Source: Gizmodo | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:20 am

Intel will miss its already-lowered 4Q targets

Source: Gizmodo | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:13 am

Termite stomach bug to make ethanol (CNET)

CNET - ZeaChem, a company that uses the microbes in termite guts to make ethanol, said on Thursday it has raised $34 million to build its first plant.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:01 am

Sporty BMW Pocket Truck Runs Errands in Style — for a Sticker-Shock Price

BMW's pocket truck is handsome and well equipped, and you'll love the company's trademark sports-car feel. But is it worth the hefty price tag?

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am

Jan. 8, 1790: Father Knows Best — Embrace Science

1790: During his first — and the nation's first — State of the Union address, President George Washington urges the young nation to encourage the sciences and literature, calling knowledge "the surest basis for public happiness."

He also called for importing "useful inventions from abroad" while encouraging homegrown genius to flourish, by means of offering patent protection for inventors.

Attaching importance to the study of science and literature reflected not only Washington's views, but the general attitude of the gentry toward classical education. The Founding Fathers, most of who came from this class, were children of the Enlightenment, the philosophy of rationalism that rose in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Faith in science was a central pillar of that philosophy.

Washington, of course, was also looking to the country's economic future, not to mention its military security.

Washington, who delivered his address at Federal Hall in New York City, saw these kinds of presidential pronouncements as a unifying force. He was also fulfilling his obligation to the Constitution, which stipulates that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

That first address was focused very much on the business of nation-building. Among Washington's other suggestions:

• The establishment of a strong standing army. ("To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.")

• The establishment of a national university to bind the "seminaries of learning already established."

• That the government should be able to "distinguish between oppression and necessary exercise of lawful authority."

• To welcome immigration as a means of helping the country grow.

• To provide a means of "pacifying" restive Indian tribes posing a threat to settlers encroaching on their lands.

In response to Washington's request , Congress passed a patent act. Washington signed it into law April 10, and the United States granted its first patent July 31, 1790.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am

Sporty BMW Pocket Truck Runs Errands in Style — for a Sticker-Shock Price

BMW's pocket truck is handsome and well equipped, and you'll love the company's trademark sports-car feel. But is it worth the hefty price tag?

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am

Viewer's Cut: Interactive Film Gives Editing Tools to You

Watch Late Fragment straight through and you won't really understand why a young woman kills her doting father. Take control of the film, unlocking hidden footage and shuffling scenes around, and you learn that Dad may dote a little too much. Because the truth is, our perception of stories and characters shifts as we learn more about them. On this filmfest-and-DVD-only feature from a trio of Canadians, you delve deeper by using your remote: Click at the beginning of a scene and you'll be taken somewhere totally different than if you do so at the end. Any given viewing might weave 90 or so of the 139 available scenes into a Pulp Fiction-like circular story arc.

Inspired by videogames and multi- and nonlinear films like The Usual Suspects and Memento, the auteurs linked the scenes together with an interactive video system used by the likes of Daft Punk and Radiohead. "Audiences are getting used to participating in their entertainment experience," says Ana Serrano, one of Fragment's producers. "And we wanted that participation to be on two levels: physical, by clicking the remote, and also cognitive, where audiences are trying to figure out what's happening in front of them."

Next, Serrano teams up with Fragment codirector Anita Doron to make an interactive musical, which will use Blu-ray technology to let viewers save specific scene paths. "There are users who become obsessed with their cut of the film, and they won't stray from it," she says. Sounds like every director in Hollywood.

How it works
In Late Fragment, group therapy scenes function as a visual menu. Click when Theo is in the frame to find out why he cuts himself, or click when you see Faye to learn who she's visiting in jail. Why is Kevin waiting so calmly for the police? Click your remote to learn more.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am

Think Your Desktop Is Cluttered? Try World of Warcraft

Beware, all ye who enter World of Warcraft. For here you will find an insanely obstructive mosaic of menus, Health bars, widgets, and chat windows. Well, if you play it right, like we do.

As Blizzard Entertainment's designers created it, WoW is set in a pretty, almost placid Tolkienesque universe. But for the hardcore gamer, that pristine landscape is begging for augmentation. There's just too much to track: At any given moment, a player might be expected to coordinate an upcoming event with scores of guildmates across four continents, juggle a massive inventory of items, and track online auctions, all while fighting wave after wave of evil trolls. Here's a look at a typical WoW desktop, with explanations for n00bs.

1 Ventrilo // When dozens of players need to coordinate, text chat just won't do—voicechat app Ventrilo helps prevent anarchy. It's a party line for orcs and gnomes.

2 Cartographer // The standard map in WoW is woefully inadequate. This add-on highlights important locations, like resource-rich mining nodes.

3 Character Status // This little display tracks your avatar's well-being. When the green Health bar gets low, it's time to break out some healing potion.

4 Bartender // These buttons represent your character's available actions, from sorcery to swordplay. High-level players who've amassed scores of abilities need Bartender to keep them all straight.

5 Auctioneer Suite // Shopping for some new Leggings of Beast Mastery? This bot scans auction houses and ranks goods by price and availability.

6 ItemRack // It never fails—dress in a cotton tunic and leather trousers and suddenly a wave of murlocs attacks. Changing into armor takes forever, but ItemRack lets you switch into battle gear with a single click.

7 Combuctor // This search function helps sift through the hundreds of outfits, keys, potions, and weapons in your inventory.

8 Group Calendar // Just because you live in your mom's basement doesn't mean you can't network like a big shot CEO. This calendar helps guilds coordinate 40- player, eight-hour raids.

9 Bejeweled // Worried that 30 hours a week of WoW isn't enough gaming? Fire up this game-within-a-game version of the addictive puzzler Bejeweled to fill in the inevitable downtime.

10 Twobox Toolkit // The pink chat text is being generated by TwoBox, an app that helps players control two or more characters at once. "Dual boxers" log in their extra avatar on a second computer and keep tabs on it through text chat.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am

Make video about LEDs

Collin Cunningham of the MAKE blog put together a wonderful video about the history of LEDs, along with a demonstration on making a primitive LED out of silicone carbide.

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Jan 2009 | 4:40 am

Portable DJ Gadget Improves UI with Second Version

Tonium is releasing the second version of its Pacemaker music DJ player at CES 2009 this week, and the company says this is the one that will live up to the expectations and finally provide an easy-to-use portable turntable.

The new 60GB Pacemaker looks like the old one, but the change is all about the software and the user interface. The UI has been fully altered to make it easier to get to your music faster, only requiring pushing a button or two, as opposed to the endless scratching and pulling needed in the last version.

The main feature that makes mixing much easier is called 'auto beat match,' which is matched to a single button and mixes selected songs together (There's no word on how many songs you can mix at once). This should enable inexperienced DJs to assimilate to the gadget's other advanced features.

The original mobile disco was a lot of fun but it was impractical. In her review, Senior Editor Nancy Miller thought the Pacemaker DJ player was mostly a good idea for a gadget, but the complicated menus and UI (as well as the huge price) soured her overall experience.

Tonium Marketing VP Ola Sars says that even though the UI now makes the DJ a much more approachable option, the player will still maintain its full Pro DJ capabilities and that the Pacemaker online community should reflect that. But as of now, there are no promises the 2.0 will be cheaper than before.

Considering the economy and the fact we still like the idea of a cool DJ gadget, we're crossing our fingers that the price will be slashed. Because making a gadget everyone can use doesn't mean squat unless people can get their hands on it.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 4:37 am

Microsoft-Funded Yahoo Run? Well, Except Without Microsoft… [BoomTown]

How can BoomTown put it plainly?

The alleged deal being cooked up by a group of Silicon Valley investors to take a run at Yahoo using money raised from Microsoft, is little more than what we used to call a “trial balloon” when I worked at the Washington Post.

That did not stop Silicon Valley from jabbering about the latest plot twist all day, in which the TechCrunch report named no names, but carried an awful lot of water for someone looking to see the reaction to such an idea.

Because when you actually talk to sources at the wallet itself–that would be the money-laden Microsoft (MSFT)–they scoff at the notion that they would help others buy Yahoo (YHOO), in order to get at its search business.

“We can deal directly with Yahoo, which is moving through a process to get a new CEO, and when the time is right, we will deal with their leadership,” said a source close to Microsoft’s thinking. “Getting involved in some convoluted deal with others in control…it’s idiotic.”

Yahoo sources also called the idea–which has been floated numerous times to no result–silly. “I guess anyone can make a bid for the company,” said one source. “But actually doing it is another thing.”

So, here’s my official announcement that All Things Digital will be trying to buy Yahoo forthwith. Now, if I can only find that $18 billion, it is mine, all mine.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Jan 2009 | 4:36 am

Fact: Halo Wars comes out on February 28

Microsoft just announced at CES that Halo Wars, the RTS that’s bound to confuse more than a few longtime Halo fans—it’s not a shooter?!—will be released on February 28. A demo will be on Xbox Live on February 5. That is all.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:59 am

Fish memories underestimated

Israeli scientists say the idea that a fish has a memory span of only 3 seconds is a myth. Researchers at Israeli Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa said fish trained to remember a certain sound at feeding time reacted to the same sound after five months in the wild, The Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday. The researchers said the findings could help promote more natural fish farming techniques, allowing fish farmers to release trained fish into the wild to mature and then bring them back when they are ready to be harvested. The fish grow in their natural environment, without the use of cages and without environmental pollution, the report said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:56 am

Ladybugs a sign of healthy olive trees

Spanish researchers say ladybugs in olive orchards are a good indicator of the groves' health and sustainability. The University of Granada found that ladybugs are a useful way of distinguishing organic, conventional and integrated farming systems. The university said a two-year study
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:52 am

UK music industry owes an awful lot to digital downloads

It wasn’t too long ago that the music industry was complaining all day long that digital downloads would ruin the music industry. Au contraire! The BPI (sorta like the UK’s RIAA) has just revealed that 2008 was the biggest ever year in Britain for singles. And yes, the industry has digital downloads to thank.

Of course, we’re talking about legal downloads here: iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc. Downloads were up 33 percent last year from the previous, with a total of 115 million files served. Similarly, album downloads were up 65 percent over 2007.

