The New Xbox Experience

Earlier this month at the Tokyo Game Show, which I sadly missed, Microsoft announced that the New Xbox Experience is ready to launch Nov. 19 as a part of the Xbox fall update - and just in time to start off the Christmas shopping season. If you don’t already own an Xbox 360, you have a good deal waiting for you with the Xbox 360 Arcade holiday offer ($199.99) that comes with Sega Superstars Tennis and five Xbox LIVE Arcade games. For $299.99 and $399.99 respectively, the Xbox 360 console and Xbox 360 Elite pair the promise of the Xbox Experience and LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures and Kung Fu Panda.

“Our industry is defining the future of entertainment,” said John Schappert, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of LIVE, Software and Services for the Interactive Entertainment Business, while at the Tokyo Game Show 2008. “When the New Xbox Experience launches, we will be inviting the whole world to play. We will also have the games that everyone will want, including all-new social experiences like Lips, Scene It? Box Office Smash, and You’re In the Movies - all launching this holiday, all exclusively on Xbox 360.”


Here are the main things you’ll see with the New Xbox Experience:

* Netflix On-Demand Entertainment: This is a feature I’m really looking forward to: having access to Netflix’s 12,000-plus movies and TV shows for instant viewing right off my 360. Note you’ll need an Xbox LIVE Gold membership and a Netflix unlimited subscription in order for this to work on your 360.

* Ability To Copy Games To Hard Drive: This is one of my favorites, too. Whenever I’m playing a game on my 360, the disk drive is fairly loud with the game spinning in there. This game-copying feature eliminates that by putting your games right onto your 360’s hard drive. Keep in mind you still need your original game disk to start the game to verify authenticity, and this is only meant for your most-often-played games since all your games will not fit on your hard drive (unless you only have a few). This will sure speed up gameplay, and I already know which games I would copy over first.


* Xbox LIVE Primetime: A new channel on Xbox LIVE that will transform Xbox 360 entertainment. For the first time you can get together with other players to play game shows such as 1 vs. 100 (from Endemol, also producers of Deal or No Deal) with real hosts, fresh content and prizes just as the games are seen on TV.

* Xbox LIVE Party: Create a virtual party on your TV with up to seven friends. You can voice chat as you play games or watch a movie/TV show and share photos in real time.

* Personality Plus: Create a customizable, animated avatar, similar to the Mii character you can create for your Nintendo Wii, but with much more detail. Using this avatar creator, you can customize your clothes, body, face and hair with a fair amount of detail.

Additionally, if you’re a theme person, you’ll be glad to know these are highly integrated into the new user interface. Instead of just a boring background and matching colors, Theme 2.0 has three-dimensional renderings rather than tiles behind each menu object.

Look for your New Xbox Experience in a couple of weeks as a free download directly to your Xbox 360. Visit http://www.xbox.com/live for complete system requirements and for more information.

Hawaii Goes Digital

You may remember me writing a column back in February about switching from analog to digital television (DTV), and how no analog signal will be available after Feb. 17, 2009. Well, the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters (HAB) recently announced that the full-power television stations here in Hawaii will make the transition on Jan. 15, 2009 - more than a month before the rest of the country. Note that Kauai will not make the transition with the rest of the state since it is served by low-power translators.

“Hawaii’s early transition was prompted by consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where they recommended Hawaii broadcasters deconstruct their present Maui analog facilities prior to mid-February to avoid the Hawaiian petrel breeding season in that area,” says Mike Rosenberg, president and general manager of KITV.

If you’re still wondering what DTV does, it’s an over-the-air type of broadcasting that enables TV stations to provide clearer pictures and better sound quality. It’s more flexible and efficient than the traditional analog way of broadcasting, and makes it possible for stations to broadcast multiple channels at once (multicasting), instead of broadcasting one channel at a time. This whole transition is the most significant advancement in TV technology since color TV was introduced back in the day!
Hawaii’s full-power TV stations voluntarily agreed to cease analog broadcasts by noon on the Jan. 15 deadline. Following that, only digital signals will be available. If you’re using rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna, then you’ll need to upgrade with a converter box before the deadline. If your TV is already connected to cable, satellite or another paid service, don’t worry, since you will not be affected by the transition.

“The early transition to DTV has the support and attention of Sen. Daniel Inouye, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters and its member stations in a focused effort to educate the public about the transition,” says Chris Leonard, president of the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters. “It will also serve as a model for the rest of nation as they make their transition in February.”

