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Roku has a new set-top box that makes it even easier to veg out in front of the boob tube. It’s gonna be awesome.
The box, announced Tuesday, includes an updated UI, faster processor and a remote with a headphone jack for private listening that doubles as a motion controller. It expands Roku’s set-top box features that already include 750 channels of video content.
Roku 3 is the latest in a long line of set-top boxes that date to the days when TVs had but 13 channels you could see only after fiddling with a pair of rabbit ears wrapped in foil. (Ask your grandparents. They’ll tell you all about those dark days.) Now we have set-top boxes -- most of which actually sit under your ultra-thin HDTV -- that let you watch DVDs, stream video and play games, often from a single gadget. Ain’t progress wonderful?
Here’s a look back at the set-top boxes that have allowed us to kill time with ever greater efficiency.
Image: Sebastian Pfuetze/Getty