One big reason: the world economy is broken. As such, when people are looking to buy music they want to do so for as little as possible. A couple quid for an album is more attractive than walking/driving/taking a metro to HMV or some other High Street boutique than laying down, um, more quid.

So there, not only have downloads not ruined the music industry, but they’ve saved it. More italics!

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:51 am

JibJab Closes $7.5 Million Series C Round To Keep The Laughs Rolling

JibJab, a site popular for its parody videos and irreverent eGreetings, has closed a $7.5 million Series C funding round with participation from new investors Overbrook Entertainment (a production company co-founded by Will Smith) and Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as existing investor Polaris Venture Partners. The company had previously raised around $9.4 million. The site generates a huge volume of traffic every year, and counts itself among the Top 100 most popular sites in the United States according to Quantcast (it currently ranks #73).

Over the holiday season JibJab recorded 60 million visits as users created 35 million personalized eCards on the site - figures that were likely boosted by the very popular ElfYourself videos that let you stick your face on a dancing elf.

The site is best known for its widespread political parodies (if you didn’t see the This Land video during the 2004 election, you were probably hiding in a cave), but has also expanded in recent years to offer parody sketches and personalized E-greetings. The company generates revenue by offering premium eCards and content through a subscription service alongside its assortment of free cards, and also sells digital downloads and personalized gifts like mugs and mousepads.

Time for Some Campaignin’ | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:46 am

New Liquid Cools Hot Gaming PCs (PC World)

PC World - Hardcore Computer has developed a new liquid to cool computer components inside a family of monstrous PCs it created for gamers, and the company hopes to attract interest for the coolant from other parts of the IT industry that grapple with heat, such as server makers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Jan 2009 | 3:20 am

Critics: Mine plan could affect caribou

A proposed gravel mine in Alaska would disrupt a caribou migration route and local subsistence hunting, critics say. The Anchorage Daily News reported Wednesday that the plan by a construction company calls for pulling gravel from roughly 40 acres near Hugo Mountain, about 18 miles northeast of Kotzebue, Alaska.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:59 am

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta as a Free Download

Windows 7 is only one part of Microsoft's three-pronged strategy to provide software for what Ballmer called the "three screens" -- PCs, phones and TVs.

"I believe windows will remain at the center of people's technological solar system," Ballmer said, touting the company's efforts in the mobile, online, and home entertainment markets.

For instance, Ballmer announced that its online software suite, Windows Live Essentials, will be coming out of beta as of tomorrow.

The company announced several Windows Live partnerships, including one with Facebook, which will allow Facebook users to share content that they've uploaded into their Facebook accounts with their Windows Live accounts. Similar interconnectivity already exists between Windows Live and Flickr.

Also, Dell will be preloading Windows Live Essentials on its computers, replacing the Google Toolbar.

Ballmer promised a new version of Microsoft's OS for smartphones, Windows Mobile, to come in the first quarter of 2009. This OS will include support for Adobe Flash-based apps, including the video players used on many sites, such as YouTube.

After Ballmer, Microsoft's Robbie Bach took the stage to tout the company's Xbox 360 and Xbox Live products. According to Bach, 28 million Xbox consoles have been sold to date, and there are 17 million active users of the Xbox Live service.

The company will also be releasing two new Halo games in 2009, including Halo Wars, a strategy game that will ship on March 3, and Halo 3: Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.

Wrapping up the keynote, Ballmer and another Microsoft executive gave a demo of a futuristic multitouch application for students that made use of many technologies from the company's R&D labs, including automatic document summarizing and highlighting of key points, organizing notes along topical timelines, and collaborating with other students on a Microsoft Surface-type touch-sensitive table. They also showed what they said was a prototype flexible display, although the image shown on the bendable plastic did not seem particularly dynamic.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:53 am

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta as a Free Download

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer uses his first appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show to announce that his company will make the Windows 7 beta available worldwide as a free download this week.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:30 am

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta as a Free Download

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer uses his first appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show to announce that his company will make the Windows 7 beta available worldwide as a free download this week.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:30 am

Akon Talks Digital Music at CES

LAS VEGAS -- Sporting a sharp, shiny suit, R&B star Akon took the stage during Billboard's digital music sessions at the Consumer Electronics show on Wednesday to share some tricks of the trade for making money from music in 2009.

"Creatively, I always think financially too," explained Akon to a warm audience response, and he knows whereof he speaks. Not only has the singer sold loads of albums the traditional way, but he regularly makes a mint selling ringtones. Ringtones are so important to him these days that he made sure the songs on his last album would sound good as ringtones by auditioning various mixes on his cellphone before deciding on the final mix.

The singer says that in addition to ringtones, he and his Universal Music Group eLabs label have learned to work online community to their advantage, somewhat ironically by sharing music with them. "It's so much easier [than it used to be] to take traffic and delegate it where you want it to go," said Akon, who explained that he and/or Universal posts new music there to see how the community reacts to it -- a near-instantaneous feedback loop that guides decision-making on what to release and how. "He has this well-trafficked site where he can float stuff out there, which applies to any business," added Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of UMG eLabs (pictured to the left).

But no artist's digital strategy would be complete without YouTube in this day and age. Caraeff claimed Akon's video revenues were up 70-80 percent last year and that 70 percent of the increase was due to international users, many of whom were discovering his videos online for the first time. According to Caraeff, nearly all of that video revenue came from YouTube.

Back to Akon's shiny suit. When I cornered him backstage after the appearance (just before my own panel appearance), Akon explained that it's part of his own upscale clothing line set to debut in April under the  brand name Aliaune, which is Akon's real first name.

Who says there's no money to be made in music anymore?

See Also:

• Video Pick: Superdeluxe Spoof 'Akon Calls T-Pain'
• How to Make Custom IPhone Ringtones Without Paying Apple $2
• Underlined: The Hills, Akon, Conan O'Brien

From left to right, photo depicts Caraeff of UMG, Akon and Billboard editorial director/moderator Bill Werde

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:28 am

Clickfree Backs Up Your Files Easily, So You’re Not Toast [Personal Technology]

If you got a new computer over the holidays, you’re probably focused right now on enjoying all its cool features, or savoring how much faster it is than the old warhorse it replaced. The last thing you want to dwell upon is the chore of backing up your data.

Still, backing up your files is important. Hard disks fail, and computers get lost or stolen. When those things happen, files that aren’t backed up can be lost forever, or may be recoverable only for a high price. Unfortunately, the process of performing backups and recovering files can be a cumbersome task.

So, this week, I’ve been testing a product that claims to make the process dead simple. In fact, its maker claims that the gadget, called Clickfree, is “Easier than making toast!”

I didn’t find it to be quite that simple, and it has a couple of important downsides. But Clickfree pretty much worked as advertised in my tests. It is an automated way to back up your important files, as long as you remember to use it regularly.

Clickfree is a compact, specially designed external hard disk that automatically backs up your key files — every time you plug it into your PC — without requiring you to install or launch any software. You don’t even have to press a button. Every time you plug it in, a window pops up on your screen that counts down from 24. When it reaches zero, the Clickfree drive starts copying a staggering array of the most common and important files on your computer. After the first backup, subsequent sessions copy only new or changed files.

The key trick behind Clickfree is that the backup software is built into the external drive itself, and launches whenever the drive is plugged in. It doesn’t reside on your computer.

The drives come in a variety of sizes, from a 120 gigabyte version that costs $90, to a new 1 terabyte version that costs $230. Each drive can be used to back up multiple PCs. They can be ordered at goclickfree.com.

And Clickfree’s maker, a Toronto company called Storage Appliance Corp., has just introduced a new product for people who already own an external hard disk. It’s a special $60 cable with built-in circuitry, called the Transformer, that makes your own drive behave like a Clickfree drive.

Clickfree doesn’t back up your whole hard disk, or your programs. But it does back up over 400 common types of data files, without requiring you to make any choices or configure any settings. It captures email, office documents, photos, music, videos, financial data and more. If you like, you can remove or add file types.

Once the files are backed up, Clickfree presents you with a screen that organizes the files it has collected by category and type. From this screen, you can restore any or all of the files on the same computer, or you can move the drive to another computer and copy them to that machine.

The Clickfree software also allows you to view, or browse through, your backed-up files, print or email photos, and to perform other tasks, as long as the drive is plugged in.

Clickfree originally was designed only for Windows PCs, but the company this week plans to introduce new models that can be used to back up Macintosh computers.

I tested both the Clickfree drive and the new Clickfree Transformer cable, using a drive I already owned, on multiple Windows computers, some running Windows XP and some running Windows Vista. The products worked properly on all of the machines but one, a Vista laptop from Sony. Clickfree’s maker guessed that the Sony was one of the rare machines that require the drive to use an external power supply. It said it supplies such power supplies free to users who need one.

Otherwise, Clickfree worked well, even on a virtual Windows XP machine running on a Mac. Backup was smooth and fast, and I was able to restore files easily, either to the same PC from which they came, or to other machines. I was even able to move files from a Windows PC to a Mac running only Apple’s (AAPL) operating system, not a virtual copy of Windows.

The sole Clickfree function that consistently failed for me was a relatively minor one: a feature that allows you to upload photos directly from the Clickfree software to Facebook.

Unlike a toaster, Clickfree doesn’t work instantly the first time you use it. The product has to install drivers so it can be recognized, and in some cases I had to reboot the computer to complete this process. After that, it was smooth sailing in my tests.

But Clickfree has two big downsides. It doesn’t work constantly in the background, so you have to remember to use it. The company now includes a program that reminds you to back up, but you still have to get out the Clickfree drive and do it. The other downside is that Clickfree doesn’t create an offsite backup of your files. The company is planning to add online backups this year.

Still, Clickfree is one of the simplest and most effective backup products I’ve tried.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:24 am

Sony is going ECO

 

Eco is the new buzzword and there is no escaping at CES this year. There isn’t a CE manufacturer out there that wants to be caught dumping toxic materials into consumers livingrooms; Sony is no different. Updated HCFL backlights helps drop LCD power consumption by almost 40%, an ambient light sensor adjusts the backlight appropriately and a motion sensor turns off the set after a period of inactivity. Three LCDs, ranging in size between 40, 46, and 52, are going to be available this summer for a yet to be announced price.