According to HawaiiGoesDigital.com, at least 19.6 million households have exclusive over-the-air signals in their homes, and 14.9 million households have secondary over-the-air TV sets in their bedrooms or kitchens. Overall, nearly 70 million are at risk of losing signal. If this is you, I’m sure you don’t want to lose your signal. You can either:

* Purchase a DTV converter box for your existing TV set.

* Purchase digital TV set with a built-in digital tuner.

* Subscribe to cable, satellite or other pay TV service that offer your favorite channels.

To help offset the cost of a converter box you can request up to two $40 off coupons per household. So far the coupon requests from Hawaii have been fairly low. For these coupons, call 1-888-DTV-2009 or visit http://www.dtv2009.gov, and for more information in general, visit http://www.hawaiigoesdigital.com. Kauai residents go to http://www.lptvanswers.com for information on low-power TV stations.

New MacBook Family

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for the last few months knowing it would happen soon ... and finally last week Apple unveiled its new line of MacBooks.As soon as I knew they were on the shelves, I headed to the mall to take a look.

I was drawn immediately to the lower pricing and the smooth-looking aluminum enclosures. In fact, each MacBook enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy-efficient LED-back-lit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. It’s good to know the MacBook family meets the stringent Energy Star 4.0 requirements, contains no brominated flame retardants and uses internal cables and components that are PVC-free.

“Apple has invented a whole new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminum,” says Steve Jobs,Apple’s CEO."And, just as important, they are the industry’s greenest notebooks. The new MacBooks offer incredible features our users will love - like their stunning all-metal design, great 3D graphics and LED backlit displays - at prices up to $700 less than before.”


“Traditionally notebooks are made from multiple parts.With the new MacBook, we’ve replaced all of those parts with just one part - the unibody,” says Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design."The MacBook’s unibody enclosure is made from a single block of aluminum, making the new MacBook fundamentally thinner, stronger and more robust with a fit and finish that we’ve never even dreamed of before.”

The MacBook line features the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M,a new 3D integrated graphics processor that features 16 parallel processing cores and delivers up to five times the 3D graphics performance of previous MacBook and MacBook Air designs. The smooth glass multi-touch track-pad (you have to use four fingers) gives you 40 percent more tracking area than before, making pinching, rotating and swiping easier.

You also can use your fingers to activate Exposé or switch between applications, since the entire track-pad is a button you can push. This makes it easy to enable multiple virtual buttons in your software (i.e. right-clicking).

Each MacBook comes pre-loaded with Leopard and iLife 08. The main difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro is the physical size. The MacBook is the 13-inch version, the MacBook Pro is the 15-inch version with a little more horsepower,and the MacBook Air is the thinnest, lightest, most-portable one of the three. Here are the basic specifics on all:

* $1,299 MacBook, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 13.3-inch screen 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB) 160GB hard drive (5400 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)

* $1,599 MacBook, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo,13.3-inch screen 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB) 250GB hard drive (5400 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)

* $1,999 MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 15.4-inch screen 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB) 250GB hard drive (5400 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)


* $2,499 MacBook Pro, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 15.4-inch screen 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM 320GB hard drive (5400 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)

* $2,799 MacBook Pro, 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 17-inch screen 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM 320GB hard drive (5400 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)

* $1,799 MacBook Air, 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 13.3-inch screen 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM 120GB hard drive (4200 rpm serial ATA with Sudden Motion Sensor)

* $2,499 MacBook Air, 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 13.3-inch screen 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM 128GB solid state drive

In addition, to complement the MacBook lineup we have Apple’s LED 24-inch LED

Cinema Display. It’s designed specifically for the new MacBook family and has a 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution and uses the same LED-backlit technology that the MacBook family has. It comes with a built-in iSight video camera, microphone and speakers in a very elegant, thin aluminum glass enclosure. Since the MagSafe charger, three USB 2.0 ports and the new Mini DisplayPort are at your easy disposal, connecting and charging your notebook to it is painless.I saw this thing for myself,and I was thoroughly impressed with its brilliant display and other features. I say I “need” this too - at the cost of $899.

The MacBook Airs will be available for purchase in November,and you can find the rest of the MacBooks with the 24-inch LED Cinema Display now at Mac Made Easy in Kailua (www.maceasy.com) or your nearest Apple Store. Note Mac Made Easy will open a new store in Hilo next month, and another one on Kauai next spring. Additionally, a new Apple Store opened recently in Waikiki.

