Week of January 13, 2006

ABC Signs Broadband Agreement with BBC

Monday, January 9th, 2006

Motorola kicks off the new year with another step in mobile phone convergence. We've already seen the Rockr, Motorola's digital music player/phone combo. Well, the iRadio takes the approach of uploading music from six different Internet radio stations while docked for recharging. The listener can then listen to the music on his or her phone while out of the house.

Motorola has taken an interesting approach to getting around bandwidth issues, as the iRadio is not truly streaming or a real radio (the music is played off of storage in the phone). The six station limit should be more than enough for most people.

CES Review, part one

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

The end of the college football bowl games earlier this month signaled that once again, it was time for me to make a trip to Las Vegas to visit the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Rather than any single one "big thing" at this year's show, the hot pursuit of "convergence" continued. The 2,500 exhibitors covered a wide range of product categories, with most trying to become the single dominant conduit through which consumers will consume their entertainment and information content.

CES Review, part two

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

In his keynote address, Google's Larry Page announced the new Google Video Store, which will launch soon with 3,000 titles, offering 99 cent to $3.95 downloads of classic and current TV shows and sporting events, available for use on iPod Video, Sony PSP or a new Google Video Player, but not on Windows Mobile. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Bill Gates used his keynote address to announce Urge, which is a new Windows-based music downloading service in conjunction with MTV, as well as releasing more details about the new Vista computer operating system, which is due to replace XP by the end of this year. In his keynote address, Intel's Paul Otellini unveiled its new Centrino Duo Mobile technology, which uses two processing cores on one chip. As well as providing big performance increases for the next generation of laptops, these Core Duo chips will also the centerpiece of Intel's new Viiv platform, which aims to place the PC in control of all home entertainment.

CES Review, part three

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Among computers, Acer, Sony and HP all announced lightweight laptops (some with carbon-fiber cases) using dual-core technology, which allows multithreaded applications to literally perform two actions at the same time, meaning much faster performance and better multi-tasking capability. For the future, Panasonic displayed a laptop using a fuel cell instead of a battery, which uses 7 ounces of methanol to provide power for about 20 hours.

CES Review, part four

Friday, January 13, 2005

Among hand-held gadgets, Pioneer displayed its Inno ($440), which is a self-contained and portable XM Satellite Radio receiver that can record up to 50 hours of programming on its 1 GB of internal storage, as well as serving as an MP3 player. Creative Zen showed its good-looking new Vision:M audio player ($330), with a more colorful screen than the iPod, as well as containing a voice recorder, FM tuner and recorder. Toshiba displayed its Gigabeat S player ($399), which uses Microsoft's Portable Media Center software to record music and video on a 60 GB hard drive to display on a 2.4" screen.

Motorola introduced its new version Rokr E2 cell phone, which will offer its new iRadio subscription music service later this year (with 435 commercial-free music channels priced at $7/month) rather than the iTunes software featured in the original model. Both Panasonic and Philips announced the availability later this year of new cordless phones that will make long-distance calls over the Internet (VoIP) using Skype, as well as ordinary landline calls. Plus, the MobiTV service was showing its service in real time, offering over 25 channels of live television through a variety of mobile carriers directly to cell phones, by monthly subscription.