Gallery after the link.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:17 am

Gallery: Backstage at CES 2009

Want to know what it really takes to put on a 130,000-person tradeshow? Don't miss Jon Snyder's entertaining and revealing photos of the Consumer Electronics Show before all the booths have been put together. It's a chaotic jumble of construction equipment, high-tech electronics, and massive corporate logos. It's hard to believe that in a bit more than 12 hours, this will become the bustling hub of activity that is CES 2009.

For all 13 photos, hit the link below.

Gallery: Backstage at CES 2009

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:15 am

The Sony Webbie - a colorfully HD shooter

Sony has a little camcorder aimed at the Internet crowd. The Webbie captures HD MPEG-4 video and 5 MP photos. It has a 5x optical zoom and special software that makes uploads speedy. Content is recorded on Sony’s Memory Stick PRO Duo media. The MHS-CM1 Webbie will be available for order tomorrow for $200 and the vertically-styled MHS-PM1 will drop in April for $170.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:07 am

CES ’09: Microsoft Yawnote [Digital Daily]

With little in the way of exciting news to announce, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight promises to be a lackluster, if not downright wearisome, affair–even if you’re unnaturally excited by the idea of Windows 7. With the beta version of the operating system widely leaked last week, there’s not all that much to reveal. Unless, of course, Windows 7 PCs–like Vista PCs before them–ship with XP downgrade rights…

Beyond that, there’s likely to be a fair bit of talk about the Windows Mobile platform, the company’s new–and prematurely announced–agreement to become Verizon Wireless’ default search provider and perhaps even some sort of Zune interface for cellphones, but little else.

The keynote begins a bit before its scheduled start–not with Steve Ballmer, but with two beat-boxers. Wonderful, they’re rapping about CES. Where’s Bill “Big Pimpin’” Gates, when you need him?

The performers leave and Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro takes the stage. He acknowledges it was a “tough 2008,” and after a few introductory remarks (”Steve received a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SATs!”) introduces Ballmer. But first a little video. As it plays, I notice my in-box filling up with a handful of Microsoft press releases: Microsoft’s Ballmer Announces Availability of Windows 7 Beta and Windows Live, Microsoft makes new, early version of Windows available, etc.

Ballmer takes the stage a few moments later, all high-energy and charisma. He begins by recognizing Microsoft’s history at the event and, of course, that Bill Gates has keynoted a CES or two in his time. A brief aside about e-mail messages he’s received about the event today–from Gates “Steve make sure you’re at CES and not that other event in Las Vegas this week (presumably the AVNS) and from Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang: “Steve why do you keep ignoring my friend requests on Facebook?”–and then on to an industry overview.

“Today our world, our nation and our industry face some really big challenges,” he says. “All of us, we’re all feeling it. And its impact will likely be with us for quite awhile. But no matter what happens with the economy or how long this recession lasts, I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer.”

Companies that pursue innovation will do better than those that pull back, says Ballmer. “We will continue to invest more than others.”

Outlining the broader vision now. Microsoft’s original vision was to put a PC in every home–a single screen. Today, it’s about three screens. The PC, the mobile phone and the TV. And the barriers between these screens are slowly going away. They’re being connected by the cloud. This is the “last mile” for the consumer experience–bringing the TV, the PC and the mobile phone together through the cloud.

And at the center of this experience? Windows, of course.

“In the next couple of years the computer will be able to hear you,” says Ballmer. “Speech gestures and handwriting will become a normal part of the way we interact with our PCs, our phones and our TVs…Windows has become the language that over a billion people speak around the world.”

Moving on to hardware now. “At this time economically, when people are struggling…the choice that offers the most power and most value for the money is the PC.”

Oh, we all know what’s coming now, don’t we?

Yep. “That’s why I’m a PC and I’m proud of it!”

Onward. “Microsoft is transforming Windows from a PC operating system to the cloud,” says Ballmer, who notes that he’s excited by the progress the company’s made with Windows 7. “It’s the best Windows ever,” he says. Faster boot times, touch support, etc. “We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever. We are putting in all the right ingredients…and working hard to get it right and to get it ready…Windows 7 will make every day tasks faster and easier.” And then, as expected, Ballmer announces the official beta. Smattering of applause. No big surprise here.
“I encourage you all to get out and download it,” Ballmer adds.

Moving on to Windows Live now. A handful of announcements. Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Windows Live Mail. A partnership with Facebook. And a distribution deal with Dell and the Verizon Wireless search deal, which was unofficially announced earlier today.

Ballmer invited product manager Charlotte Johnson to the stage for a demo of Windows 7, etc. Apparently very easy to clear desktop clutter in the new OS. Easy to compare two documents or Web sites as well. If that’s Windows 7’s marquee feature, Microsoft is in big trouble. This is all stuff that was in the pre-beta. “Homegroup” feature seems a nice way to set up a home network. ‘Course all the PCs involved must be Windows 7 machines for it to work.

On to multi-touch. “We built touch into the DNA of Windows 7,” Johnson says. She uses a touchscreen to navigate a 3D map of Manhattan. Yawn. Very little new here. The same is true of the Windows Mobile demo. Big revelation: Internet Explorer 6 for mobile phones supports Flash. And the Windows Live home page can now display updates from Facebook, Twitter, etc.. No. Nothing much new here at all. Seems today’s big announcement is the official beta of Windows 7.

Oh, here’s something. A new feature in Messenger. Some sort of dynamic display picture to communicate user moods. Exciting. A bit more patter and we’re on to the obligatory “I’m a PC” ads.

And then…Another band? An Australian musical comedy act called Tripod. WACKY. No Flight of the Conchords, though.

Tripod finishes up and Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division takes the stage. “Zune had a great year. We’ve won critics over,” he says–and without a trace of irony. Two million people on Zune social, apparently.

Moving on to Xbox. “Not only our best holiday season but our best year ever for Xbox sales.” Two new Halo games in the pipe–”Halo Wars” and “Halo 3 ODST.”

Then a few moments on Xbox Live Primetime and we’re on to Kodu, a tool that enables users to create games without knowing a traditional programming language. Bach invites a 12 year-old girl onstage to demo it. She shows off a game she created and then beats Bach at it.

Ballmer returns to the stage for some Microsoft Research demos. First, some sort of digital anatomy textbook. $5 bucks and a copy of Bill Gates’s “The Road Ahead” says we’ll get another Surface demo next.

And indeed we do. That’s followed by flexible color display less than 1mm thick. And that’s pretty much it. A few final remarks from Ballmer and Shapiro and then Tripod closes out the keynote.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Jan 2009 | 2:00 am

Boing Boing at the Consumer Electronics Show

This week, the Boing Boing Gadgets crew are embedded at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Alas, I am not. So I experience their joy, sadness, wonder, and cynicism via insightful, entertaining, dramatic, and action-packed blog posts about new laptops, gaming gear, TVs, digicams, wristradios, and, er, washing machines. Boing Boing Gadgets at CES

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:59 am

Sony updates its camcorder lineup

CES brings big changes to Sony’s camcorder offerings. High-def camcorders are getting big HDDs and there are a bunch to choose from with ranging pricing. Non-HD camcorders are getting the same hard-drive treatment too and will start at attractive MSRPs. Don’t want a built-in HDD? Cool, Sony has new HD flash models too. Oh, and there are new DVD models too. Full details after the jump.

The HDR-XR520U will be the king of Sony’s consumer regime when it drops in March for $1500. This puppy is loaded with 1080p recording, 12 MP still shot, built-in GPS receiver and NAVTEQ maps, but most importantly, a 240GB HDD takes care of all the HD recording. That means 101 hours of 1080p in LP mode. That’s a lot.

The rest of the XR lineup sport nearly the same specs just with smaller hard drives - and prices. The HDR-XR500U ships with 120GB HDD at $1300. THe HDR-XR200U loses some processing power but retains the 120GB HDD and ships for $1000.

The standard-def models are going to start out at $400 for the DCR-SR41 with a 60GB HDD. $50 bucks more gets you 80GB in the DCR-SR87. Both of these are launching in February. 

 

Flash memory ‘corders are getting an upgrade in March. The DCR-SX60 comes packing with 16GB memory embedded with a Memory Stick Pro Duo slot for even more memory. $370 in March. The DCR-SX41 is ’bout the same thing except it has 8GB and $300 price.

Sony isn’t done with DVD either. Some peeps still like to hold their memories. Whatever. The DCR-DVD650 is dropping in February for $300. It is loaded with a 60x optical zoom which is impressive.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:57 am

Samsung's New Big Screen LCD is Refreshing. Literally

LAS VEGAS -- At its CES 2009 pres conference today, Samsung showed off its rather stunning new LCD TV, the Series 7, comprising several different sized but equally good looking sets.

The problem with LCDs is that they get blurry when the on-screen action hots up. Samsung has solved this by upping the refresh rate of the display to 240Hz, or four times faster than the standard 60Hz rate. This is coupled with what Samsung calls Auto Motion Plus, an interpolation trick which guesses where a pixel would be if the source refreshed fast enough to send it and uses the excess of cycles to put it in its place.

I was half way back in the room when Samsung showed the TV off, but even from there the picture looked incredibly sharp and smooth, more like plasma than LCD. The bright CCFL (Cold cathode fluorescent lamp) backlight probably doesn't hurt, either.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:54 am

Sony didn’t get the memo on thin TVs, brought lots of OLEDs to CES

 

Sony’s 2009 CES booth is showing off some sick, like sickly sick, thin sets. Primarily are these OLED Proof of Technology models that are dead sexy even to me. Chances are none of these will ever see a Euro snob loft. They are just concepts and there is nothing wrong with that. That thin TV, it’s .9 millimeter thick - or is that thin? Hmmm.

