2009 Hi-Tech Wishlist

Courtesy of MSNBC Technology

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Amazon Lightning Sales Offer Up Cameras, Netbooks

By Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine: Yahoo! Tech

"For those not up for braving the Black Friday crowds, Amazon.com is still running its week-long lightning sales on various tech gadgets – from netbooks and laptops to cameras and HDTV's.

These limited-time sales last only several hours – or until they sell out. Amazon reveals the Black Friday price minutes before the device goes on sale, and then runs a count-down clock and a tally on the percentage of its inventory that has been sold.

A Pentax Optio W80 waterproof digital camera, for example, is selling for $242.61, a savings of about $43, and has about an hour left on the clock.

Later today, Amazon will unveil pricing on a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 10.1-inch netbook, which normally retails for $399.99.

For those who don't want to watch the clock, Amazon's deal of the day is a 4.3-inch Garmin nüvi GPS navigation device for $129.99, nearly $50 off the retailer's regular price. The 285W/285WT devices have a wide screen, Bluetooth capability, turn-by-turn directions that call out street names, and the ability to deliver real-time traffic, weather, and gas price updates.

A PlayStation 3 with 120GB, bundled with Infamous and Killzone 2, is selling for $299.99, also a $50 savings.

Other deals include a Sony 1080p Blu-ray player for $129, a Panasonic Viera 50-inch plasma HDTV for $685.96, and a Dell Inspiron Mini IM10 netbook with integrated TV tuner for $299.99."

GPS cell phone apps challenge standalone devices

By David Twiddy / AP: Yahoo! Tech (CLICK to read more)

"The growth of cell phones with global-positioning technology is making life uncertain for the makers of personal navigational devices that help drivers figure out where they are and where to go.

Manufacturers of standalone GPS products will have to move quickly and smartly to transform their dumb map readers into intelligent devices that can provide a host of services such as traffic avoidance.

Otherwise, they risk obsolescence in a future in which customers view navigation as simply one more application for their phones. Some of the newer apps already closely match what basic, dashboard-mounted gadgets can do.

'You have to redefine the category somewhat, like what Apple did with the iPod Touch,' said Ross Rubin, technology analyst for research firm The NPD Group. 'That turned it from something that was just a media player into something that accessed the Web.'

Garmin, TomTom and other makers of satellite navigational devices could take a lesson from camera makers, which have convinced consumers that they still need standalone devices because there is a significant drop in quality with cameras built into cell phones.

Those GPS manufacturers now must make a similar argument for their devices or add enough extra services to give shoppers a reason to buy."

BlackBerry Bold 9700 hands-on video

Take a video tour round the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Does its svelte new package deliver all the Berry goodness?

NerdBoyTV NOTE: Just upgraded my daughter's phone on T-Mobile to the BlackBerry Bold 9700—she absolutely LOVES it! It's optical "track pad" is sooooooooooo awesome.

NerdBoyTV presents "Black Friday" Ads!!!

NerdBoyTV NOTE: To my faithful NerdBoyTV followers...this is for YOU! Plan your shopping NOW! ENJOY...

Target "Black Friday" Ad

Walmart "Black Friday" Ad

Best Buy "Black Friday" Ad

Sony hopes online service will build brand loyalty

By Yuri Kageyama / AP: Yahoo! Tech (CLICK to read more)

"Sony's new online service connecting the whole range of its gadgets to downloadable content like movies and games should help build brand loyalty, a top executive said Friday.

Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai said the service, set for launch next year, highlights an advantage that Sony has over rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. and other manufacturers that don't produce their own content. Sony's business empire spans gaming, electronics, movies and music.

'That's the kind of combination that I think is not seen anywhere else,' Hirai said in an interview at Tokyo headquarters. 'That I think is where our core competence lies, and that's a differentiator for Sony.'

The online service will include games, movie downloads and other interactive entertainment, which will be accessible on Sony products, such as Bravia TVs, Cyber-shot digital cameras and Reader electronic books."

Nokia’s netbook raises the bar — and the price

By Suzanne Choney / msnbc.com (CLICK to read more)

"A $600 netbook? That's the unsubsidized price of Nokia's new Booklet 3G, the company's venture into the netbook field. Or, it's $300 with an AT&T contract for two years. Neither is an appealing price option. After a year of great success with consumers, is the heretofore 'inexpensive' netbook starting to stray into high-priced territory?

