iRiver unleashes a stream of products at CES
There are a dozen products on iRiver's CES announcement list -- devices for networking, devices for getting around town and enjoying one's music, including two that are pretty Mickey Mouse.
The world's most famous rodent graces two solid-state MP3 players, the Mplayer Eyes and the Mplayer Season II. The Eyes model is a 2 GB player, available in pink or blue, with white LED eyes that speak to you of...well, MP3s. The 1 GB Season II model comes in 10 colors and, like its sibling, connects via the USB port.
Microsoft Research discovers its inner Songsmith
Researchers at Microsoft have developed software that purports to do what many thousands of starving artists work at daily: write music. But Songsmith, according to its keepers, is all in good fun.
The program, announced Thursday at CES, generates musical accompaniment to a song sung into the computer microphone. Songsmith knows about several dozen musical styles, and adjusts its output accordingly -- selecting a reggae accompaniment will get you something different from the R&B results, for instance. The tempo can be tweaked to be peppier or slower, various instruments can be added or subtracted, and more knowledgeable users can make further adjustments.
Tiny netbooks, simple video set Sony sailing through CES
It's only the first set of Sony announcements, but the product assortment at Sony's booth preview Wednesday was enough to cap the evening with something approaching nerd-vana, if you like your gadgets colorful and slightly off-kilter.
After a day of mega-announcements that quickly became paint-by-numbers exercises (environmental awareness? check! tiny netbook-looking object? check? response to Flip videocam? check!) Sony was both right on target and curiously off-kilter. Some press folk groused about having to haul out of the Venetian's meeting rooms and over to the actual show floor, but it worked for Sony -- emphasizing that all the podium talk in Vegas isn't one-tenth as interesting as getting your hands on the gear.
Counter-'tock:' AMD fires back at Intel with everything it's got
This may be it. If AMD has one trump card left in its deck, it could be the ability to deliver a system that balances attractive performance with a measurably lower price. Today at CES, AMD is making its one shot to win back the enthusiast.
In recent months, the general perception among knowledgeable system builders has been that Intel has taken back the performance crown in nearly all market categories, and is threatening to lock in on the two market segments AMD has historically championed: 1) the budget-conscious buyer, and 2) the system builder and enthusiast.
Ballmer: Windows Live to integrate with Facebook, new Win7 beta
Its enterprise brands have all been succeeding quite nicely -- Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Office, SharePoint. But in the consumers' mind, Microsoft took a beating last year. How will Ballmer recover?
7:50pm PT: They have moved over to a surface controller that will integrate with the tablet as well as a smartphone. They're showing off an e-ink style mockup as well, this is followed by typical Ballmer comment about how excited he is about everything. Gary Shapiro: "Bill left you a big sweater to fill, Steve, but I think you've pulled it off!" And with that, Tripod comes back on, to play out the quickly vaporizing crowd.
OLPC eliminates half of staff, cuts salaries of rest
This afternoon, the One Laptop per Child project announced cutbacks that CEO Nicholas Negroponte called "unavoidable."
The nonprofit project that envisioned the $100 laptop that could be used in even the most remote settings has changed its vision to the $0 laptop, and as such has to eliminate roughly half of its workforce.
Live from Sony's (first) CES 2009 press event
It's Sony's answer to the netbook: its latest very slim P-series Vaio. But even that is taking a backseat to none other than Jeopardy!, another Sony property, complete with Alex Trebek live and in person.
Jacqueline Emigh, 4:39 pm PST: The show begins with Sony Senior Vice President for Communications Rick Clancy speaking, after having been introduced by none other than Alex Trebek. They're filming Jeopardy! at the booth next door.
Sony's big news: the Vaio P 'Lifestyle PC'
The question in advance of Sony's first press conference at CES (there will be more than one) is whether it would choose to talk about its financial condition first. The answer is apparently "no," as it premiered its secret Vaio PC.
But in typical Sony fashion, its late afternoon press conference got off the ground about a half-hour late, amid a sea of reporters. Many of them had been given advance word of the Vaio P series, which Sony is describing as "a new line of high-performance, ultra-portable notebooks that fuses Sony's eye-catching design and mobility."
Just how fast is Facebook growing?
Facebook may have become the Internet's second most popular destination after Google, according to recent statistics. But that's if you're willing to believe that the social site is essentially acquiring a small state every day.
By any measure, the social networking site Facebook is becoming a phenomenal success. The BBC reported that it accounted for one in every 22 online visits on Christmas Day, according to Internet research company Hitwise -- up 69% from the same time in 2007 and with an overall market share of 4.65%, making it the second most popular site after search engine Google.
Live from the Panasonic press conference
No longer "Matsushita," and given a big boost with the pending acquisition of Sanyo, how will the world's most recognized brand in consumer electronics, geographically speaking, react to this sluggish economy?
3:43pm PT: And that brings the show to a rather abrupt end, the lights come up and the crowd naturally flocks to the 1/3" thin screen. We will snap some pictures and put them up shortly.
Samsung shows slimmer LED TVs, slimmer Blu-ray console
In an era when HDTVs are being measured in terms of pinky-width, Samsung promises to squeeze that figure even more, while adding new interactive features to its displays' built-in IPTV functionality.
JE, 2:39 pm PST: On to camcorders: Samsung is announcing a flash-based camcorder that can record up to 12 hours of HD video.
Sharp stays (mostly) on point at lunchtime CES event
A very big room, journalists on the feedbag, and the tricky task of pitching big pretty TVs in an ugly economy made the noontime Sharp press conference at CES 2009 something of a tangled affair.
They're optimistic at Sharp, even though executives in agreement with Displaysearch stats that have sales of LCD TVs off 16% globally in 2009. There's always 2010 and an expected 10% uptick, and Sharp wants you to know that they're in it for the long haul and feel that tough times can strengthen a company. (And when someone gets up at CES and says anything different, Betanews will be the first to tell you.)
Audiovox flashback features Elvis and rabbit-ears
Elvis! The season's first sighting of the King occurred at the Audiovox press event. The King was in relatively svelte form (for jumpsuit-era Elvis); also, Audiovox announced some products.
(Really, CEO and president David Geise reminded the crowd, it wasn't such a stretch; the 35th anniversary of Elvis's Aloha From Hawaii special, the first event ever broadcast worldwide live via satellite, is at hand. Only at CES...)
DivX finds its way into another HDTV, in a likely IPTV move
Samsung has announced that its first DivX Certified flat-panel high-definition televisions will be available in March. The company announced a licensing agreement with DivX last year.
DivX is digital video technology that lets users create and watch content, and only a few years ago was relegated to the task of making ripped videos smaller on PCs' hard drives. But since that time, the company has made a surprisingly reliable video compression format, at least for IPTV. Having the Samsung HDTVs certified by DivX means consumers can play back high-quality DivX video on their displays.
$200 Blu-ray price point now matched by Vizio
Vizio has announced its first Blu-ray disc player, also supporting BD-Live content and also priced at $199.99.
The VBR100 Blu-ray Player uses 1080p and upconverts from 720p and 1080i -- unlike Memorex', which also upconverts from 480p. Vizio promotes its unit's "super slim" dimensions of 17 X 11 X 2 inches. Memorex has not yet revealed the size of its player.
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