The Technophilez

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - From tiny music players that dance as they play tunes to smarter toothbrushes and curvy computer screens, U.S. consumers can count on being wowed by another year of cool digital gadgets in the coming year.

But technology industry leaders attending the annual agenda-setting Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week say the focus of this year's event has shifted to instant consumer gratification from visions of what might be.

Gadget makers are benefiting from a decade-old digital transition from older analog technologies. Once separate devices ranging from computers to phones to television and automobiles now increasingly connect to one another and share media.

As an example of this convergence, the talk of the show was when controversial electric stun gun maker Taser (TASR.O) unveiled a new leopard-print personal security model with a holster that plays digital music.

At the same time, many executives admit to some concerns that mounting U.S. economic woes may lead consumers to think twice before making their next major gadget purchases.

"Today was about an opportunity to say what are our priorities -- nothing that's that far out," said Comcast Corp Chief Executive Brian Roberts said on the sidelines of CES. Tuesday, Comcast said a super-fast broadband service capable of downloading high-definition movies would be ready this year.

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In a broad discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show, U.S. Federal Communications CommissionChairman Kevin Martin on Tuesday confirmed that the deadline for the country's switch to digital TV next year will not be postponed, explained the rationale behind the requirements for the current 700MHz auction and gave hints about his thinking regarding various communications megamergers.

Interviewed at the show by Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro, Martin said the February 2009 deadline for the digital TV switch is a "hard deadline." He said a postponement would "dis-incentivize" industry to make the transition.

"After all of our efforts we couldn't just turn around and say 'We're just kidding,'" he said.

About 50 percent of all homes in the U.S. now have digital TVs, and the CEA forecasts that some 28 million digital TVs will be bought in the U.S. this year, Shapiro noted.

The transition to digital will not only improve picture quality for consumers, but also free up spectrum that can be used for wireless broadband, Martin stressed. He also noted that the extra spectrum provided by the switch would be used to improve public safety, allowing for better communications between fire departments and police. The need for better coordination among law enforcement and safety officials was a major point made in the 9/11 Commission report, he noted.

Requirements related to the auction for 700MHz spectrum blocks in the U.S. will play an important part in bringing broadband access to more people, such as inhabitants in rural areas, who have limited wireless options now, he said.

The spectrum auction has been broken up intoblocks. One block, for example, has open-access rules and is broken up into 12 regional licenses across the U.S. There are also "buildout" requirements that will ensure that auction winners will actually put the spectrum to use in a reasonable timeframe, Martin said.

He declined to comment directly on the planned merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, currently under review by the Department of Justice. But he noted that the companies have been talking about a la carte pricing plans for shows, which would give consumers a wide range of options to choose different bundles of programs and prices. Martin said he would encourage content providers -- especially cable TV companies -- to offer this type of program-options plan.

One disappointment in the wake of communications industry deregulation has been the rising price of cable TV, he said.

Martin stopped short of saying that approval of the Sirius-XM merger would set a regulatory precedent for a rumored merger deal between satellite TV companies Echostar and DirecTV. But he did say that it would be important for the satellite TV companies to give consumers more pricing and program bundle options as part of any merger plan.

"This is the type of thing we'd be looking at," he said.

LAS VEGAS - With just a few months to go before the launch of its next-generation wireless network, Sprint Nextel Corp. has a distinctly modest lineup of compatible devices.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show here this week, Sprint showed only two computer modems that will definitely be available in April, when its WiMax network becomes available outside current trials in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington.

One of the promises of WiMax, a service Sprint will be providing under the Xohm brand, is that receivers for it can be built into a variety of devices like cameras and Web tablets that usually don't have a built-in Internet connection or rely on Wi-Fi, a short-range technology.

"We fully expect an explosion of consumer devices," said Antone Porter, a product manager at Sprint.

The relative dearth of early WiMax gadgets isn't necessarily a sign of trouble for Sprint. Gemma Tedesco, an analyst at In-Stat, said the coverage area will be relatively small this year anyway, and Sprint's main task will be to build out the network.

"Unlike Wi-Fi, users' satisfaction will be dependent on the network coverage, and so Sprint really needs to have their metro areas well covered, to get users motivated; even this may take time, going into 2009 and beyond," she said.

Unlike Wi-Fi, WiMax signals reach for miles, and unlike cellular broadband, it's designed from the ground up for data. That could make WiMax cheaper than current cellular broadband, or 3G, which often costs around $60 a month for laptops.

Sprint hasn't disclosed pricing plans, but Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at the company, said he suspects "it will be more affordable than 3G."

At launch, the two devices that will be able to connect to the network are a modem for homes or small-offices from ZyXEL Communications Corp. and a laptop modem from ZTE Corp.

The home modem resembles a huge coffee mug, with two antennas that look like handles. It's intended to make WiMax an alternative to wired broadband provided by phone and cable companies. In addition to providing Internet connectivity, it will have jacks for phone service to be provided over WiMax.

The first gadget to come with built-in WiMax capability may be a new model of the EeePC, a diminutive laptop from ASUSTek Computer. The Taiwanese company started selling a version of the cheap computer without WiMax in the fourth quarter of last year and has sold 350,000 globally, Chief Executive Jonney Shih said.

