"Unlocked" iPad Won't Work on T-Mobile 3G

When Apple says AT&T exclusive, they mean AT&T exclusive.

In a twist of the knife familiar to iPhone owners, the iPad won't run on T-Mobile's 3G network, even if you put a T-Mobile "Micro SIM" into it.

The reason, as usual, has to do with frequency bands. Apple advertises the iPad as running on UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100 Mhz. T-Mobile's HSDPA network runs on the AWS band, at 1700 Mhz. No AWS band, no T-Mobile 3G.

The iPad will run on T-Mobile's EDGE network, which delivers speeds of about 120-200 kbps/sec. But that's pretty slow for Web browsing, as anyone who's had an iPhone stuck in EDGE mode knows.

Of course, T-Mobile users get the Google Nexus One, which won't work on AT&T's band. Until someone starts building chipsets that support both HSDPA bands - I haven't seen many of those yet - Americans are just going to have to remain used to their one-carrier phones.

Report: Liquid Diamond Flows on Neptune and Uranus

It could be like the 1848 Gold Rush--except for diamond, and on another planet.
Discovery News reports that oceans of liquid diamond, complete with solid diamond icebergs, could be flowing on both Neptune and Uranus. The research, first reported in the journal Nature Physics, found that diamond behaves just like water when freezing or melting, with solid forms floating on top of liquid forms, the report said.

What's interesting about this is that diamond is very difficult to melt. It's very hard, and tends to turn into graphite at very high temperatures. That graphite is what melts in the end, the report said. When researchers liquefied the diamond at super-high pressures similar to those found on Uranus and Neptune, and then reduced the temperature later, solid pieces of diamond began to appear that didn't sink.

Diamond oceans--already theorized numerous times in the past, but even more likely in light of this latest research--could also explain the orientation of Uranus and Neptune's magnetic fields, the report said. We won't know the composition for sure without either sending spacecraft there, or simulating the conditions here on Earth; both of which require oodles of money.

And for the record, I was joking about a new Gold Rush. Because that's all we need: Richard Branson in his SpaceShipTwo flying to Neptune and sticking a flag in its (gaseous) surface.

NASA’s Puffin Is Way Cooler Than a Jetpack

The engineers at NASA have combined every one of our geeky transportation dreams into a single little vehicle called the Puffin.

It takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. It can cruise at 140 mph and, with a boost mode, hit about twice that. Oh — and it’s electric.

If that sounds too good to be true, it is — for the moment. But give it time. NASA unveiled the concept today at the American Helicopter Society meeting in San Francisco.

The tilt-rotor Puffin has a flight system similar to the V-22 Osprey, but instead of carrying a bunch of Marines and their gear, the Puffin carries one person in the prone position. The rotors are nearly 7.5 feet in diameter and the aircraft has a wingspan just over 13 feet. Thanks to carbon composite construction, the Puffin weighs in at less than 400 pounds including the lithium phosphate batteries.

The Puffin is designed to stand on its tail, which serves as the landing gear (check out the video). Once the Puffin transitions to horizontal flight, the pilot can cruise at more than 140 miles per hour. Hit the boost mode and this bird will do nearly 300 mph. The projected range is 50 miles on a charge. Yeah, that’s not much, but using electricity means the Puffin’s powerplant won’t be limited by air density. NASA says it should be able to climb under full power to around 30,000 feet before the battery pack would be depleted enough to require coming back down.

So why call it the Puffin?

“If you’ve ever seen a puffin on the ground, it looks very awkward, with wings too small to fly, and that’s exactly what our vehicle looks like,” Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley Research Center, told Scientific American. “But it’s also apparently called the most environmentally friendly bird because it hides its poop, and we’re environmentally friendly because we have essentially no emissions. Also, puffins tend to live in solitude, only ever coming together on land to mate, and ours is a one-person vehicle.”

No word on when the Puffin will make its first manned flight, though NASA plans to finish a one-third size demonstrator by March and see how well it transitions from cruising to hovering. But it’s safe to say that if this bird flies — and that’s a very big if — we’ll no longer be dreaming of having our own jetpack.

Conan O'Brien leaves NBC for $45 million deal

NBC's late-nightmare is over. The network announced Thursday (Jan. 21) that Conan O'Brien will leave "The Tonight Show" and NBC.

O'Brien is expected to tape his last "Tonight" on Friday (Jan. 22).
NBC and O'Brien agreed to a $45 million deal wherein Conan receives $33 million under the condition that he not return to television for eight months.

There is also no provision that says his $33 million will go down by the amount of his new television deal, as was previously speculated. The rest of the $45 million will go towards the severance package for his "Tonight Show" staff members. Jay Leno will return to hosting "The Tonight Show" after the Winter Olympics.

The official deal comes after almost two weeks of sturm und drang about the future of O'Brien and Leno, and to at least some degree of the network as a whole. NBC said Sunday, Jan. 10 that the prime-time "Jay Leno Show," which had pulled weak ratings and damaged affiliates' local news numbers, would end, and network chairman Jeff Gaspin floated a plan to give Leno a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m., pushing "The Tonight Show" to just after midnight and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to 1 a.m.

Two days later, however, O'Brien released a statement saying he didn't want to move to midnight. "I sincerely believe that delaying 'The Tonight Show' into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting," he said. "'The Tonight Show' at 12:05 simply isn't 'The Tonight Show.'"

That kicked off a round of sniping that played out in the two hosts' monologues -- as well as those of David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson -- intense negotiations and lots of reports about when O'Brien would be doing his last show.

Negotiations dragged on as NBC and O'Brien's camp hammered out details, with reports of "it'll be done tomorrow" trickling out for almost a week.

Now it's done and Conan O'Brien will receive $33 million for seven months' work. Not a bad deal, though we'd wager he still feels pretty raw about the whole thing.

Microsoft Sues TiVo over Video Patents

Microsoft on Wednesday filed suit against TiVo in a California District Court, accusing the company of violating several patents regarding video programming.

Microsoft claims that components of TiVo's set-top box products, subscription services, and software infringe on Microsoft-held patents for a "system for displaying programming information" and a "system and method for secure purchase and delivery of video content programs."

"We remain open to resolving this situation through an intellectual property licensing agreement, and we have initiated discussions to engage TiVo in negotiations," Kevin Kutz, Microsoft's director of public affairs, said in a statement.

TiVo said the Microsoft suit is simply a means to defend AT&T in a separate case.

In August, TiVo filed a patent suit against AT&T and Verizon in a Texas District Court, accusing them of infringing on patents related to its digital video recorder (DVR) patents. TiVo pointed to AT&T's U-verse service as one of the infringing products.

On Friday, Microsoft filed an intervention complaint in that case, stating that TiVo's case against AT&T involves Microsoft as well.

"U-verse is a subscription service provided by certain subsidiaries of AT&T Inc. As part of the television subscription, a U-verse subscriber is provided with a set-top box with certain digital video recording and playback functionality," Microsoft wrote in its complaint. "The set-top boxes run Microsoft software known as Mediaroom. [TiVo's] accusations of infringement by AT&T Inc. therefore implicate Microsoft software and technology."

"Microsoft's recent legal actions, including its decision to seek to intervene on behalf of its customer, AT&T, and its recent complaint against TiVo in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California do not bear on whether the AT&T products and services that are the subject of TiVo's complaint infringe the patents asserted by TiVo," TiVo said in a statement. "Rather these actions are part of a legal strategy to defend AT&T. We remain confident in our position that AT&T will be found to infringe on the TiVo patents asserted."

Sony delays PlayStation 3 motion controller

Sony has pushed back the release of its highly anticipated motion controller for its PlayStation 3 console until the autumn of 2010.

The controller, which tracks a player's body movements to play a game, was planned to go on sale in spring.

The delay will mean that it will launch around the same time as Microsoft's hands-free games controller, known as Project Natal, for its Xbox 360.

Both are seen as rivals to Nintendo's popular system for its Wii console.

Although demand for Nintendo's game's machine has slowed recently it still dominates console sales.

It has sold more than 56m units worldwide, compared to Microsoft's Xbox 360 which has sold 39m units and Sony's PS3 which has sold around 30m units.

Nintendo's console was the first to have a mass-market motion-detecting controller, allowing the gamer to control the onscreen action with body movements rather than controlling a joystick.

Sony's device is similar to Nintendo's controller. A camera sits on top of the TV and detects the motion of a coloured orb attached to the end of a wand held by the player.