Apparently Sony has more OLED news at the CES keynote tomorrow evening. Interesting…Photo gallery after the jump.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:47 am

Sony’s new X-Series touchscreen Walkmen are lookin’ kinda good

Sony’s dropped a solid-looking touchscreen Walkman line with the X-Series. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the finish (looks a bit like the kitchen counter), but these tiny Sony players always make up for kind of standard looks with a really polished feel. It comes in 16GB and 32GB flavors, prices to be determined, and does what you’d expect regarding YouTube and that sort of thing. It’s got “an Internet web browser,” which doesn’t really strike a tone of confidence, but hopefully it will let you view the internet web with no problems.

They’ve also got noise cancelling built-in, which is nice, but what are you trying to say to those around you?

That’s really all there is to be said, except that I like the Samsung P3 better. So there.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:45 am

Video game may reduce PTSD

British researchers say the video game Tetris may reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. A study by psychologists at Oxford University suggests the game can help erase bad memories and reduce flashbacks, the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday. Emily Holmes of the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, said volunteers exposed to traumatic images and then half of the group played Tetris for 10 minutes, while the other half did nothing.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:42 am

Hands-on with the Sony VAIO P

My, oh my. The Sony VAIO P is a popular netbook. After using some Peter Ha-taught ninja skills, I made my way through the crowd to this tiny netbook. Overall, the netbook feels Sony solid. The nub was a tad finicky but it works. The resolution though is astoundingly high on the small screen. I love small font but at the default setting it was too small for me. Thankfully the P Series does support external displays. It’s small, it carries the standard high Sony price, but it does seem nice. If you can get used to the mouse nub and small font, that is.

Photo gallery after the jump.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:41 am

Panasonic Announces Sexy, Pointless Portable Blu-ray Player

LAS VEGAS -- Take a look at the photograph above and wonder, for a moment, just why Panasonic might release a tiny Blu-ray player with a built-in screen. But that's just what it did at CES 2009 today.

Consider the case: The DMP-B15 has a netbook sized screen (8.9") with WSVGA resolution (pretty much the same as a netbook). It has an Ethernet port to use Panasonic's walled garden Internet content service, Vieracast, and a rather poor three hour battery life (just like a netbook!)

Of course, it has a Blu-ray drive in there, but why on Earth would you want that? At this size a DVD rip would be sufficient. The only advantage we see is that there is an HDMI out, meaning it'll work as a standalone Blu-ray player when hooked up to a TV.

Price is as yet unknown, but we expect it to come in somewhere above the price of a netbook. Unless, of course, its a Sony netbook.

Press release [Panasonic]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

See Also:

• Panasonic Demos Inch-Thin Plasma TV: Crowd Swoons

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:37 am

Sony’s P-series Vaios are sexy little things

So these little P-series things are looking kind of weird, and kind of hot. I’m being pulled in two different directions. The screen aspect ratio is ridiculous: at 8″ and 1600×768 it’s just over 2:1, which is… pretty freakin wide.

They may be tiny, but they’ve got guts: they’ll run Vista (barely, with a 1.33GHz Atom) and they’ve got GPS built-in, but it looks like you’re paying for the featherlight 1.4lb curb weight and tiny form factor with battery life. It boasts a mighty four hours of battery unless you get the battery add-on. It’ll have a 128GB flash hard drive and 2GB of RAM. That’s actually looking like kind of a bargain, which I think we can all agree is rare from Sony. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe instead of “world’s lightest 8-inch laptop” they should have announced it’s the “world’s weakest $900 laptop.”

Either way, you can take a closer look here at the Sony site.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:25 am

Panasonic Demos Inch-Thin Plasma TV: Crowd Swoons

As you can see from our own Jon Snyder's super snaps (more below), Panasonic's new Z1 Viera is quite the supermodel, and just as deep. The plasma TV, announced today at CES 2009, is just 1 inch thin and can sit happily on either wall or stand.

Because it's so skinny, you don't want a rat's nest of cables cluttering things up. Panasonic fixes this by using wireless HD streaming -- the set top box hooks up to the cables and then you hide the thing at the back of the room, from where it beams a (presumably proprietary) HD signal to the TV set.

The Viera also gets Vieracast, a fancy name for a walled garden of Internet services. Panasonic takes video from the internet, puts it on its own server and then sends it on out to the Vieras. You know, like AOL for TV. We suppose that it should mean you'll get an easy, streamlined UI slipped over the 'net, but why not put in a web browser?

Finally, there is a Viera Link, an extra layer on top of HDMI which allows compatible peripherals (Blu-ray players, perhaps) to send signals to the TV, which will then change to the correct channel. Again, Panasonic, you're late to the game. My parents' VCR has done the same thing for years.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:19 am

Yahoo brings Widgets to Samsung HDTVs at CES

At the Samsung press conference earlier today at CES 2009, Yahoo's involvement with Samsung's new HDTV line was revealed to be an integrated system of Widgets, based on a new Konfabulator engine. They went through it very briefly, but Flickr, news, finance, and other Yahoo services are fully available and integrated into an on-screen display, for use during usual TV watching. They call it Medi@ 2.0, a wholly buzz-oriented name, but you'll probably just call it "Yahoo TV" or "The Stocks." Here's a video of the interface in action — dramatized, it looks like, but a good indicator of what it should look like on your Samsung, should you choose to accept one. Head over to CrunchGear for a few more pictures.

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Jan 2009 | 1:05 am

Samsung Packs 64GB SSD into Sleek Cylindrical Camcorder

LAS VEGAS -- Along with new stills cams, Samsung today announced a slew of new camcorders at CES 2009. The pick of the bunch is easily the HMX-H106 (trust me, when you're covering a press conference, these names start to get very confusing).

The thing that readers will first notice is that the camera contains 2001's HAL, clearly visible by his glowing red eye inside the lens. And it's a decent lens to, coming from  Schneider Kreuznach.

But good looks and sharp optics aren't (quite) enough to earn a place on Gadget Lab. So what's the gimmick? A huge, 64GB solid state drive (SSD), that's what. 64GB is enough to hold 12 hours of HD video, and the lack of a spinning platter means the drive only burns 1/8th the juice of a hard drive.

Still, the battery won't let you do that. You'll get three hours of recording at 1080p, which is encoded into h.264, saving even more drive space.

Wait. There's more! Samsung has come up with a new touch screen user interface which will eventually be mirrored across devices. So, the UI you see today on the HMX-H106 will tomorrow be seen on TVs and stills cameras (with tweaks of course). In the camera incarnation, it means that you can simply touch to start and stop recording. Nice!


No prices yet, but as Samsung makes the memory that goes in there, it should at least be affordable.

See Also:

• Samsung's New Still Camera Picks it Own Exposure Mode

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:59 am

Sony Launches 'World's Lightest' 8-Inch Notebook (Not a Netbook)

LAS VEGAS — Sony on Wednesday introduced a subnotebook that it touts as "the world's lightest 8-inch notebook."

Dubbed the VAIO Lifestyle PC, the subnotebook weighs 1.4 pounds and is small enough to fit in a jacket pocket.

The device sports an 8-inch, 1,600-by-768-pixel display. Other features include a 3G modem, 802.11N Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and turn-by-turn GPS.

The VAIO Lifestyle PC also features an instant-on mode called Xcross Media. In this virtual environment, users can instantly access a Web browser, music, video and photos — without booting into the OS. The subnotebook ships with Windows Vista.

Sony said the keyboard was engineered to provide the feel of a full-size keyboard, with plenty of spacing between keys to reduce typing mistakes.

The battery will reportedly last four hours, according to Sony. There's also an option to purchase a higher-capacity battery, which will last eight hours, Sony said.

Considering the device's size, some might feel compelled to call the VAIO Lifestyle PC a netbook. However, Sony avoided that label. And the company's correct in doing that: With a $900 price tag and GPS, the subnotebook doesn't appear to fit in with the netbook category.

Sony also said the "netbook" label was inappropriate because the device doesn't require an internet connection for data access. Because it has a 3G modem, all it needs is a connection to Verizon's mobile network.

The subnotebook begins shipping February.

Photo: Sony

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:54 am

Getting Faster Internet Service [Mossberg's Mailbox]

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

---

I plan to purchase a new laptop. My uses are primarily Internet searching and email. I don’t play videogames. The salespeople are pushing me to buy a fast processor. Will buying a faster processor improve my slow DSL connection?

Compared to your old computer, any new PC, even one with a midrange modern processor and graphics system, plus more modern network components inside, may well be faster at using the Internet. That’s because things like rendering Web pages will likely speed up, and the computer may be better able to take advantage of whatever DSL speed you have entering your home. But even the fastest processor won’t make your DSL connection itself fundamentally speedier. To achieve that, you’d need to pay for faster service from either your current provider or a competitor.

Will my Quicken finances run on a Mac? And how do I transfer, from a Dell PC, my 2007 Quicken data?

There is a version of Quicken for the Mac, and there is a way to export your data from the Windows version and import it into this Mac version. But, because the two programs are actually very different under the hood, this process can be laborious and too often goes wrong. So, for people switching to the Mac who are devoted to Quicken, I suggest installing Windows on your Mac, and continuing to use the Windows version of Quicken. If you’d rather perform the export instead, you can find the instructions at quicken.intuit.com. Click on “Support,” then on “2007 for Mac,” then search for the keyword “convert.”

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:54 am

CES: Samsung announces Luxia LEDs, Palm Theater P3, 64GB SSD Digicam and more

Even before it begins, the Samsung presser bodes well... a possible interruption in the tedium of the day, which has been thus far like watching so much linoleum abiogenetically multiply.

I get hopeful about five minutes before the press conference starts when a gentleman behind me starts a rumpus. "'Scuse me, bro," he says to a random guy seated behind me. "Would you mind moving over a seat so me and my special lady can sit together?" He's on a date.

Next to me sits Charlie Sorrel, official washing machine correspondent of Wired's Gadget Lab. He has been delegated an ironic specialty, given the pungent aroma of patoulli oil that clings to him like just so much hobo-fucked dirt, but his presence at the Samsung conference to report exclusively on the one gadget the function of which is completely alien to him guarantees that he will be a good wisecrack buddy during the presser.

He does not let me down. Grinning through a mouth that appears to have had an entire extra skeleton randomly smashed into it, Charlie impishly asks, "What, are they going to make out? Is Samsung's presser going to be sexy?"