Nokia doesn't like to call its new 2.76-pound device a netbook, but it walks like a netbook and talks like a netbook, albeit one of the best-looking ones out there, with its aluminum, MacBook Pro-like appearance. The Booklet 3G has a 10.1-inch screen and promises a battery life of up to 12 hours, quite good for a netbook or any laptop. It became available this week at Best Buy.

'There are two things that differentiate the Booklet from other netbooks,' said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. 'One is somewhat nicer design, but the other is a huge cost difference. The problem is that consumers are going to be hard-pressed to pay a premium on design for a machine that's slower and less capable of similar devices that cost half as much.'"

Best Buy Black Friday Advertisement Posted

Oh my, there are a LOT of great buys here...I may have to shop earlier this year after all! Checkout the leaked ads below. WOW!

BFAds-Best-Buy-2009.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Comcast's NBC talks cap its decades-long rise

By AP: Yahoo! Tech (CLICK to read more)

"Ralph Roberts knew he was onto something big when people ran after his cable TV trucks in Tupelo, Miss., asking for a visit to their homes.

It was 1963. Roberts had been looking for new ventures after selling his belt-and-suspenders company. He bought American Cable Systems for $500,000 — an opportunity that had been mentioned to him by a business acquaintance he came across while strolling down a Philadelphia street.

American Cable Systems, which served 1,200 subscribers, was one of many independent companies arising at the dawn of the cable TV industry: It strung up cable to carry television broadcasts to homes that couldn't get clear reception over the free airwaves.

'It just looked to me like a wonderful business. Without doing too much, you just put up an antenna, ran some cables and people paid you $5 a month ... to bring in TV stations,' he said in a corporate video produced this year. 'It's marvelous because people love TV, and more is better.'

Today the descendant of that small cable system — Comcast Corp. — still believes people want more TV. And Comcast might be about to get lots of it.

Comcast is close to sealing a deal to take control of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. in a transaction ultimately expected to be worth $30 billion. If regulators approve, Comcast would be one of the nation's largest entertainment companies."

Price Is Heavier, But These Laptops Are Very Sleek

By Walter S. Mossberg / The Wall Street Journal via Yahoo! Finance

"PC makers this fall are trying to get consumers who want small laptops to move up from low-profit netbooks to larger, costlier models called 'ultrathin' or 'thin and light.' These models are lighter and thinner than many regular laptops, but they have bigger screens and keyboards than most netbooks do.

The slim portables tend to start at around $500 and many fall into the $600 to $900 range. You can easily find bigger, heavier laptops for less. But the manufacturers are hoping mobile consumers will be willing to pay a premium for sleekness and long battery life.

I've been testing three examples of the new class: the Toshiba Satellite T135, the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dm3t and the Lenovo IdeaPad U350. All came equipped with bright 13-inch screens, power-sipping Intel processors and Windows 7 Home Premium. The particular configurations lent me by the manufacturers for testing were priced at $600 for the Toshiba, $840 for the HP and $700 for the Lenovo.

I found the trio a mixed bag, with notable pros and cons for each. These trade-offs left me unable to declare a clear winner. The one you'd like best would depend on your own weighting of various qualities, like the feel of a keyboard or touchpad.

Nevertheless, I found that all three were capable, easy-to-carry laptops. In my tests, each easily handled common consumer tasks at acceptable speeds. The three weighed between 3.5 and 4.2 pounds. All were about an inch thick, or a bit less, at their thinnest points.

I ran all three through my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, set the screen to maximum brightness, leave Wi-Fi on and play a continuous loop of music.

The Toshiba and the HP turned in excellent results in this battery test, while the Lenovo was disappointing, mainly because it comes with a smaller standard battery. In a re-test, with a $50 optional larger battery, the Lenovo also did very well, but at the cost of added weight and thickness.

In normal use, with power-saving turned on, the Toshiba and HP could easily last for a full work day of typical activities, and the Lenovo could, too, with the optional battery.

Toshiba Satellite T135

This is a sleek, glossy machine that starts at around 3.9 pounds for the 13-inch models. It got the best battery life of the three with a standard battery: five hours and 38 minutes, which I estimate would easily translate into more than seven hours in normal use. It also cost the least, at $600, of the three I tried. My test model came with three gigabytes of memory and a 250-gigabyte hard disk. It was very fast at resuming from sleep, but took more than two minutes to perform a restart with just three common programs running, and nearly two minutes to start up cold.

My main beef with the Toshiba is its keyboard and touchpad buttons. The keyboard felt too rubbery and flexible, and the buttons under the touchpad were in the form of a single, slippery, hard-to-use bar.

