late May, though no hardware details broke cover. Harmattan “is API compatible with MeeGo 1.2″ but “not exactly MeeGo

TechCrunch has received some photos and a bit of info on what is claimed to be a leaked new app for the iPhone that Facebook is working on. I would wager you are on Facebook and you know how many photos are shared on the site each day by your friends alone. Imagine how many photos are shared amongst all of the people on the service each day as a whole. Photos are a huge part of the Facebook experience and the service is built in part around making them easy to share. The full details on the new Facebook iPhone photo app are not all available right now, TechCrunch says that it is still perusing the photos and content it received. Apparently, there are 50MB worth of images alone leaked to the publication by the tipster. The new app is said to be called Hovertown or WithPeople internally at Facebook. There are apparently signs that the app you see in the photo might eventually be integrated into the official iPhone app and the main site. I will say the app looks pretty cool. It takes the

If you have ear buds or earphones, you know that they can get dirty if you wear them for working out or while you work outside. Some people also end up collecting gross earwax inside the earphones that needs to be cleaned as well. Pioneer Electronics has a new line of earphones that come in a bunch of colors that are perfect for people that like to keep their stuff clean. The earphones are called the SE-CL331 and they are water resistant. The earphones have an IPX7 protection rating and can be immersed in water up to 1 meter deep. Inside the earphones is a filter that has a mesh layer and a rubber ring along with a stainless steel plate for a solid inner base. The ear holder portion of the design is round to help keep the earphones in place when you are moving around. Pioneer ships the earphones with four sizes of soft rubber tips for a customized fit. The drivers inside the earphones are 9mm units with a playback frequency of 10Hz to 20KHz with an impedance of 16 ohms. The plug is a 3

I thought I had a lot of computer parts and gadgets in my closet, but I have nothing in this room. A Polish designer and sculptor has created this room out of some wooden studs and a bunch of old computer parts. Apparently, the parts inside the room come from three years worth of the artist’s old computer gear. I think I might have 5-years worth of old computers around here, I might be about to build a new house. The room the artist Marek Tomasik built is 5m x 4m x 4.5m and it has a bunch of space between the parts making the walls see though. It’s a bit creepy and you will get no privacy. It would be perfect for a geek office though. I wonder how long it took the guy to build the room with all these parts. It appears the roof has an opening so you can get natural light in. It sort of reminds me of what the inside of HAL looked like too. I keep seeing a steering wheel in some of these photos too. I’m thinking not all of the parts came out of a computer. Nevertheless, this is a very int

For the most part all media players look alike. They all tend to have the same shape and style and many of them have similar controls or touchscreens for you to use for controlling the tracks and content you store. Colorfly has a new media player that looks very different from the masses out there. The player is called the Pocket HiFi C4 Pro and apparently, it is aimed at the audiophile looking for the best sound quality they can get. I would buy it for the looks alone. If we had digital media players in the 60′s, this retro design is what they would have looked like. The back of the device is black walnut wood and that cool engraving is done by hand. That is impressive enough; the design looks fantastic. The front of the device is brass colored and has buttons and a slider along with a little screen. The audiophiles out there will want to know what is on the inside though. The player has the ability to play 24-bit/192 KHz WAV files. It has a CIRRUS Logic CS4398 DAC and CS8422 SRC for

Sony has been accused of purposefully delaying its public announcements regarding the extent of the PlayStation Network hack, with official Japanese government documentation suggesting that gaming chief Kaz Hirai gave incorrect information in his May 1 public statement. According to the report, which Kyodo news acquired under a freedom of information request, Sony internally confirmed on April 25 (US time) that a “fairly large amount of data” had been stolen by hackers; however, Sony’s press release the following day suggested only that the company could not “rule out the possibility” that personal data had been leaked. Hirai’s inaccuracies, meanwhile, center around when the Consumer Products & Services Group president said Sony was aware of the breach. In his statement, Hirai had said that Sony discovered the data had been compromised on April 26 (US time), a day later than SCE’s official documentation submitted to the Japanese government indicates. In its defense, Sony claims to

HTC’s docking station for the Flyer tablet has turned up for pre-order in the US, with Best Buy listing the cradle ahead of delivery in 1-2 weeks time. Pocketables spotted the $49.99 accessory, which holds the Flyer in portrait orientation and basically provides a pass-through for the USB connector on the bottom edge of the slate. Unfortunately, that means the dock as a whole is pretty underwhelming. There are no photos of the rear of the dock, but according to Best Buy’s description there’s just one single port: an ExtMicroUSB connector, just like on the Flyer itself. That allows you to plug in the AC adapter to recharge the tablet, a USB cable to sync it with your PC or Mac, or an MHL adapter to hook it up via HDMI to your TV. Unfortunately, none of those accessories are included in the box, not even a spare USB cable. Considering HTC will have had space on the dock for a full-sized HDMI output, it seems like a rather calculated decision not to include the port and instead expect

The range of ways to get your PC-bound content onto your big-screen TV increases, with the arrival of the D-Link MainStage for Intel Wireless Display . Intended to work with WiDi 2.0-enabled laptops, the DHD-131 is a compact, HDMI-toting STB that allows you to stream up to 1080p HD video and 5.1 surround sound to your HTDV. As well as locally-stored videos and photos – ideal for boring family to death with the slides from your most recent holiday – you can stream Hulu and Netflix content via the WiFi link as well. For those times when you need to be professional, you can use WiDi to squirt presentations over to a projector or big screen. Connectivity includes HDMI, composite A/V and S/PDIF digital auto outputs, and setup is apparently as easy as pressing a single button. You’ll obviously need a WiDi-enabled notebook, though, which means a second-gen Intel Core processor with onboard graphics. The D-Link MainStage is available in the US now, priced at $129.99. Canadian streamers will be

