Now was a brand of electronics by Hasbro through Tiger Electronics that specializes in multimedia. Its most popular brand was the VideoNow, which was a personal videodisc player for children who wanted to watch their favorite shows on the go. The device was introduced in 2003, and as it sold well, Tiger began to experiment with other Now brands. The Now brand was discontinued by late 2007, after the VideoNow Color FX and TVNow left store shelves.
The first, and most popular, line of "Now" products by Tiger Electronics was introduced in 2003, the VideoNow was a franchise of portable video players for children to watch their favorite shows on the go. The systems use discs called PVDs (which stands for Personal Video Disc), which can store about 30 minutes (half an hour) of video, [1] the length of an average TV show with commercials (a typical TV episode is about 20–23 minutes without them), so each PVD contains only one episode, with trailers at the end to use the leftover time on most PVDs, including Nickelodeon PVDs. Video data is stored on the left audio channel with audio on the right channel, thus making it impossible to achieve stereo sound on the system, which only plays in black and white. The video plays at 15fps. Most of the shows were from Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents , [2] and later they released shows from Cartoon Network, such as Ed, Edd n Eddy and Dexter's Laboratory , Disney only mostly released episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos and one Hannah Montana music video. A small amount of movies were also released on the system, but due to the limited space on a PVD, said movies would have to be released on at least three discs, depending on the length of said film.
The first VideoNow was released in October 2003 as a black and white media player, and by 2004, the VideoNow Color was introduced as a more colorized version of the system. In 2005, two new VideoNow systems were introduced; one called the "VideoNow Jr.", made for preschoolers through Playskool that also contains discs that were more flexible and rubbery. [3] Another called the "VideoNow XP", that's designed to resemble the Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP, and included interactive features. [3]
By 2006, the fifth and final of the original VideoNow Players was introduced as the "VideoNow Color FX"; a more translucent version of the VideoNow Color.
Hasbro also produced editing software for creating custom VideoNow Color PVDs called the VideoNow Media Wizard in 2005, which came with blank PVD media. Also included was the VCamNow, a VideoNow-branded camcorder that came with a copy of the Media Wizard.
The PlayItNow was a Digital Music Recorder launched in 2004 that also functions as a game console. It included an auxiliary port that allows users to record audio, including music, and they'll listen to it wherever they go, semi-similar to the HitClips. The device also came with licensed games from Atari, as usually 5 games were included, such as Pong, Circus Atari, Adventure, Battlezone, and Lunar Lander. Although, some PlayItNow devices also included another Atari game called Wayniak.
The ChatNow is a mobile phone-like walkie-talkie developed by Hasbro's Tiger Electronics division for the preteen market, as part of the Now brand of consumer products. [4] It includes simple digital photography and text message functionality and transmits using the Family Radio Service UHF radio band. [5] It has limited compatibility with other FRS gear; in particular, it is not compatible with CTCSS or DCS signals commonly used on standard FRS gear.
ChatNow differs from standard walkie-talkies by having a 10-digit "Buddy number" (ex.0794020300), allowing users to communicate with specific other users in a telephone-like manner; to make text messaging easier, the ChatNow units provide limited buddy list capability. There is a limited digital camera built into the device as well, and the unit can store up to 30 black and white pictures.
The units are sold in pairs, [4] and come in both flip phone and slide-out configurations. Hasbro also manufactures add-ons and carrying cases for the line.
Originally released in 2005 as the VuGo, the TVNow was a personal handheld DVR player from 2006 to 2007, published by Hasbro under Tiger Electronics, and was the last product Tiger released under the "Now" brand of personal devices for kids, following the VideoNow, the PlayItNow, the VCamNow, and the ChatNow. Advertised as a portable video recorder, the TVNow allows kids to connect to a DVD player, cable box, satellite receiver, VCR, or TV, so that they can record and play back their favorite shows on the go. It has a 128MB Built-in Memory, holds up to 1 hour of video, and store stuff on SD cards. It also has a built in MP3 player. The package dimensions up to 9.1 x 7 x 3 inches, weighs 1.35 pounds, and its ASIN is B000M6CIJI. [6]
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer that launched the same year. Powered by two custom 32-bit processors – Tom and Jerry – in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64-bit game system, emphasizing its 64-bit bus used by the blitter. The Jaguar launched with Cybermorph as the pack-in game, which received divisive reviews. The system's library ultimately comprised only 50 licensed games.
The Atari Lynx is a 16-bit fourth-generation hand-held game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal display. Powered by a 4 MHz 65C02 8-bit CPU and a custom 16-bit blitter, the Lynx was more advanced than Nintendo's monochrome Game Boy, released two months earlier. It also competed with Sega's Game Gear and NEC's TurboExpress, released the following year.
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing players to carry them and play them at any time or place.
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990, when the Intellivision was discontinued. From 1980 to 1983, more than 3.75 million consoles were sold. As per Intellivision Entertainment the final tally through 1990 is somewhere between 4.5 and 5 million consoles sold.
Tiger Electronics Ltd. is an American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld electronic games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as Brain Warp and the Brain Shift. When it was an independent company, Tiger Electronics Inc., its headquarters were in Vernon Hills, Illinois. It has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1998.
