Just as the annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this week, according to a report from the NPD Group: Consumer electronics sales during this past holiday period dropped six percent from last year.

That should be some not-so-welcome news for the vendors at the Las Vegas gadget confab, which is seeking to show off new wares to excite said consumers.

Those offerings had better step it up, from a look at the NPD Weekly Tracking Service, which noted that the decline was coming off another decline from a year ago.

While 2011′s drop was not as bad as 2010′s, it’s not the right direction, although the tally did not include some of the more explosive device categories being prominently featured at CES, such as tablets.

Said NPD: “Total consumer technology sales (excluding cell phones, tablets, e-readers, and video games) fell 5.9 percent to around $9.5 billion for the 5 weeks ending December 24, a slight improvement over the 6.2 percent decline in 2010.”

Sales of personal computers and televisions fell 4 percent, with flat unit volumes.

“2010 was the first year in quite awhile where the real drags on the core CE marketplace were not TVs and PCs,” said Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis at NPD, in a press release. “Revenue for those two segments outperformed while the rest of the market dropped by more than 7 percent. The accelerated rate of decline in older technology categories such as DVD, GPS and MP3 players put a ceiling on how well the industry could perform during the holiday.”

Consumers did snap up flat-panel TVs, with screen sizes of 50 inches and higher rising by 32 percent in unit sales.

And the rocky 3-D TV business also grew by more than 100 percent, with TVs with “3D capability accounting for more than one in every five dollars spent on TVs during the holiday.”

Also up: Home theater systems (10 percent) and stand-alone streaming devices (65 percent).

But those increases did not stem the overall negative tide.

For other sectors, here’s the damage to holiday revenue in percentage change from 2011 dollars spent:

Blu-ray players: Down 17 percent.

Camcorders: Down 42.5 percent.

Digital picture frames: Down 37.5 percent.

GPS: Down 32.6 percent.

HDD: Down 25.1 percent.

Mice and keyboards: Down 7.1 percent.

MP3 players: Down 20.5 percent.

Multifunction printers: Down 9.9 percent.

Point-and-shoot cameras: Down 20.8 percent.

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• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
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• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
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• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

The Irvine, Calif., company, which ranks as one of the top sellers of televisions in the U.S., plans to show a line of thin laptop computers and all-in-one desktop PCs running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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And it’s going to show it off next week at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

Late Thursday, RIM distributed invitations to “an intimate event” to be held at CES on January 10. Emceed by Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP of developer relations, and Martyn Mallick, VP of global alliances, the event touts the BlackBerry as “the best app platform in the industry today,” and promises to prove it with a demonstration of PlayBook OS 2.0 and BlackBerry 7 OS.

Evidently, RIM has made some remarkable improvements to both operating systems, as well as its straggling app ecosystem. If it hasn’t, it’s never going to hear the end of that “best app platform” claim.

That said, the long-awaited addition of the native email, calendar and contact apps that the device debuted without should go a long way to silencing at least a few of the complaints that have plagued it.

RIM is expected to release PlayBook OS 2.0 to consumers sometime in February, the same month it reportedly plans to debut BlackBerry OS 10 at Mobile World Congress.

A new deal between Time Warner’s movie studio and Netflix, Redbox and Blockbuster will double the “window” for new releases. That means the services will now have to wait 56 days after the discs first go on sale to offer them to their customers, instead of 28 days. [UPDATE: Redbox parent Coinstar now says they haven't agreed to a new deal; see below]

The move is part of Hollywood’s ongoing campaign to bolster flagging DVD sales, and sources tell me the new deal is supposed to be announced at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Warner Brothers executives have already talked publicly about extending the current window.

This is the second time that Warner has been able to get the rental services to wait before distributing its movies.

In 2010, it struck deals with Netflix, and later Coinstar’s Redbox, to wait 28 days before renting its new discs. Coinstar and Netflix later landed similar pacts with most of the other big studios. (Coinstar did up end up in legal battles with Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox, which like this Web site is owned by News Corp.)

Two years ago, Netflix was able to argue that by delaying access to DVDs, it was able to get its hands on more streaming content, and lower prices for the discs it did buy. This time around, though, Warner won’t be granting any additional digital rights to the studios. It will simply be offering them the ability to buy discs in bulk, at a significant discount to retail pricing, like they already do.