"God, I hope so..." I remark. Then, daring, I place my hand on Charlie's knees. The lights dim and the press conference starts.

Compared to LG's and Toshiba's snoozefest pressers, Samsung's does not disappoint.

Luxia line of LED televisions: Samsung's flagship televisions for 2009 is the Luxia series. The high-def set comes in three flavors: the 6000, 7000, and 8000.

Each television is only an inch thick, with 40 percent less energy expenditure than comparable LCDs, while also being mercury and lead free.

Samsung has also managed to slim down the wall mount to 0.6 inches, resulting in gorgeous LED flat screens that hang on the wall like a painting.

Like Toshiba and LG earlier in the day, Samsung is also claiming 240Hz technology to virtually eliminate motion blur. This is likely done the same way Toshiba is doing it: by rapidly flickering the backlight, "doubling" the perceived FPS.

The SSD Camcorder HMX-H106: Samsung's new flagship camcorder features a 64GB SSD drive built-in, capable of capturing up to 12 hours of 1080p HD footage. A 4.7MP sensor will allow still shots of up to 2880x1620.

Samsung Digital Camera HZ10w: A lovely little point-and-shoot in black brushed aluminum, the hz10w features a 24mm wide angle lens with a 10x zoom, and shoots HD video to boot.

Palm Theater P3: Samsung's newest PMP has a name so laughably onanist that even Tim Baxter, the executive vice president of sales marketing, seems to snigger when he announces it. It's a curious device, with a touchscreen interface something like Microsoft Bob meets the iPhone. Otherwise, a 3 inch WQVGA screen and 8GB of internal memory.

Yahoo! Widgets and Cinematic Internet: Both the LG and Toshiba presser featured a strong presence by Yahoo! Widgets as a means to extend the internet functions of a television through downloadable, extendible mini-apps. The Samsung presser is the first moment where anyone explains how it will work.

Essentially, Yahoo! is rolling out their widgets service — based upon the acquired skeleton of good old Konfabulator — to multiple television manufacturers. They are calling the merging of television and internet Cinematic Internet, but while the idea isn't particularly spectacular, the execution looks great: a smooth flowing ribbon of widgets that pops up at the bottom of the screen, something like the OS X dock for your television.

All widgets are remote controllable. The demo widgets include eBay, YouTube, Flickr, weather, stocks, eBay, Rhapsody and shopping. Yahoo! may be a struggling entity lately, but the Yahoo! Widgets team, at least, has not been lazing about: they are a pervasive presence in all the latest HDTVs from Toshiba, LG and Samsung.

A Unified UI: Samsung is instituting a consistent menu format across multiple devices like portable media players, digital cameras, cellular phones, cameras, etc. It looks good, like Samsung's version of Sony's PSP / PS3 interface.

The couple in the row behind me and Samsung's exciting new washing machine: At the end of the press conference, I hazard a look behind me, and note the happy couple smooching. This is a sexy press conference. I shoot a look over at Charlie, but he seems to be on the edge of his seat in anticipation of washing machine announcements. I decide to wait until after Charlie's moment of journalistic release... but that moment never comes. Samsung's exciting additions to their line of washing machines goes uncelebrated... as does the secret, pining love of two gadget bloggers clutching in the dark.

The press kit, however, supplies one lonely image... the tumbling, green-friendly avatars of our unfulfilled love.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:52 am

The Power of the R Programming Language

BartlebyScrivener writes "The New York Times has an article on the R programming language. The Times describes it as: "a popular programming language used by a growing number of data analysts inside corporations and academia. It is becoming their lingua franca partly because data mining has entered a golden age, whether being used to set ad prices, find new drugs more quickly or fine-tune financial models. Companies as diverse as Google, Pfizer, Merck, Bank of America, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Shell use it.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:33 am

Sony CES Press conference -- Vaio P details

Photo via Gizmodo.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:29 am

Google’s Street View Takes A Byte Out Of Crime

Google Street View may get a bad rap from some overzealous privacy watchdogs and conspiracy theorists, but it just helped police save a young girl who had been kidnapped over the weekend.

In the case, which involved a woman who allegedly kidnapped her granddaughter, Athol Police Officer Todd Neale managed to track down the missing girl by obtaining coordinates of her cell phone from the phone’s carrier. Neale contacted Deputy Fire Chief Thomas V. Lozier who worked with him in trying to figure out exactly where the missing girl was being held.

The two men found that the phone’s coordinates kept coming in within 300 feet of each other at an intersection in Virginia. Unfortunately they were located in Massachusetts, so they couldn’t just drive to the other side of town to take a look. So they turned to Google.

Using Google Street View, they virtually “looked around” the intersection, when they noticed a large building nearby where the pair might have been staying. They subsequently identified the building as a motel (again with Google), and then confirmed that the motel was nearby using Google’s satellite view. The pair notified the Virginia state police of their findings, who then found the 9-year old girl and her grandmother in the motel.

For the full story, check out this Telegram Article.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:11 am

Backstage at CES 2009

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

LAS VEGAS — It's the eve of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, and the floor is a flurry of activity as thousands of vendors set up their wares. Teamsters and union carpenters rub elbows with electronics industry representatives. Forklifts jostle for position in the narrow pathways, which are lined with shrink-wrapped booth parts and gigantic HDTVs displaying test patterns. Wired.com took a backstage tour of the preparations to bring you a glimpse of what, in a few short hours, will be the latest incarnation of North America's largest technology tradeshow.

Left: Microsoft representatives set up the laptops and screens the company will use to show off its latest software and web services.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Less than 24 hours before the show opens, construction is still underway on most of the floor. Carpet awaits unrolling, and pallets are stacked high with high-tech gear.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The gigantic Panasonic booth includes a row of partition-enclosed meeting rooms along its back edge. In those rooms the real business of CES will happen: furious dealmaking between manufacturers, distributors and retailers. But today, construction is still in progress. Here, a worker opens the door to reveal a mysterious blue screen in the background.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Workers scurry to turn the showroom floor into something presentable. Some will remain overnight, working until the moment the show opens here at 10 a.m. Thursday. Organizers expect 130,000 people to attend CES 2009 — an 8 percent drop from last year's attendance, but still enough to ensure that every cab line is at least 30 minutes long.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

These small electric carts are the transportation method of choice for workers to hustle from one end of the convention center to the other.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Bikes lean against the wall of an unfinished Panasonic exhibit. With more than 1.7 million square feet of exhibition space spread across the Las Vegas Convention Center's three massive halls, getting from point A to point B can be a challenge.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

A Pioneer booth is still under construction. Large corporate logos lie here and there around the hall, awaiting placement far above the heads of the crowd.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

"Say, you're not looking at that chart upside down, are you?"

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Hitachi representatives check out a display panel. Maybe it will work after the guy on the right plugs it in.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Banks of high-definition displays in the Sharp booth will show off the company's HDTV prowess with eye-catching videos. But that's tomorrow; today, the displays show only color bars.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Workers set up RCA monitors.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Sony's exhibit is located at the very end of the central hall and is more built-out than most booths. Putting together a show of this size is a massive undertaking: The first advance teams arrived Dec. 26 to begin setting up, a CES rep said.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Sony is already drawing attention with its new screens and a message of eco-friendliness.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:00 am

Terror, Anthrax, Explosives and More in Free, Downloadable 'Counterterrorism Calendar'

The Justice Department puts out a free 2009 calendar depicting some of America's most wanted terror suspects, complete with info on explosives and biological and chemical threats. Get yours while supplies last.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:00 am

Backstage at CES 2009

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

LAS VEGAS — It's the eve of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, and the floor is a flurry of activity as thousands of vendors set up their wares. Teamsters and union carpenters rub elbows with electronics industry representatives. Forklifts jostle for position in the narrow pathways, which are lined with shrink-wrapped booth parts and gigantic HDTVs displaying test patterns. Wired.com took a backstage tour of the preparations to bring you a glimpse of what, in a few short hours, will be the latest incarnation of North America's largest technology tradeshow.

Left: Microsoft representatives set up the laptops and screens the company will use to show off its latest software and web services.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Less than 24 hours before the show opens, construction is still underway on most of the floor. Carpet awaits unrolling, and pallets are stacked high with high-tech gear.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The gigantic Panasonic booth includes a row of partition-enclosed meeting rooms along its back edge. In those rooms the real business of CES will happen: furious dealmaking between manufacturers, distributors and retailers. But today, construction is still in progress. Here, a worker opens the door to reveal a mysterious blue screen in the background.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Workers scurry to turn the showroom floor into something presentable. Some will remain overnight, working until the moment the show opens here at 10 a.m. Thursday. Organizers expect 130,000 people to attend CES 2009 — an 8 percent drop from last year's attendance, but still enough to ensure that every cab line is at least 30 minutes long.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

These small electric carts are the transportation method of choice for workers to hustle from one end of the convention center to the other.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Bikes lean against the wall of an unfinished Panasonic exhibit. With more than 1.7 million square feet of exhibition space spread across the Las Vegas Convention Center's three massive halls, getting from point A to point B can be a challenge.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

A Pioneer booth is still under construction. Large corporate logos lie here and there around the hall, awaiting placement far above the heads of the crowd.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

"Say, you're not looking at that chart upside down, are you?"

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Hitachi representatives check out a display panel. Maybe it will work after the guy on the right plugs it in.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Banks of high-definition displays in the Sharp booth will show off the company's HDTV prowess with eye-catching videos. But that's tomorrow; today, the displays show only color bars.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Workers set up RCA monitors.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Sony's exhibit is located at the very end of the central hall and is more built-out than most booths. Putting together a show of this size is a massive undertaking: The first advance teams arrived Dec. 26 to begin setting up, a CES rep said.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Sony is already drawing attention with its new screens and a message of eco-friendliness.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Jan 2009 | 12:00 am

The Illuminati Project Pushes For Dark Skies In 2009

An anonymous reader writes "2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius ('Starry Messenger'). To improve scientific literacy, the NOAO and NASA are promoting dark-sky initiatives in 2009 to draw attention to the problem of light pollution which obscures nearly all night sky colors and objects except for the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Project Illuminati is a Flickr project by James Cann to showcase the beauty of light pollution to raise awareness and educate fellow Earthmates to lower energy consumption and become more curious about our place in the universe."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 11:31 pm

Garage Invention Turns Restaurants Into Power Plants

A garage inventor has built a new generator that converts a restaurant's used deep-fryer oil into electricity and hot water, and he says it could shave hundreds of dollars a month off your average Mickey D's utility bill.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Jan 2009 | 11:30 pm

Crunchies Countdown: Voting Ends Tonight, Party With DJ ZTrip Afterwards

Just two more days until the second annual Crunchies award ceremony where we’ll give out sixteen gorilla awards in categories ranging from Best Technology Innovation to Best Startup or Product of 2008.

