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Schmidt challenges grads to turn off the screen for an hour a day

Eric Schmidt has some advice for college graduates: unplug for an hour a day.

"Take one hour a day and turn that thing off," Google's chairman emeritus told graduates today at Boston University, receiving approving applause from the audience, according to a Reuters account of the speech. "Take your eyes off that screen and look into the eyes of the person you love. Have a conversation, a real conversation."

His remarks came halfway through an address focused on the benefits of electronic tools such as social media. "A distinctive feature of your new world … Read more

BenQ business monitor houses VA panel

LAS VEGAS--Business monitor announcements are never very exciting, but to its credit, BenQ does its best with this one.

BenQ introduced today its BL series of monitors. Targeted toward business users, the monitor will come in 19-, 22-, and 24-inch sizes.

The monitor will feature what BenQ is calling the Automatic Eye-Protect Sensor, which I'm guessing translates to ambient light sensor, but I can't be 100 percent sure on that.

It also includes an "ultra-flexible" adjustable height stand, which, you know, makes me really curious as to just what that means. A 1920x1080-pixel resolution and Vertical … Read more

New Office for Mac still coming this year

Microsoft is tying a ribbon around the next version of Office for Mac.

Due out later this year, Office for Mac 2011 will sport a version of the "ribbon" user interface that has adorned the PC version since Office 2007, Microsoft said Thursday. The new Office will also add support for Microsoft's new browser-based Office Web Apps as well as the first Mac OS X version of Outlook.

Microsoft had said last year that it was working on a new Mac version that would bring Outlook back to the Mac. The company says that version should indeed … Read more

Next Mac Office, due by 2010's end, gets Outlook

Microsoft on Thursday said the next version of Office for Mac will arrive by the 2010 holiday buying season, and it added that the new version will include a version of Outlook.

Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage, the current e-mail and calendar program in the Mac Office suite. Although it will still differ from the Windows version of Outlook, it will add support for more Exchange features, such as public folders and rights management features.

Office for Mac had a version of Outlook in its pre-Mac OS X days, but Microsoft switched to the Entourage program with Office for … Read more

Sonos BU250 music system gets Editors' Choice

Sonos is back for 2009 with a new version of its signature Digital Audio System. Like earlier iterations of the Sonos product, the new Bundle 250 lets you wirelessly access your computer's digital music collection as well as a wide range of Internet radio and streaming-audio services (Pandora, Last.fm, and--with paid subscriptions--Napster and Rhapsody) in two rooms of the house, with the option to expand that up to a whopping 32 rooms. But the latest Sonos system adds a major upgrade: the CR200 touch-screen remote.

If that wasn't good enough--and the remote is excellent--it can also be … Read more

Microsoft's Mac unit gets new boss

Microsoft said Friday that it is changing the leadership of its Macintosh Business Unit, the group responsible for Office for Mac.

Eric Wilfrid, a product unit manager in the division, will succeed Craig Eisler, who is moving to a role elsewhere in Robbie Bach's entertainment and devices unit. In an interview, Wilfrid declined to say what exactly his former boss will be up to or even to whom Eisler will report.

Eisler took over in June 2007 when then MacBU head Roz Ho moved to a secretive mobile job within the entertainment unit.

Wilfrid said that Office for Mac … Read more

Sonos BU150: I can stream clearly now the range is long

If you like Sonos and things that are new, you're probably going to love the new gear from Sonos.

You may already have heard of the Sonos digital music system--it scored a high review from our editors, it's got tie-ins with Napster for streaming millions of songs over the Internet, and it'll stream your entire collection over your wired or wireless home network.

It's the music lover's dream, and its amps are capable of driving speakers, meaning you don't need to hook it up to separate hi-fi units, unlike the also excellent Logitech Squeezebox Duet. … Read more

Microsoft (finally) releases Mac Office converters

Finally.

Microsoft on Tuesday released the file format converters that allow Office 2004 for Mac to read the Open XML file formats that were introduced in Office 2007 for Windows. The converters were originally due to be available close to the launch of Office 2007, but have been delayed several times.

The delays meant that Office 2008, which supports the new formats, actually hit the market before the converters. Of course, since Microsoft makes money off new versions of Office and not off making the older product more compatible, perhaps that was part of the plan.

In any case, the … Read more