Earlier today, news broke that HBO, another Time Warner unit, would stop selling its DVDs to Netflix altogether, but sources tell me the two moves aren’t directly related. Next week’s planned announcement is supposed to be tied to Warner Brothers’ continuing push for Ultraviolet, an industry consortium that’s supposed to allow home video buyers to watch their purchases on multiple machines, in multiple formats.

Reps for Time Warner, Coinstar, Netflix and Blockbuster parent company Dish Network declined to comment.

UPDATE: Coinstar is now commenting, via email. “The current agreement Coinstar has with Warner Bros. is to receive movie titles 28 days after their release. No revised agreements are in place.” The company’s current deal with Warner Bros. expires at the end of January; PR chief Marci Maule referred me to comments CEO Paul Davis made last fall about pursuing “workarounds” if studios try to extend their windows.

LG Electronics, the world’s second-largest TV manufacturer, said Friday it will sell a 55-inch TV that is just 3/16 of an inch thick and weighs only 16.5 pounds. Crosstown rival Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of TVs, is expected to unveil a similarly sized TV at the industry’s big trade fair, called the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas in early January.

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The company has come up with an iPhone-esque prototype of an Android device running its chip. More than just a concept device, though, the phone (pictured here) is a fully baked design that Intel is making freely available for phone makers to use in whole or in part.

“You’ll see a number of Intel customers using the guts of this phone to go into the market in the first half of next year,” CEO Paul Otellini said at a Credit Suisse investor conference last month. “And we’ll have more announcements of that at CES.”

Otellini is slated to give a keynote speech at the Las Vegas event on Jan. 10, so that would be a logical place for any news, though the company has also scheduled a notebook-related press conference for the prior day.

Technology Review posted a story on Tuesday, talking about Intel’s efforts and quoting Intel as saying the phones should hit the market in the first half of 2012. However, Otellini suggested in his Credit Suisse speech that Intel is aiming to have products out there sooner rather than later.

“We’ll be shipping in the first quarter of next year,” Otellini said.

Intel has previously talked about its plans for phones, and Android in particular, including at its September developer conference, when Otellini invited Android chief Andy Rubin on stage to talk about Google’s work to make Intel chips a first-class citizen for future Android releases.

The chip giant faces a host of competitors as it enters the space, including the current Android leaders — Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia. Broadcom has also said it has designs on the market, particularly the low end, an area dominated by MediaTek.

Though cognizant of the competition, Intel has said its tests show its reference design as a solid competitor not just on performance, but also in the all-important area of battery life, where many have felt that Intel could not compete with ARM-based processors.

The move is about more than phones, though. Intel already faces steep competition from ARM and Apple in the tablet arena, and with Windows 8 it will also see challenges on the PC side of things.

Leading Intel’s effort are former Infineon executive Hermann Eul, and former Apple and Palm executive Mike Bell. The chipmaker recently reorganized its mobile efforts, putting the two executives in charge of all aspects of the project.

After years of talking about being in the smartphone processor game, it will be interesting to see if Intel can actually make some headway.

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• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
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• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
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• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
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• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
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• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

The company has kicked off almost every CES in recent memory. Bill Gates hosted the opening night kickoff for many years, a mantle picked up by CEO Steve Ballmer since Gates moved away from his day-to-day role at the company.

Microsoft will still have meetings with key partners and customers, but won’t have a booth on the show floor or deliver the keynote speech at the event.

In a blog post, Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw noted that the company’s product announcements tend not to line up with the show’s early January timing.

That has been clear to those who have attended the keynote in recent years. Ballmer’s talks have tended to be more of a look back at recent consumer moves than a venue for major announcements.

Microsoft did use this past January’s CES to announce support in Windows for ARM-based chips, holding a separate press conference at the event.

As Apple did when it pulled out of Macworld Expo many years back, Microsoft indicated that it is leaning toward investing more in its own events.

“As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories — from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores – it feels like the right time to make this transition,” Shaw said.

For those that want one last Ballmernote, though, Microsoft is going ahead with its talk at the 2012 CES, kicking off the show on January 9.

