August 11, 2006, 5:01 PM PDT
A college student's dream...in a router
Posted by: Andrew Gruen

Asus's new router, the WL-700gE, just arrived at our offices this morning. We haven't finished testing it yet, but if the router can do just half of what the company claims, it's going to be awesome. At first glance, it looks like an 802.11b/g router tricked out with NAS functionality, thanks to its 160GB internal hard drive. Looking closer reveals it can do so much more. And all for about $260 from some online retailers.

Perhaps most interesting, and potentially controversial, is the router's ability to manage FTP, HTTP, and BitTorrent downloads itself. According to Asus, you can initiate downloads from the router and they'll be saved to its internal hard drive. For all those college students who download the latest--cough--Linux distributions on 6 DVDs--cough--overnight, the WL-700gE will let them turn off their noisy PCs and save data right to the router. The router also has a USB port, which lets you connect an external hard drive for more storage or as a backup--the router has RAID 0 and 1 capabilities. You can also plug in other USB media and have the device's contents transferred to the router with the push of a button. Plugging a printer or a Webcam into the port will let any computer connected to the network share the peripheral.

The router also supports a multitude of internal and external file sharing protocols. It has a Web server, so you can host your own pages and files both inside your network and, with its DDNS service, out to the rest of the Internet. The router can also share music stored on its hard drive to computers running iTunes and Xbox 360s connected to the network (for the geeks out there, it has both a DAAP and a UPnP/DLNA server, so it is compatible with any devices that work with those standards).

Verizon may claim it sells the "Ultimate Media Razr," but the Asus WL-700gE has the potential to be the Ultimate Media Router. We're testing it now, so check back soon for a full review.

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August 11, 2006, 3:56 PM PDT
BookMooch: Swap your books for free
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

BookMooch is the Craigslist of swapping sites. It's not as fancy as some other sites (such as LaLa and Peerflix), but it's totally free to use. There's no monthly charge and no per-transaction fee. You do have to give to get, though: each book costs a point. You get one point for sending a book to a user, and a tenth of a point for each book you add to your Moochable inventory.

Actually, there is a cost: you have to pay to send books to other users.

Since BookMooch uses points as currency, your trades do not have to be direct swaps with other users, as they do on the free trading site, SwapTree. On the other hand, on SwapTree you can trade more than just books.

BookMooch also has a browser bookmarklet, the MoochBar, that will find books on the Web page you're on and add them to your want list or to your inventory. So if you're on Amazon and see a book you want, you can easily Mooch it. You'll have to wait for a BookMooch user to send it, but it will obviously cost you a lot less than buying it new.

BookMooch is run by John Buckman, who told me that when it comes to making money from the site, "I totally don't care." He made a lifetime of earnings selling his e-mail company, Lyris. Good for him. While there are too many swapping networks right now, the financial model of this one is in line with the negligible cash value of most used books.

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August 11, 2006, 12:54 PM PDT
Bix, the online contest utility
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

There are some interesting online karaoke sites live right now: kSolo and SingShot in particular. Recently a more general-purpose online talent site went live: Bix. It's a somewhat different beast, a talent-finding service that downplays the social network and instead has a laser focus on contests.

Unlike at the other sites, you're not barraged with a million different song links when you enter it. Instead, you're directed to view entries in various contests, vote on them, and enter them yourself if you want.

What I like about Bix are two things: First, that the contests aren't all karaoke based. There are dance, photography, and even writing contests. And second, users can easily create their own contests. American Idol-like talent show producers could obviously use a tool like this (American Idol is more likely to use kSolo). But this tool might also be used for job recruiting. For example, see the GigaOm blog writing contest.

If you just want to goof around and record some karaoke for your pals, stick with kSolo or SingShot. But if you're all about the competition, check out Bix.

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August 11, 2006, 9:20 AM PDT
HP MediaSmart HDTV now shipping
Posted by: John P. Falcone

Hewlett Packard is now shipping the first of its network-ready MediaSmart TVs, which were first announced at January's Consumer Electronics Show. What sets the MediaSmart apart from a run-of-the-mill flat-panel TV is its built-in full-service network media player. Using the integrated Ethernet or 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi connection, the MediaSmart can stream an impressive collection of digital audio (MP3, WMA, WMA-Pro, WAV), video (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, AVI, WMV, WMV-HD), and photo (JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG) files from a PC that's also on your home network, or (in some cases) straight off the Internet. It's compatible with Windows Media Connect and UPnP standards, so setup--with Windows PCs, at least--should be a breeze, and PlaysForSure certification ensures compatibility with a wide range of premium audio and video services. HP also highlights the MediaSmart's compatibility with Rhapsody, Live365 radio, and HP's own Snapfish photo service.

Thankfully, HP didn't scrimp on the TV features, either: the 37-inch flat-panel LCD boasts a 1,366x768 resolution, a built-in ATSC/QAM HD tuner, and the A/V connectivity is highlighted by a single HDMI and two component inputs. But a quick comparison to the MediaSmart's non-networked doppelganger--the extremely similar $1,700 LC3760N--shows that you're paying a $1,000 premium for the cool network functions of the MediaSmart version. Is it worth $2,700? We'll let you know as soon as we get our hands on one.

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• See product information for HP Slc3760n 37-Inch Mediasmart High-Definition LCD TV
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August 11, 2006, 8:53 AM PDT
Zune: three colors, $299, zero over-the-air downloads
Posted by: Molly Wood

According to consumer electronics site Twice, Microsoft's first Zune portable media player will arrive in stores this fall, cost $299, come in three colors, and have totally lame Wi-Fi integration. OK, that's not a direct quote--more of an editorial opinion. Twice said it talked to retailers who said the first device in the Zune lineup will offer Wi-Fi capability, but won't let you perform the obvious task with that Wi-Fi--that is, download songs over the air from an online store. You can, per the retailers, maybe do...some other things. The player will have 30GB (not 60GB) of storage. Reached for comment, the iPod said, "I'm feeling distinctly not killed!"

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