An Eee with built-in WiMax will be available in the second quarter, Shih said. A price has not been decided. The current Eee uses Linux, a free operating system, but it will be possible to use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP on future models, Shih said.

ASUS is also planning to build WiMax into full-size laptops, to be available in the second half of the year, with prices starting at $999.

San Francisco-based OQO Inc. demonstrated at the show a WiMax-equipped prototype of its small handheld Windows computer with slide-out keyboard. But the company did not say when or even if it would be commercially available. OQO already has models compatible with competing cellular broadband networks.

Finland's Nokia Corp., which is supplying Sprint with WiMax network equipment, has said it will build Intel Corp.'s WiMax chips into a Web tablet model in 2008 but hasn't said when.

The backing of Intel means several big-name laptop makers, like Toshiba Corp. and Lenovo, have committed to making WiMax-equipped models, but no details have emerged.

"A lot of times the first year of a technology's rollout is kind of experimental and bumpy — even with the various flavors of Wi-Fi this has happened, and WiMax is much more complicated," said Tedesco, the In-Stat analyst.

Tedesco said the fact that ZyXEL, a "high-volume, low-end networking equipment vendor," is entering the market will push other companies like D-Link, Belkin and Netgear to also make WiMax gear.

Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Monday introduced its first notebook processors built using the company's latest 45-nanometer manufacturing process, which delivers more powerful products that use the same or less energy than previous models.
Along with the five mobile chips, Intel unveiled four server processors, and seven desktop products. All the new processors were built using the same manufacturing process, and are lead and halogen free, making them more environmentally friendly.

The latest processors bring the number of 45-nm products from Intel to 32, including desktop, laptop, and server processors. Intel said it delivers higher power-to-performance ratios by packing more transistors in a chip by shrinking their size to 45 nm. The previous generation chips had 60-nm transistors.

Intel unveiled the new products at the International Consumer Electronics show, where chief executive Paul Otellini is scheduled to give a keynote speech Monday night. Otellini is expected to also introduce Intel's hardware and software partners that have agreed to support Intel's upcoming platform, code-named Menlow, for mobile Internet devices and the smallest of notebooks that trade power for longer battery life.

Intel is scheduled to start production of Menlow, which will include a new low-power 45-nm processor packages codenamed Silverthorne, this quarter, Anand Chandrasekher, senior VP and general manager of Intel's ultramobility group, told InformationWeek. In addition, Intel is building processors and chipsets for set-top boxes and digital video recorders. The platform, scheduled to ship this year, will use Menlow technology, but will be marketed under other names.

Intel's latest mobile processors are available on the company's dual-core Centrino platform for notebooks, which include the Intel 965 Express chipset. Optional with the platform are a third-party decoder for better performance in playing high-definition content in either HD DVD or Blu-ray format and support for 802.11n wireless networks. The latter is a Wi-Fi standard capable of streaming video.

Standard with the Centrino platform is Intel's latest Deep Power Down Technology that greatly reduces the power consumption of individual cores of a multi-core processor when they're not in use. In addition, the platform uses Intel's new SSE4 instruction set, which leads to faster processing of workloads, such as high-definition video encoding and photo manipulation.

One manufacturer expected to take advantage of Intel's latest chips is Apple, which industry watchers say is likely to introduce a new MacBook or other handheld computer at the Macworld Conference & Expo Jan. 14-18 in San Francisco.

Intel's latest chips for the mainstream desktop will include three Core 2 quad-core processors and four Core 2 dual-core products. The processors will feature a range of clock speeds, and up to 6 Mbytes of Level 2 cache. The dual-core products begin shipping this month, and the quad-core processors are expected later in the quarter.

Also shipping later this quarter are the four 45-nm Xeon processors for servers and workstations.

Intel started shipping 45-nm processors late last year, giving it a jump on rival Advanced Micro Devices. AMD is expected to deliver 45-nm products later this quarter. Code-named Shanghai, AMD (NYSE: AMD)'s quad-core microprocessor is expected to be a server product under the Opteron brand.

NVIDIA used its CES platform to offer some information on the company's upcoming products, but the announcements made fell short of generating any sort of "wow" factor. That's not necessarily a bad thing—small, incremental, but ultimately unexciting product improvements are just as important as next-generation bolts of lightning—but anyone hoping for news of an ATI killer or dominant new chipset ended up disappointed.

NVIDIA spent a good deal of time talking up what the company is calling Hybrid SLI. The term refers to a set of two technologies, GeForce Boost and Hybrid Power, both of which must be present in order to earn the Hybrid SLI moniker. GeForce Boost is a performance-enhancing option that melds an integrated GPU with a discrete GPU. Once combined in this manner, the two GPUs render different frames, with the results being passed to the integrated GPU for display.

The real-world performance gain from using GeForce Boost is unknown. NVIDIA claims a 40 percent improvement in 3DMark 2006 when GeForce Boost is enabled, but gives no information on which integrated and discrete solutions were combined to achieve that number. It's hard to tell how the system's increased 3DMark score correlates to other games, but NVIDIA was kind enough to include the additional bar graph quantitatively demonstrating the performance benefits of GeForce Boost (and no, we didn't crop out any percentages). 

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