Tech2

Verizon and Redbox recently announced a partnership to launch a streaming/physical disc service. Yawn.

But I’ve been getting a lot of emails and questions about it recently, so maybe there’s something to it. Could it really be a contender? Could it really give Netflix serious competition?

I blew the suspense with the title, didn’t I? My bad.

I'm not sure what to make of the Viewsonic VSD220. I like it. It works as you'd hope, looks quite nice, and is priced well.

But it is definitely a niche product. If you can spot a place in your life for this niche, then I think it's definitely worth checking out.

What is it? Well, you can think of it as a 22-inch Android tablet, with HDMI and USB inputs. Or, you can think of it as a small Smart TV with Android OS.

Got ideas yet? I do.

It's only natural, in the wake of any random act of extreme violence, to look for an explanation: What caused this to happen? What can we do to prevent it from happening again?

While it's fair to ask these questions, the frustrating truth is that most of the time, we'll never know.

Not knowing, sadly, is not an acceptable answer. Instead, "the other" is blamed. When it comes to politicians and lobbyists, this "other" is anything the younger generations are into, that they themselves aren't. Thirty years ago it was rap and heavy metal. Thirty before that, it was rock and roll.

Today, the common scapegoat is video games, and blaming them is just as specious.

While the image quality of video streaming services has been improving, audio has lagged behind. But it looks like it’s catching up.

The review I just wrote of the Sonos Play:3 streaming music system, and another I recently finished of several small Bluetooth speaker systems (you’ll see the full results soon in the print edition of Sound+Vision) reminded me of just how important listening is in audio produ