Update: The Consumer Electronics Association, which puts on CES, said in a statement that it wishes Microsoft well, and has plenty of companies interested in Microsoft’s prime booth space.

Here’s the full statement from CEA:

In the fourteen years that we have invited Microsoft to deliver a keynote address at CES, the company has unveiled some great innovations, from operating systems to gaming platforms to mobile technologies. Both CEA and Microsoft have agreed that the time has come to end this great run, and so Microsoft will not have a keynote at the 2013 CES.

The International CES is widely recognized as the world’s best stage for technology debuts, and each year we experience incredible demand from the world’s leading technology companies for invitations to keynote at CES. We will announce our amazing lineup of keynoters for the 2013 CES beginning in the early summer of 2013.

Microsoft has also informed us that, although their plans for the 2013 CES are not yet finalized, they will not request the Central Hall
exhibit space that they have used in past years. Given the huge success of the 2012 CES, with more than 1.8 million net square feet of exhibit space (the second largest show floor in our history) and more than 2,700 exhibitors, we have received expressions of interest for that space from the long waiting list for Central Hall exhibit space. Exhibitors will choose space for the 2013 CES during the 2012 show, and in past years available Central Hall exhibit space has sold out within hours.

Microsoft is an important member of CEA and we wish them all the best as they evolve their plans for new ways to tell consumer stories. We also look forward to their CES keynote on January 9, 2012.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

It made a splash then, but two of the three products featured by Gaga at January’s CES — a digital camera and a pair of camera-glasses — still haven’t made it to market.

And it’s unclear if one of them ever will.

The glasses, called the GL20 Camera Glasses (GL indicates the Lady Gaga “Grey Label” brand), were introduced alongside the GL10 Instant Mobile Bluetooth printer and the GL30 Instant Digital camera, which is designed in the style of old Polaroid cameras.

The printer became available for preorder in May, as planned, although it was listed at $20 more than Polaroid’s original $150 target price for retail. Polaroid Chief Technology Officer Jon Pollock explained in July that the company, like many electronics companies, has faced supply problems due to the massive earthquake in Japan.

The GL30 camera is now scheduled to launch in retail outlets in 2012. Citing consumer demand for the Gaga-hyped camera, Polaroid in November introduced the Z340 Instant Digital Camera, which has similar features and capabilities, as an alternative.

But the Gaga goggles — which were arguably the coolest element, capturing images and instantly uploading them to the device’s LCD lenses for display — still haven’t made it to market. Polaroid had previously said the gadget would arrive in the third or fourth quarter of this year at an undetermined price.

Polaroid has declined to offer insight into the delay, or to say whether store shelves will ever see the glasses. A spokeswoman for the company issued the following statement: “Polaroid and Lady Gaga are looking forward to giving consumers even more ways to restore creativity to images, both digital and printed, with additional Grey Label products in the near future. As the GL20 Camera Glasses are unlike anything seen before, additional time is needed to ensure that consumers will receive a product that exceeds expectations.”

A representative for Lady Gaga declined to comment.

To be fair, it’s not uncommon for products unveiled at CES to come to market later than expected. But for Polaroid, the delays are another ding in its armor as it struggles in the face of new digital-imaging technologies. The company has said it hoped the installment of Lady Gaga as creative director two years ago would give Polaroid a needed boost in terms of creativity and innovation.

People close to the situation have said that Lady Gaga has been “very involved” in the design and creation of the Grey Label gadgets. But, in this case, it seems that even superstar status can’t propel a product to market.

While it never had a big footprint on the floor of the show itself, for the past three years it has hosted media and showgoers in the Dell Suites — an entire floor of The Palms Casino Resort tricked out with the latest in Dell hardware. This year, however, the company is approaching CES with a bit more restraint.

It won’t be commandeering the The Palms’ Hardwood Suite to create a “smart living space.” Instead, sources say, Dell is opting for moderation, taking meetings in hotel suites and CES conference rooms and perhaps piggybacking on the keynote of one of its partners for a big product announcement (ultrabooks, anyone?).

So the company will still have some visibility at the event, just not the sort of high-profile, conspicuous-consumption-style visibility it has had in years past.

Why the shift? That’s not clear. Dell has had a very spotty record in the consumer gadget market dating back to its Axim handhelds and DJ music players. That has continued to its recent forays into smartphones and tablets. And the company’s attention has been leaning heavily toward the enterprise of late, which makes CES a markedly less useful event for it.

