CES 2009

Intel's WiFi PAN management interface at the CES 2009 demo.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

I love my hotel room in Las Vegas. Great view! Very fast Internet access. However, the hotel controls and charges for access to the Internet by IP address. This means I have to keep my iPhone from getting connected unless I want to pay for another connection plan, in addition to the one used for my laptop.

This, however, is going to change next CES thanks to a new Wi-Fi technology that Intel announced this year.

It's called My WiFi and it is a wireless driver and software update to Intel's Centrino 2 processor-based laptops. This software allows the computer's built-in wireless networking chip to create a separate Wi-Fi personal Area Network (PAN). This network allows up to eight other Wi-Fi Certified wireless clients to connect to it, while the computer is still connected to a separate access point, the way any computer with built-in wireless networking does now.

This dual-interface is possible thanks to Intel's 5100 Wi-Fi and Intel's 5300 Wi-Fi Link adapters that can manage both Wireless LAN and Wi-Fi PAN connections at the same time.

The PAN has its own HDCP server and supports Windows' Internet Connection Sharing, meaning that if my laptop is connected to the Internet through the hotel's service, it can share that connection wirelessly with eight other Wi-Fi clients without the knowledge of the hotel.

Sharing the Internet (whether you want to be sneaky as in my above example or not) is, of course, not the only offering of My WiFi. The technology enables users to simultaneously connect their laptops to multiple other peripheral devices, such as printers, photo frames, and cameras without a need for an access point or a wireless router.

Current Wi-Fi laptops can also do this by putting the wireless adapter in ad-hoc mode, but that is very limited. An ad-hoc connection allows a laptop to connect to one wireless device at a time and no access to an access point or wireless router at the same time.

Intel's My WiFi technology supports multiple types of security protocols, including WEP, WPA, and WPA2. It also supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a technology that lets you add wireless clients to a network quickly without having to manually entering the encryption key.

The deployment of My WiFi depends on vendors, but you can expect to find this as a free update to any laptop computer that run Intel's Centrino 2 processor by the second quarter of this year.

In the meantime, you can also do this a little less conveniently with an add-in travel router such as the Windy31.

Cisco CEO John Chambers during his keynote speech at CES 2009.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET Networks)

LAS VEGAS--Two of the tech industries biggest champions for using technology to eliminate poverty in the developing world took the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show here on Friday for the final keynotes of the conference.

The message that the executives brought to the crowd at CES was simple: Technology is key to improving the lives of billions of poor people throughout the world. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett and Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers have each received awards and have been lauded for their work in helping fight poverty throughout the world.

Barrett took the stage first, where he promoted Intel's newly formed program called Small Things Challenge, a partnership the company announced this week with microfinancing firmKiva.org and Save the Children.

As part of this campaign, which is raising funds for Kiva and Save the Children, Intel has promised to donate 5 cents for every person who visits the Smallthingschallenge.com Web site, to push for development and education in emerging countries. And Intel plans to provide up to $300,000 a year for the project.

During the keynote, Barrett provided several examples of how technology, including the new third generation Classmate PC Netbook, which uses Intel's low-power Atom chip, can help improve the lives of people living in poor countries. And he urged everyone in the audience to contribute to Kiva and Save the Children.

"You travel and see the impact that technology and your donations can have on children's lives," he said. "Whether it's Kiva or Save the Children, it's a small step toward making the world a better place. But each and every one of us can play a role."

Adam Duritz of Counting Crows joins Intel Chairman Craig Barrett on stage at CES 2009.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon CNET News/CBS Interactive)

Intel has enlisted the help of several celebrities to get the word out about the Small Things Challenge. And two of the celebrities supporting the effort, joined Barrett on stage, Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Adam Duritz of Counting Crows.

Chambers didn't need star power when he took the stage later in the afternoon. The charismatic executive walked among the crowd like a Southern preacher at a church revival. But his message was less about philanthropy and giving back as an individual, and more about how developing countries can implement technology to pull themselves out of poverty.

He started off describing what he considers the "pillars of national competitiveness" that will make developing nations more prosperous. The pillars are education, infrastructure, innovation, the ability to identify market transitions, a supportive government, and collaboration.

