BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK: That 2014 has ended

And 2015 has begun. But don't despair, we have lots of good stuff coming, for instance, several movies I'm looking forward to (including but not limited to Jupiter Ascending, Fifty Shades of Grey, the sequels to Hot Tub Time Machine and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the first Fast and the Furious entry without the late Paul Walker, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ted 2 [which should hopefully be funnier than the first one], Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the Terminator franchise, remakes of Poltergeist and Point Break, the sequel to Hotel Transylvania, and the final Hunger Games movie), new TV programs like CSI: Cyber and a reboot of 1970s series The Odd Couple, the 20th anniversaries of major changes to telephone numbering plans on both sides of the Atlantic (i.e. area codes that didn't have 0 or 1 as the middle digit were introduced in North America, and a 1 added to most geographic area codes in the UK, i.e. 0632 became 01632), and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, among many other things. But right now, it's CES time in Vegas and among this year's attractions is 4K made better. Also known as Ultra HD, 4K offers four times the sharpness of today's high-definition video. Now that 4K TV sets have dropped in price, with some models available for less than US$1,000, TV makers are looking for ways to make their sets stand out. Sharp is turning to an engineering trick to make its high-end 4K set look even sharper. While TVs typically show colors by mixing red, green, and blue subpixels, Sharp's top-of-the-line model will add yellow as a fourth subpixel to improve colors. It then splits each of those subpixels in half, creating a total of eight subpixels in the space of three. Content isn't yet available to take advantage of the five extra subpixels, but Sharp uses some mathematical formulas to fill in the blanks. The Aquos Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV will measure about 80 inches diagonally. It will be out in the second half of the year. The price hasn't been set. But that's not all - Samsung is also offering a premium line with better brightness and richer colors, not just increased sharpness. It uses a technology called quantum dot — essentially a layer of materials that allows for purer colors and a wider color range. Samsung says the TV is also brighter because there's no need for a filter to compensate for color distortion. It will be called SUHD and cost more than regular 4K sets, though specifics haven't been announced. But either way, it will be too expensive and it's best to wait until they go down in price (unless, of course, you've got money to spare when the model you want is out).