Domestic Violence Awareness

Many of you are aware of my passion for fighting domestic violence because of my personal survival story. Well, here we are again in October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month (yes, we share the month with breast cancer awareness). I urge you to wear purple (symbolizing the color of a bruise) for your support. I wish tech companies would come out with some good purple gadgets that would help fight domestic violence (as breast cancer causes have pink gadgets).

As a start toward fully purple toys someday, Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine Program expects to provide more than 140 wireless phones this year to Hawaii’s domestic violence organizations to support their victims. In total, more than 400,000 minutes of service will be provided to communicate with victims’ families, friends and shelter support staff to help them rebuild their lives. More than 22,000 phones will be donated nationwide, along with 66 million minutes of airtime.

“HopeLine is Verizon Wireless’ commitment to end domestic violence through free cell phones and airtime for victims; cash grants for shelters and greater understanding to help us all take appropriate action,” says Mark Yamauchi, director of Hawaii sales for Verizon Wireless. “HopeLine is an easy way for anyone to help fight domestic violence, and at the same time keep old phones out of landfills by donating used cell phones from any carrier to a Verizon Wireless store. The HopeLine program has provided 80,000 wireless phones, 240 million minutes of airtime, plus $5.6 million in cash grants to shelters and nonprofit organizations to help victims of domestic violence.”


In 2008, Verizon Wireless donated wireless phones with prepaid service to the Domestic Violence Action Center, Women Helping Women, Turning Point For Families, NA LOIO Immigrant Rights & Public Interests Legal Center, and Parents and Children Together. Since 2001 (the year I escaped from my abuser), Hopeline has collected more than 5.3 million phones and awarded more than $5.6 million in cash grants to agencies and organizations across the country.

Show your support and donate your phones to Hopeline. Wireless phone donations are accepted at all Verizon Wireless stores in Hawaii (and across the nation). If you are able to donate, make sure your service is discontinued and any personal data is erased. Your old phone will then be refurbished and resold for a practical reuse, or disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline for more information.

# # #

Verizon Wireless’ Month-To-Month Agreement
In addition to helping the fight against domestic violence, Verizon Wireless announced last month it is now offering month-to-month agreements instead of a full contract. This feature gives you the freedom to purchase a new device at full retail price or use your own CDMA device without the commitment of a one- or two-year contract. You can terminate your agreement at the end of any month without paying an early termination fee.

This month-to-month agreement is available on all nationwide voice and data plans for new and current contract customers. You current contract customers are obligated to fulfill the terms of your contract before you can move to a month-to-month agreement.

Visit your nearest Verizon Wireless Store or www.verizonwireless.com (or call 1-800-2JOIN IN).

The PodCamp Hawaii 2008 unconference

You may remember a column I did about podcasting when it first came out a few years ago. Since then it has become more and more popular, and you can find podcasts all over the place, even on iTunes. I thought seriously about doing a podcast about my column content, plus some extras, but that was scratched since there’s no way I can pile another thing on my already heaping-full plate! But those of you who do have time and want to learn should attend PodCamp Hawaii next week (Oct. 24-25).

PodCamp Hawaii is a free, twoday social media “unconference” event for organizations and individuals interested in podcasting, blogging and creating new media for the Internet. The very first PodCamps and WordCamps were held in 2006, dozens of these successful events have been held around the world since.

Now it’s Hawaii’s turn. The focus of the unconference is to learn and network with experts from around the world speaking side-by-side with local bloggers and podcasters, and helping Hawaii be the center for tourism and technology. The different learning tracks include podcasting, social media, WordPress blogging and business uses.

“People will be definitely learning how to set up a free blog - it takes about five minutes - as well as where to host your videos for free in addition to YouTube, and be able to see all kinds of different gadgets that are used to create media and tell stories,” says Roxanne Darling, co-owner of Bare Feet Studios (http://www.barefeetstudios.com) and Founder of PodCamp + Wordcamp Hawaii.


The various people you can meet at PodCamp include local and visiting Internet stars who blog or podcast such as Darling herself, who is the host of Beach Walks with Rox (http://www.beachwalks.tv) with her partner Shane Robinson and her cute dog Lexi. Additionally, you can meet your friends and neighbors who want to know more about Web 2.0, visitors from the Mainland and abroad who will be here to sharetheir expertise, and various local and national companies

This unconference will teach you that anyone can do this. “If you think about it, each of us now has the ability to create our own radio station or TV show - and instead of being local only, it can be global,” adds Darling. “The technology is only getting easier and easier, and the costs are almost negligible compared to traditional media.”