He said technology is important to developing nations because it helps drive economic growth, create jobs and improve productivity. And he said it could help improve the quality of life of people, especially when it comes to health care.

Chambers likened developing countries to businesses, and he compared his own company's successes in growing its business over the years to what countries must do to improve the lives of their citizens. He said that countries, like companies, need to look out for market transitions. But he also said that they need to have a clear vision of where they want to go, and they must be able to execute on that vision. What's more, new ideas need to be able to scale as well as be sustainable.

"Emerging countries are like companies," he said. "And they can follow the same path toward success. You must be able to execute. But you can't have speed without vision. And catching market transitions determines whether a company or a country is successful."

Intel Chairman Craig Barrett during his keynote address at CES 2009.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

LAS VEGAS--At the Consumer Electronics Show, Jeff Ravencraft of Intel talked about the status of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and how fast it really is.

The most salient benefit of SuperSpeed USB is the 10X improvement in data transfer speed over current USB, version 2.0. So, for example, transferring a 25GB HD movie will take 70 seconds instead of almost 14 minutes.

Transfer of a 25GB HD movie:

• USB 1.0: 9.3 hours
  
• USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
  
• USB 3.0: 70 seconds
  

In the video below, Ravencraft, who is president of the USB Implementers Forum, discusses the merits of SuperSpeed USB and the schedule for commercial rollout.

AMD's new Dragon platform uses components from several AMD product families

(Credit: AMD)

As the only vendor currently producing CPUs, GPUs, and motherboard chipsets, AMD is uniquely positioned to market its entire product line as a unified PC gaming platform. It began this effort last year with its Spider platform (the original Phenom X4, Radeon HD 3000-series CPUs, and its 700-series chipsets), and with today's launch of its new Phenom II desktop chips, AMD also announced its new Dragon platform. Dragon marries Phenom II with the Radeon HD 4800-line of 3D cards and AMD's 790-series chipsets into a complete, AMD-made gaming PC.

The big news with Dragon is really the Phenom II chips. Available as the 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 940 and the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, these new quad-core CPUs are AMD's first 45-nanometer desktop processors, and they finally bring AMD in line with Intel's 45-nano manufacturing process, used in its Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core i7 chips.

... Read more

MySpace's sidebar slides out on the screen of a Widget Channel-compatible TV.

(Credit: MySpace)

We've heard a bit now about the Widget Channel, the partnership between Intel and Yahoo designed to bring Web functions like photo sharing and stock prices to living room TV sets. Well, MySpace is one of the partners on board: the News Corp.-owned social network has created a "widget for TV" that lets its members access a variety of features from Widget Channel-compatible TVs.

Basically, this means that you can install a MySpace widget in the Widget Channel "dock," and expand it in order to access profiles, status updates, in-box messages, and other site features. The widget was created, MySpace said, with the MySpaceID project that sprung out of its Data Availability initiative late last year.

So it's more or less MySpace on your TV. But that makes sense--with competitor Facebook having more or less bested it on the networking front, MySpace has begun to establish itself more as a media portal. The TV widget could potentially make for some cool developments in the future. MySpace Music playlists, for example, could make a nice addition to the home entertainment center.

And MySpace hopes this will only be the start of further off-the-PC endeavors. A release Wednesday hinted at a future presence on devices like DVD players and set-top boxes. And MySpace has also been ramping up its mobile offerings--the last development, which we heard about a month ago, was streaming video.

Yahoo's Widget Channel software for TVs and video devices shows a link to Yahoo's Flickr photo-sharing site, stock prices, and an advertisement. Intel, Yahoo, and several partners will show the technology off at CES 2009.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo and Intel built their success upon widespread use of personal computers, but the two companies hope products to be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January will mark the beginning of their Internet-fueled expansion to the world of TV as well.

The two companies have attracted several significant manufacturing and content allies in the attempt to bring new smarts and interactivity to a part of the electronics world that has remained a more passive part of people's digital lives. Intel and Yahoo showed off Net-enabled TV prototypes in August, but the companies' technology will be presented in more finished form at the electronics show within products by Samsung, Toshiba, and a number of new partners that have signed on since the debut.