It will be available in North America, Europe, Japan and other Asian countries. Sony has not confirmed its cost.

Unlike its rivals, Microsoft's Natal does not use a controller. Instead, a series of sensors allow the gamer to control the action using gestures, movement and speech.

It will be available in November this year.

Aliph Jawbone Icon sets new bar for Bluetooth headsets

San Francisco's Aliph was already considered among the best, if not the best, Bluetooth headset maker with its Jawbone line of headsets.

But the company is pushing the envelope with its new Jawbone Icon devices, which are not only great looking and sounding, but they're intelligent in a way that Bluetooth headsets have never been before.

Jawbone Icon comes in six designs that range from functional jewelry to smart looking business accessory. Jawbone Icon comes with a dedicated on-off switch, along with a talk button and Jawbone's signature voice activity sensor, which senses when you're talking and activates its NoiseAssassin noise-canceling technology.

But the real magic happens inside. The devices actually sport an operating system that can allow it become a platform for applications. Now they're not iPhone like apps but they are useful short-cuts bringing you services through what used to be a somewhat dumb piece of hardware.

Using Aliph's new MyTalk website, which is in beta, you can connect your Icon to your computer via USB and program it with an app that lets you do things like call Free 411 or use Jott, the note-taking service. Or you can listen and post to Facebook and Twitter using your voice. From MyTalk, you can also set what kind of voice you want to hear on your Icon.

There are six different voices that give you caller ID or what your remaining talk time is. You can also set your volume level on your Icon so that it can normalize the voice levels you hear, so all your inbound sounds stays within a certain range. This is sort of necessary because there is no volume rocker on the Icon.

Jawbone Icon also has some nice iPhone integration so when you pair it with an iPhone, you can see a battery meter for your Icon headset. That's actually really useful because it's often hard to know when your Bluetooth headset is almost dead and needs charging.

The sound quality is great on the Jawbone Icon. Most people won't even know you're on the headset.

Aliph is trying to make buying and using a headset a frictionless proposal. Right now, it's not the case for many consumers. They might have bought a headset to comply with California's hands-free law but many find they're not turning to their headset that often.

Jawbone Icon helps address some of those problems. I like the On-Off switch, which tells me clearly if the device is ready to go. And the battery status updates, whether through the Icon's voice service or on the iPhone, really helps me know when to charge it up. That's another barrier for consumers, who can't discern their battery life and then turn to a dead headset, which only discourages them even more.

Perhaps the nicest surprise is that the Jawbone Icon sells for $99. Maybe a little steep for some but it's got the most features and best performance of any headset around.

Undersea Internet Cables Could Detect Electromagnetic Tsunami Signals

Tsunamis may be detectable with underwater fiber-optic cables, according to a new detailed model of the electrical fields the moving water generates.

The charged particles in the ocean water interact with Earth’s magnetic field to induce voltage of up to 500 millivolts in the cables that ferry internet traffic around. With relatively simple technology, those voltage spikes could serve as a tsunami-warning system for nations that can’t afford large arrays of other types of sensors.

“What we argue is that this is such a simple system to set up and start measuring,” said Manoj Nair, a geomagnetist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who led the research. “We have a system of submarine cables already existing. The only thing we probably need is a voltmeter, in theory.”

The salt in ocean water makes it a good electrical conductor. Positively charged sodium and negatively charged chlorine ions in the solution are free to move. In a large movement of ocean water, these ions are carried across the Earth’s magnetic field creating an electrical field.

Decades ago, Bell Labs researchers revealed that the movement of ocean water after the 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquake created “a large-scale motional electric field” that was detectable by an underwater cable. But the work wasn’t followed up because alternative technologies were available that could take better measurements.

Rich countries like the United States can install sea bottom pressure arrays like those used by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. These directly detect the motion of large amounts of water.

But some countries can’t afford to install and maintain those arrays, so it could be critical to have a lower-cost alternative.

Nair’s work, which will be published in February’s Earth, Planets and Space, quantified the physics of this lower-cost alternative by building a model of the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. He and his team showed that the voltages induced in the submarine cables would be large enough to measure.

It’s a major step towards turning this speculative idea into a real system, and he stressed that other groups would have to confirm the results of their model through observations.

“We treat this as a novel idea that we’re putting forth, but it still needs to be taken seriously and verified by other groups,” Nair cautioned.

For Microsoft and Xbox, Focus Shifts From Game to Video

Executives at Microsoft are fond of saying that its subscription gaming service, Xbox Live, should be thought of as a cable channel.

They want Xbox to be seen not merely as a gaming machine for teenagers, but as a media portal for parents and grandparents, too. The company is even producing shows for users: it is in the middle of the second season of "1 vs. 100," an interactive version of a game show that was on NBC.

The content ambitions do not end there. Microsoft has held in-depth talks with the Walt Disney Company about a programming deal with ESPN, according to people close to the talks, who requested anonymity because the talks were intended to be private.

For a per-subscriber fee, ESPN could provide live streams of sporting events, similar to the ones available through ESPN 360, a service that is available from some high-speed Internet providers. Microsoft could also create some interactive games in association with ESPN, the people said. One of the people said the deal was not imminent. The companies declined to comment.

Already, video game consoles are putting a new emphasis on the video, rather than the game.

The roughly 20 million monthly members of Xbox Live can surf Facebook, browse an online mall of movies and TV episodes and, if they pay, watch Netflix.

"It's 20 million connected living rooms," said Marc Whitten, the general manager of Xbox Live.

Similarly, users of the Sony PlayStation can tune into BBC shows and see Weather Channel updates, as well as stream Netflix. Last week, Netflix extended its streaming service to the Nintendo Wii.

Among the many companies that want to transport the on-demand qualities of the Internet into the living room--the over-the-top model, in industry parlance--the console makers have a significant head start. Nearly 60 percent of American homes now have at least one console, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, up from 44 percent three years ago.

"For both of the big guys, it's about extending the value of the hardware platform," said Mike McGuire, a vice president for the research firm Gartner, referring to Microsoft and Sony. "The devices are hooked to TVs and have broadband connections, and there are more and more opportunities to license movies and TV shows and deliver them in over-the-top models."

Microsoft said this month that it had sold 39 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world. About half sign into Xbox Live each month. At that size, "it starts to feel like a cable network," said Mark Kroese, who oversees Xbox advertising sales for Microsoft. The company does not specify how many members pay for access to premium services like Netflix; basic functions of Xbox Live are free.

The company says it regularly counts more than a million concurrent users--and topped out at 2.2 million at one point during Christmas week last month. That compares favorably to some of the top channels on cable, like TBS and the Cartoon Network, which reach about one million viewers at any given time, according to the Nielsen Company.

The comparisons are crude at best because many of Xbox Live's users are playing games rather than watching video. No third-party measurement exists, because ratings companies like Nielsen do not yet track the service fully.

But there is no doubt that consoles are expanding their domain, something that is evident in Whitten's vision of the service: "The entertainment you want, the people you care about, wherever you are."

The addition of Netflix in late 2008 was an important step into the entertainment arena for Xbox, and perhaps a precursor to Microsoft's current talks with Hollywood producers.

Without releasing specific numbers, Whitten said the streaming movies and TV service were "very, very popular," including in his own household.

Whitten said Microsoft wanted to be a bigger player in television and film viewing. He declined to comment on the conversations with Disney but said more than once that "there's going to be a ton of experimentation around business models and rights."

"Our goal is, really, how can we get as much content there as possible," he said.

Disney is not alone in showing an interest in the console market. Many companies sell TV episodes and film rentals through Microsoft's online store, and Web video ventures are clamoring to have a place on the service.

Console makers have a long way to go to be considered replacements for cable subscriptions, but, at the very least, they could put a dent in the time spent viewing traditional TV.

The interactive game show "1 vs. 100" drew well over 100,000 concurrent users at times during its first season last year, according to Microsoft's internal data. During the second season, which began in November, two-hour TV-style trivia competitions are scheduled on Tuesday and Friday nights. A voice-over announcer, shown onscreen as an avatar, provides live color commentary.

Like the defunct NBC show, the game has a contestant, "The One," and a "Mob" of 100 other players. Members of the audience can watch passively or play along, improving their odds of being picked to play for prizes. Unlike on the live-action TV show, every player on Xbox is represented by a cartoonish avatar.

