October 05, 2006, 6:25 PM PDT
Mazda CX-7 first take
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

Mazda's contribution to the crossover trend arrived in our garage today, so we took it out for a quick spin to get some initial impressions (full review to come next week). One of our staff immediately scoffed at the notion of a crossover, insisting on labeling the CX-7 as an SUV. And when I got in the driver's seat, I felt like I was in an SUV, because the CX-7 feels pretty big. Although the hood slants down, the front fenders are big and trucklike. Maybe it's not an SUV because of the wacky upholstery, which has a strip of brown alligator suede running up the middle of each seat. You don't see that in a truck. But it does have a rearview camera, a gadget more common on SUVs than cars.

The power train is modest in the CX-7, with a transversely mounted 2.3-liter four-cylinder enhanced by a turbocharger. That's all mated to a six-speed automatic turning all four tires in our all-wheel-drive version. Although the car didn't push me back into the seat when I punched the accelerator, the power is satisfactory enough to move the car up to freeway speeds pretty quickly. And even better, the turbo isn't overwhelming--it does its part quietly, adding power without any unexpected rushes of acceleration.

For tech, the car has a navigation system with voice control and a Bose stereo with an in-dash six-CD changer. No cell phone integration. The LCD is big and bright, and it does a good job displaying maps or ID3 information from MP3 CDs, which the changer can read. The CD slot is actually behind the LCD, and loading or ejecting CDs causes a motor to tip up the LCD. The CX-7 has Bose speakers that sounded pretty good on our initial run, but we'll get deeper into that in the full review. The LCD is a touch screen, but the technology behind it seems little different from a standard touch screen. You have to really tap the onscreen buttons, as if there's a mechanical connection that has to take place.

The points-of-interest database doesn't include retail stores, so I won't be able to find Home Depot in this car, but it does have restaurants. The touch screen can be problematic, as I frequently ended up tapping the map as opposed to the button that starts route guidance, which has the effect of resetting my destination to some random point in the city. The MP3 CD display on the LCD is really good, with full song, artist, and album all displayed on the same screen.

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• See product information for 2007 Mazda CX-7 Grand Touring 4dr SUV AWD (2.3L 4cyl Turbo 6A)
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October 05, 2006, 3:49 PM PDT
PrefPass knows what you want, but not who you are
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Recently I wrote about the online authentication system OpenID, which cleverly allows Web sites to verify who you are by checking to see if you are logged into your own secure site on your computer. If you're authenticated on that site, you don't have to sign in on any site that uses the OpenID system.

OpenID lets other sites confirm that you are who you say you are. It doesn't, though, tell these sites what you want. For that, there's another new system, PrefPass, which is designed to record what you like, and then pass that data to other sites, so they can give you content you want and advertising that's relevant. The service is now in public beta.

Here's how it works. First, you register at PrefPpass. This entails identifying yourself by your email address, and then defining your preferences by pointing to online resources that you like. If you write your own blog, that's a natural choice. You can also link to your Del.icio.us account, and any other sites or blogs that speak to you. From that collection of sites, PrefPass generates a list of keywords for you.

A PrefPass-enabled content site will have a "Grant Pass" button. Once you press it, the content site connects to your PrefPass account (if you are logged in to it on your PC), and gets your keywords. Those keywords are used to select content and ads for you. PrefPass does not pass identify information to the content site, just what you like.

Site owners can avail themselves of PrefPass tools, like a blog site plug-in that will list the posts on the site the PrefPass user is most likely to have affinity with; and a module that serves up relevant Amazon products that are related to the user rather than the content the user is viewing (which is what Google Adwords currently displays).

PrefPass is a very interesting way to separate preference from identity, and CEO Adam Marsh assures me that's what content publishers want. They don't care nearly as much about who you are, he says, as they do about serving you ads you're likely to click on. It's also worth noting that PrefPass doesn't give a content site any information at all until you authorize it to make a connection.

