November 14, 2005, 2:31 PM PST
The Panasonic ToughBook W4
Posted by: Justin Jaffe

Though it doesn't have a huge share of the market, Panasonic can usually be relied upon for innovative and distinctive laptop designs. Its remarkable ToughBook Y2 features a 14.1-inch display, a full-size keyboard, an optical drive, and really good battery life--and somehow weighs only 3.3 pounds. It was first released in 2004; to this day, no other laptop its size weighs as little as the Y2.

Extending its tradition of featherweight laptop design, Panasonic has just updated the U.S. version of its more conventional ultraportable ToughBook W2 model, now called the W4.

At 2.8 pounds, the ToughBook W4 has modest specs that include an ultra-low-voltage 1.2GHz Pentium M processor, integrated graphics, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and a 40GB hard drive. You also get a 12.1-inch standard-aspect display; contrary to the specs currently listed on Panasonic's site, the W4 does not have a touch screen. It does have a PC Card slot (Type II), an SD card reader, 10/100 Ethernet, a 56K modem, and Intel 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. Panasonic says it gets more than six hours of battery life.

Based on these specs, the ToughBook W4 sounds somewhat similar to the ToughBook R4, available only overseas or from gray-market distributors such as Icube and Dynamism. We took a look at the R4 this summer and found its keyboard and 10-inch display too tiny to use for anything but sending short e-mail messages or watching a DVD on a plane. The W4, which has a larger screen, may be just big enough to be more useful. We're expecting to get one in the Labs any day, so keep an eye out for our full review.

The Panasonic ToughBook W4 is available now for $2,149.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Laptops
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 1:38 PM PST
Hooray, old TV is finally free!
Posted by: Molly Wood

Avowed bandwagoners AOL and Warner Bros. will soon offer free downloads of classic shows such as Welcome Back, Kotter and Kung Fu. However, you must agree to be part of AOL's own file-sharing network--and renounce BitTorrent forever! OK, that last part's not true. Or is it?!

Permalink | 10 comments

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 1:38 PM PST
SRS Labs Wow technology explained
Posted by: Jasmine France

We met with SRS Labs today to talk about the company's latest announcement regarding the upgraded Wow sound-enhancement technology, SRS Wow HD. The HD stands for, you guessed it, high definition, and there's a good reason SRS has tacked it on to the Wow, but we'll get to that in a minute. First, I wanted to give a breakdown on what exactly SRS Wow does to your music, something even I didn't fully get until today.

SRS Wow is an audio-enhancement suite made up of three SRS technologies:

• SRS 3D: SRS Labs calls this "wide stereo imaging and nonfatiguing headphone listening mode." In English, it breaks down like this: When you're listening to headphones, the sweet spot is actually in the center of your head. SRS 3D widens this area of sound so that the music isn't so concentrated in one small spot and makes it sound more as if you were listening in an open environment.
• Focus: "Sound-image elevation used in combination with SRS to create a large sound image"--originally conceived for in-car listening, this effect is designed to lift the sound up near your head, something needed in a vehicle where speakers are (or were) generally placed at hip or ankle level.
• TruBass: "Psychoacoustic bass enhancement to enable deeper, natural bass of audio source material to be perceived over small speaker drivers." This one's my favorite. Essentially, TruBass uses acoustic trickery to make your brain believe that you are hearing bass that is actually in the song but that the hardware (usually headphones) is incapable of creating.

Pretty nifty, eh? Of course, technology can always be improved upon (case in point: Have you ever seen a perfect 10 score on CNET?). SRS Wow HD adds a few new tricks to its predecessor's audio suite, one of which I'm not allowed to tell you about yet. The other new addition is Definition, which brings out the high end, providing more clarity and detail, as well as a more realistic listening experience for live music. SRS Labs also improves upon the TruBass function, adding user controls that allow the listener to select from eight speaker size settings. If this sounds like your kind of tech, be sure to check out the Alienware CE-IV when it comes out--it's among one of the first MP3 players to feature the new technology. MP3 players from Samsung will soon follow.