Dave McCarthy, a general manager at Microsoft Game Studios, said the scheduled TV-style shows provided a guarantee that "you're a part of something bigger."

Beyond the game show realm, Microsoft also exclusively shows "The Guild," a sitcom that it bills as "Seinfeld" meets video game culture. It stars its creator, the actress Felicia Day, and is sponsored by Sprint.

For advertisers like Sprint, online communities like Xbox Live are another arena to pursue consumers. Within "1 vs. 100" there are 15- and 30-second commercial breaks like on TV. Those spots account for about 15 percent of the service's advertising revenue; most of the rest comes from ads on Xbox Live navigation pages, like display ads on Web sites.

In November, Nielsen started to track "1 vs. 100" play and ad views. The pilot program "is the tip of the iceberg," said Gerardo Guzman, a director for Nielsen Games; eventually, he hopes to generate TV-style ratings.

Kroese said Xbox advertisers were "very interested in being able to compare the media buy on Xbox to other media buys they do."

Microsoft says nearly half of Xbox Live members use its entertainment content; the rest mostly play multiplayer games. But it expects that more of its users will try the entertainment side and the line between them will blur further.

"I don't think there's a real difference between a game and 'Lost.' Or a game and 'American Idol.' They're all ways we spend our leisure time," Whitten said.

Over time, he predicted, "these narrow swim lanes--games, music, movies, etc.--will dissolve."

NASA Cuts Price for Retired Space Shuttles

NASA on Friday slashed its multi-million dollar price tag for museums looking to acquire one of its three space shuttle orbiters after they are retired later this year. The due date for the reduced payment, which dropped by almost one-third, was also advanced to be six months earlier than previously announced.

Interested educational institutions and science museums will now only owe the space agency an estimated $28.8 million - down from the $42 million set in December 2008 - if they are chosen to receive either shuttles Atlantis or Endeavour. Discovery, the oldest of the orbiters, has been promised to the National Air and Space Museum, although the Smithsonian will still need to pay the same fee.

The lower price comes as a result of NASA releasing the shuttles' recipients from having to underwrite the "safeing" of the vehicles, preparing them to be safely exhibited. The museums will still need to pay for ferrying the orbiter atop the agency's modified Boeing 747 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to a U.S. destination airport.

While updating its formal Request for Information (RFI) to museums, NASA also revised its schedule for transferring the orbiters to begin six months earlier than previously stated in 2008.

As such, the earliest NASA will announce the final homes for Atlantis and Endeavour will be in July 2010, giving the selected museums approximately a year to fundraise and erect the required indoor housing for the orbiters.

NASA has set a Feb. 19, 2010 deadline for institutions to reply to the updated request in order to be considered to receive an orbiter.

In the interim, NASA is continuing to ready Endeavour to fly the first of five remaining shuttle missions to complete the International Space Station. STS-130 is scheduled to launch on Feb. 7 on a 13-day mission to deliver the third and final connecting node for the orbiting outpost.

Metal Gear Movie Dead

Metal Gear Movie Dead, Producer says film adaptation not happening.

The movie won't be happening, at least in the foreseeable future, according to producer Michael De Luca.

He told -->Collider: "I don't think it's going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made."

He explained that Konami is concerned about a duff movie hurting the image of the game series. "The franchise being as big as it is kind of helps the movie. I'm not sure the movie does the same thing for the game."

De Luca added: "The videogame companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard -- it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up."
So that seems to be that for a MGS film for the time-being, but if Prince of Persia or another game adaptation makes money this year, then perhaps Konami might have a change of heart.

Glory for Avatar at Golden Globes

Blockbuster sci-fi epic Avatar has been named best film drama at the Golden Globe awards, boosting its chances of further glory at the Oscars in March.

Its director James Cameron was also honoured at the event, held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep won the best actress prizes, with Jeff Bridges and Robert Downey Jr taking home their male equivalents.

Ricky Gervais hosted the event, the first of 2010's major Hollywood awards. Presented each year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Globes often indicate who and what will go on to receive Academy Awards.

Television shows are also celebrated at the gala, where prizes are divided between dramas and comedies or musicals.

Cameron's double victory was a vindication of the 55-year-old's faith in his ambitious and costly computer-generated fantasy.

His best director prize also saw him triumph over his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, nominated in the same category for Iraq drama The Hurt Locker.

"This is the best job in the world," he said as Avatar was named best film. "What we do is make entertainment for a global audience."

The Canadian film-maker previously won a Golden Globe for directing Titanic, which went on to win 11 Academy Awards in 1998.

But he steered clear of the self-aggrandising language of his "king of the world" Oscar acceptance speech, heaping praise upon Bigelow, and addressing his actors in Na'vi, the language created for his blockbuster film.

As Cameron accepted his prizes, it was revealed that Avatar had remained top of the US box office for a fifth week.

Worldwide takings for the film now stand at $1.6 bn, setting it on course to top Titanic's $1.8 bn haul this week - which would make it the top-grossing film of all time.

3D, Gaming, Pico Projectors Rocked Computer Electronic Show

One of the bright spots of CES 2010 was the projector scene. Home theater, gaming, and and 3D projectors were abundant. So were pico projectors, which are getting brighter, higher resolution, and adding innovative flourishes.

Although the televisions being shown at CES generated most of the 3D buzz, we were pleased to also see the introduction of several 3D-ready projectors, for both home-theater and educational use. The ViewSonic PJD6531w is a 3,000-lumen DLP projector capable of either 2D or 3D operation. It's designed for tabletop use, but can also be mounted on a ceiling for use in a classroom or meeting room. Along with the pico projectors mentioned below, Optoma announced the first two models in its GameTime projector line. Both the GT360 and GT720 are 3D-ready and optimized for use with gaming platforms, the GT360 for the Nintendo Wii and the GT720 for the Wii, Microsoft Xbox, and Sony PlayStation. Optoma plans to launch half a dozen additional 3D-ready projectors in the first six months of 2010.

Now, on to the picos. Microvision demoed the production version of its long-awaited ShowWX, the first laser pico projector we've looked at. It still has some kinks to iron out, but laser projectors have one big advantage over other technologies: you don't need to focus them, ever, due to the nature of collimated laser light.

3M and Optoma each came out with their third-generation pico projectors. 3M showed off its MPro150 Pocket Projector, building on its predecessor, the MPro120, by offering both built-in memory and micro-SD card slot, 15 lumens of rated brightness, and a suite of applications for business and recreational use. Optoma countered with a pair of pico projectors, the PK201 and PK301, both with 854-by-480 native resolution (a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio). The PK201, which Optoma sees as a companion for mobile devices, is rated at 20 lumens in bright mode, 10 lumens in standard mode. Optoma bills the PK301 as a business tool, a projection companion for netbooks, and cites a brightness of 50 lumens when using AC power, 20 with battery power. Even 20 lumens are considerably brighter than previous-generation models.

Favi Entertainment is also introducing a 50-lumen business pico projector, the Favi RIOLED-Q, and a consumer counterpart, the RIOLED-V. The latter is a WiFi-enabled model that uses Linux to run Web apps; the company sees it as a hybrid projector/media player.

HD resolution for pico projectors is still a dream, but may not be far off. Syndiant, a maker of hi-res microdisplays for pico projectors, teamed with Foryou Multimedia Electronics to demo a prototype 1,024-by-600 shirt-pocket-sized projector, designed for use with relatively high-resolution devices like laptops.

One accessory that created a lot of buzz at CES is the BlackBerry Presenter. When plugged into a projector or monitor, this dongle lets people run a PowerPoint presentation directly from their BlackBerry smartphone.

We're looking forward to testing and reviewing the BlackBerry Presenter and several more of these projectors as they become available. We're hoping that their reality lives up to their promise.

Detroit auto show: Tesla touts its ambitious product goals

Enthusiasts have taken a quick shine to the Tesla Roadster, but the nifty two-seater is not truly a harbinger of things to come from the California electric carmaker.

Tesla's goal is to make more mainstream cars, though it admits that's far from reality. The company's future product plans include two more models that could build volume and expand it beyond its current status as a producer of niche sports cars.

The Model S, an eye-catching sedan, is due in about two and a half years. A third car, which would perhaps be the most affordable, could arrive about five years.

“The roadster is really a stepping stone,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the Detroit auto show. He compared the Roadster with early Porches and said he hopes it will become a collector's item.

