, but with more walking. This entry catalogs the companies I met with the first “half” of January 8, my first full day of the show. After waiting in a cab line for half an hour and then coughing up $20 to get from our hotel to the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) I hit the show floor for my first meeting at 9:30 with Seagate. Last time I spoke with the company reps back at DigitalLife in New York, they promised me big announcements for CES. And while the new products aren’t life altering, they’re definitely cool. Well, as cool as a hard drive can get. → Read More
Behold one of the fruits of my CES schmoozing: a Palm Treo 750. It arrived fresh at my doorstep this morning via a dubious looking FedEx guy (he wasn’t my regular courier, quite strange!). I will be conducting a full review over the next few days, but for now, allow me to whet your appetite with some hot-and-steamy Treo 750 porn. All angles exposed below! → Read More
The only reason digital photo frames haven’t totally taken off is because they tend to be fugly affairs, the tech manufacturers that market them being far more concerned with the technical specifications of the unit that its aesthetic appeal. That’s why we’re glad that makers like i-mate are bringing decent-looking frames to market. Looking like the monitor of a G4-era iMac, with a white (interchangable?) frame encased in clear plastic, the Momento has 7-inch 800×400 pixel display and can show photos via WiFi or memory stick via USB. In addition, it has its own memory card reader, so it can pull images from SD (or Memory Stick, or MMC, or xD or whatever), a nice feature indeed. But there’s more to this frame than just showing photos. → Read More
Though it’s been something available on the QT for awhile, Sprint today has officialized its CDMA + iDEN hardware, merging the wireless provider’s own network with forever-ago purchased Nextel. This means a Sprint phone can have all the CDMA features (cheap calling plans, for example) and get the iDEN’s Push To Talk with other Sprint and Nextel handsets. In addition to marrying the technologies into its Motorola handsets, Sprint is also renaming the phones with the dual-network capacity as the “PowerSource” Blend and Buzz. It seems that model numbers are fading fast, which will only serve to confuse people about which version of which they’re getting (do you know how many different RAZRs there are? Lots). Press Release [Sprint dot com] → Read More
Sadly, the actual auction has been canned by eBay, but the photo and idea remain, and that is of a “Phase 1 prototype iPhone from Apple – Phone AND iPod”. These spoofs are going to pop up everywhere, aren’t they? *sigh* (offline) Auction [eBay, via Core77] → Read More
From what I can gather from the iCache website it seems like a pretty simple process and device. After you receive the device you jump online and register your credit cards so you don’t have to carry all that plastic cash around as well as your finger print because the device boasts biometric security. The iCache digitally replicates all your credit card magnetic strip signatures and is basically rotated depending on which card you need and then expires after a certain amount of time or until the next card you want to you use is pulled up. It seems their goal is to be able to take anything with a magnetic strip and store it onto the device. Pretty cool I guess, I’d definitely want one. One Card To Rule Them All [iCache] → Read More
YNK Games in Korea has announced that in their new game ‘Sting’ you’ll be able to go on a secret mission and find the missing Kim Jong Il to prevent a nuclear disaster. It’s a big deal since South Korea’s “sunshine policy” of pacifying the crazy mofo’ up North generally prevents video game companies from touching on the subject of North-South relations. ‘Sting’ will be available worldwide sometime later this year. Find The Dear Leader → Read More
TagWorld, the social networking site that launched in late 2005, has been the subject of a lot of speculation lately. Valleywag speculated that the company was in trouble and pointed out that the management page (cache here) had been removed. Others have noted that TagWorld’s Comscore numbers have dropped significantly from earlier in 2006. At the very least, the company has made little headway against MySpace and the others. But there are other rumors as well. Viacom and NBC are still figuring out their social networking strategies (NBC is doing so publicly), and insiders are saying that Viacom will likely announce an investment and/or partnership deal with TagWorld in the near future. It’s likely that TagWorld’s engine will be the back end to the much anticipated MTV social network. TagWorld won’t comment on the story, other than to say that they remain healthy and will be launching a new version soon. TagWorld previously raised $7.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, in March 2006. → Read More
. The Netflix goal “to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens.” For now, they offer an applet with streaming video viewing in 10-15 seconds from starting up with higher quality based on the bandwidth of the consumer. Netflix’s long standing patent fued with Blockbuster may reach new levels. With a relatively small patent portfolio, they do have a stake in not only rental mail-to-home DVD’s, but a more broadly phrased delivery which “may be any medium for transferring data between customer and provider and the invention is not limited to any particular medium. Examples include, without limitation, a network such as a LAN, WAN or the Internet, a telecommunications link, a wire or optical link or a wireless connection.” What Netflix is not protected against is ‘buy and download’ services like Apple, CinemaNow and others, nor can it fend off video on demand services by cable providers such as Comcast. What Netflix can do is make it hard for other players to maintain an online rental queue with electronic delivery of a specified number of movies at one time. Clearly a bet on Netflix is a bet on consumers enjoying making a prefernce list, and having it available to them when they are ready to watch a rented movie, which has to compete with Video on Demand long term. For now, on roughly $140 million in annual advertising expenditure, positive operating cash flow, and Blockbuster losing money to keep up, Netflix appears to be staving off any thought of entering the DeadPool. Patent Monkey is a regular feature written by our friends at PatentMonkey.com → Read More