A walkie-talkie, more formally known as a handheld transceiver (HT), is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, Henryk Magnuski and engineering teams at Motorola. First used for infantry, similar designs were created for field artillery and tank units, and after the war, walkie-talkies spread to public safety and eventually commercial and jobsite work.
Simon is an electronic game of short-term memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison, working for toy design firm Marvin Glass and Associates, with software programming by Lenny Cope. The device creates a series of tones and lights and requires a user to repeat the sequence. If the user succeeds, the series becomes progressively longer and more complex. Once the user fails or the time limit runs out, the game is over. The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley and later by Hasbro after it took over Milton Bradley. Much of the assembly language code was written by Charles Kapps, who taught computer science at Temple University and also wrote one of the first books on the theory of computer programming. Simon was launched in 1978 at Studio 54 in New York City and was an immediate success, becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, SD cards or hard drive; most earlier PMPs used physical media, but modern players mostly use flash memory. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records.
The VideoNow is a portable video player produced by Hasbro and released by their subsidiary Tiger Electronics in 2003 as part of Tiger's line of Now consumer products. The systems use discs called PVDs, which can store about 30 minutes of video, the length of an average TV show with commercials, so each PVD contains only one episode, with trailers at the end to use the leftover time on most PVDs, including Nickelodeon PVDs. Video data is stored on the left audio channel with audio on the right channel, thus making it impossible to achieve stereo sound on the system, which only plays in black and white. The video plays at 15fps. Most of the shows were from Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents, and later they released shows from Cartoon Network, such as Ed, Edd n Eddy and Dexter's Laboratory, Disney only mostly released episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos and one Hannah Montana music video. A small number of movies were also released on the system, but due to the limited space on a PVD, said movies would have to be released on at least three discs, depending on the length of said film.
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, premiering in 1975 with a syndicated version airing in 1983. Since 1986, the syndicated version has been adapted into various video games spanning numerous hardware generations. Most versions released in the 20th century were published by GameTek, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1998.
Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console assets of Atari, Inc. to Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari XE, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar.
Net Jet is a Windows PC-based game system introduced by Hasbro in 2007. The game system is a controller that is somewhat similar in design to a PlayStation 2 gamepad. The Net Jet controller is plugged into the USB port in a computer and automatically started up. It downloaded games via a required Internet connection. A dozen featured games could be played on a trial basis, or unlocked via plug in "game keys". The Net Jet came in seven different color variations. Net Jet support officially ended December 31, 2009.
A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electronic musical instruments.
Monsoon Multimedia was a company that manufactured, developed and sold video streaming and place-shifting devices that allowed consumers to view and control live television on PCs connected to a local (home) network or remotely from a broadband-connected PC or mobile phone. It was one of 5 major transformations initiated by Prabhat Jain, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with 5 undergraduate and post graduate engineering degrees from Cal Berkeley and Univ of Vienna, Austria. On the even of Cisco acquiring Monsoon in 2017, EchoStar, the new parent of Sling sued Monsoon for patent infringement, having obtained confidential information about the date of the acquisition by Cisco from a Monsoon employee under murky circumstances. Monsoon settled the lawsuit by agreeing not to sell its products in the USA simply because it did not have the legal funds to fight mighty Echostar's legal maneuvers. EchoStar thus successfully removed its only competitor from the market place. This meant Monsoon's death knell.
PlayOn is a streaming media brand and software suite that enables users to view and record videos from numerous online content providers. The suite consists of two main products: PlayOn Cloud and PlayOn Desktop. PlayOn Cloud is an online service for recording digital video streams, accessible via native iOS or Android mobile device applications. PlayOn Desktop is Windows-based software that acts as a streaming dashboard and hub on the PC. The available streaming websites are organized as channels in both products. Users browse through or search the video content found in those channels in order to record the videos for later viewing. PlayOn Desktop allows watching the videos real-time on the PC, or casting the videos to a TV via a streaming device or gaming console.
Brain Warp is an electronic audio game which prototypes were invented by Big Monster Toys, and its final game production was manufactured and published by Tiger Electronics and released on June 16, 1996. In this game, players follow the spoken instructions from sound files spoken from the game unit. The player has to rotate the game in different directions so that the correct color is facing upwards. Its catchphrase which the voice says before a game begins is: "If you don't keep up with me, you're finished!". When you fail a game, the game unit will say "this game is finished" and then it will say "wanna warp again?". A Star Wars version titled Death Star Escape was released by Tiger Electronics in 1997 and the games are called Challenges.
ChatON was a global mobile communication service provided by Samsung Electronics from September 2011 to March 2015.
The Atari VCS is a home video game console produced by Atari, Inc. While its exterior encasing design is intended to pay homage to the Atari 2600, the new Atari VCS plays modern games and streaming entertainment via a Linux-based operating system called AtariOS that will allow users to download and install other compatible games, including those compatible with Windows 10. The system shares a name with Atari, Inc.'s 1977 Video Computer System, usually shortened to VCS, which was renamed to the Atari 2600 in late 1982.