Musk said the Roadster could sell 700 to 1,000 units a year, while the Model S could reach 20,000 annually if things go well. The Model S will also be available through leasing.

“The strategy has always been to get to mass-market electric cars,” Musk said.

The company did click off a milestone recently, producing its 1,000th car, which it displayed at the Detroit auto show. It will be auctioned for charity, with three in the Detroit area among those to benefit.

Musk touched on a range of subjects during his media briefing. He also said:

-- Daimler, which has a stake in Tesla, has been a “benign and benevolent partner,” offering access to its supply chain and other support.

-- A team of 18 Tesla employees made the trip to Detroit for the show, taking turns driving a white Roadster Sport. The car, which was a bit dirty after the trip, was also at the company's display and traced the route through Phoenix, San Antonio, Chicago and other stops en route to Detroit.

--There are currently two running prototypes of the Model S, but the company hopes to have 20 or 30 by the end of the year.

Are Facebook Private Items Private? Not Really

One of the big security stories of last month was that Facebook changed their privacy tools to give users more control.

One of the main changes was that users could, when posting an item, use granular control over who could see it, down to the point of specifying users who can and can't. Click the nearby image for a full-size example of the Custom Privacy dialog box.

But now F-Secure shows that private items are, at least in some cases, public.

I followed their example and created an image and set custom privacy, in the settings shown above, to "Only Me". The meaning is unambiguous: Nobody should be able to see this but me.

But go back to your wall and click on the time you created the image (such as "5 minutes ago")

See the address at the bottom, that's a publicly accessible URL through which anyone, even a non-Facebook member, can view the image. Take a look here:

I tried this with videos, events and links, and it didn't do the same thing, so perhaps this is a bug only in pictures. So thanks to F-Secure and good eye guys; I don't think Facebook privacy is completely phony, but this is definitely a bug in it.

Leno and NBC Strike 1 Hour 'Tonight' Deal

Leno and NBC Strike 1 Hour 'Tonight' Deal

Jay Leno has made a new deal with NBC, which gives him "The Tonight Show" from 11:35 - 12:35.

As we first reported, under the contract Jay had been working under, he was guaranteed the 10 PM hour. By moving him to 11:35, NBC was in breach of his contract and needed to negotiate a new deal, that is now done.

So Conan O'Brien is out, and Jay is restored.

Ubisoft: New Assassin’s Creed, Shifting Focus to 360/PS3

The next Assassin’s Creed game will feature online multiplayer and be available by March 2011, Ubisoft said Wednesday.

In a press release detailing the company’s earnings projections, the publisher said that “a new episode” in the series (the numeral III was not used) will be released in the next fiscal year, which runs until March. Other big titles during the 2010-2011 window include Rayman Raving Rabbids 4, Driver, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and the recently delayed Splinter Cell: Conviction.

In general, Ubisoft said it would release more games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the upcoming fiscal year, saying that the consoles promise “sustained sales growth in games for gamers.”

Meanwhile, about games not for gamers — that is, casual titles — Ubi said that it would release fewer Nintendo DS games due to slowing sales on the handheld. Ubi said that it expects its casual game sales to be down 50% for the current year — although it pointed out that this is in spite of the fact that sales of casual games on Wii, particularly its new game Just Dance, have been “relatively robust.”

Ultimate Ears Builds a $1,350 Custom Earphone Pair

Wow. I thought the UE10, at $1,000, was expensive. The new Ultimate Ears 18 Pro Custom Monitors from Ultimate Ears, however, earn their price.

First off, they're aimed at pros and prosumers -- so they are good enough to be Bono's on-stage in-ear system, but there's no reason avid fans can't save their pennies and use them as the ultimate iPod earphones.

Like previous Ultimate Ears custom models, the Ultimate Ears 18 Pro requires a visit to the audiologist, who will fill your ears with goo that quickly dries and forms the basis for your custom mold. This goo mold gets sent to Ultimate Ears' headquarters in Irvine, Calif., where it's used to build your custom pair.

So why the price increase? Um, each ear-piece has six -- SIX -- drivers. In other words, there are six different speakers dividing up the entire frequency range, each one fine-tuned to accurately deliver what it's assigned to. Your iPod earbuds have one really lousy driver per ear.

The whole kit comes with a rugged
aluminum "roadie box," and the noise isolation provided by these babies
is far more effective than any active noise cancellation on the market.
If the noise isolation is too intense for you, you can pay another $50
(Why not? You already dropped $1,350!) for a more open, "ambient" version. The Ultimate Ears 18 Pro ships in February, so you have plenty of time to sell the LCD TV you bought for the Super Bowl and buy these with the refund.

Toshiba puts Cell processor in a TV

The Cell is the microchip that powers the Sony PlayStation 3, and it's a unique and very powerful processor that's responsible for the PS3's impressive graphics capabilities.

Now the chip is finding a home inside a television, courtesy of Toshiba, which showed off its slate of upcoming Cell-powered TVs at CES 2010.

The setup is complicated, to say the least: The Cell resides not in the panel itself but in a set-top box separate from the TV set. The box then connects wirelessly to the television. The breakout box also includes a DVR and other media server features, including a terabyte hard disk, internet video connectivity, and a host of connections to services like Netflix and Pandora. It's even got a DVD player built in.

Why drop a Cell in here? According to a story in TWICE, the Cell chip is 143 times faster than the processors in the typical LCD TV, which means viewers can expect to see a better, crisper picture no matter where the image is coming from. It can also adjust brightness levels dynamically in 512 different zones on the screen, will adjust color temperature to match room lighting, and can convert any 2D content to 3D in real time, without additional equipment (except, of course, for standard 3D goggles).

There was no immediate word on pricing. Availability is set only for "later this year."

Toshiba has been a huge, if inexplicable, fan of the Cell chip for years. Most recently it experimented with putting a Cell processor in a laptop. That plan ultimately didn't pan out, though, and Toshiba killed the Cell-powered line after about a year.

I saw several of Toshiba's Cell TVs in person at CES and wholly agree that they look great... but are they 143 times better than your typical LCD TV? Not hardly, but as content sources improve in resolution and features (the 3D angle could be a biggie), perhaps we'll see the Cell difference in action.

Detroit auto show: Volkswagen reveals New Compact Coupe

Volkswagen has gone public on plans for a coupe variant of the next-generation Jetta with the unveiling of a near-to-production-ready concept on Monday at the Detroit auto show.

Dubbed the New Compact Coupe (NCC), the new two-door presages the look and mechanical layout Volkswagen plans to adopt on a new front-wheel-drive model to be built at its Puebla plant in Mexico as part of ongoing plans to further penetrate the U.S. market.

Conceived primarily for North America--which does not receive the Volkswagen Scirocco, owing to the high cost of importing it from Palmela, Portugal, where it is assembled alongside the Eos--Volkswagen says a production version of the NCC could also be sold in other key markets as part of the sixth-generation Jetta lineup, which will also include a similarly styled sedan and wagon.

All three future Jetta models are expected to share the same edgy styling and detailing revealed by the NCC. However, the upcoming coupe is set to boast its own unique front-end design, a faster windshield angle, frameless doors and widened tracks in a move similar to that used by BMW in differentiating the 3-series coupe from its four-door sedan sibling.

"We didn't just want to put two doors on a Jetta. Buyers expect more from a coupe these days. The changes are subtle, but they help provide the NCC with its own visual flavor," said Klaus Bischoff, head of Volkswagen brand design.

At 178.5 inches in length, 70.1 inches in width and 55.6 inches in height, the NCC adheres closely to the dimension of today's Jetta. But with a rear track that has been lengthened by more than an inch and a slightly lower ride height, it boasts a more planted stance that is further enhanced on the Detroit show car by 19-inch alloys shod with 235/35 section Goodyear Eagle F1 tires.

The NCC's drivetrain provides the first clues to how Volkswagen plans to add a gasoline-electric hybrid option to selected volume selling front-wheel-drive models, including the Golf and the Jetta, from 2014 onward. At the heart of the new two-door is the German carmaker's popular Twincharger engine. The transversely mounted supercharged and turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder delivers 150 hp and 177 lb-ft of torque.

The direct-injection unit is supported by a brushless electric motor integrated into the gearbox within the left-hand side of the engine bay. With 27 hp and 103 lb-ft, it draws electricity from a 1.1 kilowatt/hour lithium-ion battery housed in the floor of the trunk to boost the NCC's overall output to 177 hp and 280 lb-ft.