Nearly a third of a million votes have been cast over the last couple of weeks, and a number of the categories are still very, very close. You can vote here until midnight California time tonight, then we’ll cut it off and tally the votes.

After the awards are given we’ll all head over to City Hall’s Rotunda for an awesome after party and lounge co-hosted with MySpace and Microsoft BizSpark. Enjoy celebrity DJ DJ ZTrip while sipping specialty cocktails and Cannonball wine. ZTrip did the music for Obama’s Election Night Celebration in LA on November 4 (download the mix here). This guy has opened for the Rolling Stones in front of 500,000 people.

For those few of you who won’t be cutting up the dance floor, Instant Action leads the game room, get your revenge with Tapulous and have fun with other traditional games of chance. PicApp, Animoto, Zivity, BuildASign and FutureWorks are sponsoring a photo gallery to make sure you properly memorialize the evening.

Thanks to Crunchies Award benefactors: Founders Fund, CRV, Mayfield, and BlueRun Ventures help make it all possible. Get tickets via Amiando or tune in on Friday via Ustream.

There are a handful of tickets still available. See you Friday.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 11:28 pm

Gigya: December 23rd Was Biggest Day For Our Widgets, Ever

Gigya, the Israeli startup that helps other companies easily distribute their widgets, has released some of its latest figures on the recent holiday season.

Most notable: December 23rd set the new record for total number of widget installs in a single day, with 900,000 widgets installed across all of the service’s supported blogs and social networks. Gigya obviously doesn’t account for every widget on the web, but it does help distribute content from a wide array of partners including Electronic Arts, RockYou, MTV, and Sony BMG (you can see a full list of partners here).

Through its Wildfire service, Gigya allows content providers and widget developers to easily syndicate their content to a variety of places online, including many popular social networks, blog platforms, and customized homepages like Pageflakes. Users typically only need to enter their login credentials, and the widget will be automatically inserted into their profiles (as opposed to manually copy and pasting an embed code).

Gigya has also shared some early stats for ElfYourself, the viral dancing elves videos made by OfficeMax that saw an incredible amount of traffic over the last holiday season, with numbers that rivaled Facebook’s visitors (at least for one month out of the year). For this year ElfYourself partnered with JibJab to produce the online videos, and the stats are similarly impressive. During the last three weeks of December, the new ElfYourself widget was installed nearly one million times-an impressive feat given the fact that embeds weren’t even available for last year’s videos. If you’d like to see some of the TechCrunch team get elf’ed, check out this video (warning: it isn’t pretty).

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 11:04 pm

OLPC Downsizes Half of Its Staff, Cuts Sugar

One Laptop Per Chewbacca writes "Nicholas Negroponte, the leader of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, has announced that the organization will be laying off half of its staff, cutting salaries of the remaining employees, and ending its involvement in Sugar development. The organization has had serious problems with production and deployment and has been fragmented by ideological debates as Negroponte shifts the agenda away from software freedom and towards Windows. Ars Technica concludes: 'The OLPC project's extreme dependence on economy of scale has proven to be a fatal error. The organization was not able to secure the large bulk orders that it had originally anticipated and fell short of meeting its target $100 per unit price. The worldwide economic slowdown has made it even more difficult for OLPC to find developing countries that have cash to spare on education technology.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 10:44 pm

Corkd Gets Hackd

If you try to visit the URL for wine review website Corkd, you’ll automatically get rerouted to porn site Adult Friend Finder (obviously NSFW). We’re not sure how long this has been the case, but we’re not the only ones noticing.

What’s weird about the redirect is that there’s a delay, so you’ll actually see the Corkd website for a second before it switches to the adult website. If the domain name would just be pointed to the Adult Friend Finder site, that wouldn’t happen. We’re trying to find out if there is malicious intent at play here, or that the site owners configured the redirect intentionally for whatever reason.

Update: the site now reads a message that they’ll be back shortly, so it was definitely a malicious act. We’re confirming this with the owners of the site right now.

We’ve had incoming tips before about Corkd going the way of the dinosaur, but apart from the fact that it’s been quite some time since the site received an update, we didn’t really see any reason for us to deadpool them, also considering the fact that the company never responded to our requests for information.

Update 2: Web celeb Gary Vaynerchuk’s WineLibrary actually acquired Corkd back in May 2007, we’ve contacted him to see if he can tell us more about what happened. This Twitter message of Gary Vee kind of says it all, though.

Update 3: see Gary Vaynerchuk’s video comment below.

Update 4:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 10:43 pm

Our Nation’s Finest News Source Shines

Self described reformed crack dealer/New York Times columnist David Carr continues the fine tradition of bad video creation by New York Times writers in a post in today’s Carpetbagger (The paper’s Oscars blog).

What is he saying? Why is he saying it? I don’t know. No one knows.

No more complaints about TechCrunch, people. This is what you get when old media tries new things.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 10:06 pm

Why Does the US Have a Civil Space Program?

BDew writes "The Presidents of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering have commissioned a study on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program. In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program (including human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight). The study is intended to provide a strategic framework for the nation's activities in space that can provide consistent guidance in an increasingly interconnected world. The members of the study committee are interested in the views (positive or negative) of the general public, particularly those people with a scientific and/or technological interest."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 10:00 pm

Free Dating Sites Give Paid Sites A Run For Their Money

This post was written by guest contributor Mark Brooks, an analyst/consultant whose blog Online Personals Watch summarizes the daily internet dating industry news.

Earlier this week InterActive Corporation (IAC), which owns and operates popular paid dating sites Match.com and Chemistry.com, launched a completely free dating site called DownToEarth.com (you can check out an ad for the recently launched site here). The somewhat counterintuitive move is IAC/Match.com’s answer to Plentyoffish.com, a popular free dating site that was long run by one man out of his apartment (he now has an office and a small team).

DowntoEarth.com was started by Jacob Solotaroff who spent a year as the Director of Product Management and Member Integrity at Match. Now he runs the site out of Dallas, where Match is also based. Apparently IAC believes if someone is going to put Match out of business, it might as well be Match.

The most interesting feature on the new site is the RealRatings user ratings system for ranking the accuracy of people’s profiles against real life. Users who post inaccurate photographs and profiles of themselves are ratted out by other users who have been on a date with them. Users can grade the accuracy of profiles on a scale of 1 star to 5 stars once they’ve been on a face to face date. 1 star means “not even close” and 5 stars mean “true to life.” Could this be the end of white lies on dating profiles?

Here’s a look at how some of the free competition DowntoEarth will be facing off with in the USA, UK, Australia and Canada.

The top free dating sites in the USA are currently:

#1 Plentyoffish (#2 overall in the internet dating category in Dec ‘09, #2 in May ‘09)
#2 Adam4Adam (#5 overall in Dec, #6 in May)
#3 Date Hookup (#6 overall in Dec, #7 in May)
#4 OKCupid (#12 overall in Dec, #14 in May)
#5 Mingle2 (#13 overall in Dec, not in top 100 in May)
#6 MatchDoctor (#32 overall in Dec, #33 in May)
#7 WebDate (#33 overall in Dec, #22 in May)
#8 FriendsReunitedDating.co.uk (#41 in Dec, not in top 100 in May)
#9 Woome (#46 in Dec, #79 in May)
#10 Connecting Singles (#53 in Dec, #55 in May)

And in the UK the top free dating sites are:

#1 Plentyoffish (#1 overall in Dec, #1 in May)
#2 Person (#2 overall in Dec, #13 in May)
#3 FriendsReunitedDating.co.uk (#8 overall in Dec, #12 in May)
#4 Smooch (#9 overall in Dec, #15 in May)
#5 Freedating.co.uk (#14 overall in Dec, #16 in May)
#6 ProfilePic (#27 overall in Dec, #68 in May)
#7 Flirtomatic (#29 overall in Dec, #36 in May)
#8 OKCupid (#31 overall in Dec, #32 in May)
#9 Speeddate (#44 overall in Dec, #71 in May)
#10 Midsummers Eve (#53 overall in Dec, #43 in May)

And in Australia:

#1 Plentyoffish (#4 overall in Dec, #7 in May)
#2 Person (#7 overall in Dec, #6 in May)
#3 Matchfinder.com.au (#22 overall in Dec, #32 in May)
#4 Speeddate (#23 overall in Dec, #38 in May)
#5 OKCupid (#27 overall in Dec, #30 in May)

90% of the top free dating sites in the USA and UK moved up rankings from May to December 2008.

Data: May and December 2008, Hitwise Competitive Intelligence USA, UK and Australia rankings by market share of visits, which is the % of online traffic to the category.

And in Canada:

#1 Plentyoffish (#1 overall in Nov)
#2 Kijiji.ca Personals (#3 overall in Nov)
#3 Speeddate (#8 overall in Nov)

Data: November 2008, comScore Media Metrix Personals category for Canada.

Disclosure: Plentyoffish and Webdate are clients of Courtland Brooks, Mark Brooks consultancy.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 9:47 pm

OpenID Fan Club Is Shrinking

A.B. VerHausen writes "Even though there's a whole new Web site devoted to understanding and using OpenID, some companies are dropping the login method altogether. OStatic is reporting that the 'free Web site network Wetpaint announced recently that it will no longer support OpenID as a login option for its wiki, citing low usage and high support costs as reasons.' Apparently, fewer than 200 registered users bothered with OpenID, and the extra QA and development time doesn't make it worthwhile to support. This can't come as welcome news on top of the internal issues the article mentions the OpenID Foundation is having now, too." I've actually been quite happy with OpenID, since I have spawned far too many username/password pairs over the last 20-plus years, but it's a major chicken-and-egg problem. Hopefully someone out there will build a better mousetrap ...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 9:20 pm

Space Is Closer Than You Think

The fuzzy border between Earth's atmosphere and space gets a new map.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 7 Jan 2009 | 9:08 pm

Move over camera phone…its projector phone time!