Nintendo’s Wii U had its moment in the sun at E3 last week , and according to the latest batch of rumors it will be Microsoft’s turn for a new console announcement at E3 2012. According to VideoGamer ‘s “high-ranking industry source at Crytek” Microsoft is gearing up to unveil the console within the next year, with an E3 debut most likely. Specifications are yet to be finalized, and the name of the console – colloquially referred to as the Xbox 720 , though it’s doubtful it will actually launch as such - is unknown. However, Crytek has already produced a demo of TimeSplitter 4, a new game intended for the next-gen Microsoft console. The developers are using DirectX 11 and building TimeSplitter 4 on their CryEngine 3; apparently private demonstrations of the title were being given at E3 2011. DX11 brings support for tessellation, multi-threaded rendering and compute shaders to the table, and Crytek has apparently been making the most of that. Tessellation in particular is credited as “

Logitech has outed its latest webcam, the Logitech HD Webcam C615 , and as the name suggests it’s all about the high definition visuals. Capable of streaming 720p HD through Skype, FaceTime for Mac or other video conferencing services, as well as recording 1080p HD local clips, the C615 has a nifty rotating mount that can either clip to your laptop or attach to a tripod. In fact, the camera can rotate 360-degrees, and Logitech supplies a three foot USB extension cable (along with the three foot fixed cable on the webcam itself) so if you can’t find a good angle then you probably need to go to a yoga class. Both PC and Mac are supported, there’s integrated autofocus that’s good for objects up to 10cm from the lens, and up to 8-megapixel interpolated stills. Various apps are bundled, including face-recognition login, video editing software, video effects and Logitech’s own Vid HD conferencing app. The Logitech HD Webcam C615 is on sale in the US now, priced at $79.99, and will drop in Eu

If you’re a Comcast customer, your TV viewing experience will soon get very interactive. Just yesterday, Comcast announced a partnership with Skype to bring HD video calling to your television sets, and today the company unveiled a new Xfinity set-top box powered by Intel that will integrate Facebook to bring social features and app support to its content service. Comcast is using Intel’s chip for its new Xfinity set-top box, which will be manufactured by Pace. Intel has been pushing its chips into the home-entertainment markets with Google TV products already employing them. However, sales for Google TV have not met targets, and so this new partnership with Comcast is a good opportunity for Intel to expand into the digital home space. As for the Facebook integration, it goes beyond just being able to access Facebook from an app launcher. Xfinity will allow subscribers to suggest programming to friends and also receive recommendations. Other apps will also be delivered through Xfinity

Toshiba today announced four new laptop series for its Q3 lineup that meets all budgets and lifestyle needs. From the decked out Qosmio X770 gaming notebooks to the value-minded Satellite C600 sub-$500 notebooks. The launch also comes just in time for the summer back-to-school shopping season. We’ve had an early glimpse of the Qosmio X770 notebooks before. They are designed for the ultimate gaming enthusiasts and feature NVIDIA GeForce GTX560M graphics, ideal for HD media creation and advanced gaming in both 2D and 3D. The X770 comes with second-gen Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage. Also on board are Harman Kardon speakers, subwoofer, and Dolbly Advanced Audio, and Waves MaxxAudio. The 17.3-inch display is 120Hz 3D-ready 1080p HD and the raised-tile keyboard is backlit with red LED. Pricing starts at $1,199. The Satellite notebooks are more for mainstream use and at starts with the P700 Series that are priced to from $629. These 15.6-inch no

Before we begin I should warn you that I’ve been rather skeptical in the past that the iPad 2 would ever need another case again, given the utter awesomeness that the Apple-made smart cover had. Because of this, the thought of adding any case that would disallow my ability to use that genius bit of engineering has, up until recently, made me a sad panda. Recently I reviewed a sort of hand-holder for the iPad 2 and it didn’t fare especially well because it made a total mess of the other cases and coverings I was using – this iFrogz Summit case has no such problems working with my 3rd party peripherals. It’s got protection on both sides, a nice leathery feel, and it allows the iPad 2 to stand up on its own – is it time to toss the Smart Cover and move on? This case is made entirely of polyurethane with a polycarbonate core, and it utilizes magnets, a tiny bit of velcro, and its all held together with some minimal bits of thread making this piece of hardware as well sewn together as it

Verizon looks to be on track to meet its 4G LTE deployment goal of 175 markets by the end of this year. Last month, the company had initially added nine new markets and then later added another 21 markets . Today, the company announced that it will be adding another 19 markets plus two new cities on June 16. The 19 new markets added include the metropolitan areas of Fresno and Sacramento, California; Hartford, Connecticut; Boise, Idaho; Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana; Flint, Grand Rapids, and Lansing, Michigan; Dayton, Ohio,; Erie, Harrisburg and State College, Pennsylvania; Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah; Spokane, Washington; and Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two new cities to get 4G LTE are San Francisco and Detroit. This new development bumps up Verizon’s total 4G LTE coverage to 74 metropolitan areas. With Verizon’s 4G LTE, customers can expect up to 12Mbps for real-word downlink speeds and up to 5Mbps up