David Sacks’ new startup Geni, which we wrote about last week, has gone live. The initial product is a very easy to use Flash tool to create a profile and a family tree – including siblings, spouses, cousins, aunts and uncles, and their families. When you add a relative, there is an option to add their email address and have the tree sent to them as well. They can add their own data, extending the tree, and Geni will launch tools to merge overlapping trees. There is more information on the About page. The company has raised a round of financing from Founders Fund. I’ve started my family tree and have added a few email addresses. It will be cool to see my relatives further expand the tree. And it will be really interesting to take a look at Geni a few years from now, as more and more trees are merged together. Update: Geni is viral. In my test tree, I added my dad’s email address but didn’t otherwise mention the site to him. I just went back to Geni and noticed the tree has been extended significantly (see image below). And now some of those people have been emailed as well. → Read More
As Biggs and I roamed the floors of CES, we laid eyes on this peculiar looking PC from Sony being featured in some sort of webcast. We headed over to the Sony booth to try to locate it but were unsuccessful. Our queries to the booth monkeys yielded only looks of bewilderment. Distraught, we returned to the press room where we ripped on Vince for about an hour until it was time to leave. Nevertheless, our curiosities were still piqued. So props to Engadget for digging this little beastie up. → Read More
While surfing through the almighty Digg this morning, I stumbled upon a link to a Wii Disc Dumper. No, this isn’t a disgusting scat video of Mario with diarrhea, it’s a small program that, when combined with the proper DVD drive in a PC, can dump the raw contents of a Wii Game Disc to your hard drive. Seems you need an LG-8164b or LG-8163b DVD-ROM drive to make this work and the process takes over 50 hours to complete. Sure it takes awhile, but think of all the pirated scene release copies backups you’ll be able to make! Wii Disc Dumper [PS2-Scene via Digg] → Read More
http://www.spymac.com/hop?id=1795521 Spymac seems to have gotten its hands on a yet-to-be-published “Get a Mac” ad featuring none other than our friends Mac and PC. This time around, PC is getting a webcam peripheral added with some duct tape. Looks like PC wants to do a little “online chatting with his buddies”. Silly PC. Doesn’t he know all Macs obviously come with a built-in iSight? Clearly not. LEAKED: Getamac Ad [Spymac] Update: Turns out the Ad was shown alongside the debut of “24″ on Sunday. It was however, leaked before the debut and you can now watch it here in decent quality. Still a hilarious ad though! There’s also another here as well. → Read More
“Yesterday, we were The Venice Project™. Today, we’re Joost™. Tomorrow, we’re yours! Imagine having infinite choice, and TV that is truly interactive. TV anywhere, anytime…” Umm OK… Joost → Read More
I’ve used Windows Vista. I hate Windows Vista. I believe it’s a bloated, copy-cat of an operating system that does more to impress Microsoft’s stock holders than it does to address the legitimate concerns and complaints of unfortunate Windows users. That being said, there is one part of Vista that I do rather like, an aspect that in fact fills me with the feature envy that we OSX users rarely experience: SideShow. The idea itself isn’t novel, to be sure, but the things that can be done with it are rather exciting. Elekson has come up wiht a laptop bag that does exactly the type of thing SideShow was made to do. → Read More
MobileCrunch has announced the beta release of Nimbuzz Talk, a mobile/PC app that connects cellphone and PC users. The application supports voice, presence, conference calls, and SMS messaging between mobile devices, PC’s, and mobile to PC or PC to mobile. It currently works with MSN, Google Talk, and their own Nimbuzz chat client. It reminds me of another mobile/PC release, Talkster. Mobile-to-mobile calls placed between Nimbuzz users are billed at local rates, making for some cheap or even free international calls. Nimbuzz’s presence support allows users to place calls by selecting a contact off their buddy list. The service then connects users via an 800 number. MobileCrunch’s Oliver Starr says the mobile-to-mobile quality is “excellent”, but mobile-to-pc “leaves something to be be desired”. The new service also has a “Buzz” feature that lets an offline contact know you’re trying to get in touch. In their next release, this will cause Nimbuzz to wake up on the contact’s phone. → Read More
Seems Dell is the latest company to jump on the rugged-notebook bandwagon. Dell’s D620 ATG (All-Terrain Grade) laptop is a response to Panasonic’s infamous line of ToughBook computers that can take pretty much anything thrown at them (literally). The base model starts at $2500 and comes with a 14-inch widescreen display, up to 4GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo CPUs, port covers, shock-mounted hard disks, and a spill proof keyboard. Those who are outdoorsmen/clumsy should immediately surf over to Dell.com to order one. Dell ships ruggedized Latitude portable [Electronista] → Read More
When I was a kid, my mom used to drag me to these arts and crafts fairs at the high school auditorium. It was horrible. Row upon row of potpourri and stupid frilly crap. There was, however, one beacon of hope. → Read More
Not a huge announcement, but those of you with DSLRs might want to perk your heads up for a second. Sony has announced they’ll be manufacturing Compact Flash cards up to 4GB capacity. The Type I cards will have 66x and 133x transfer speeds. The cards will coincide with Sony’s α100 D-SLR camera system. No word yet on pricing or who is going to shell out the extra $10 for that Sony logo. Sony to develop Compact Flash memory cards [New Launches] → Read More
Seagate sure is proud to show off its new Savvio hard drive. Seagate claims that this 15,000-RPM drive is the fastest on earth due to the 2.5-inch frame it uses. It also consumes less power than most hard drives while idling. You can even access data in a lightning-fast 2.9ms! Wow, this is real exciting stuff! I mean, think about what you could do in 2.9ms! You could pretend to picture John naked or stop giving a shit about a dick-sizing contest between Seagate and its competitors. Seagate claims world’s fastest hard drive [Electronista] → Read More
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