The best of CES

Story Highlights

• Highlights from this year's CES show in Las Vegas
• LG offers dual HD format player
• SanDisk's new MP3 player could trump Zune
• Apple iPhone steals some of CES thunder

By Marc Saltzman
Special to CNN

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- So many products, so little time.

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) -- the annual Las Vegas-based trade show in its 40th year -- serves as a peek into the future of high-tech gadgets and gizmos. And I got quite a peek.

With close to 2 million square feet of showroom floor space at the Las Vegas Convention Center, not to mention the dozens of surrounding hotels and other facilities showcasing new technology, it can be an exhausting convention for the roughly 150,000 attendees. I'm not sure what's more difficult: trying to steal Sharp's well-guarded 108-inch LCD TV or hailing a cab for dinner.

That said, a handful of products did impress, so the following is a kind of awards nod for some of the most talked-about doohickeys at this year's CES:

Smartest idea

For months, home theater enthusiasts have wrestled with this question: Which high-definition format should I invest in -- Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD?

Both offer comparable quality, similar pricing and the same number of films -- about 150 titles each. Well, now you don't have to choose between the two thanks to the LG (www.lge.com) Super Multi Blue Player, the world's first dual-format high-definition disc player capable of playing both Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs in one tray.

The sleek black BH100, with touch-sensitive buttons on the top of the unit to play and pause high-definition films, is expected to launch this spring for an estimated $1,199.

Could this be the one product to end the format war?

Most pervasive theme

Streaming Web and PC video to your television proved to be one of the most common themes at this year's show, including solutions offered by heavyweights Microsoft and Sony.

The irony is that one of the coolest demonstrations was from Sling Media, a company known for delivering the opposite -- streaming television to your computer.

The SlingCatcher can best be described as a reverse Slingbox; instead of tapping into your local TV with your Internet-connected laptop or smartphone, the SlingCatcher is designed to deliver Web and PC video or audio to a television located in the home or to remote locations via the Internet.

Sling Media says this product will be available by the summer for about $200.

A better Zune?

Hard-to-impress media types were often caught buzzing about SanDisk's newest MP3 player that appears to trump Microsoft's just-launched Zune player when it comes to its community features.

While Microsoft's Zune uses Wi-Fi to let users share songs that can be listened to up to three times within three days, SanDisk's Sansa Connect takes better advantage of the technology by letting you access an online buddy list to hear what your friends are listening to (with no song limit or time restrictions) and then tag songs to purchase and download.

Along with MP3 and photo playback, the Sansa Connect also lets you stream Internet radio stations via Wi-Fi -- and even view album artwork on its 2.2-inch screen in real time.

This 4GB Flash player, which includes an option to expand the memory via MicroSD cards, will be available this March for $250.

Not the first, but the best

Be honest -- all your digital photos are just collecting digital dust on your PC's hard drive. Kodak has an alternative solution: the EasyShare Digital Picture Frames play a slideshow of your favorite pictures or video clips -- even set to music, if desired.

Two out of the four models shown here in Las Vegas -- an 8- and 10-inch digital frame -- also offers integrated Wi-Fi, so if you have a wireless network you can stream photos, videos or music from your PC in another room.

Other features include a multifunction remote control and optional interchangeable faceplates that let you tailor the frame to match your room or mood.

Due out by March, prices range from $129 to $279, depending on the frame size and wireless functionality.

Geekiest gadget (we really want)

The "Star Wars" geeks at CES -- and as you can guess, there's a whole bunch of them -- might trade a night with Princess Leia for this new R2-D2 high-definition projector.

Modeled after that lovable droid from the "Star Wars" flicks, Nikko Home Electronics' R2-D2 Mobile Entertainment System features a built-n LCoS projector (which can create an image up to 80 inches on a white wall), plus it houses a DVD/CD/MP3 player, stereo speakers, integrated iPod dock and eleven R2-D2 sound effects.

Control all the action with a remote control in the shape of the Millennium Falcon.

Suggested retail price in March should be around $2,500.

Best product that wasn't at the show

It doesn't matter what the 2,700 or so exhibitors were showing us journalists on Tuesday because we weren't paying any attention.

Instead, our faces were buried in our BlackBerrys, awaiting the iPhone press release from Macworld in San Francisco. And it was a doozie: the Apple iPhone is basically three products in one: a widescreen iPod with a 3.5-inch touch-screen display; a quad-band GSM smartphone (via Cingular) and a Wi-Fi-enabled device capable of text-messaging, VoIP calls, email, Web browsing and interactive Google maps.

The iPhone also offers Bluetooth connectivity for wireless headsets, a 2-Megapixel camera and a new music navigation feature called Album Flow that lets users browse their music library by flipping album artwork with their finger.

It won't be cheap, however; the iPhone will be $499 (4GB) or $599 (8GB), and slated for a summer release.

Source: CNN.com

Microsoft in hot water over Wikipedia edits

Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia

that anyone can tweak -- but moderators block anyone

perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting entries.