HP Pavilion dm3t

This laptop, the most expensive of my test models by far, at $840, was also the heaviest, at 4.2 pounds. The chassis is metal, instead of plastic. Its battery life clocked in at five hours and two minutes in my test, which means you could easily exceed six hours in normal use. My test model came with 3 GB of memory and a huge 500 GB hard disk.

The keyboard felt solid, but the fatal flaw of the dm3 for me was its metallic touchpad, which made the cursor move slowly and even stop at times. Like the Toshiba, the HP took a long time to get going: almost 2.5 minutes for a restart and about two minutes for a cold start.

The HP dm3 also is available for about $100 less when equipped with AMD processors, though HP says those have weaker battery life.

Lenovo IdeaPad U350

In many ways, I liked the U350 best. It was sturdy, but thinner overall than the others because it lacked a bulging battery. The keyboard is firm and well designed, and the touchpad and buttons are comfortable and easy to use. It came with 4 GB of memory and a 320 GB hard disk for its $700 price. It was the only one of the three to restart in under two minutes. It also weighed the least, about 3.5 pounds.

But the IdeaPad's downfall is its small, flat battery, which offered only two hours and 38 minutes of life, or maybe 3.5 to four hours in normal use. With the optional $50 battery, the battery life in my test zoomed up to nearly six hours, which means maybe 7.5 or eight hours in normal use. But that extra battery brought the computer's weight to four pounds and made it thicker.

These thin, light, machines perform adequately and can last a long time unplugged. But I urge you to test them personally before choosing one, to make sure you're comfortable with their designs."

CNET Prizefight: Motorola Droid vs. iPhone 3GS

It's another epic Prizefight! Motorola and Verizon are bringing their "A" game to take on the reigning champ, the Apple iPhone 3GS on AT&T. Find out who will be left standing after this bloody battle.

Google makes concessions on digital book deal

By Michael Liedtke / AP: Yahoo! Tech

"Internet search leader Google will ease its control over millions of copyright-protected books earmarked for its digital library if a court approves a revised lawsuit settlement that addresses objections of antitrust regulators.

The offer comes two months after the U.S. Justice Department balked at Google's original agreement with authors and publishers, warning the arrangement could do more harm than good in the emerging market for electronic books.

Google Inc. is hoping to keep the deal alive with a series of new provisions. Among other things, the modified agreement provides more flexibility to offer discounts on electronic books and promises to make it easier for others to resell access to a digital index of books covered in the settlement.

Copyright holders also would have to give more explicit permission to sell digital book copies if another version is being sold anywhere else in the world.

The concessions filed late Friday in New York federal court are just the latest twist in a class-action lawsuit filed against Google four years ago by groups representing the interests of U.S. authors and publishers. The suit alleged Google's ambition to make digital copies of all the books in the world trampled their intellectual rights.

Google negotiated a $125 million truce nearly 13 months ago only to be attacked by a brigade of critics who protested to U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who must approve the agreement before it takes effect. The financial terms of the settlement remain intact, including a promise to give 63 percent of all sales proceeds to participating authors and publishers.

Among other complaints, the opposition said the plan would put Google in charge of a literary cartel that could illegally rig the prices of electronic books — a format that is expected to become increasingly popular.

In echoing some of those concerns, the Justice Department advised Chin that the original settlement probably would break laws set up to preserve competition and protect copyright holders, even if they can't be located.

The concessions didn't go far enough to satisfy one of the most strident opponents, Open Book Alliance, a group that includes Google rivals Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

'Our initial review of the new proposal tells us that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand,' said Peter Brantley, the Open Book Alliance's co-chairman. 'Fundamentally, this settlement remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners.'

In a Friday conference call, representatives for Google, the authors and publishers expressed confidence the revisions would gain court approval, although they conceded they didn't respond to all misgivings raised by the Justice Department.

Under the timeline laid out in the revised settlement, the Justice Department would have until Feb. 4 to file its opinion about the changes. The revised settlement suggests that a final hearing be scheduled for Feb. 18.

French and German officials also protested the settlement, arguing that it's so broad that it could infringe on copyrights in their countries.

The revised settlement would apply only to books registered with the U.S. copyright office or published in Canada, the United Kingdom or Australia.

Much of the concern about the settlement has focused on whether it would give Google a monopoly on so-called 'orphan works' — out-of-print books that are still protected by copyright but whose writers' whereabouts are unknown.