Most conferences are gatherings with predictable rules and activities. PodCamp Hawaii is just the opposite, where you are invited to attend for free and no one is being paid to speak/teach. The experts attending want to be there because they understand the importance of these events. In addition, there’ll be premium attendee packages available for corporate attendees.

“This is an all-volunteer effort; no one gets paid,” says Darling. “The team of Kyle Nishioka, Judi Clark and Shane Robinson have really pulled it together for us.” PodCamp Hawaii will be all about outreach - to each other all over the world, and to local technology companies and government agencies. The unconference doesn’t have a target audience as a typical conference would. It’s relevant to everyone, since podcasting has numerous benefits as a communication tool and holds devotees across many topics and industries.

The unconference will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Hawaii Convention Center. Come and enjoy the experience while taking in the sounds of local musicians and hula halau. For free registration and more information, visit http://www.podcamphawaii.com.

UH Offers Free eWaste Disposal

People always tell me they would want to come to my house if I ever had a garage sale since they know I would have “the good stuff.” I guess that could be logical thinking considering all the toys I write about, but realistically I don’t have as much as one might think. I’ll typically hold onto things until they die, or if there’s something I’m not using that I know a friend or family member really wants, I’ll sell or give it to them (depending on what it is). If I use it to its end of life, I definitely recycle it.

Speaking of which, coming up in a couple of weeks we’ll all have the opportunity to recycle our electronic waste thanks to the University of Hawaii’s “Education & Government eWaste Disposal Days 2008.” This is open to all, including public and private schools, city, county, state or federal/military branches in Hawaii, and small- to medium-sized businesses (with less than 100 employees) and nonprofit agencies. The drop-off days will be between Oct. 20 and Oct. 25.

The general public can drop off their waste Saturday, Oct. 25, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Leeward Community College or Windward Community College on Oahu. Neighbor Island drop-off points include University of Hawaii at Hilo, Kauai Community College, Maui Community College and Kealakehe High School (Big Island). The business/institutional drop-offs will be Oct. 20-24, but please pre-register here: www.hawaii.edu/ewaste/inst.php.

Take advantage of this event, if you can, since it’s a rare chance for free, safe and environmentally friendly disposal of your eWaste. The recycling and disposal services will be provided courtesy of Apple. All equipment will be responsibly processed in North America and recycled into commodity grade metals, plastics and glass. A tip: If you’re including a hard drive, remember to erase your information off it first.


Here are the acceptable and nonacceptable items . . .
ACCEPTABLE eWaste Items
Computer Systems & Accessories:
• All-in-Ones
• CPUs
• CRT Monitors
• Hard Drives
• Hubs
• Keyboards & Mice
• Laptops
• LCD Displays
• Optical Drives
• Servers
• Speakers
• Switches
• UPS Switches
• Wires & Cables
Handhelds:
• Cell Phones
• Pagers
• PDAs
• Two Way Radios
Office Equipment:
• Adding Machines
• Fax Machines
• Photo Copiers
• Printers
• Scanners
• Surge Protectors
• Telephones
• Typewriters
Audio & video equipment:
• Camcorders
• Cameras
• DVDs
• Game Systems
• LCD Projectors
• Overhead Projectors
• Radios
• Stereos
• Televisions
• VCRs

DO NOT BRING:
• Batteries not integral to computer system
• Cardboard
• Contaminated equipment of any type
• Cracked or broken CRT Monitors
• Hairdryers
• Hazardous Materials of any type
• Household Appliances
• Microwaves
• Paper
• Smoke Detectors
• Styrofoam

Visit www.hawaii.edu/ewaste for more information.

Hawaii Geek Week

This news release is from:
Eugene Villaluz, HMAUS Director
Hawaii Macintosh & Apple Users' Society,Inc.
Web: www.hmaus.org

MACTOBERFEST 2008 KICKS OFF HAWAII GEEK WEEK
It will be a full week of geek starting with Mactoberfest 2008 on Saturday, October 18.