What exactly are they trying to achieve? For Yahoo, it's establishment of the Widget Channel, a software foundation that can house programs for browsing photos, using the Internet's abundant socially connected services, watching YouTube videos, or digging deeper into TV shows--and through which Yahoo will be able to show advertisements. For Intel, it's a foothold in an industry whose microprocessors have typically been cheaper, less powerful, and less power-hungry.

Yahoo is confident the products will catch on, in part because it's set "very low" licensing requirements, said Patrick Barry, vice president of Yahoo's Connected TV initiative.

"We do not see it as a niche offering in a few high-end models. We see this as moving into the mainstream. In 2009 we're going to see good penetration into the product lineups of the consumer electronics companies," Barry said. "Beginning in 2010, I think, you're going to see Internet-connected consumer electronics devices dominating the lineup."

But for both companies, TVs are terra incognita. "We emerged from the ocean of the PC," Barry said.

An anthropologist's view
Despite years of effort, the idea to put media-centric PCs in the living room hasn't caught on widely. But Intel, stung by its poorly received Viiv brand, has been taking the challenge seriously.

It even dispatched its top anthropologist--yes, the chipmaker employs anthropologists--to carefully study how people use TVs. In other words, Intel is trying to adapt to reality, not foist its ideas on an unwilling market.

Some people like to watch TV, but anthropologist Genevieve Bell, director of user experience for Intel, likes to watch people watching TV. Specifically, Intel concluded that unlike the PC, TVs are social. People watch it together, and what they watch turns into what they talk about. Another difference from PCs: it must be simple and reliable, she said.

When bringing the Internet to the TV, "You couldn't just turn it into a PC," she said.

And it's pretty obvious why those not in the TV market would be angling for a piece of the action. People in the U.S. spend about 5 times more time watching TV than using a computer, Bell said. Globally, it's a factor of 25; unusually, the TV and PC time is at parity in Israel, perhaps because of communication habits, she added.

More ads
For decades, people have been accustomed to advertising-supported television. The Widget Channel technology opens up some new horizons for Yahoo, though Barry said the company isn't going to rush to plaster sponsorships over the new interface.

"We have a lot of support from the advertising community, but we're focused on the consumer now," Barry said. "What you'll see initially is us trying to fall all over ourselves trying to make the consumer happy. The advertisers understand that." He wouldn't comment on when advertising will be launched with the technology.

Although Yahoo will eventually show ads, it won't have a lock on them. Barry said: "We are not going to be locking down anything from a walled garden perspective, including monetization. We get a nice advantage, knowing the ins and outs, but we will not limit the platform to being addressable by us."

There are many opportunities for ads, including the dock that can be shown across the bottom of the TV screen and in pages that fill the screen.

The Widget Channel technology is based on the Widget Engine software Yahoo got in 2005 with its acquisition of Konfabulator, and it lets programmers write a wide variety of applications.

Course corrections
Intel learned from initial testing of the TV technology, Bell said. For one thing, the company found that people didn't like the Widget Channel controls appearing on the left edge of the screen, one option the companies had demonstrated. Instead, people prefer the bottom, where they're accustomed to seeing text already.

Intel research found that people didn't like the left-side Widget Channel dock. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Yahoo)

For another, she said, people expressed a powerful desire for a big button to make the software go away in one fell swoop--no menus or arrow keys or complication--so they could get back to watching TV when they wanted. That big button is also used to activate the Widget Channel.

And nobody wanted yet another remote control.

To help chart its long-term course, Intel gauged consumer sentiment in part by asking what people thought the future of TV would look like. People's answers generally fit into a few categories:

• Something that would provide relevant information in real time, such as the weather right before heading to a sporting event.

• Something that would connect them to other people they care about, a variation of social networking.

• Something that would let them participate more with what they're watching, for example by figuring out where a show's cast members already had acted, or finding, rating, and sorting content.

Few, though, wanted a full-on Web browser, nor a keyboard to clutter up the room.

Yahoo sees the same fallow ground as Intel in the market.

TV innovations that have succeeded focused on screen size, image fidelity, and flat-screen technology, Barry said. "But the consumer electronics industry has not really explored the...connectivity that the Internet provides."

Updated on December 18 at 3:25 p.m. with pricing information.

Toshiba said Wednesday that it will showcase a 512GB solid-state drive at the Consumer Electronics Show next month and begin shipments in the second quarter of 2009.

