Chad is out at CES in Vegas hitting us from the ground. Troy is stuck in NYC but followin up.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

(Still no xboxes)Hunting high and low and its still impossible to get a xbox premium pack.

Friday, January 06, 2006

memory stick duos to increase to 8gb

according to the sony booth, we can expect an 8gb memory stick duo by the end of the year. it will probably cost more than a psp, but hey, there's your ipod killer, err ipod mini killer :) (although one could say that its already dead)

Where are you danny gans?

is motorola drifting away from itunes or vice versa ?

you'd think after the big itunes moto phone came out this year that there would be a lot of moto apple news this ces. any word chad ?

motorola are going to release iradio which they are trying to sell as an add on through mobiel operators... could work you know - the operators will want to get their hands on any revenue share that they can get through the handset - this aint good news for satellite radio - but then again, when there is pervasive wireless web access who is going to want satellite anyway ?

Thursday, January 05, 2006

mvno madness and introducing..espn mobile

espn was alive and kicking at the lvcc where they were on hand to demonstrate the latest offering in the mvno ring with espn mobile.

powered by sprint, the program will "kick off" (yes, i said that) during the super bowl with a re-skinned sanyo sprint phone that features a slick new, flash-like (i could have said "flashy") interface that consistently provides updated sports content in the form of ticker and messages.

why a mvno? well if you think about it, instead of just trying to sell all of your content (which is fully owned by abc/disney) to one provider at a cost that they are going to set and pay you only a percentage as a royalty, why not launch your own mobile service..it just may work. they'll just need to watch out for ampd - that's if there really is a market for this.

ps3 - it was there..

the ps3 occupied some space in the sony booth off to the side where it continued to run the trailer and other video footage of the upcoming ps3 "metal gear" game. it was connected to a 1080p display to provide crisp detail of pre-rendered video. yawn.

the least sony could have done was to have some sort of live demo..i'll take a backward compatible version of ridge racer at this point.

im hoping that i just missed the live demo.

hd-dvd and blu-ray

they were both there, staring each other down from opposite sides of the central hall at the lvcc. both had theatres, and both had all of their propoganda alongside their booth walls. in the blu-ray camp we had footage of "pirates of the carribean" and in the hd-dvd camp we had "charlie and the chocolate factory." perhaps johnny depp is directly involved in this way.

by the way, blu-ray did a demonstration of "live content updating" which was very impressive. according to the demo, you can watch a film and then a message will pop up to inform you that the film you are watching has additional content that you can download to the hard drive in your player. once there, you can view the video and then return to where you were. interesting although im sure its something that the hd-dvd people will also include.

personally, this is a war i could care less about - the only real loser here will be sony if blu-ray isn't "the chosen one"

moto mini blue


motorola launched a new mini bluetooth headset. they call it the "mini blue" and it looks like it will be a pretty annoying product. i cant wait to get one so i can lose it.

windows mobile smart phones & the treo 700w

i'm disappointed that my post from this afternoon in regards to the windows mobile smartphones didnt get published, i supposed that's the problem when i'm working with the blackberry's web browser to post messages. anyway, i spent some time in the microsoft booth this afternoon to check up on the new treo 700w, which is quite impressive.

the treo design is very familiar as there isn't that much of a difference between the physical design of this device and previous 600 devices. the glaring difference is the fact that this phone is a windows mobile device, which, i'm afraid to say, is much more rock solid than the palm os. applications on the device launch in a speedy fashion and the natural integration between a windows mobile os and the exchange messaging platform is going to provide a simple messaging solution.

while the treo drew in a lot of traffic to microsoft's booth, other devices were on display that also garnered their fair share of attention. also inside the booth was the motorola "q" (aka "razrberry"). the q was quite impressive. its a slim device with a media card slot that mimics blackberry functionality while running the windows mobile os. it will sync up with an exchange server to provide full ota updates of email, calendar, and contacts. also in the booth were all of the current imate/qtek smart phones that features the windows mobile os. these phones seem to be under the radar from carriers like cingular, but they are very slick phones that are light weight and feature rich.

get location free with sony

So we've been hearing a lot about the sony's location free television server and end clients and today I was able to see and experiment with the new retail version of what was originally released in japan only as the "surf board"

The new system is much more improved over previous systems and the demo I witnessed involved two psps receiving feeds from home networks in new york and in tokyo.

The system requires a server that connects to up to three video sources and an ethernet connection. Upon connecting the devices and configuring the server with your video unit types (so it can assume remote control functions), the video is then streamed from your home network over to your location free client of choice, that being either a location free tv (available in 12" forms from sony), a pc, or a psp configured with the 2.61 firmware.

Once configured, you can use any of these clients to watch the video from your home over the internet.

Content is limited to up to 3 client devices per server, so you can't publish your content out to the world for free. Sorry troy.

The location free server comes as a stand alone server product for approximately $350 or as a bundled server and location free tv for more. Its available at sonystyle.com

Does this posting make sense? I hope so, I'm on the taxi line and not really paying attention.

damn 1080p - more focus on DVD please CES !!!

sucks to hear that there is so much attention on 1080p when we still dont freakin have a high definition DVD format... I FEEL LIKE I AM TAKING CRAZY PILLS - Mugato, Zoolander

it really does suck when you sit down to watch a movie and the only high def on demand content you can view is in the form of movies you have dvr'd on high def channels...

and also.. i dont want a new dvd player - blu-ray of hd-dvd - i am trying to cut down on devices - not add. at this stage i will probably get hd-dvd accessory to xbox 360.

off to it..

I'm beginning my journey in the south hall and have already hit the booths for denon, proton, and one of my new favorites, optoma. 1080p is the big story here both in rear projection and lcd. Also, denon and proton are showcasing new home receivers capable of hdmi switiching. While this isn't anything new, its a sign to come that a) hdmi has beaten dvi and b) the price of hdmi switching will come down to consumer levels.

Ill be hitting the wireless guys at 1pm

and im out the door

im leaving the hotel and headed over to the lvcc. my first big hit will be the wireless pavillion with the hopes of making it over to the bluetooth sig by this afternoon. wish me luck.

the nokia 770

Sitting in front of me on the flight was the nokia 770 internet tablet along with a nokia employed operator. I sat and spied the user browse web pages over a peer to peer bluetooth connection and was quite impressed with the render speed of web pages and the quality of the display. The product itself is quite impressive when you consider that it has no real significant business application - its a device intended for the hacker community to develop and contribute to. I'm hoping to get some hands on experience at the show.

touchdown

So we have landed in vegas. I'm in fine form.. Its now 2am pct.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Let's board again!

chad at airport (still). troy on screen

Oh it gets better. Now we get to change planes and wait for the new plane to be re-catered. Wtf does that mean? Can't they just take the pantry and move it?

dude, where's my plane

that sux... perhaps they could use an ipod and select the vegas playlist.

I'm still at the airport as the onboard computer needs to be replaced and radioshack is closed. No word if they are going to source it from altitunes or hudson news. Regardless, i'm over 2 hours delayed.

Cramped style!

Nothing like ces travel

we are boarding

Joy. We are actually getting on the plane.

love treo

i am a treo person... chad used to be a treo person... i think he will come back one day... some stuff went down.. i am not exactly sure what and he gets touchy when i bring it up so hopefully they will make peace again.

treo 700w

so the treo 700w has been released and it is on verizon... very interesting... considering verizon hasnt picked it up in the past.. also, as we know, this is the first windows based treo... chad let us know what you think when you pick it up... and perhaps make up :-)

Chad in car on way to JFK to go to CES in Vegas

good luck bud