The October annual meeting of the Hawaii Macintosh & Apple Users' Society, Inc. (HMAUS) goes far back to the early days of personal computing. HMAUS began a generation ago in 1979 as the Honolulu Apple Users' Society, Inc. Mactoberfest, as it is known today is an all day technology fest featuring guest speaker presentations, workshops, fixit clinics, flea market, wireless access, food and door prizes. The event is sponsored by the Hawaii Macintosh & Apple Users' Society, Inc., Pacific New Media, Outreach College University of Hawaii and the Professional Photographers of Hawaii.

Governor Linda Lingle is declaring October 18 through October 25 as Hawaii Geek Week to give recognition to the significant contributions HMAUS has provided Hawaii for the past 30 years. Hawaii Geek Week has been created to promote technology and the technology community.

Mactoberfest Highlights:

** Keynote by Lorelle VanFossen **
Lorelle is an author, blogger, technology evangelist, professional nature photographer and an all-around fun person to be with. Her keynote speech will get you excited about all the great things technology can do and how it changes lives.

** iLovePhotos by Lorenz Sell **
Blue Lava Tech is a Hawaii based company that just launched a new photo sharing application and resource. iLovePhotos creates an entirely new photo sharing paradigm. It uses facial detection and visual tagging to simplify photo management by doing two things: 1) Automatically sharing photos with the people in each photo, and 2) Automatically creating compelling slideshows of photos.

** Studio Artist by John Dalton **
Studio Artist by Synthetik Software, another Hawaii based company, is the first and only software program that can automatically paint, draw and auto-rotoscope. Studio Artist examines a source image or video and then re-renders it in the style you choose, automatically or interactively. The software takes a lot of ideas from music synthesis and audio software and applies them to graphics and digital painting, hence the notion of a graphical synthesizer. Studio Artist is also the first and only digital paint program to incorporate human visual modeling based on research in human perception and computational neuroscience.

** Geek Talk on HI Tech, The Next Generation **
Lorelle VanFossen, Burt Lum, Ryan Ozawa, Neenz Faleafine and Bob Lew present an entertaining and lively look at HI Tech, The Next Generation. Our honored panel members talk about how technology has changed their lives and how they envision technology will change our lives over the next 30 years.

Detailed information about Mactoberfest here: www.hmaus.com/mactoberfest

More information about Hawaii Geek Week events here: www.hawaiigeekweek.org

LEGO Batman: The Videogame

A couple weeks ago Warner Bros. and TT Games released LEGO Batman: The Videogame. I was looking forward to this one for months. I love Batman and LEGO separately, so to put them together in a video game is a nice treat. The game is available for various platforms, but I played the PlayStation 3 (PS3) version.

LEGO Batman features a completely original storyline and encompasses the lighthearted charm of LEGO and the multifaceted lore of Gotham City. In the game, Gotham City’s most notorious criminals have broken out of Arkham Asylum and they’re wreaking havoc on the city. You’ll see some parodies of some famous scenes as you go through the game as Batman or Robin. Or, choose the dark side and take control of the various criminal characters - The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, The Riddler, Mr.Freeze, Harley Quinn, Two Face, Bane, Clayface, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter or Killer Moth.


You can put yourself behind the wheel of legendary vehicles, such as the Batmobile, Batboat or Batwing. Additionally, you can enhance the abilities of the Dynamic Duo by unlocking Batman and Robin’s suits. Batman’s Glide Suit allows you to cross normally untraversable gaps and drops. The Sonic Suit shatters glass; Demolition Suit lays bombs/remotely detonates; and the Heat Protection Suit allows you to travel through heated areas and pick up red-hot pieces of LEGO.

Robin’s suits include the Magnet Suit (attaches high-power magnets to the bottom of your boots to walk up metal surfaces), Water Suit (for swimming), Technology Suit (to access tech panels, allowing control of various robotic elements) and the Attract Suit (to pick up and collect small LEGO pieces). These suits are good to use and keep the gameplay fresh.

Playing a villain also keeps it interesting, since it’s not very predictable and the vast amount of characters you can control keeps it moving along. Your new characters become available to you via the Batcomputer, and you can buy them with LEGO studs as you progress through the Story Mode.

Collecting these LEGO studs and LEGO bricks throughout the game helps you unlock extra content including power-ups and bonus levels. All the characters you’ve unlocked are then there for you to play in the Freeplay Mode, where you can access previously hidden areas to find additional rewards and bonus content.