Permalink | 2 comments

• Read also: MP3 players
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 1:27 PM PST
Let the Xbox 360 madness begin!
Posted by: Molly Wood

The Xbox 360 countdown is on--just eight agonizing days to go! So far today, we've seen a new Harmony remote just for the 360, crazy rumors of early Circuit City sales, and of course, the Amazon.com list of launch games. Can you feel it? The money leaving your pocket?

Permalink | 12 comments

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 1:24 PM PST
Microsoft takes out the root kit
Posted by: Molly Wood

Looks like Sony went just far enough over the line for big daddy Microsoft to step in. The company says that the root kit that disguises Sony BMG's DRM software is a threat to Windows' security, and Microsoft security tools will now detect and remove it. Saved by Microsoft. How...weird.

Permalink | 29 comments

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 11:56 AM PST
TiVo's giving away the box
Posted by: David Katzmaier

It took only eight years, but TiVo is finally offering its DVR boxes for free. According to the offer at the company's Web site, you can score a free 40-hour box if you sign up for a year's worth of monthly subscriptions at $16.95 each. That works out to $203.40 for a year of DVR joy. But wait: you can buy the same DVR for $50 after rebate and pay the standard $12.95 for 12 months, which works out to $205.39--a savings of $1.99. Regardless, those yearly totals are still roughly twice what it would cost to rent either a high-def or a standard DVR from your cable company; Time Warner NYC, for example, charges $8.95 per month. Also, remember that while TiVo's interface is better than that of most cable or satellite DVRs, and it can do lots of tricks, it can't record high-def or record two programs at once. That's probably why just about every CNET reader answered yes when we asked the question "Is your cable company's DVR better than TiVo?" While TiVo's offer is a step in the right direction since it brings its prices more in line with the competition's, it's still not enough to really compete with other free DVRs. To do that, TiVo needs a new dual-tuner Digital Cable Ready high-def box that maintains the same pricing structure, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Permalink | 8 comments

• Read also: Home video
• Email to a friend | Print this post

November 14, 2005, 6:08 AM PST
Web stats for free from Google
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

It's hard to argue with free. Google has started giving away Web analytics, the software that tells you who's doing what on your Web site. That's crucial information for those who want to get the most sales and marketing power from traffic to their Web site. Web analytics lets you, for example, figure out if people are reaching your e-commerce page or are bailing out before getting there. You can then tweak pages and measure whether you're doing better at pushing them toward your goal.

Based on my quick run-through of what Google's saying about its package, I think it's pretty comprehensive, with most of the important features one gets from the paid package, Urchin. That's the company Google bought last March and whose software is being used for this new service.

As News.com puts it:

"Google Analytics will let Web site owners see exactly where visitors to their site are coming from, what links on the site are getting the most traffic, what pages visitors are viewing, how long people stay on the site, which products on merchant sites are being sold, and where people give up in multistep checkout processes, said Paul Muret, an engineering director at Google and one of the founders of Urchin.

"Google Analytics will be integrated with Google AdWords and will offer a new interface within existing AdWords accounts. Marketers can also use it to track banner, e-mail, nonpaid and paid search advertising campaigns from other ad service providers."

The blogosphere, as of 9 a.m. ET, also seems impressed.

Previously, free packages were available only to Web sites with fairly minimal traffic and cost from $600 to more than $10,000 per year depending on site traffic and the package's capabilities. The free packages were very skeletal versions of the paid ones. Be aware that when you sign up, the Google terms of service say, "Google Services are made available for your personal, noncommercial use only." Not sure what this means for small business, but I'll send 'em a note and let you know if I get a response.

Eric Peterson, an analyst I respect as much as any other in this space, says this could be a "pretty big deal." Imagine if every small business could save hundreds or thousands of dollars through the new Google app. I'll also be checking in with an Urchin vendor that I'm helping a client with in the next week or so, and I'll let you know if they think users will get more for a fee than they can now get for free.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Work
• Email to a friend | Print this post