Panasonic announced what it said was the first portable Blu-ray Disc player, which will be available in May for an undisclosed price.

The company said the DMP-B15 will have the same functionality as other Panasonic Blu-ray players such as the DMP-BD60, the DMPBD80, and the DMP-B70V, but would include a three-hour rechargeable battery (okay, no epics), and an optional headrest mounting bracket for use in a car (by the passengers, presumably).

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Hauppage Digital Inc., a developer and manufacturer of analog and digital TV tuner products for PCs, has eliminated a competitor by buying the Pinnacle PCTV product line from Avid Corp.

Avid is best known for its video editing hardware and software.

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Touch Revolution, a year-old California company that specializes in custom touch-based devices is showing off a desktop Google Android device similar to one that will be released nationwide through service providers later this year.

The desktop TFT LCD touch device is not the exact device that will be released later this year, since "Our customers wouldn't be so happy about us showing it off before they do," according to CEO Mark Hamblin.

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Palm on Thursday at CES 2009 unveiled its effort to rejoin the battle for a stake of the mobile smartphone market with a completely new device running Palm's new webOS. The company seems to have learned a thing or two from Apple's iPhone. Click below for images of the Pre and tell us what you think: Is Palm back in the game?

View images of the Palm Pre

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At CES today, HTC is announcing another mobile phone for T-Mobile's US wireless network. Unlike HTC's G1, the new phone isn't Android-based.

HTC, however, is continuing to work toward a second Android device, a spokesperson told Betanews yesterday evening.

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With the latest technological countdown for change still in progress, the incoming President-Elect may try to call a halt.

While the February 17 switchover date to a new, principal broadcasting format is looming, another huge switchover is even nearer: January 20. And all of a sudden, the transition team that had until recently suggested that there is only one administration in power at any one time, is suggesting that the US government may not be doing enough to help citizens through this difficult change.

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The two major flash memory card formats for consumer electronics devices both announced plans to launch versions of their technology that expand capacities to up to 2 terabytes, but neither specified an expected release date.

The SD Card Association said yesterday that it would be rolling out the SDXC (SD eXtended Capacity) standard to succeed SDHC and become the format for capacities greater than 32GB. Eventually SDXC cards will be able to hold 2 terabytes of data and offer transfer speeds of 300MB per second.

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Dell on Thursday took the wraps off a new line of flat panel displays that feature LED backlighting and consume less than half the power of comparable monitors, the company claims. But the G2210 and G2410 use lower-quality screens than Dell's top-of-the-line UltraSharp models.

Both LED displays feature contrast ratios of 1,000:1 and a brightness of 250 cd/m2. Dell says the response time is 5ms, and has included VGA and DVI-D connections, with HDCP supported on the latter. The resolution of the G2210, a 22-inch widescreen, is 1680 x 1050 pixels, while the 24-inch G2410 is 1920 x 1080 pixels.

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One of the most venerable names in consumer electronics, Pioneer, showed that it was still a player. No pun intended.

Like a TiVo for XM radio, Pioneer Electronics' GEX-XMP3 portable XM Satellite Radio with MP3 provides more than 170 channels of XM content, with the capability to schedule recordings of up to 75 hours of XM programs, and automatic recording of 15-30 hours of XM programs -- five channels at a time. It can also replay up to 30 minutes of live XM. In addition, it includes a microSD card slot for playing recorded music. It is available now for $279.

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The channel behind the TV channels you watch could be the most lucrative new advertising platform since the advent of the Web.

Last year, Macrovision acquired TV Guide magazine not so much for the magazine -- it ended up selling the publication arm for a single buck -- but for its interest in its interactive program guide partnerships with content providers like Comcast. With HDTV manufacturers at CES this year integrating their own program guides into their displays, Macrovision's investment is threatened with irrelevance in the coming years.

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Want to watch a movie in bed? Cooking programs in the kitchen? Pilates videos in the den? Toshiba America Consumer Products has announced a new line of LCD TV/DVD combination products, which are intended to be used in any room in the house.

Screen size include 19, 22, and 26 inches, all with a 16:9 aspect radio. All the TVs will meet Energy Star 3.0 certifications. The current 15-inch television will continue to be sold.

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Continuing the move toward integrating the Internet with televisions, Vizio has announced Connected HDTV, a technology platform that it said will be integrated into its displays shipping this fall.

The technology, which has both wired and wireless connections built in, will use a customized remote control that will give viewers access to Internet content without interrupting the TV program they are viewing.

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With perhaps the entire company on the line, Palm has one more shot at glory with the likely introduction of an entirely new smartphone line.

12:14pm PT: AG: Cynic one, converted. Hot damn.

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Known for its crystal-sharp displays, ViewSonic will enter (or re-enter) the PC business with its Atom-based LinkPC.

New netbooks are struggling to find the right price point, and the sluggish economy may not be helping much. So $400 is going to be a gamble for ViewSonic, a company not known to current buyers as having ever made a PC.

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At CES, Opera is launching a new edition of its toolkit for building browsers that run on gaming machines, set-top boxes, and other places beyond garden variety PC and cell phone environments.

The "Devices" toolkit -- already used for Nintendo's Wii -- now allows for development of mini-browsers with complete Internet capabilities.

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