You can play it with co-op multiplayer, which allows for easy pick-up-and-play. This is a game you should definitely play with a friend to maximize its fun factor. One of the funny things I noticed is that you can injure your co-op buddy even though you are on the same side.


Note that the co-op play is for offline play only. If you choose to go through it alone, however, it’s a little annoying since the game’s built-in AI companion just stands there and does nothing most of the time, so frustrating-ly you’ll have to fend off all the enemies pretty much on your own. The same goes for the puzzles. Sometimes you’ll have to solve the puzzles by yourself as you’re fighting off the enemies, as your AI pal just stands there and does nothing. You’ll hear Danny Elfman’s iconic The Batman (1989) musical score throughout the game, and despite the little AI flaws and the characters’ lack of speech, it’s still a fun game.

LEGO Batman: The Videogame is rated “E10+” and is available for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii for $49.99. You can also buy it for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS and PC for $29.99. Find it at your nearest Toys n’ Joys (www.toysnjoys.com), GameStop (www.gamestop.com), Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com) or Amazon (www.amazon.com).

Pink Gadgets For Breast Cancer

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and in honor of that, here are some pink gadgets you can purchase to help the cause:


Pink Ribbon DS Lite
Nintendo will donate $5 for each Pink Ribbon DS Lite, released last week, sold to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure for breast cancer awareness and research. If you’re a DS fan looking for a second one, you might want to swoop this up quickly since it’s a one-time creation and may be difficult to find later.

This limited edition comes in polar white with the signature pink ribbon logo long associated with breast cancer awareness. Nintendo promises a guaranteed minimum donation of $100,000. Find it at Amazon (www.amazon.com) for $129.99 (free shipping) for a limited time.


Sony’s Style
If you’re looking for a new PC laptop, here’s a perfect opportunity to purchase one while making a difference. The VAIO CR pack features a 14.1-inch pink VAIO CR with a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, Core 2 Duo CPU and DVD burner. It comes with a matching pink mouse and pink case. Sony Electronics will donate $100,000 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) during the month of October from the sales of pink CR and CS Series notebooks. Bundle prices begin at $869.99.

Additionally, if you purchase an NWZ-E436FPNK Walkman MP3 Player, $10 from each sale will be donated, and $50 is the contribution from the HDR-TG1 Handycam Camcorder. Note that Sony will donate $75 to the BCRF from each Pink SR Series Notebook bundle (different from the CR or CS). See www.sonystyle.com for more information or to purchase any of these items (also sold at Amazon).


HDMX Speaker-on-the-Go
Exclusively from Linens ‘n Things (http://www.lnt.com), this portable, battery-operated speaker case protects your iPod while broadcasting your tunes. At only $9.99, this is perfect to hang off your purse/bag, or a durable gift for the gal teen in your life. One dollar of each purchase will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.


Jill-e Camera Bags
For you serious women photographers, Jill-e camera bags are perfect to protect your baby camera. These featured pink bags will be available soon from Jill-e directly (www.jille.com) and from the outside do not even look like a camera bag. The small bag (light pink) will fit one camera body, two flashes, two lenses and various accessories such as memory cards, card reader, batteries, cables, camera strap, etc. The medium bag will hold the same items as the small bag, plus one additional camera body.

A percentage of the sales of these pink bags will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation for breast cancer research.

MySpace is the Place for Music

If you are an avid MySpace user, you probably already heard about last week’s big MySpace Music announcement. But in case you don’t use it or haven’t heard, MySpace joined with venture partners EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Sony ATV/Music Publishing to bring all this music to our fingertips to stream for free.

“The whole consumption patterns for both music and video have changed a great deal in the last five years,” MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe said. “We wanted to put together a music service consistent with those changing patterns and layer a business model around it.”

This announcement marks the first phase in a global product rollout that includes a vast catalog of premium and promotional content with a wide selection of user-to-user sharing tools, digital e-commerce opportunities and eventually sales of merchandise and concert tickets. Included with the first phase is the MyMusic toolset, audio streaming, playlists, content catalogues, music e-commerce downloads (by Amazon MP3) and ringtones (powered by Jamster).


“We’re not sure how big this will be, but it’s exactly where we need to be,” says Rio Caraeff, digital executive vice-president a t Universal Music, the industry leader. “We need to diversify our sales away from just physical sales, and that means selling music any place a consumer wants to get it,” he added.

