Box

It's back-to-school time, so we here at the CNET appliance blog are on a bit of a lunch-box jag. But who can blame us? The lunch box is one of the most ubiquitous education accessories; it's always been functional, but maybe now it can be awesome, too.

If no other lunch box has been able to satisfy your child's artistic interest, you might consider the one the Museum of Modern Art's is offering: the Modern Kids Lunch Tote. It's a soft, zippered lunch box, with lots of mesh compartments to hold drinks and snacks. It'… Read more

Most school lunches require plenty of packaging--there are brown bags, juice boxes, plastic baggies, and more. In a year, all that food packaging generates 67 pounds of trash per child, totaling 3.5 billion pounds. It's enough to make an environmentally-minded parent cringe.

But the Lunchopolis line of lunch boxes comes with four containers and a drinking bottle that are designed to be easy to reuse. The bottle, for instance, has a wider mouth than most bottles so that it's easy to pour in liquids and add ice cubes.

There's also a financial boon to packing a &… Read more

A lot of schools have already started their fall semesters, but some families are still searching for that perfect lunch box. The Lunch & Go Lunchbox is a pretty good option if you're still looking.

The Lunch & Go is simpler--at least aesthetically--than many other lunch-case options, but it's pretty much what I had in mind the year I started 5th grade. That year I told my mom, "I don't want a little kid's lunch box anymore."

It fits nicely inside a backpack, as well as messenger bags and other book bags.

This lunch … Read more

When Junior returns to school for the fall, you'll probably pack him a lunch. If you pack a piece of fruit, it's going to roll around, get bruised, and probably be less than appealing by the time he gets to the cafeteria. The Concentrate Fruit-Friendly Lunch Box offers a little added protection for those apples and oranges.

The lunch box is plastic and comes with two "pots," ideal for holding grapes, nuts, or fruit that you want to slice up ahead of time. The box has two round areas for holding the pots of fruit securely … Read more

Only 16 months ago, Vudu, the maker of a movie-playing set-top box, was generating splashy headlines in publications like The New York Times.

Now the company, which bills itself as a video store in a box, is at the center of speculation about layoffs and executive upheaval.

Last week, CE Pro reported that the company had reduced staff by nearly 20 percent, or about 16 to 18 employees out of 100.

A Vudu representative confirmed via e-mail that the company had reduced staffing but declined to discuss figures. Vudu "had to restructure a bit from each department" the … Read more

Let's get the facts out first. Dish Network is now selling a "new" DTV converter box, called the TR-40 CRA, which will sell for $40 and is exactly the same as the currently released DTVPal. And that's not just our editorial spin--we've confirmed with Dish Network that the hardware and feature set is exactly the same, and Dish Network lays it out clearly on its DTVPal Web site. Even more confusingly, you can still order both models from the same online order form--effectively giving you the option of whether you'd like to pay … Read more

While most American TV watchers and broadcasters are preparing for (fretting over) the long-planned DTV transition in February 2009, broadcasters along the U.S. southern border are requesting an exemption from shutting down their analog broadcasts--up to five years after the deadline. The House of Representatives, according to an article by HD Guru, has already passed the DTV Border Fix Act bill by unanimous consent.… Read more

With AOL-owned Xdrive on the auction block, competing cloud storage providers are scrapping together all sorts of plans to woo these potential paying customers to their services. Two in particular, Dropio and Box.net, have set up simple escape hatches wherein Xdrive users can simply plug in their account credentials and have their data piped over.

There's a catch, though: both services have free storage caps well beneath Xdrive's generous 5GB. In the case of Dropio, that cap is 100MB. To supplement this, the service is offering Xdrive users a special premium drop, which bumps up the cap … Read more

Are you a guitarist with just enough talent to shun Guitar Hero, but too little to form your own Kiss cover band? Boy, do we have the product for you.

The JamVOX is a hardware and software combo that outfits your computer with a tiny, badass VOX amp USB sound card and a software package with virtual amplifiers and effects (ala Guitar Rig) that helps you mute or solo the guitar parts from your favorite songs. Basically, this thing lets you surgically remove your guitar heroes from their songs, and replace them with your own ham-fisted shred fest.

The JamVOX system is due out in September, with a suggested retail around $350. Video after the break.… Read more