Channeling the combined outputs to the front wheels is a specially adapted version of Volkswagen's latest seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. The wet-sump unit, engineered to handle up to 500 Nm of torque, has been modified to include automatic stop/start and brake-energy recuperation.

Volkswagen has engineered its new hybrid system to allow electric-only propulsion, albeit for short distances only owing to the small capacity of the battery. In electric mode, the gaoline engine not only shuts off but is also disengaged by the clutch to reduce mechanical drag in a so-called "coast down" mode.

Volkswagen isn't revealing how much the system weighs but claims the NCC will hit 62 mph from standstill in 8.1 seconds on the way to a top speed of 141 mph.

CES 2010 Recap: The 5 Biggest Trends

1. Ford Sync, Audi MMI, Kia Uvo: Best in Show
Ford rocked forward with a new version of Sync (photo top) with Bluetooth, USB music connector, voice input, three ways to access the Internet from every seat in the car (laptop aircard, cellphone data stream, WiFi in your garage or rest area), and rocker switches on the steering wheel using the same layout as the game pad or cellphone rocker you already know how to use. Audi, tucked away in the nVidia booth, showed its next-generation MMI, or multimedia interface (photo above) with an iDrive-like control wheel and an Alps touchpad so you can enter text one character at a time, such for a destination; sometimes two or three characters are all you need for a unique destination name (A-L-B in New Mexico would take you to Albuquerque). Audi's MMI display uses an nVidia chipset to keep the screen updated intantly. Microsoft with its Windows Automotive area showed Ford Sync cars and others using similar technologies such as Fiat's Blue & Me, the precursor to Sync. And Kia showecase Uvo (pronounced YOO-voe, as in "your voice"), fruit of the Hyundai-Kia-Microsoft partnership. This was the newest, hottest, most clearly useful technology of CES.

2. 3D TV: Triumph of Vendor Hope Over User Reality?
Everybody showed off 3D TV, where two slightly overlaid, slightly out of-register images take on three dimensions when you don a pair of special goggles. But will 3D be must-see TV? If you saw Need for Speed in 3D (also in that nVidia booth), you know it's a winner for gaming on PC monitors and maybe on big TVs. I've been around a couple racetracks and, seeing them in 3D, it's almost like being there minus the smell of overheated brakes. 3D also works for porn, which I didn't see being demonstrated at CES, and it wasn't for lack of investigation on my part. 3D probably works for specialty videos and spectacular movies (Avatar). But for mainstream TV? We have a dozen friends over to watch the Super Bowl; there, 3D glasses would get in the way of what's more a social than TV-watching event. Plus, BYO would have to include 3D goggles, not just beer, if company came over. On the other hand, if 3D comes as a no-extra-cost feature of higher-end TVs, and mostly the TV is used for traditional programs, it's something worth having. HDTV was a big thing; 3D isn't quite in that league.

3. eBooks Approach Critical Mass
eBooks are coming. Lower prices will help. There will be enough material soon, especially as Amazon sells book-plus-eBook combos. The problem remains: Users want color, especially for school textbooks. They also want long battery life, which means monochrome systems, and they'd like screens to update faster. This is almost ready for prime time.

4. Overabundance of iPod / iPhone cases
You couldn't walk more than two booths in the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall without running into a purveyor of cases for Apple iPods and iPhones: hardshell, softshell; plastic, silicone, neoprene; solid color, silkscreen, dye sublimation. There must be 10 times as much iPod case production capacity as there will ever be demand. There was similar optimism and excess, just not wretched excess, among makers of sub-$50 Bluetooth earpieces, booster batteries for cellphones and iPods, and universal transformers. Half the vendors will be gone in a year, or selling something else.

5. Long Decline of Aftermarket Car Audio Continues
Automakers build in more and more electronics. There are very few cars left with easily replaced DIN and Double-DIN radios. Order a new car with premium audio and the speakers and amps are pretty good, too. All of which meant: fewer car AV booths, smaller AV booths, and fewer booth babes. The species isn't extinct, though.

O'Brien Pulls No Punches Against NBC

On 'Tonight Show,' Conan O'Brien Jokes About Network Tension, Jay Leno Moving Back to Old Time Slot, Destination Unknown for Conan O'Brien

Hours after releasing a statement that he will not do "The Tonight Show" if his new airtime is 12:05 a.m., late night comedian Conan O'Brien took to the airwaves pulling no punches. After receiving more applause than usual, O'Brien urged his fans to settle down, quipping that "I may not have that much time."

His employer, NBC, had planned to unceremoniously oust the host from his 11:35 p.m. ET time slot come February to make room for a Jay Leno program.

"My name is Conan O'Brien and I may soon be available for children's parties," he announced.

He then reminisced about watching the "Tonight Show" as a child. "I remember watching Johnny Carson and thinking, someday I'm going to host that show for seven months," he said.

But O'Brien, seemingly uninterested in currying favor with NBC, let one of his staff writers, Deon Cole, deliver some of his harsher barbs. In a racy bit, Cole compared O'Brien to a prostitute and the network to his pimp.

"Is your job making people happy before they go to sleep?" Cole asked O'Brien. "Has Charlie Sheen ever been on your couch?"

Verteran NBC newsman Tom Brokaw was O'Brien's first guest of the evening and started by comparing himself to the crazy old uncle who gets wheeled out to a family reunion without realizing a feud was brewing.

"I also understand your anger and I wish you only happiness in your life," Brokaw told O'Brien. "It's hard for me to imagine you not a member of the family."

In the statement released today, the late night comedian did not make clear whether he plans to stay with NBC. In the wake of releasing his statement, the Internet rallied around O'Brien, turning him into a trending topic on Twitter, with fans voicing support for "Team Conan."

Below, the full text of O'Brien's statement.

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I've been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I've been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky. That said, I've been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over "The Tonight Show" in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my "Tonight Show" in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the "Tonight Show" to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the "Tonight Show" has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the "Tonight Show" into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. "The Tonight Show" at 12:05 simply isn't the "Tonight Show." Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the "Late Night" show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of "The Tonight Show." But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn't matter. But with the "Tonight Show," I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it's always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

NBC to Pull the Plug on Leno's Prime-Time Show

NBC executive confirms Jay Leno's nightly prime-time show ending next month.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NBC decided to end the Jay Leno experiment when some of its affiliates started talking about dropping the nightly prime-time show, its top entertainment executive said Sunday.

NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin said Sunday that Leno's nightly prime-time show will end with the beginning of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 12. NBC wants Leno to do an 11:35 p.m. show each night, a return to his old time slot, Gaspin said.

Gaspin said despite lower ratings for NBC at 10 p.m. compared with last year, the network was making money off the show.

But affiliates were upset that the show was leading fewer viewers into their late news programs, costing them significant advertising revenue. Some affiliates told NBC in December they would go public soon about their complaints if a change wasn't made, or even take Leno's show off the air.

"The drumbeat started getting louder," Gaspin said.

Gaspin has proposed moving Conan O'Brien's "Tonight" show to 12:05 a.m., and Jimmy Fallon's show would start an hour later. But the late-night hosts had not agreed to the move. Gaspin said he expected NBC's late-night situation to be cleared up by the start of the Olympics.

Asked if O'Brien and Fallon expressed anger at his proposal, Gaspin said both men were professional and understanding when they talked.

"Beyond that, it was a private conversation," Gaspin said.

Detroit auto show: Honda debuts production CR-Z hybrid

Two concept versions and more than two years later, Honda's CR-Z was finally shown in production form at the Detroit auto show.

The sporty two-seater hybrid coupe retains the basic shape of the original concept first shown at the 2007 Tokyo auto show, but it features a shorter wheelbase and a longer front overhang to meet crash standards.

At the heart of the CR-Z is a 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine with Honda's Integrated Motor Assist hybrid technology. The result is a combined peak output of 122 hp and 128 lb-ft of torque (123 lb-ft for continuously variable transmission models).

The CR-Z will be the first hybrid available with a six-speed manual, which is the standard transmission. A CVT with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters is optional. Preliminary fuel-economy estimates are 31/37 mpg city/highway for the manual and 36/38 mpg city/highway for CVT-equipped cars.

New to the hybrid system is a three-mode drive system that gives drivers the choice between Sport, Econ and Normal driving modes. For spirited drives, Sport sharpens engine throttle and steering response and the electric motor assist. Econ adjusts engine and electric-motor settings for optimal efficiency and reduces the air conditioning's load on the engine. Normal provides standard settings for steering, engine response, motor assist and air conditioning.