Story Highlights

• Microsoft offered to pay a blogger to "correct" Wikipedia articles
• Wikipedia "disappointed" Microsoft would take this approach
• Microsoft says
entries were inaccurate and heavily slanted

(AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.

While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.

"We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wales said Tuesday.

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM Corp., which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine whether changes were necessary and enter them on Wikipedia.

Brooker said Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be key in getting the changes to stick -- that is, to not have them just overruled by other Wikipedia writers.

Brooker said Microsoft and the writer, Rick Jelliffe, had not determined a price and no money had changed hands -- but they had agreed that the company would not be allowed to review his writing before submission. Brooker said Microsoft had never previously hired someone to influence a Wikipedia article.

Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of a computing company based in Australia, did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

In a blog posting Monday, he described himself as a technical standards aficionado and not a Microsoft partisan. He said he was surprised to be approached by Microsoft but figured he'd accept the offer to review the Wikipedia articles because he considered it important to make sure technical standards processes were accurately described.

Wales said the proper course would have been for Microsoft to write or commission a "white paper" on the subject with its interpretation of the facts, post it to an outside Web site and then link to it in the Wikipedia articles' discussion forums.

"It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," Wales said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

source: CNN.com

Multivitamin Mishaps (harm your health)

New Report Finds That More Than Half of the Supplements Tested Fall Short of Their Claims

By JANET HELM (a registered dietitian and freelance nutrition writer in Chicago.)


Jan. 22, 2007— If you're like millions of Americans who take a multivitamin every day "just to be sure," you may have new reasons to doubt what's inside that pill or capsule.

A report just released by ConsumerLab.com revealed that more than half of the multivitamins tested did not contain what the label claimed: Either the nutrient levels fell short or exceeded what was safe.

Of the 21 brands of multivitamins the researchers randomly selected off store shelves and tested, only 10 met the stated claims on the label or satisfied other quality standards.

Most "shocking" was the amount of lead found in one multivitamin, said Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com, a White Plains, N.Y., company that independently evaluates dietary supplements.

The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins Especially for Women was found to contain 15.3 micrograms of lead per serving. Cooperman said this is more than 10 times the amount of lead permitted without a warning label in California — the only state to regulate lead in supplements.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Excess lead may be particularly damaging to pregnant women and young children.

Cooperman believes the contamination may be attributed to the herbs used in the supplement, but "we've not heard from Vitamin Shoppe," he said.

The second most "disturbing" finding, said Cooperman, was the amount of vitamin A found in a multivitamin for children.

Hero Nutritionals Yummi Bears contained 216 percent of the labeled amount of vitamin A, delivering amounts that exceeded what's been defined as an "upper tolerable level" for children. Too much vitamin A can weaken bones and cause liver damage.

Each serving provided 5,400 international units of vitamin A in the retinol form, which is substantially more than the upper tolerable level of 2,000 IUs for children ages 1 to 3, and 3,000 IUs for children ages 4 to 8.

Judy Blatman, vice president of communications for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association that represents the dietary supplements industry, had not seen the full report but she questioned the findings.

(Read More...)
Source: abcnews.com

'Grammar Girl' a quick and dirty success

Story Highlights

• Mignon Fogarty created the "Grammar Girl" podcast in July
• It has been as high as number 2 on iTunes
• The podcasts have had more than 1.3 million downloads

By David E. Williams
CNN

(CNN) -- Grammar lessons often are associated with high school drudgery -- diagramming sentences and memorizing obscure rules in between passing notes in English class -- but an Arizona technical writer has turned the seemingly dry subject into a popular podcast.

Mignon Fogarty, the woman behind "Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing," has been explaining the finer points of commas, colons and split infinitives since July.

She recently weighed in on a dispute over apostrophes that divided the U.S. Supreme Court. Grammar wasn't the issue in the 5-4 decision, but Justice Clarence Thomas referred to "Kansas' statute" in the majority opinion, while Justice David Souter wrote about "Kansas's statute" in the minority.

Fogarty said both men were correct, but that she preferred leaving off the extra s.

"Justice Thomas' name ends with an s, so you might guess that he is more familiar with the issue," she told her audience.

Fogarty, 39, said she got the idea for the podcast, sort of an Internet radio show, during a California vacation. (Interactive: What is podcasting?)

"I was sitting in a coffee shop one day in Santa Cruz, California, on vacation and editing technical documents, because I work on vacation, and found so many grammar errors and it just hit me that grammar was something that I had expertise in that would lend itself to a short tip-based podcast," she said.

The show is currently the 47th most popular podcast on Apple's iTunes service, right behind "Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day." It has been as high as number two, Fogarty said. She said the shows have been downloaded more than 1.3 million times.

Fogarty said she's gotten some publicity, but that most of her audience comes from word of mouth.

"I get e-mails from people who say 'I just discovered your podcast and I've told everyone I work with' or 'I told every teacher at my school,'" she said. "I get a lot of e-mails like that, where people discover it and they just can't wait to tell everybody, which is really cool."

Sara Kearns, a librarian at Kansas State University, has been listening to Grammar Girl since October, and recommended it on the library's blog.

