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AT&T offers Netbooks with data service plans

Atlanta and Philadelphia residents can get discounted Netbooks with the purchase of AT&T's new "Internet at Home and On the Go" broadband services with a two-year contract.

The company announced the program earlier this week, and it will be immediately available in select stores.

With this program, customers can choose from a variety of Netbooks, including the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia, with discounted prices ranging from $50 to $250.

The service plan starts at $59.95 per month and features access to AT&T's … Read more

Kyocera shows off G2Go (X-tc) and Laylo phones

Kyocera introduced two new cell phones Wednesday, as CTIA opened. Both offer slider designs but will appeal to different user groups. Check out our Kyocera CTIA photo gallery to see them in all their glory.

In keeping with the rush of messaging phones we've seen thus far in Las Vegas, the Kyocera G2GO M2000 hides a full alphabetic keyboard behind the 2.4-inch display. The overall design is a bit angular, and we're worried that the combined keypad and keyboard will be cramped, but the phone offers a fair number of features to compensate.

Inside, you'll find … Read more

DDoS attack affects half of GoGrid's customers

Hosting company GoGrid suffered a distributed denial-of-service attack Monday afternoon that affected approximately half of its thousands of customers, co-founder David Hecht said on Tuesday.

The DDoS attack hit Monday afternoon, slowing customers' Web sites, creating latency issues, and making clients' Web sites inaccessible, Hecht said.

Although GoGrid was able to stabilize the situation by late Monday afternoon, getting most of its customers' sites back online, the company faced a decision whether to stay on course with a scheduled maintenance later that night or reschedule for another date.

The maintenance, which required GoGrid to take its portal down and troubleshoot … Read more

New rent-by-mobile-phone car-sharing company to launch in Austin

It's impulse shopping meets car rental. Car2go, a car-sharing concept from Daimler, will launch in Austin, Texas, in fall 2009. The service will enable members to use their mobile phones to locate and rent one of a fleet of 200 cars near them without advance reservation.

The business model is similar to other car-sharing programs (such as Zipcar) in the U.S. with a few exceptions. The company's entire fleet of rental vehicles consists of Daimler's fuel-sipping, two-seater smart Fortwos. Registered members can rent the cars via their mobile phones and unlock the car with their membership … Read more

Philips Aria, Vibe, Opus MP3 players come to U.S.

According to a recent Philips press release, the Aria and Opus GoGear MP3 players announced for Europe last February are coming to the States, joined by a wallet-friendly newcomer named the GoGear Vibe.

The Philips GoGear Vibe is due out in April, priced at $49 for 4GB, and $59 for 8GB. You can pick the player up in either black or white (the white model looks pretty cool, actually), each featuring a 1.5-inch color screen and support for music, photos, video, FM radio, and voice recording.

If you need an MP3 player with a little more meat to it, … Read more

Cleaner trash-to-energy tech hits the ground

BOSTON--To many communities, trash-to-energy means burning garbage. But a handful of companies say they are close to bringing cleaner technology to market for making electricity or ethanol from waste.

At a panel discussion on waste-to-energy at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen East conference here on Tuesday, representatives from four companies detailed their plans to use gasification to convert waste products to usable energy. Some products are ready to be deployed more widely while others are still in the pilot testing phase.

The promise of using municipal solid trash or other waste products for useful energy is tantalizing: it's a renewable resource … Read more

VCs still keen on green tech, thanks to Uncle Sam

Even after a massive jolt from the U.S. government for green technologies, investors are tempering their expectations.

Consulting company KPMG on Tuesday is expected to release results of a survey that reflects the conflicted feelings of many venture capitalists.

The societal forces toward clean energy--including energy security and climate change--continue to gain momentum. But the financial crisis has hit the clean-energy industry so hard that even the recently passed stimulus plan cannot completely reverse its course.

"There is no doubt that the green-tech sector remains an attractive investment area, but the lack of available credit and the difficult economic environment … Read more

Are voice commands on GPS worth it?: Ask the Editors

Q: I am writing to ask you about what GPS device is the best for someone interested in traffic updates (preferably free), as well as Bluetooth capability. I also like the idea of Lane Assist because I fear missing exits. Also, is the voice response option really a practical one at this phase? Hope to hear from you soon. --Alex via e-mail

A: Hi Alex. I'll start with your last question first. Voice command functionality is just starting to show up in portable navigation devices, letting you enter addresses and perform some other tasks simply by speaking to the GPS. As with any new technology, I can understand your apprehension. Is it good enough? Is it actually useful? In other words, is it ready for prime time?

In the case of voice commands and GPS, it's not quite there yet. The idea behind it is good. The ability to enter addresses and perform certain functions with the sound of your voice would seemingly save you the time and trouble of going through various menus and tapping onscreen buttons to achieve the same goal.

Being able to do things like increase system volume and zoom in on maps via voice commands is particularly useful since you can keep your hands on the wheel instead of reaching over to fiddle around with your PND's touch screen.

However, in practice, the technology still needs some work. Voice command functionality is available on a handful of GPS models, such as the TomTom GO 930 and the Magellan Maestro 4250, but of the current offerings, there are only two models where I'd consider the voice command feature satisfactory: the Garmin Nuvi 880 and Navigon 7200T.

These two systems returned fairly accurate results when dictating addresses, and the Nuvi 800 had the bonus of offering 30 voice commands to perform other functions, including volume control and activating the hands-free speaker system. Unfortunately, they're also on the pricier side ($700 to $1,000 for the Garmin and $300 to $500 for the Navigon), and I wouldn't say the voice command functionality is so great that it's worth the extra expense. … Read more

Application makes screen recording easy

PALM DESERT, CALIF -- Programs like Camtasia Studio that let you record what you do on your PC (including motion and sound) have been around for awhile but Citrix Online, the company behind GoToMyPC, is simplifying the process of creating videos and bringing them to the web. I've only seen the onstage demo at Demo 09 and haven't worked with the program but, from what I saw, it does look like it's easier to use than other screen capture programs I've used.

GoView doesn't just capture still shots but entire screen sessions with optional voice … Read more