The interior features three-dimensional instruments with a blue color scheme. Depending on which drive mode is used, the inner ring of tachometer illuminates differently (red for Sport, transitions between blue and green for Econ and blue during Normal mode).

When the CR-Z goes on sale in late summer, it will be available in base and EX trims. Base models include stability control, a six-speaker audio system with USB connectivity, power windows, locks, remote keyless entry and cruise control. EX versions add xenon headlights, fog lights, a 360-watt premium sound system, Bluetooth, leather-wrapped steering wheel and center console with an armrest. Navigation is available on the EX.

Sony Could Increase Blu-ray Capacity By 33 Percent

Sony appears to be readying technology that would increase the capacity of Blu-ray discs from 25 Gbytes to 33.4 Gbytes, an increase in capacity of just over 33 percent.

Nikkei Electronics Asia quotes a source at Sony that says the partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) signal
processing would continue to use the blue-violet laser (at 405 nanometers) currently used by the existing Blu-ray technology.

The problem, according to the story, was determining the error rate of the Blu-ray media, which currently is assessed using jitter. The new technique uses a method called i-MLSE
(Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation) , which both Sony and Panasonic jointly developed in a paper presented in October.

Sony plans to propose that the Blu-ray Disc Association adopt i-MLSE, which would open the technology up for widespread adoption. The story doesn't speculate on how this might affect Blu-ray media prices, or how quickly the technology could be implemented into Blu-ray readers don't appear to be the hot sellers that DVD burners once were. However, the additional capacity could easily be used by additional featurettes and other content accompanying Blu-ray movies.

Detroit auto show: Audi continues its electrification with another E-tron concept

Just a few months after the E-tron debuted at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show, Audi has revealed the next chapter in its electric-car concept series at the Detroit auto show.

The Detroit show E-tron previews Audi's vision for a pure compact electric sports car. The new concept sits on a wheelbase that is nearly 9 inches shorter than the R8 and weighs in at just 2,976 pounds, of which 880 pounds come from the lithium-ion battery pack.

Weight is kept in check with the body constructed from aluminum, which also delivers high structural rigidity. Bolt-on parts such as the doors, body panels and roof are made from carbon-fiber-reinforced composites.

Performance numbers are impressive for the rear-wheel-drive sports car. Two electric motors are mounted on the rear axle to produce 204 hp and a staggering 1,955 lb-ft of torque. Zero to 62 mph happens in 5.9 seconds, top speed is limited to 124 mph and range is about 155 miles per charge, according to Audi.

For optimal performance capabilities, Audi placed the battery pack behind the cabin and in front of the rear axle for a weight distribution of 40:60. Also aiding in performance is torque vectoring afforded by the motors that can selectively distribute power to the wheels based on road and driving conditions.

Charging the battery can be done from a household outlet and would take 11 hours for a fully depleted pack, but a high-current 400-volt supply would cut charge time to roughly two hours. However, the Detroit show car doesn't have to rely entirely on power outlets for juice. It can also convert kinetic energy under braking to electric.

Other trick features include an automatic light-assist system that uses a camera to adjust beam settings based on traffic and weather conditions. For example, in fog, the headlights will adjust to provide a wider, more horizontal beam to cut down on glare.

Inside, the infotainment system is controlled with a touch-sensitive pad mounted on the steering wheel. Additionally, smart phones can be linked up to the car via a mobile network to preprogram information into the car's navigation system, address database and video player when you're not near the vehicle. Security updates and charge status can also be transmitted to your mobile phone.

USB 3.0 Finally Arrives

Adoption is faster than with previous versions -- but we want more, now. Here’s why.

When you're in front of your PC, waiting for something to transfer to removable media, that's when seconds feel like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. And data storage scenarios such as that one is where the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0's greatest impact will be felt first. As of CES, 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products were introduced, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards, and hard drives (but no other consumer electronics devices). Still more uncertified USB 3.0 products are on the way, and they can't get here fast enough.

Glance Backward

The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. In reducing some overhead requirements of USB (now, the interface only transmits data to the link and device that need it, so devices can go into low power state when not needed), the new incarnation now uses one-third the power of USB 2.0.

The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic -- a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps. Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.

The real-world examples are fairly convincing -- and underscore USB 3.0's advantage for high-def video, music, and digital imaging applications. Our early test results are encouraging as well: We tested Western Digital's My Book 3.0, the first USB 3.0-certified external hard drive. The performance was on a par with that of eSATA-but the benefit here is that USB 3.0 is a powered port, so you don't need to have another external power supply running to the drive (as you do with eSATA; unless the eSATA drive you're using is designed to steal power from a USB port while transferring data over the eSATA interface).

New Entries

While the WD drive was the first to announce, a slew of other hard drive makers either announced products at the show, or discussed plans to release products in the coming months. Among them: Seagate (which is doing a portable drive), LaCie, Rocstor, and Iomega. Even non-traditional hard drive vendors like Dane-Elec and A-Data showed products they billed as USB 3.0 (the latter two even had USB 3.0-connected SSDs, the first external drives to use solid-state storage inside.

One of the things to look for in the coming months is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo. Products are currently filling the queues at the official certification testing labs, but presence of that certification logo will give you some peace of mind that the product you're buying truly does live up to the USB 3.0 spec.

Given that the certification labs are jammed up, though, you can expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification. (Buffalo Technologies' drive, released late 2009, is not certified; LaCie's drives are in the process of certification, but will initially carry LaCie's own logo for USB 3.0, and will gain a sticker on the box once certification is completed.) And in those cases, it will be hard to know whether the device truly lives up to its performance potential.

Compatibility Guarantee

And this time around, the way the USB spec is written, says Jeff Ravencraft, consumers should have an easier time finding products that are truly USB 3.0. Before, in the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the USB 2.0 spec was written in a way where it "encompassed low, full and high-speed USB," explains Ravencraft, president and chairman of the USB Implementers Forum. "Since those are all encapsulated in the USB 2.0 spec, [vendors] could have a certified product that's low-speed, but still call it USB 2.0.

"We don't have that issue with USB 3.0 To claim you're USB 3.0, you have to deliver 5Gbps. There's no other way to get the certification."

Ravencraft adds that the group is prepared to protect the USB 3.0 logo, to make sure that only manufacturers who go through certification use it. "We'll take legal action if anyone infringes on our marks."

By end of year, Ravencraft says the loggerjam of products awaiting certification should be past, and the organization's network of worldwide test labs will be handling USB 3.0 certification.

According to In-Stat Research, by 2013, more than one-quarter of USB 3.0 products will support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Ravencraft says this is the fastest ramp up of USB products he's seen in the past ten years, across the previous versions of USB.

I say the change can't come fast enough. The trick, though, will be getting the interface into our notebooks (without requiring a kludgy ExpressCard adapter). So far, though, only HP and Fujitsu have announced limited USB 3.0 support on notebooks. And Taiwanese notebook and desktop maker MSI indicated that it wouldn't have USB 3.0 until, at the earliest, the third-quarter of this year; product managers for both notebooks and desktops cited manufacturing concerns like chipset availability in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets.

And in the meantime, the only announced peripherals remain storage devices. At next year's CES, it's likely we'll hear more about specific consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras and camcorders and video cameras moving to USB 3.0. Hopefully by then we'll start getting a critical mass of PC hardware with USB 3.0 integrated, too.

Project Natal Hitting Xbox 360 This Year

Project Natal will be launched in time for the holidays this year, in what promises to be a big year for Xbox 360 users.

The Xbox news was the highlight of CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Wednesday, which was delayed by a brief power outage and included a lengthy pitch for Microsoft's recently launched Windows 7 operating system.

Ballmer also showed three new tablet PCs that will ship later this year, including a slender device from Hewlett-Packard that was running a PC version of Amazon's Kindle software. The device even looked a little like an e-reader, although it was apparently running Windows 7.

It wasn't the Courier tablet that Microsoft is reportedly working on and that some had expected to see at the keynote, however. Courier, as reported by the tech blog Gizmodo last September, is a novel device with two multi-touch screens that open like a book, and some nifty features like the ability to "flick" items from one screen to another.

Ballmer didn't mention Courier, however, and the news for gamers was the most compelling part of the evening.

