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Debunked: 'Infinite' contrast ratio, 240Hz, and Sharp's yellow pixel

The cutthroat competition among HDTV-makers inspires constant efforts to one-up the other guy, and the end result are confusing, misleading claims that do little to tell shoppers about true performance and picture quality. At CNET I try to cut through a lot of that "specmanship" in my reviews, and many other critical voices are fighting the good fight too.

"Display Myths Shattered: How Monitor & HDTV Companies Cook Their Specs" collects numerous misleading HDTV and PC monitor specs and debunks them one by one. The author, Raymond Soneira, takes aim at unnecessary--and often harmful to picture … Read more

Tearing down the Microsoft Kin

While others have torn down the Kin in their reviews, the folks at Chipworks have done an actual teardown of the Microsoft smartphone.

For those who missed it, the Kin is Microsoft's effort to tailor a phone to the always-connected crowd. The device comes in two flavors, the squat, squarish Kin One and the longer, slightly more powerful Kin Two. The phone was developed and designed by Microsoft, manufactured by Sharp, and is sold in the U.S. on Verizon's network. It runs a variant of Windows Mobile, though not quite the same version being used in the … Read more

Can bands sell out anymore?

With music, there's no bright line between art and commerce. Ever since the dawn of mass media, when big-band radio shows were commercially sponsored, musicians have explicitly endorsed products or allowed their songs to be used in advertisements.

At the same time, there's a notion among some musicians and fans that rock 'n' roll is sacred, and that artists who sell their music to commercial sponsors are less talented or less deserving of fame and fortune. This notion ebbs and flows as the music industry changes and has been particularly strong in certain subcultures--particularly the original punks and … Read more

Microsoft's Kin: What it is--and isn't

SAN FRANCISCO--The fact that Microsoft and Verizon picked a nightclub to launch the Kin tells you a lot about their target market.

The short and squat Kin One and the wider-screened Kin Two are two shapes for the same idea--the mobile phone for those who want to broadcast their every thought, sight, and sound--"lifecasters," as Microsoft's Robbie Bach called them. Although many phones have Facebook or Twitter applications, social networking is at the heart of the Kin. Sharing has its own dedicated green button and is at the center of the Kin experience.

The target demographic is men and women between 15 and 30, said Bach, who runs Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices unit. The two companies said the phones would launch next month, but didn't say exactly when during the month, nor would either company talk at all about pricing.

Aside from their shape, the two devices are very similar. Both are touch-screen sliders running the same software. The Kin Two has a better camera (8 megapixels versus 5MP), double the memory (8GB versus 4GB), and a bigger screen.

These aren't a run at the iPhone. Bach stressed that Microsoft's general smartphone play is the Windows Phone 7 operating system, which will start showing up on devices this fall. In fact, there's not even an app store for Kin users to go to, although Microsoft and Verizon can push updates or add-on programs themselves over the air.

There are several key things built into the Kin, including the first phone implementation of the Zune service. The phones can play Zune video and music that is loaded onto the device from a PC, and Kin owners can also stream music over the air while they're on the go. … Read more

Unsatisfactory shooter

Sniper Strike is a first-person arcade game that manages to drain much of the fun out of a time-honored video-game pursuit: shooting bad guys in the head.

This game's main problem is its clunky interface. You see a small portion of the playfield through your rifle's scope, and you touch and drag to move the terrain around--which varies over the game's two built-in maps, a village and a city. When a target moves into the center of your screen, a small reticle appears over it, and then you tap a touch-screen fire button to shoot. The animations … Read more

The 404 542: Where the babysitter's on fire (podcast)

A lot of critics accuse The 404 of resorting to juvenile humor for cheap laughs, and even if that's absolutely true, we've never had an actual 14 year old call us out on it...until this morning, when young Daniel showed up at the CNET office! Dedicated 404 listeners will remember Daniel as the kid who got robbed for his iPhone, so he joins us on today's episode as a junior podcaster to tell his story. And don't worry--his mother is fully aware of his location.

Daniel is visibly excited about the first topic of discussion, … Read more

Dell sues Sharp, Hitachi, Toshiba over LCD price fixing

Dell has accused five Asian firms that make liquid crystal display panels of illegally colluding on prices.

The world's third largest PC maker filed a complaint against Hitachi, Sharp, Toshiba, HannStar, and Seiko in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, according to a Reuters report. Damages sought by Dell have not yet been determined.

Dell is only the latest major buyer of LCD panels to allege price-fixing by several of the industry's largest suppliers. In October, AT&T, which purchases LCD panels for its cell phones, accused LG, Samsung, and AU Optronics of price … Read more

One world, many clocks

It's one world, but keeping track of the time on the other side of the planet requires a little help and a better timepiece than the Windows system clock. One of the best is Sharp World Clock, as clean and accurate a handle as the international timekeepers it displays. You can easily set it to display any number of configurable digital or analog clocks at once in a row or grid; change their sizes, colors, backgrounds, and other aspects; and display national flags for quick visual identification. You can also show day or night indicators, sunrise and sunset times, … Read more