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Crave: Kevin Miller from CNET was recently invited to Japan by Sony for a trip to show off some of the company’s new HDTV technology. Among the highlights were Sony’s new 4K by 2K projector, the SRX-R220, its new line of Bravia, and the XBR flat-panel LCD HDTVs, a new proprietary wireless HDMI technology, called Bravia Wireless Link, and some updates on its new OLED displays.

Sony demonstrated its new Bravia XBR8 series televisions, due this fall, adjacent to Samsung’s LN-T4681F and Pioneer’s PDP-4280HD from 2007. Miller said “the blacks on the new XBR8 series look to be the best of any LCD that I have seen to date by a good margin”. Sony chalks up those deep blacks to its Triluminous technology, which utilizes LEDs that can be dimmed independently across the screen, instead of the standard fluorescent backlight that remains constantly turned on.

Coming closer to reducing the tangle of cords often associated with modern home entertainment systems, Sony also showed off its wireless HDMI technology. This will allow users to house their components in a closed cabinet, eliminating the need to run several wires through the wall to the television.

Lastly and probably the coolest item on Miller’s itinerary was all the OLED goodness. While Sony has a 11-inch model on the market, the XEL-1.

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TVTechnology: Philips Electronics says it has demonstrated to the FCC a “fully operational white space broadband system” that senses and avoids incumbent users, all while transmitting an HDTV signal over an empty channel.

In a filing describing a June 23 meeting with FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps and his legal adviser, Philips said it also demonstrated that its technology could detect a newly introduced incumbent wireless mic signal and seamlessly switch to a new open channel without interrupting the HDTV transmission.

Philips said the technology could help create home networks that allow wireless HDTV transmission among rooms as well as linking together devices such as telephones and even HVAC systems.

The company said its system constantly scans and senses UHF spectrum for used channels, and also features “cognitive operation” in which all network nodes jump to another available white space channel should an incumbent user begin transmissions on a channel being used.

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CNET News.com: Google has released a software module that can turn Windows PCs into devices that streams media files to other devices.

The Google Media Server is a gadget that works on the Google Desktop software. It sends the data to other devices over a Universal Plug-and-Play connection such as a Sony PlayStation 3, according to the Google Desktop blog.

With it, people can play videos and music and view photos on a PC. In addition, it can connect to Web sites including Google’s YouTube for video and Google’s Picasa for photos.

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PC World: Just like its portable cousin the Nintendo DS, the Wii is starting to show it is indeed a “slow cooker” system that started life with a whimper, but will finish with a roar that includes features once only thought possible on the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Just last week, a series of third party announcements about the system’s online play and shoehorning the Call of Duty 4 engine into what many detractors call the “GameCube 2.0″ could have Wii detractors eating a bit of crow.

First, the Call of Duty 4 engine. During the official unveiling of Call of Duty: World at War this week, Wii version developer Treyarch confirmed that what gamers get on PS3 and Xbox 360, they’ll be able to find on the Wii, too.

Said Treyarch senior producer Noah Heller in an interview with videogamer: “It’s going to look better than any Wii game I’ve ever seen on the market.”

But looks aren’t everything, and Heller said that like its “next-gen” brethren, the Wii version will have a co-op mode and support multiplayer. “For all intents and purposes it’s the same game,” he said.

But how about that other hotly anticipated online-enabled 2008 title, Guitar Hero: World Tour? Ditto, said Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala in an interview with GameDaily.

“Guitar Hero World Tour will be the first Wii game to offer downloadable songs through an in-game music store. Players can preview, purchase and download songs using Wii Points and we’ll have new songs available on a regular basis,” he said.

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Eurogamer: Microsoft has released the promised DRM Transfer Tool for consolidating Xbox 360 content licences.

As you will know if you’ve upgraded from a Core or Premium model to an Elite, or if for some other mysterious reason you’ve had to switch your profile to a new system, playing licensed content like Xbox Live Arcade games on your new machine requires you to be connected to the Internet. The DRM tool stops you having to do that.

The tool can be used once a year and is accessed through www.xbox.com/en-US/drm. Microsoft says it only takes one minute to do, and there’s a video of Major Nelson showing it off for those of you who need assistance.

The main caveats are that movie licences are non-transferrable (“Movies are not ‘download-to-own’ so the licences are not transferrable,” says Gamerscoreblog), and if you have to send your Xbox 360 to Microsoft for repair any time soon they will automatically update its licences for you.

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News.com: LinuxDevices has uncovered an impressive fact about Garmin’s Nuvi (8xx and 5xxx series) GPS devices: they’re running Linux.

A quick look at the Nuvi 8xx source code indicates that the devices run a 2.6.17.7 Linux kernel on a Marvell “Monahans” processor, likely either the Marvell PXA-300 or -310. The kernel seems configured to use 64MB of RAM, and to be patched with Steven Rostedt’s real-time patches.

The devices are based on GNOME Mobile, and continue to suggest that while Linux may not have won much on the traditional desktop, it may well rule the next generation of web-top and embedded devices.

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