"2010 is going to be a landmark year for all Xbox customers," thanks to Project Natal, lots of new games and an online retro arcade service, said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division, who followed Ballmer on stage.

Project Natal was first previewed at the E3 show last year. It's a gaming control system that lets players use full-body gestures, like a kick or a punch, to interact with the action on screen. It employs a 3D camera to track body movements and then translates them into actions on the screen. Bach called it "the culmination of years of research."

He didn't give pricing or say how Project Natal will be sold, but he did say it will work with existing Xbox 360 consoles.

Also new for gamers, in the spring, will be Game Room. It's an online arcade where Xbox Live users can purchase classic video games from the 70s and 80s, from names like Atari and Activision, then invite the avatars of other Xbox Live users into their virtual arcade to play.

2010 will also be a big year for new Xbox games. Microsoft will release the next installment of its successful Halo franchise, called "Halo Reach," a prequel that will "tell the story of the epic battle before Halo 1," Bach said.

It will also introduce a new genre of games, "the psychological action thriller," with a game called "Alan Wake" that tells the story of a mystery writer who gets trapped in his own novels. "Think 'Lost,' written by Stephen King and directed by David Lynch," Bach said.

The evening began half an hour late after a power failure blackened out part of the stage at the Hilton center, along with a few of the computer screens on it.

Swiss Slap Speeder With $290K Fine

Next time you’re in Switzerland driving down a windy village road at the foothills of the Alps, you may want to make sure you’re either very mindful of the police or very poor.

If you decide you want to speed your way through Switzerland, be warned there is no such thing as a standard fine for driving say, 35 mph over the limit. No, no, no. If you’re caught speeding in the land of fine watches and neutrality and you have a lot of money, you better hope you’ve kept your money stashed somewhere the Swiss can’t find it (a Swiss bank account?).

A 53-year-old man learned that lesson after receiving a record-setting fine of nearly $290,000 for driving 85 mph in a 50 mph zone through the small town of St. Gallen. Adding insult to injury, he was driving a car worth a fraction of the fine — a Ferrari Testarossa.

Why the hefty fine for a mere 35 over the limit?

In 2002 Swiss voters approved replacing prison terms for some offenses, including speeding, with fines based on your income. According to Tages Anzeiger, the lead-footed driver has an annual income of more than $820,000 and is worth well over $20 million.

And another tip if you are caught and given a hefty fine in Switzerland: Don’t make any big claims to try and get out of the ticket. The Testarossa driver was initially fined a little less than $90,000 by the local jurisdiction. That was raised to $145,000 by the next court after the driver claimed diplomatic immunity, saying he is diplomat from the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. That didn’t sway the court, which boosted the fine to $290,000.

“The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed” the court said.

On the upside, apparently he has to pay only half of the fine now. The rest is deferred and will be eliminated for good behavior.

Battered Automakers Hope to Shine at Detroit Auto Show

Automakers, bruised and battered by a brutal year, are rolling into the Detroit auto show a lot leaner, and they’re bringing cars that are both greener and meaner. But this year’s shindig is just as much about the companies as the cars they’re selling.

The North American International Auto Show next week is one of the biggest on the calendar, and will see 700 new cars — including more than 30 making their worldwide debuts — in the Motor City. But this year’s show takes on added importance because it will be a measure of the auto industry’s health after its worst year since 1970. General Motors and Chrysler went through bankruptcies, Toyota posted its first loss in 60 years and automakers sold about 10.4 million cars in the United States. That’s down 21.3 percent from 2008.

Sales surged in December, but don’t expect a big gain this year. Many analysts expect automakers to move about 11.4 million cars. That’s nothing compared to the 16 or 17 million consumers were buying a few years ago. Automakers know they’re working in a radically different environment. The economy is still sluggish. The dollar remains weak. And technology is changing.

It’s against this backdrop that the auto industry hopes to put its best foot forward for the 5,000 journalists and 700,000 spectators (which won’t include President Obama after all) expected to attend the show.

“Each company has to project a sense of confidence in themselves, even if they choose to acknowledge some of the challenges they face,” said Stephanie Brinley, an industry analyst with AutoPacific. Washington is keeping a close eye on GM and Chrysler, she said, but that doesn’t mean politicians will glean a lot from the show. The automakers are focused on launching new products and reaching out to consumers.

And they’re bringing some impressive hardware to Detroit.

Fuel-efficient cars like the 40-mpg Chevrolet Cruze, pavement-peeling muscle cars like the 412-horsepower Ford Mustang GT and big-ticket luxury cars like the Audi A8 are among the centerpieces. Chevrolet pulled the sheet off the Cruze last month at the L.A. Auto Show, but the Mustang and A8 are making their debuts in Detroit.

We’ll also see the upscale 2011 Hyundai Sonata hybrid, the 2011 Ford Focus and the 556-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V coupe for the first time.

And smaller cars like the handsome new Chevrolet Aveo and the adorable Fiat 500 — which might finally come to America now that the Italian automaker owns Chrysler — are getting the spotlight over SUVs and crossovers.

Seeing a trend here?

“American automakers are rediscovering passenger cars,” said Aaron Bragman, an industry analyst with IHS Global Insight.

Bragman says American automakers largely ceded the small- and mid-size car market to the Japanese and Europeans as they churned out trucks and SUVs. But they’re coming back fast and strong with cars that draw heavily from their European offerings.

Brinley isn’t so sure. She says we aren’t seeing a new trend so much as normal product cycles. Automakers, she said, are simply updating their passenger vehicle lineup after focusing on other segments.

Whatever the case, automakers will be touting fuel efficiency. Tightening standards have them embracing a slew of technologies, from turbocharging and direct injection to dual-clutch transmissions and improved aerodynamics. Car companies started promising the technology two years ago when the Bush Administration raised the CAFE fuel economy rules, and we’re finally seeing it in a wide array of production cars.

As a result, the 2011 Ford Mustang can put down 305 horsepower, yet return 30 mpg. The 2011 Mustang GT with the 5.0-liter V-8 making its debut at the show reportedly produces 412 horsepower while getting fuel economy in the mid-20s. That beast is a shot across the bow of Chevrolet and its popular Camaro. And to think people worried rising fuel economy standards would kill the muscle car. Quite the contrary.

“If the economy recovers and gas prices stay low, I think we’re going to see the renewed popularity of these cars,” Bragman said. “People want the performance and styling of a muscle car, but they don’t want to get 15 mpg.”

Aussies Announce $31B National Broadband Network

The Australian government announced plans Tuesday to bring the future to the Land Down Under by spending up to $31 billion ($43 billion AUS) over eight years to create a nationwide fiber optic and wireless broadband network.

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd promises that the "new super fast National Broadband Network" will stimulate Australia’s ailing economy and bring broadband to every Australian home, school and business.

"This historic nation-building investment will help transform the Australian economy and create the jobs and businesses of the 21st century," the Rudd government said in a press release.

The government will create a new company that will accept investment from outside companies but will be majority-owned by the government.

Australia had been soliciting bids for private companies to build out the network, but canceled that with this announcement, saying none of the bids offered value for the money.

The plan envisions a newly formed company laying 100mbps fiber optic cable to 90 percent of homes and schools, and getting 12 Mbps wireless access to those who live in rural and remote Australia. The build-out will employ at least 25,000 workers a year and up to 37,000 at its peak.

The newly formed company will then lease the lines and bandwidth to ISPs which will manage subscriptions.

"The new investment is also the biggest reform in telecommunications in two decades because it delivers separation between the infrastructure provider and retail service providers," the government announced. "This means better and fairer infrastructure access for service providers, greater retail competition, and better services for families and businesses."

The government says it will begin selling off its majority stake in the company five years after the network has been built, dependent on security concerns.

The new plan may get resistance from civil liberty advocates, as the Australian government is also pushing a plan to require ISPs to use an internet censorship list created by a secretive government bureaucracy.

By contrast, U.S. broadband infrastructure owners are no longer required to lease their infrastructure to ISPs at competitive rates.

The U.S. plans to spend $7.2 billion in stimulus funds to bring broadband to rural America, while the FCC has a year to come up with a broadband plan for the country.

Google Unleashes its Nexus One Smartphone

Google has unveiled its highly anticipated "Google Phone," or the Nexus One, an Android-powered smartphone and the first device the company will sell directly from a new online store.