"I listen to Grammar Girl in chunks. A couple of weeks may go by and then I'll listen to 10 of them at a time," Kearns said in an e-mail interview. "The genius of Grammar Girl, apart from her ability to simplify grammar, is that she posts the transcripts so that I can stare at a gnarly piece of grammar until it clicks."

Fogarty said her audience ranges from schoolchildren in China to CEOs in the United States.

"I try to make it fun. I've even had people say 'I'm not that interested in grammar, I don't know why I listen.' But I'm glad that they do," Fogarty said. "I think people like that it's short. It's sort of a low-commitment podcast. And yet they learn something that's useful that they can put to use when they write their next e-mail."

The success of the show prompted Fogarty to produce two more podcasts "Mr. Manners' Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Polite Life" and "Money Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Richer Life." She said she's started selling ads and is even getting some interest from book publishers.

One drawback of her work, she said, is that listeners are nervous about writing her.

"I feel bad about that, I don't want people to be afraid to write to me, but about half of my e-mails start with some sort of pre-apology for errors they expect to make," she said.

She said they shouldn't worry, and that she doesn't send back e-mails with big, red correction marks.

Source: CNN.com

Work From Home Success Stories

'GMA's' Tips Have Helped Thousands of People Find Jobs

By TORY JOHNSON

Dec. 18, 2006 — In "Good Morning America's" ongoing series "Take Control of Your Life," we've focused on ways to make money from home, and the response has been overwhelming.

We've been told that more than 11,000 "GMA" viewers from all walks of life are doing just that as a direct result of this series, including over 1,000 people who've discovered work as home-based customer service agents.

And the numbers are growing: I've responded to more than 5,000 e-mails on this topic, which is proof positive that flexibility — and specifically the ability to work from home — is the biggest workplace trend, given its tremendous interest to a wide range of people.

Parents, including Matthew Johnson, have told me they've become home-based agents because they crave the flexibility of working from home.

I've heard from others, including Jessica Park, with physical or emotional challenges that prevent them from working outside the home.

And retirees like Don Curtis just aren't ready to stop working — or they're looking to supplement their savings.

All of them have found success through this flexible-work option.


Businesses Take Note

Large businesses are responding as well.

Two companies we've featured, Alpine Access and Willow, say they've lured new corporate clients in retail, publishing and financial services since our segments have aired.

For example, Home Depot and Time Customer Service, Inc. have signed on with Willow, whose contracted agents will provide home-based customer service.

Alpine Access CEO Chris Carrington is bullish about the coming year based on the volume of interest his company is receiving, in part because of "GMA's" segments.

In fact, Alpine Access, Willow and LiveOps say they plan to hire and/or contract with a total of 20,000 new agents in 2007.

The growth of U.S.-based customer service agents working from home has brought improved retention over traditional call center settings.

It also results in an improved experience for customers, which is key to brand preservation and customer loyalty and satisfaction, according to top businesses that favor keeping their calls in the United States.

(Read More...)
Source: abcnews.com

A Vending Machine for iPods?

(AP Photo)

As U.S. Consumers Get Comfortable Paying With Plastic, Automated Sale Terminals Are Selling Much More Than Soda

By CHRISTIAN LUPSA

Jan. 21, 2007 — Old-school vending machines, bulky bastions of high-calorie snacks and sodas, meet your new-school challenger: chic, upscale gadgets stocked with consumer electronics and pricey cosmetics.

As more of these machines pop up in high-traffic areas such as airports, the old quarter-chuggers may someday find themselves outvended.

The new vending machines sell iPods, cell phones, USB drives, headphones, DVDs, and a host of other gadgets.

This latest development in the $30 billion-a-year vending industry — a figure that only includes food and beverage sales — is a natural outgrowth of consumer clamor for control and round-the-clock convenience, say industry observers.

Pushing this trend are the computerization and networking of machines, as well as growing consumer confidence in cash alternatives. To put it another way, the more Americans are willing to swipe their transactions, the better vending does.

"Automated retail is in the midst of an explosion," says Michael Kasavana, a professor specializing in vending commerce at Michigan State University. "Self-service applications have become prevalent in all aspects of business, especially where labor costs have become excessive."

As the executive vice president for Zoom Systems, a vending machine seller in San Francisco, Mark Mullins loves automated retail.

Self-checkout aisles at grocery stores, ticket kiosks, vending machines — you name it — if Mullins can control it, he'll fiddle with it in no time.

"Anything that's automated, I say 'Let's give it a try,'" he says.

American society has given birth to "Generation P" (for plastic), says Kasavana, and paying with plastic is good business for Mullins. A Zoom machine in the Atlanta airport recently sold in the neighborhood of $50,000 in merchandise, Mullins says, without revealing the actual figure.

Before vending machines could expand into high-tech products, they had to overcome three roadblocks:

Gravity: Most machines drop sodas and snack foods several feet before a consumer can access them. But who wants to watch a $350 music player go through the same experience? Today's machines are equipped with robotic arms, conveyor belts and baskets. No more drops.

(Read More...)
Source: www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.