If the writers or their heirs don't stake a claim to their works, the original settlement calls for any money made from the sales of their books to go into a pool that eventually would be shared among the authors and publishers who had stepped forward to work with Google.

The revised settlement will designate an independent party to oversee the financial interests of the orphan books' copyright owners. Proceeds from the sales to orphan books also would be held for 10 years, up from five years in the original agreement. After that, the money would be given to charities.

The revised settlement suggests that a final hearing be scheduled for Feb. 18."

REVIEW: Motorola Droid (Verizon Wireless) - HQ

Courtesy of CNET

You've seen Verizon's commercials attacking a certain smartphone from a fruit company. Now, check out CNET's First Look video of the Motorola Droid to see if it lives up to its claims.

Wait, aren't Early Termination Fees illegal in California?

By Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

NerdBoyTV NOTE: I always turn to Christopher Null of Yahoo! Tech to explain such "complicated" issues as this one regarding Early Termination Fees. Read below for explanation as to why Verizon can charge $300 EVEN after a California Ruling against Sprint Nextel made their fees illegal. Darnit! ;-)

"Reader Jeremy (and several others), in response to yesterday's post about Verizon doubling Early Termination Fees on certain devices, asked the following: After reading today about ETFs now even higher with Verizon, I can't help but be confused. I thought a court ruling in California last year made ETFs illegal. Could you shed some light on this for me?

Indeed, I'd almost forgotten about the landmark lawsuit from last year in which Sprint Nextel was ordered to pay millions in restitution to consumers who had been charged an Early Termination Fee. In case you've also forgotten: Last July, Sprint was ordered to repay some $18.2 million to customers who'd been assessed an ETF and were ordered to stop trying to collect ETFs from thousands of additional customers.

Many (myself included) got a little excited: A judge had declared ETFs to be illegal... right? Soon we would all be free of the burden of paying extra money when we cancel our cell phone contracts, no?

Well, not so fast, folks. A couple of issues quickly turned up to complicate things.

For starters, remember that the Sprint Nextel ruling is a California case only, with relatively limited reach. Even if that court had struck down ETFs altogether, it would only apply in the court's jurisdiction unless the feds got involved (which they didn't).

Second, it's important to note that the court didn't make all ETFs illegal, it simply said that what Sprint Nextel was doing was against the law and ordered the company to reimburse its customers. Technically the court did not make all ETFs illegal, just the ones that Sprint Nextel was levying.

And that brings us to the third point: In order to smooth things over, Sprint settled the lawsuit with its customers this January (I totally missed this news when it happened -- customers got up to $90 each), and agreed to change the way it levies ETFs. Now, Sprint Nextel follows the practice of most of the rest of the industry by slowly reducing the amount of the ETF over the lifetime of the customer's contract. The FCC seems fine with this, so it's doubtful the courts will continue to make a fuss over it.

So, yeah -- ETFs, as Sprint had been using them, are vaguely 'illegal' -- but since no one's doing them that way any more, the court case is largely irrelevant. In other words, Verizon is probably free to charge you a whopping $350 ETF if it wants to, as long as it keeps offering that $10/month discount as time wears on. Sorry, folks!"

Movies on SD card now a reality

By Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

NerdBoyTV NOTE: I can't wait to give this one a try! Nice!

"First came movies on USB thumb drives. Now feature films are suddenly finding their way to SD cards, the same media you use in your digital camera.

While the thumb drive movie appears to be a one-off experiment involving just one title bundled on a flash drive and being sold in just one retail chain, movies on SD card are actually invading on a broader scale.

Specifically, kiosks that offer consumers movie rentals downloaded to SD card will arrive in six Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores located in Dallas, Seattle, and Portland this week. The kiosks will come loaded with a thousand films (and 500 more by the end of the year), including both catalog titles and major new releases -- and they'll be available on the same day as the general DVD release, before they hit video-on-demand services on cable networks or the Internet.

Want to play back the movie? In addition presumably to having the option of playing it on your computer, video stores will rent or sell set-top boxes that can play SD-stored content directly. It's unclear if users will be able to bring their own SD card for the download or will have to purchase one in conjunction with the movie rental.

Pricing, curiously, is set to be higher than the $1-a-night standard for DVD kiosk rentals, largely because they will use a similar strategy to VOD pricing, where movies can be watched at any time up to a month after the movie is rented and must be completed within 48 hours of when you start watching the film, after which time the movie can no longer be viewed.

SD-based movie purchase options, with no time limits on viewing, are also in the works.