Logic Wireless (who?) is showing off what it’s claiming to be the world’s first projector-packing mobile phone - the Logic Bolt - at CES 2009.  This quad-band GSM, 3mp shootin’ candybar handset is supposedly able to project an image up to 64″ and is expected to do so for up to 2 hours thanks to its 1800mAh battery.  It also appears to have an external speaker to help make your impromptu mobile projector sessions fun for the whole family.  More pics after the jump.

Logic Wireless has yet to announce an official deal with any U.S. carriers, but currently has plans to sell its phone projector, complete with a 2.4″ QVGA (240×320 pixels) touch screen display, for $600 sans contract.

[via MobileBurn]

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: MobileCrunch | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:46 pm

New Energy Efficiency Rules For TVs Sold In California

petehead writes "The LA Times reports on regulations expected to pass in 2009 that will not allow energy-inefficient TVs to be sold in the state. 'State regulators are getting ready to curb the growing power gluttony of TV sets by drafting the nation's first rules requiring retailers to sell only the most energy-efficient models, starting in 2011... The regulations would be phased in over two years, with a first tier taking effect on Jan. 1, 2011, and a more stringent, second tier on Jan. 1, 2013.'" According to the Energy Commission's estimates, purchasers of Tier 1-compliant TVs would shave an average of $18.48 off their residential electric bill in the first year of ownership.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:38 pm

Felten, Fellow Tinkerers Predict $900 iPhone, Piracy Prosecutions

The legal and technology scholars at the Freedom to Tinker blog predict an $899 iPhone for 2009, piracy prosecutions and an onslaught of civil lawsuits in the wake of the Lori Drew-MySpace case.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:30 pm

Toshiba unveils future Regza LCD upgrades, and the future of their HDTVs: Cell TV

From the very first moments of the Toshiba press conference it's clear there's going to be little on offer HDTV. The stage is set with a quartet of hooded television models; the press conference starts with a two minute tribute by Toshiba to their 51 by 52 foot Times Square LED. Televisions are the story of the day... in particular, Toshiba's expanded line of Regza LCDs.

The walkaway is that Regza line will be improving drastically in 2009. The new Regzas will feature Resolution+ technology which Toshiba claims will upscale any content without artifacting. Their new line of LCDs will feature auto-adjusting room brightness, as well as color temperature control... a smart feature that adjusts the display according to the hue of your light bulbs.

Like LG, Toshiba promises that their new Regzas will be capable of eliminating motion blur by upping the ante to 240Hz. Unlike LG, Toshiba isn't being cagey about the technology: by rapidly flickering the backlight, the new Regzas will fake the effect of a higher frame rate, essentially fooling the eye into thinking it is seeing double the FPS... and thus less motion blur.

In addition, the new Regzas will feature Dolby technology to dynamically balance volume while maintaining bass and treble. New televisions will also feature built-in USB ports and SD card slots, as well as ingrained JPEG, DivX, and MP3 playback. Instaport technology will also allow instantaneous HDMI switching.

Like every other television company, expandable internet content is at the front of the cerebellum for Toshiba. They announced that their LCD televisions this year will come with expandable Internet media thanks to integration with Windows Media Center and Yahoo! Widgets. Examples of online functionality to be included in Toshiba LCD TVs this year include MySpace, online music, photos and Internet television sites like Hulu.com. All of these would be navigable via remote control.

Looking to the future, Toshiba foresees that within a few years, 3820x2160 will be the new 1080p. Televisions will need to become far beefier in order to upscale and flawlessly convert lower resolution media. Toshiba's solution is interesting: they foresee the separation of the mind of a television with its display. Or, more plainly, they envision a more traditional PC dichotomy of CPU to screen applying to the higher-end HDTV of the future.

Toshiba will market its first foray into separating the television from the LCD display later in 2009. The Cell TV takes its name from the included Cell processor, and works as both an upscaler three times as fast as Toshiba's current Resolution+ technology, but also as an HD server with integrated network capability, capable of recording or displaying six HD images simultaneously.

Some interesting predictions from Toshiba. The future of high definition as 2160p. The future separation of the television into the dichotomy of a powerful computer and a relatively brainless display. Those are bold predictions, but Toshiba doesn't seem to be toking. Consider this refreshing observation about the fetishization of LCD thinness, buried as a trailing bullet point in a list of market factors for 2009:

"Some will say you can't be too thin... but will people pay for thin? Who is complaining about LCD depth?"

That's the common sense observation of a company with its head screwed on right.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:28 pm

Pharmaceutical Love Potion: Not Yet ...

The quest for a love potion that could treat losing that loving feeling like any other unwanted mental state, such as depression, has some major hurdles, but scientists are looking into it.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:28 pm

Pacific, Arctic Conflicts Affected By Climate Change

Australia's military suggests climate change and rising sea levels pose one of the biggest threats to security in the Pacific and may also spark a global conflict over energy reserves under melting Arctic ice.Environmental stress has increased the risk of conflicts in the Pacific over resources and food, according to a confidential security review by Australia's Defense Force, completed in 2007 but obtained in summary by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.The review said that the biggest threat of global conflict currently lay beneath the Arctic as melting icecaps gave rise to an international race for undersea oil and gas deposits.The summary published in the Herald on Wednesday stated: "Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure." "The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:25 pm

Researchers To Send Submarine Under Antarctic Glaciers

In an effort to seek clues to world ocean level rises in one of the most inaccessible places on earth, scientists are sending a yellow robot submarine to dive under an ice shelf in Antarctica.A U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:10 pm

CES: Sharp makes televisions

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:00 pm

CES 2009: Gadgets to Expect at the Big Show

CES begins tomorrow, but Wired.com snagged a peek at some of the coolest gadgets you can expect to see at the big show. Included: an ultralight Windows-based notebook, WowWee's latest toy robot, and a keypad-secured USB drive.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 8:00 pm

Doctors: British woman has two wombs

A British woman said she was shocked to discover that she has two sets of reproductive organs. Lindsay Hasaj, 27, said she was two months pregnant when doctors told her she had two vaginas, two cervixes and two wombs, ABC News reported Wednesday. Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:56 pm

Boing Boing Gadgets at CES: Video Report, Day One

(Flash video above, downloadable MP4 is here.)

Greetings from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Lost Wages, Nevada! Xeni here with the Boing Boing Gadgets fellas -- Beschizza, Brownlee, and Johnson, and Boing Boing's video production team. We're traveling the floor with the BBG 3, surveilling all they review, and we'll be filing daily video reports from the expo floor. Here is the first, embedded above.

Highlights from this episode:

* So you've probably heard there's an "Official Blog of CES," right? So, screw those guys, we're more awesome. In this episode, Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (the group that puts on CES) dubs Joel Johnson the Official King of CES, then bows down to him and touches Joel's invizibul robe.

* Rob Beschizza shows us what he likes about the new netbooks from Asus, namely the screens you can swivel around to use as touch-sensitive tablets (disclaimer: Asus is sponsoring BB Video's presence at CES, but not BB Gadgets. Rob actually didn't know anything about it at the time, so this isn't paid placement or editorial whoring).

* Joel grills the everliving crap out of the poor guy tasked with representing Sharper Image here. Joel was a big fan of the early incarnation of the mega-gadgets chain store, but believes they went to hell before they were recently bought out and resurrected. Joel's advice to the new guy: don't speak to us in marketingese, please, and stop making crappy products.

* Joel talks with the guys at WowWee about a Spyball for children -- baby's first panopticon! $150 device, shaped like a play ball, includes cameras to spy on other playmates. WTF.

* Xeni snuggles with robotic stuffed animals from WowWee that respond to human touch with emotive facial expressions, grunts, growls, and body movements. Verdict: cute, also creepy, definitely from the Uncanny Valley.

* Beschizza and Joel perform the first of what will likely be many schwag booze taste tests. Today: whiskey from the hosted bar, plus tiny energy drinks some wireless networking company was giving out. Mix them together, and you get what Joel describes as "there's nothing not awful about this it's just plain bad."

Next episode: we are accosted in the dark of night, on the streets of Vegas, by inebriated Canadian chemical engineers dressed as Yeti Furries.

---

Sponsor shout-out: Boing Boing Video coverage of CES 2009 is sponsored by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is intended to be a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."


Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:54 pm

All of Vietnam's Government Computers To Use Linux, By Fiat

christian.einfeldt writes "The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an administrative ruling increasing the use of Free Open Source Software products at state agencies, increasing the software's use both in the back office and on the desktop. According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009. The regulation also sets benchmarks for training and proficiency in the software. Vietnam has a population of 86 million, 4 million larger than that of Germany, and is one of the world's fastest-growing economies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:52 pm

A moment of magical surrealism at CES infuses BBG blogger with mundane wonder

The Toshiba presser begins with a curiously Mac-centric variation of the BSOD projected in triplicate in between a quatrain of anonymous, hooded HDTVs: a trial version nag screen courtesy of Little Snitch, a program often used by Apple pirates to prevent warezed apps from phoning home.

The audience gasps. There are a couple of nervous titters. Two loud mouthed gentlemen sitting next to me — men whom, after their whole clueless generation, use the word "blog" to mean "post" — grab each other, as if to mutually brace one another during the throes of spontaneous micturation. "OH.... MY.... GOD...." one whistles through his moustache.

The mind reels. No one can process it. A few war hardened photogs lift their cameras and pop off a few shots. Paddle shocked by the exploding flashes into plodding action, I realize I should do the same, remove the cap from my camera...

And then, just like that, the Little Snitch nag screen is gone. Silently but pervasively, the audience forms a covenant inside itself: the Little Snitch nag screen must not be mentioned. It is simply too unreal. Like victims of mass alien abduction, we dare not utter that which peels away the cowl of our society's own accepted truth.