Indeed, speaking at the Credit Suisse conference today, Steve Felice, Dell’s president for Consumer, Small and Medium Business, said the company was looking to “prune” products to focus on more profitable areas. That message echoes comments made during Dell’s last earnings call when the company said consumer sales in the U.S. and Western Europe recently had led it to step away from “low-value” PC opportunities to focus more on servers, services and networking equipment (with a 6 percent drop in consumer revenue in the third quarter, that seems like a reasonable move). This undoubtedly factored in to the company’s decision to scale back at CES.

Dell Suites at CES 2011

Another theory: The Dell Suites concept has outlived its usefulness now that the company has Dell World, the customer-focused conference it inaugurated this year and plans to hold again in 2012. Why pay good money to deliver your message in the free-for-all, look-at-me shouting match that is CES when you can create your own platform from which to deliver it when people aren’t tired of listening?

Reached for comment, Dell confirmed that it is indeed dialing back its presence at CES and that it will be introducing a new product during a partner keynote, though it declined to specify which one.

“Over the last few months, we’ve been evaluating the most effective platforms that allow us to reach and engage our core consumers directly,” the company said in a statement provided to AllThingsD. “We will continue to have a presence at CES 2012, meeting with key retail customers, partners, investors, press and analysts, among others. In addition, we will be joining a key partner in their keynote presentation and we will be introducing a new product at the show. As we look ahead to calendar year 2012, we will be focused on engaging our various stakeholders through uniquely Dell experiences, such as the recently concluded Dell World and other Dell-specific events.”

Reached for comment, the Consumer Electronics Association, which produces CES, said Dell has not yet told them of its intentions for CES 2012.

(Image Credit: Dell Flickr page)

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

While the Consumer Electronics Show and other big events feature acres of tiny booths crammed one against another, Mobile World Congress features a different kind of bigness. The show is spread out over eight big buildings in a historic area of town. Every couple of buildings are set several flights of stairs up from the last one, with the final two buildings just a stone’s throw from the grand National Palace.

Connecting the buildings and lining the promenade between them are various smaller trailers and bungalows.

Unlike the cramped booths at CES, the spread-out nature of Mobile World Congress allows even moderate-size companies a good amount of space to show their wares. Even those with bungalows outside a main hall stand a good chance of attracting visitors. Companies that went with that approach included Acer and INQ Mobile, which was touting its new Android phone with quick access to Facebook and Spotify.

That said, some folks’ presence at Mobile World Congress is clearly bigger than others.

One booth that stands out is Google’s first-ever Android booth, tucked in the corner of Hall 8, just inside the entrance.

The two-story pavilion features many of Google’s partners showing Android applications, as well as a place to create one’s own Android mini-me, plus a sushi-bar-style conveyor belt featuring the many phone and tablet designs based on the Google operating system. Among the designs that scrolled by while I was standing there were well-known names such as Samsung and HTC, as well as less-familiar brands such as China’s ZTE and Alcatel, which is new to Android.

Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the booth is a slide that allows children of all chronological ages to relive their youth and glide down from the top floor back to the bottom. The most popular thing, though, was a series of collectible pins being passed out throughout Mobile World Congress by various Android partners. They were a hot commodity, and by Tuesday afternoon most booths were completely out of their supply of pins, placing green candy inside the dishes instead.

While impressive, the Android booth was not the largest by any stretch. One of the more massive setups I saw was the Ericsson booth, which occupied nearly all of Hall 6. A small Sony Ericsson booth was open to the public. Behind a security gate, though, was a massive spread for the many partners of both Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. It featured two bars and two kiosks serving various tapas.

There were meeting rooms and patio tables for more-casual interactions. On display were all kinds of Ericsson technologies ranging from its core infrastructure gear to all kinds of other products and research projects.

A few caught my eye, including a mobile payment section that featured a “Museum of Money” talking about days gone by when people used paper currency with all its flaws. Under glass were such relics as money, piggy banks and counterfeit-detection pens, while Ericsson showed off its many payment technologies.