I don't live in a market with these kiosks so won't be able to try them out firsthand. If any of you manage to find one of these kiosks in the real world, please report back with your thoughts!

The kiosks are being installed this week."

VIDEO: The Droid has landed!

Motorola's latest Droid commercial has people drooling (and running for cover), and T-mobile is just trying to get the lights turned on again.

Wireless "power mat" charging options on the rise

By Christopher Null / Yahoo! Tech

"There's nothing more frustrating than fumbling around in a dark room after a long night out, trying to plug your cell phone into the wall, making sure you've got that tiny plug oriented the right way, and getting everything all copacetic so you can hit the hay. And God help you if you didn't get the adapter pushed in quite far enough... why, just about anything can go wrong in the delicate process of plugging stuff in.

But what if you just had to take your phone out of your pocket and lay it down on the counter so it could charge wirelessly? It's been a dream of many a gadget maven for years, and now 'power mat' charging solutions are finally becoming a reality, with numerous such products hitting the market in time for the holidays.

Powermat was perhaps the first company to enter this space, and it's still going strong with a sleek charging pad and fairly good device support. Like all such mat-based charging systems, you can't just take any electronic device and drop it on the pad to get it charging. You have to add a sleeve or adapter of some sort to your phone or other device in order for it to be able to work with the plug-less charging system. Users generally leave this sleeve affixed permanently to their phones. In the case of the Powermat sleeve, it adds a bit of bulk to the handset, with a small square piece jutting out the back of the phone.

Powermat is not alone: Duracell's new myGrid offers much the same type of charging solution, again with a sleeve setup that lets the base unit interface with the handset directly. A single mat can charge four products at once. There are even specialized charging systems available for specific devices, like Energizer's mat designed to wirelessly charge your Nintendo Wii controllers.

How well do they work? I'm still waiting on my review samples for the latest round of chargers, but users seem generally pleased with them. The big advantage, of course, is that cable clutter is eliminated, and fussy Virgo types like myself get a real kick out of getting rid of exposed wiring in the home. Some aren't thrilled with the bulk added by the sleeves, however, and the Wall Street Journal recently surfaced complaints that wireless power mats waste energy even when they aren't charging anything. Prices can be on the high side, too.

Will wireless charging go big-time? The Palm Pre offers a wireless charging solution, no adapter or sleeve required, that users seem to like -- but it will probably take more successful products, and hopefully some industry standards being developed, to push integrated wireless charging solutions into the mainstream. I'm ready!"

Verizon doubling early termination fees

By Christopher Null / Yahoo! Tech

"It's called lock-in, folks: The tactic that works by ensuring that once you sign on with a product or a company, you have virtually no way to escape. You're stuck for life. Apple does this with the iPod by locking iTunes to its music player. Online e-mail providers do this regularly by making it impossible to get your email out of their system and onto another.

But perhaps the most notorious example of electronics lock-in is the good-old cell phone contract early termination fee. Every carrier has one: If you want to get out of your contract early, you'll pay at least a hundred bucks for the privilege. The carriers justify it by saying you get a better deal on your cell phone when you make the initial purchase, but for many, hanging on to a crummy phone for two years just isn't worth it, and many people find that after the first year has passed, they want out of the deal (usually so they can get an iPhone).

And that termination fee is always painful.

Well, if you sign up for new service with Verizon beginning November 15 or later, that early termination fee is about to start hurting much worse. According to Boy Genius Report, Verizon is preparing to double its ETF to a whopping $350 if you cancel your service before your contract is up. For users with a simple calling plan, that amount of money can be close to the fees for a year's worth of service.

Oh, there's a little bone thrown in there for you: For every month of your contract fulfilled, the company knocks $10 off the ETF. Great deal? Hardly: Cancel your 24-month contract in the 23rd month and you're still on the hook for a $120 termination fee. Ouch.

It's unclear if the new fee will apply to all devices or just mysterious 'advanced' ones (see the link for further speculation), but either way this is a bad omen for all cell phone users, as all the carriers tend to raise prices and fees in lockstep with each other whenever they think they can get away with it. (See also: Text messaging fees.) And they usually do.

Get ready for some outrage, folks. Be mad!"

SHOW #84 - NerdBoyTV: Clickfree Transformer SE

In this episode of NerdBoyTV, Ryan Yee takes the Clickfree Transformer SE automatic backup unit for a test drive. The Transformer SE converts any external hard drive into a Clickfree backup drive.