At a Google press event held Tuesday afternoon at the company's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, Google vice president Mario Queiroz billed the new Nexus One as a "superphone" and an "exemplar of what's possible" on mobile phones running Android. He didn't precisely define the term superphone, other than to suggest it has greater capabilities than today's existing smartphones.

Queiroz spoke along with several other panelists including mobile guru Andy Rubin, HTC CEO Peter Chou, and even competitor Motorola Co-CEO Sanjay Jha. All of them took pains to deflect concerns that Google has shifted course with its Android OS, or that Google could muddy the waters for its current wireless industry partners by selling its own branded device.

The hardware itself looks pretty slick, even if the moniker "superphone" ends up in the eye of the beholder. Essentially, the Nexus One is a slim touch-screen slab handset manufactured by HTC, the company behind the original T-Mobile G1, the myTouch 3G with Google, and the HTC Hero. The Nexus One weighs 4.6 ounces and measures 0.45-inches thick. It features a 3.7-inch, 480-by-800-pixel glass capacitive AMOLED touch screen, a next-generation 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, and Android 2.1, a brand new version of the company's open-source mobile OS.

Other hardware features include a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with an LED flash and geotagging capability, 512MB of internal memory, and a microSD card slot. Two mics provide Bluetooth headset-like active noise cancellation for improved call quality in loud environments. The trackball doubles as a notification tool, Queiroz said, in that it contains a multi-color LED for indicating incoming calls and other notifications. A 3.5-mm headphone jack and stereo Bluetooth support offer music lovers multiple options for listening to tunes.

Queiroz reiterated Android's virtues during the course of the press conference. "Android enables lower manufacturing costs and faster time to market," he said, in a direct shot at Microsoft before turning his sights on Apple, whose iPhone can't run multiple applications simultaneously except in specific narrow circumstances.

"The [Android] architecture enables true 'always on' applications in the background. I can be listening to music, playing my favorite game, my wife can call me, I'll pick up the phone, talk to her, hang up the call, and continue listening to music and playing my game – much like what you have on your desktop computer or on your laptop," Queiroz said. The 1-GHz Snapdragon CPU helps matters, of course, and should be beefy enough for running several applications at once; some earlier Android devices have been sluggish in this regard.

Android 2.1 sports a number of improvements, including smoother menu animation, five new home screen panels, and a funky new Weather widget that offers an interactive graph for real-time weather data. Eric Tseng, product manager at Google, demonstrated live wallpaper of a lake that responded to touches by showing ripples in the surface of the water.

The photo app, meanwhile, offers new 3D visualizations, a stacks-of-photos idiom for interacting with albums, and faster photo loading. The device syncs with Picasa albums in the background, and uploads videos to YouTube with a single click. Finally, every text entry box is now voice-recognition-enabled with server-side processing, not just from within Google Maps Navigation like in Android 2.0.

Tseng also showed off a sneak preview of Google Earth for Android, complete with 3D-enhanced flyover views. The animation was a little choppy here, but undeniably impressive for a cell phone. The Nexus One doesn't support modem tethering, though Google mobile guru Andy Rubin said at the conference that it's just a technical issue, not a strategic one at this point.

Android 2.1 will come preloaded on the Nexus One, and will be available "in a few days" to the open-source community. But carriers and hardware vendors will have to approve individual updates for existing Android handsets.

As earlier reports indicated, the Google Nexus One will sell for $529.99 unlocked, or $179.99 with one of T-Mobile's two-year service plans. The unlocked version will work with an AT&T SIM, but only at 2G speeds, as it lacks support for the requisite bands to access AT&T's 3G network. In a first, Google will sell both unlocked and contracted versions of the Nexus One through a new online portal located at www.google.com/phone beginning today. Buyers can also order custom engraving with the phone.

Sony Takes Aim at 3D TV Domination

Sony announced new HDTVs and a monolithic design at CES 2010.Sony Electronics unveiled its 2010 lineup of HDTVs, Blu-ray players, cameras and a new Internet appliance called the Dash on Wednesday at CES 2010 in Las Vegas.

Networked services and the shift to 3D will be at the forefront of the company's mission in the coming year, according to Sony chairman Howard Stringer. The crowd donned 3D glasses and was treated to a real-life Taylor Swift performance that was instantly streamed in 3D to giant projection screens in the background. Stringer said that 3D was "the next great consumer experience."

Stringer made no bones about Sony's intention to dominate the transition to 3D. "We intend to take the lead in 3D." Stringer said. "We are the only company fully immersed in every part of the 3D value chain." Indeed, Sony makes most of the cameras used to create 3D content and it has announced its intentions to launch a 3D network in the U.S. with the Discovery Channel as a partner. It will also be the primary sponsor of the upcoming ESPN 3D network.

All told, Sony announced more than 38 HDTV models ranging in screen sizes from 60- to 22-inches, but the star of the show has to be the LX900 series and its integrated 3D functionality. The LX900 series uses Sony's 3D active shutter glasses and built-in 3D transmitter. The HX900 and HX800-series require you buy the glasses and external 3D transmitter separately.

Other than 3D, the notable change in Sony's lineup is what it calls Monolithic Design. This primarily means removing bezels, buttons, and other decorative elements so viewers can focus on the picture. The company says using its Edge LED backlight also helps it deliver slim models. Monolithic models also come with a six-degree upward tilt option which the company says offers a more natural, comfortable viewing experience when used with a conventional, low HDTV stand. (Presumably, this can be altered when you mount it on a wall.)

In the end the central theme of the event was a familiar one: Sony wants to leverage its strength in content creation, distribution, and display to create synergies. As Stringer puts it: "When a united Sony brings content and technology together great things happen."

The other HDTV lines announced today include:

BRAVIA KDL-HX800 Series 3D Ready HDTV

Motionflow PRO 240Hz Technology for Smooth Motion

Ambient sensor

USB Wireless-LAN adapter for easy wireless network connection (sold separately)

BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets

BRAVIA Engine 3

USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback

Screen sizes including 55-inch class (54.6-inches measured diagonally) (KDL-55HX800), 46 (KDL-46HX800) and 40-inch (KDL-40HX800)

BRAVIA KDL-NX800 series

Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD

Monolithic Design

Motionflow 240Hz Technology for Smooth Motion

Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11)

BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets

BRAVIA Engine 3

USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback

Available in March

Screen sizes include 60 (KDL-60NX800: $4,00), 52 (KDL-52NX800: $3,400) and 46-inch (KDL-46NX800: $2,800)

BRAVIA KDL-NX700 Series

Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD

Monolithic Design

Motionflow 120Hz Technology for Smooth Motion

Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11N)

BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets

BRAVIA Engine 3

USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback

Available in March

Screen sizes include 46 (KDL-46NX700: $2,600) and 40-inch (KDL-40NX700: $2,100)

Dell Shows Tablet Concept, Launches Alienware M11X

LAS VEGAS- Dell kicked off its CES 2010 press conference with a slew of mobile products, including a tablet prototype and the company's first 11-inch gaming laptop.

"Today is going to be all about mobility and new technology," said Michael Tatelman, vice president of sales and marketing at Dell. And sure enough, the company launched its first 11-inch gaming laptop, the Alienware M11X, and whipped out a 5-inch tablet running Google's Android, promising other screen sizes are being investigated as well in the tablet form factor.

The Alienware M11X is the true definition of a mobile gaming laptop, pairing an 11-inch display with semi-gaming parts. It runs on Intel's newest generation Ultra Low Voltage processor (based on the Arrandale platform)- not exactly what I would call a hardcore gaming CPU, but it will load an Nvidia GeForce GT 335M GPU. In fact, it uses a switching graphics paradigm, with which a gamer can switch (without a reboot) to Intel's integrated graphics platform to conserve battery power. Battery life will be in the 6 hour range, according to Dell.

With the Nvidia GPU running, Tatelman says that 3DMark scores will be well into the 6,000 point range, and you can run "Crysis" and "Call of Duty" with all the settings set to high. The M11X weighs around 4.8 pounds and uses plastics in the frame instead of aluminum. It'll retail for under $1,000.

Though only for a brief moment, Tatelman showed off a concept tablet, teasing the crowd in a fashion similar to what it did with the Adamo XPS. According to Tatelman, the mini-tablet runs on a Google Android operating system and boasts a 5-inch display. And that's all he would say about specs. It's a concept, though, and he goes on to say that Dell is investigating other screen sizes as well. So you might even see more concept models in the 10-inch and 12-inch space.