Toshiba 512GB solid-state drive rivals hard disks in capacity

(Credit: Toshiba)

To date, this would be one of the largest-capacity solid-state drives for use in laptops and come close to matching the size of mobile hard-disk drives.

Samsung has begun mass production of a 256GB SSD and Micron Technology is readying a 256GB drive that will ship in March.

Toshiba said it is releasing a broad family of "fast read/write SSDs" based on 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash technology that will be showcased at CES. MLC technology allows solid-state drive makers to deliver higher capacity drives at lower prices.

In addition to the 2.5-inch 512GB drive, the new series of Toshiba drives also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules, the company said in a statement.

Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter of 2009, with mass production slated for the second quarter, in the April to June time frame, according to the company.

Pricing in sample quantities ranges from $220 for the 64GB drive to $1,652 for the 512GB drive, Toshiba said.

The drives achieve a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps. This is roughly the same read-write speeds offered by Samsung on its 256GB SSD.

Toshiba said it sees SSDs growing to approximately 25 percent of the notebook market by 2012.

Updated at 11:30 a.m. PT with pricing info.

(Credit: LaptopMag.com)

Intel has a convertible Netbook on tap for the CES 2009 crowd assembling once again in Las Vegas next month.

Laptop magazine got a sneak peek at the newest version of the low-cost Classmate PC. It has an 8.9-inch swivel screen with touch and stylus input, a Web cam, and 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 60GB hard drive, and Windows XP, with a few Intel touches to make XP work for the convertible form factor. So far, that includes Vision Objects Pen Input, which makes anything input via the stylus editable as text, as well as a virtual keyboard.

It's manufactured by CTL, like the original Classmate PC (which Intel will continue to sell). Laptop reports that it will begin shipping in mid-January.

Intel says that the price for the convertible Classmate will be slightly more than the original Classmate. The range will likely be somewhere around $250 and $400, though the company said it can't be more specific right now.

Brooke Crothers contributed to this report.

The annual consumer electronics show isn't always a hotbed of new laptops, desktops, and accessories. After all, Apple likes to hold its own shows on its own schedule, and most big PC makers target their new products for the back-to-school and holiday seasons.

That being said, there are several big trends in the computer industry that will be prevalent on the show floor.

Netbooks: Almost every major manufacturer of laptops has tried to blow off the Netbook trend as a flash in the pan. Why? These small, low-cost systems have lower margins than the $1,000-plus laptops people have been buying for years. But sales trends can only be ignored for so long, so the last half of 2008 saw virtually every major player in the game--Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, etc.--jump on board with sub-$500 Netbooks. At CES, look for the next generation of systems, as PC makers try to both jack up prices with higher-end models with unique features, or lower prices on the average usable configuration from $499 to $399 or less.

Computer as lifestyle appliance: Sure, companies have tried to merge the idea of a computer and a home or lifestyle appliance for years (and honestly, the iPhone has done it better than anyone else), but we expect to see more attempts to make an otherwise standard PC stand out as either a household appliance or a portable do-it-all media device. Will it work? Only if they learn from the guys who spent millions developing high-end UMPCs and low-end dumb e-mail terminals, neither of which took off with the public.

Airport-friendly laptop cases: Talk about an unexpected hit. Starting in September, laptop bag makers introduced split-open butterfly style cases, designed to let you run a laptop through the airport X-ray machine without taking it out. Not only have we seen a ton of these already, but reports indicate that TSA agents actually know the drill on how to use them. Look for more entries in this category in 2009.

Gaming? Not so much: Sure we'll see the latest revisions of the major graphics cards, and even some notable improvements in the graphics capabilities of laptops, but very few major gaming rigs-- and some major players, like Alienware--will be making only a cameo appearance at the show.

Next-gen CPUs: Look for some new chips to power everything from Netbooks to high-end desktops. Will AMD and Intel swap positions as industry leader again? Or, does it even matter, since the popularity of Netbooks and other low-end computers hints that the public may have finally figured out they've been paying for more performance than they need for years?

Windows 7: Vista, we hardly knew ye. Expect the next phase of the gradual public introduction to the next Microsoft operating system to kick off during CES.