Since the system is new and there are not a lot of publishers using PrefPass (and those that do so far are just experimenting with it), there's no great need for you to rush to set up a PrefPass account right now. Although doing so is very fast and easy if you want to join the experiment. I'm hoping some big publishers pick up this system (CNN? Digg?), since on sites like these one tends to get lost in the sea of content, and a system like PrefPass could help a lot.

One last note: PrefPass looks like great technology for matchmaking services, especially the new LonelyBloggers site (I am not making this up, although I wish I was).

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October 05, 2006, 2:16 PM PDT
New ViewSonic HD projector coming soon
Posted by: Matthew Moskovciak

Later this month, ViewSonic will roll out a new DLP home-theater projector, the Cine5000. While standard HDTVs get most of the buzz, front projectors represent a great value if you want a huge screen and you don't mind dimming the lights. The Cine5000, for instance, should have no problem filling a 150-inch screen, and it has an estimated street price of $2,000. Its 1,280x768 native resolution is capable of displaying every pixel of 720p sources, and it can receive HD signals from its HDMI input, component video input, or VGA-style PC input. ViewSonic mentions a bunch of other specs, such as a 2000:1 contrast ratio, 1,000 lumens, Faroudja DCDi video processing, and Texas Instruments DarkChip2 DLP chip, but we won't know how those specs translate to real-world performance until we test it. As with all DLP-based technology that uses a color wheel, some users may experience the rainbow effect.

While $2,000 might seem cheap compared to big-screen HDTVs, it's more than some comparable DLP models, such as Mitsubishi's HD1000U ($1,500 list). We expect to have a full review of the Cine5000 as soon as possible.

Sources: ViewSonic via AboutProjectors via Engadget

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October 05, 2006, 1:48 PM PDT
Microsoft to issue 11 patches next week
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

Microsoft's October 10, 2006, Patch Tuesday will include at least 11 individual security bulletins, with six covering Windows, four covering Office, and one covering the .Net framework. Some of the Windows and Office patches are expected to be rated as critical; the .Net Framework patch will be rated moderate. Check back on Tuesday to find out what applications are affected and how many distinct flaws are resolved by these new patches.

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October 05, 2006, 1:34 PM PDT
Adobe gives bloggers a way to Contribute
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Curiously, a lot of desktop Web design software still doesn't make blogging easy. Instead, many bloggers continue to use the online tools offered by their hosting service to compose and edit entries, which can be a problem with an unstable Internet connection. However, Adobe just released its simple Web publishing app Contribute 4, with new support for blogging at TypePad, Blogger, and WordPress.

The $149 Contribute 4 also integrates with Microsoft Office and Dreamweaver. Site editors can maintain Dreamweaver's user permissions within Contribute 4. Plus, you can drag and drop Flash movies into pages and blog posts designed with Contribute. These changes indicate the deepened integration among tools from Adobe and Macromedia since the companies wed last year. Luckily, Contribute 4 will still work on Windows 2000 in addition to XP and Mac OS 10.3.9.

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October 05, 2006, 11:00 AM PDT
Best Buy, SanDisk, and Real team up to launch Best Buy Digital Music Store
Posted by: James Kim

Now that's a threesome. In addition to the launch of Real Rhapsody 4 and the SanDisk Sansa e200R Rhapsody player, Best Buy will get involved with the Rhapsody/Sansa ecosystem when it begins offering both the player and a Best Buy-branded music store October 15. Powered by Rhapsody 4, the Best Buy Digital Music Store will offer more than 2.5 million tracks for purchase and subscription, and it will work seamlessly with the new Sansa e200R Rhapsody series of MP3 players. Basically, it's a reskinned version of Rhapsody 4 (look out for Jasmine France's full review).

Partnering with Best Buy in this regard is smart for both Real and SanDisk--after all, the new ecosystem competes with iPod/iTunes and will soon compete with Zune. I think the two different makes of the e200 series may confuse consumers, but if the Rhapsody DNA-laced e200R works as well as or better than advertised, consumers should take note, because both player and software are looking like a dazzling duo. Stay tuned for our reviews of Rhaposdy 4 and the e200R Rhapsody player.

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