MyMusic is a personal music m a n a gem en t toolset that allows you to download, stream and personalize your music content. Here you can create public or private playlists, and stream all your playlisted content on-demand and purchase the mp3s of your favored songs. You can also add your friend’s playlist to your own profile, or take songs from your friend’s profile to add to your own.

You can use MySpace Music’s enhanced search capability to browse and search for music by artist, song title or album title. Just to test it out, I did several random searches, and the only items that did not show up were certain Hawaiian songs. There was a pretty good selection of Hawaiian music on there, but not everything came up. It even found my favorite Chinese artists.

Your MySpace account is required to participate in this, but if you do not have one, you can easily create one for free. It’s worth it just to use this music feature, especially if you have no other way to access music. Personally, I haven’t used my MySpace account for months, but with this new music function it just might entice me to log in more often.

MySpace Music hosts more than five million major indep e n d e n t (indie) and u nsigned artists within the site’s music profiles section. This gives you a vast artist-p ow e r e d collection of songs, m u s i c videos, tour dates, blogs and photos.

All this access to millions and millions of songs is awesome, but note you can’t actually download these songs onto your music player unless you purchase the songs. You’ll also have to put up with some ads from the sponsors - McDonald’s, Sony Pictures, State Farm and Toyota. However, you’ll have opportunities to win free music downloads from these guys.

Discover your MySpace Music at music.myspace.com.

Google’s Chrome Browser

Google Chrome is a new open-source browser designed to create a better Web experience for you. It’s available in 40 languages and is designed to make it better by adding a combined search and address bar that quickly takes you where you want to go in a few keystrokes. Additionally, when you open a new tab, you’ll see a page that includes snapshots of your most-visited sites, recent searches and bookmarks, making it easier to navigate the Web.

“We think of the browser as the window to the Web - it’s a tool for users to interact with the Web sites and applications they care about, and it’s important that we don’t get in the way of that experience,” says Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management, Google Inc. “Just like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome has a simple user interface with a sophisticated core to enable the modern web.”

Google Chrome was engineered to give you a seamless Web experience. Each browser tab operates as a separate process - by isolating the tabs, if one tab crashes, the other ones will remain stable and responsive. Additionally, Google built a new JavaScript engine, V8. Not only does it speed up today’s Web applications, it enables a whole new class of applications that could not exist on today’s browsers.

Google Chrome is only available for Windows, and is in development for Mac and Linux (and hopefully will be ready in a few months). Download it for free at www.google.com/chrome.

Google's T-Mobile G1

Last week, T-Mobile unveiled the much-anticipated T-Mobile G1, aka the “T-Mobile G1.” It’s the first phone powered by Android (software platform/operating system developed by Google), and comes with a full touch-screen with a QWERTY keyboard, and includes the Google products you’ve come to know and love: Google Maps Street View, Gmail, YouTube and more.

“We are proud that T-Mobile is the first operator in the world to launch an Android-powered mobile device,” says Christopher Schläffer, group product and innovation officer of Deutsche Telekom. “With the T-Mobile G1, we are continuing our strong tradition of being pioneers in the world of the open Internet.”

Key features of the Google phone include:

* Three-megapixel camera with photo sharing capabilities

* Pre-installed 1GB Micro SD memory card (phone can take up to an 8GB card)

* Built-in messaging client with support for Google Talk, AOL, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger

* Trackball for one-handed navigation

* Full HTML web browser and zoom function

* Music player that supports mp3, m4a, AMR, WMA, MIDI, WAV, Ogg Vorbis formats

* GPS, Bluetooth and T-Mobile’s myFaves-enabled * Voice recognition, voice dialing and speakerphone


“Increasingly, connectivity does not just mean a phone call, but rather access to the world’s information,” says Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms for Google. “Today’s news signifies an important first step for the Open Handset Alliance: With Android, we’ve opened the mobile Web not only for millions of users, but also to mobilize the developer community that understands the next most important platform in the world rests in the palm of our hand.”

My guess is this is supposed to be an iPhone competitor. I haven’t been able to see one of these up close yet, but it looks good in pictures. We’ll see it in black, brown or white, and you can pre-order it at www.T-MobileG1.com or wait until Oct. 22 and pick it up at your nearest T-Mobile retailer. Full retail price for the TMobilG1 is $399.99; for current T-Mobile customers eligible for a two-year upgrade, the price is $179.99 ($20 cheaper than a 8GB iPhone) with a two-year voice and data agreement.