But as the tedium of the Toshiba presser sets in properly, I find my mind going back to the Little Snitch nag screen time and time again, an ineluctable memory to be fondly cherished. As magical and unexpected as a pegasus unicorn charging through a bah mitzvah, it is — by far — the most exciting moment yet of my CES presser experience.

I, of course, have no proof: only the mundanity of the anecdote testifies to its authenticity. maybe other blogs will corroborate. But who cares? I tell this story for a reason: I feel it puts into perspective the unfathomable boredom of sitting through these pressers. Really, guys... this shit is rough. If you perceive a certain amount of reservedness in our posts this morning, there's your reason: the energy and excitement inherent in the average CES presser makes an episode of The Golden Girls seem as high octane and sexy as a John Woo directed gang bang.

Did you know there are people who come to CES for fun? Who fake their blogging credentials to get into these very same pressers? Chattering enthusiasts who send purple, gastropoidal tongues rolling in ecstasy over their gray, mottled lips with every freshly revealed Powerpoint slide? These inexplicable people wander the halls of the Sands Convention Center... as perverse, sadomasochistic and profane as genital auto-mutilation hobbyists. Horror.

But I digress. Your regularly scheduled coverage of Toshiba CES presser will follow momentarily. Buckle in your sputtering gastric systems: it's going to be a doozy!

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:49 pm

Studies: Asian couples seek sons

Asian immigrants in the United States appear to be using medical technology to guarantee that second or third children will be male, U.S. researchers say. Studies at the University of Texas and Columbia University reached similar conclusions, the San Jose, Calif., Mercury News reported.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:16 pm

Google Router Rumors

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new rumor that Google is developing its own router. The company won't comment on the story, but it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android. If Larry Ellison can go halvsies with HP on a server, then Eric Schmidt should certainly be able to make Cisco nervous."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 7:04 pm

CES: Casio press conference liveblog. Hopefully I won't call their CEO a "half-man" this time

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 6:59 pm

Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real?

OTL writes "You've heard the talk of 'Green' throughout the whole of 2008, but the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets. But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by high-tech firms for their products. More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Jan 2009 | 6:16 pm

Grand Canyon, Loch Ness Vie for 'Wonder' Status

Two hundred spectacular sites compete for the new 7 Wonders of Nature.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 7 Jan 2009 | 6:08 pm

How Reblochon gets its distinctive flavor

The French cheese Reblochon gets its distinctive flavor from a previously unknown group of bacteria, British university researchers report. Using genetic fingerprinting, the researchers identified eight previously undiscovered microbes in the soft, creamy, brie-like cheese made in France's
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Jan 2009 | 6:07 pm

Netgear's deck of cards: a tiny video streaming box

Barely larger than a deck of cards, Netgear’s Internet TV Player bridges YouTube and other online video services with your TV: no computer or complicated media center extender nonsense required.

All it needs is a pipe to the net and a HDMI cable, and it’s ready to roll. Demoed today at CES by Netgear’s Vivek Pathela, VP of home and consumer products, it was a low-end, no-nonsense appliance designed to get any TV surfing the net.

It’s not all of the net, unfortunately: there’s a simple UI for browsing and searching available content, but no web browser. Given its tiny size--you could pocket it and take it anywhere--and a reasonable $200 tag, it’ll be enough for some. There were even some features unusual for such a small device, like movie rentals that can be stored locally on USB drive. “It downloads directly to the unit, Pathela said.

Those wanting 1080p output, hookups to network storage--and the broad codec compatibility that entails--will prefer the Digital Entertainer Elite. A full-size slab, it has 500GB of built-in storage, Ethernet, WiFi and surround sound.

It even has the bit torrent file-sharing protocol, with Pathela bringing up a really quite dubious-looking list of links to popular movies one may download directly to the box, which doesn’t require a PC or Mac.

"It's the most powerful, highest-performing HD digital receiver ever,” Pathela said.

Compatible formats include avi, dixv, xvid, wmv, mov, mp4 and iso images. It’ll be available in February for $400, and the drives are “easily upgradable” by the user.

Also announced was its 3G Mobile Broadband Router--just plug in your USB cellular modem and get an instant hotspot--similar in look and function to existing gizmos from Cradlepoint. It supports SPI, intrusion reporting, DoS protection, five IPsec VPN enpoints and NAT.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 5:45 pm

Continental to Make Algae Biofuel Test Flight

A Continental jet takes off from Houston with a special fuel blend -- half algae.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 7 Jan 2009 | 5:45 pm

Filled with ennui, LG announces 3G Touch Watch Phone, some other stuff, declares life to be grim

There's indignity enough in waking up at dawn to attend a press conference, bleary eyed and coated in a thin translucent layer of last night's 80 proof spit-up. More indignity when that presser is LG's, and nothing of import is announced. If not for the soporific power of boredom, it would be enough to send the teeth into a chattering rictus of sleepy blogger rage.

Primarily, LG's presser was a cautious corporate chest thumping: but for the announcement of a couple of new technologies and a curious new phone, journalists could have comfortably stayed in their beds and left LG to their board room booyeahs. Scarcely anything presented seemed to justify the interruption of a regularly scheduled hangover.

For our droogies, the highlights:

• The moment of supreme import during the LG presser: the "father of HD", Dr. Woo Paik, holding his wrist aloft and debuting LG's new 3G watch phone prototype. Unoriginally christened the LG 3G Touch Watch Phone, the watch features 7.2MBPS 3G HSDPA and a full touchscreen interface on a diminutive 1.43 inch screen. There's also a built-in, video-capable camera. The parallel isn't lost on its makers: Dr. Paik himself charmingly referred to the new watch phone as "like something out of Dick Tracy." Unlike Dick Tracy, though, the LG 3G Watch Phone is Europe only for right now, with a release date of sometime in 2009.

• LG's line of 2009 HDTVs will feature a new technology called TrueMotion, which they promise will virtually eliminate motion blur at 240Hz.

• LG will be expanding their LG BD300, BD370 and BD390 disc players' online media capabilities with Netflix HD, YouTube, CinemaNow and Yahoo Widgets support.

• LG will be strongly committed to wireless HD in 2009, offering uncompressed 1080p with pure sound without dangling cords.

• One fantastic demonstration was for a new noise-cancelling technology in LG's line of mobile phones. By using two separate microphones in each headset, each phone will be able to compare the sound being recorded closest to the speaker's mouth with the background noise being recorded closer to the back of the handset, using the difference between the two sources to filter out everything but the caller's voice.

• LG intends to release network storage options with the ability to read and burn Blu-Ray media in 2009.

Otherwise, you can expect the usual from LG in 2009: a gradual march towards nano-angstrom-thin LCD televisions capable of guillotining the space between neutrinos. Also, more cell phones! LG aspires to total domination of the cell phone market, vaguely referencing an impossible-to-believe microinstant in which their phones were the number one sellers across all US carriers as the fever dream. It's good to want things, of course, but in the face of the iPhone, LG's aspirations seemed like all too much stroking.

Crabbily, I will leave you with a quote from the charmer of the presser, our good friend Dr. Woo Paik. After presenting several slides illustrating figures proving without a shadow of a doubt that the extinction of mankind was imminent, and detailing LG's own commitments to reducing omissions and thus staving off the same, the illustrious doctor mumbled:

"As you can see, LG means 'Life's Good', even when the real truth is, 'Life is Grim.'"

Then, without a further word, the man mutely shuffled off the stage, blinking sadly, the sound of his depressing egress only the voosh of his slacks and a strained splattering of stunned audience applause.

Press release for the LG 3G Touch Watch Phone after the jump.

Press Release

LG Unveils First Market-Ready 3G Touch Watch Phone

Full touchscreen, video calling and voice recognition in an elegant, wearable package

Seoul, Korea, January xx, 2009 -- LG Electronics, a worldwide technology and design leader in mobile communications, will officially unveil the world’s first market-ready Touch Watch Phone (Model: LG-GD910) with 3G Video Telephony (VT) service and GSM Quadband Network capabilities.

This chic, wearable phone is a follow-up to the prototype that LG introduced at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2008 and includes a number of upgrades, including a full touchscreen interface, 3G capabilities and video calling. Most importantly, this watch phone will actually be available for purchase.

“Our new 3G Touch Watch Phone is stylish, sophisticated and the height of technology, but it’s also undeniably fun. How else can you reenact those scenes from your favorite sci-fi or spy movie?” said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The Watch Phone also demonstrates LG’s technological leadership, proving that we can bring all the components in today’s most advanced mobile phones down to a very small scale.”

At first glance, LG’s new Watch Phone appears to simply be a high-end timepiece. The company used materials and stylistic elements found in watches from top manufacturers to ensure that people will be comfortable wearing it for any occasion. The Watch Phone has a curved tempered glass face, high quality metal casing and is a mere 13.9mm thick.

The Watch Phone is as technologically advanced as it is stylish. It is the first touch watch phone in the world to feature 7.2 Mbps 3G HSDPA compatibility, enabling high-speed data transmission and video phone calls using the built-in camera.

LG did not sacrifice functionality in favor of size and the Watch Phone is fully capable of sending text messages, making phone calls, and, of course, keeping accurate time. This is all achieved using the phone’s touchscreen interface on its 3.63cm (1.43-inch) screen and LG’s intuitive Flash Interface.

Voice recognition features, which can be used with or without a Bluetooth headset, make it easier to place calls and look up contacts. Text to Speech (TTS) reads text messages and other information out loud for even greater convenience. The phone also includes stereo Bluetooth and a built-in speaker for playing back music files. A large phonebook and scheduler help with organization.

“This Watch Phone is the result of a great deal of research and development, something that is very important to us at LG. We will continue to invest in creating innovative new products and technologies like this and setting trends in the mobile phone industry,” Dr. Ahn said. The 3G Touch Watch Phone will be first unveiled at the CES 2009, being held in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11. At the show, LG will demonstrate some of the Watch Phone’s main features including its Flash Interface, MP3 player, Voice Calling, Text messaging and Text to Speech. The phone is set to go on sale in Europe sometime in 2009.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Jan 2009 | 5:26 pm

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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