In another corner, Ericsson was showing off a vending machine that is paid, not with cash or credit card, but via SMS message. Ericsson has a unit that serves as an intermediary between the vendor and the carrier to manage the transaction.

While many will observe that the company’s interest in Android appears to be timed closely with the loss of its iPhone exclusivity, the company said the strategy shift has been in the works for many months and has more to do with the fact that the company is moving to faster networks and needs devices that will really tap their power.

“They create highly functional, highly capable smartphones that run really well with our network,” Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher said. “That hits the sweet spot of our network.”

Whatever the case, AT&T has committed to having a dozen new Android products this year, including both phones and tablets.

The company introduced the first three phones at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, where it showed off Android smartphones from Samsung and HTC, as well as the intriguing Motorola Atrix, which is a powerful Android phone on its own, but can also plug into a laptop dock and power a full desktop Web browsing experience. It is also trying to break new pricing ground in selling the HTC Inspire for just $99 with a new contract.

However, there’s more to the strategy than just interesting devices at low prices. Christopher said AT&T is committed to working more closely with phone makers and Google.

“The Atrix is the best example of that,” he said. “We got involved very early in development of that product with Motorola and Google.”

However, the company isn’t looking to do all kinds of work to customize Android.

“We don’t think we have to control every element of the smartphone at all,” he said. “Our strategy has been more to partner smartly and add value where we think we have the strongest assets to bring to bear.”

Christopher pointed to location services, such as a feature that helps keep tabs on family members, as an example of where the company sees investment paying off. Carrier billing for apps and services is another area where the company has tried to lead, he said.

While many of the 12 Android devices planned for 2011 are phones, some will also be tablets, Christopher said, including the Motorola Xoom that was announced at CES. However, Christopher won’t say when that device–which is headed soon to Verizon–will make it to AT&T.

Christopher said the tablet arena is still wide open and that the company is looking far and wide in terms of which devices to offer. In addition to the iPad–which AT&T already carries–and the Android devices, other device makers such as Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard are taking aim at the space.

“There’s going to be tablet innovation happening across the industry,” Christopher said. “Over time, I think the market will choose.”

In the meantime, Christopher said, the company will follow the same strategy it has taken with phones–offer lots of options.

“There are others as well,” he said, suggesting there are some other brands that could also find their way onto the company’s shelves. “We are casting a very wide net.”

AT&T also wants to find ways to get customers to have multiple devices running on its network. The company has taken a step toward that with the introduction of a new mobile hotspot plan that offers more data to customers who are sharing their phone’s data connection with other devices, either directly or over Wi-Fi.

But more can be done, Christopher said.

Among the options would be to have some sort of pool plan, where a customer could share data across multiple devices. Christopher said that is among many pricing possibillites that AT&T is considering: “That is one that potentially is interesting.”

For those who need a quick recap, Honeycomb, a.k.a. version 3.0 of Android, is designed with tablets in mind and features improved multitouch and notifications, as well as a new user interface and the ability to have applications span multiple panes.

Here’s the liveblog, and there’s a video at the bottom.

10:00 am: Things are just about to get underway here. Everyone has been let in and is in their seats. Presumably to avoid recent issues, we’ve been asked not to use wireless hotspots but, thankfully, there is Google-provided Wi-Fi.

10:02 am: Andy Rubin takes the stage and is welcoming folks. Rubin promises a demo of Motorola Xoom and then we’re going to hear about the future of Android Market.

10:03 am: Rubin on Android: It’s open source. “We consider ourselves the shepherd of it,” he said, noting how many cool Android products he saw at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show.

“With open source, you don’t really know what is going to happen. All the innovation doesn’t happen in this building.”

10:04 am: Rubin is talking about the central role of the cloud, noting that in the future we’ll see more integration between phones and tablets and Google TV (which is also based on Android).

10:05 am: Now up, Hugo Barra, head of Android products, to show off Honeycomb.

10:06 am: First shots of Honeycomb. The bottom left corner has a home button, a back button and a button that brings up recently used items. The bottom left has a clock and various notifications.

“The rest of the screen is dedicated to applications,” Barra says.

10:08 am: Notifications are designed to be non-intrusive, like on phones, but use the extra real estate to provide a bit more information, such as the photo of the person sending an instant message.

In another example, while a music app is active, one can play or pause music from the notification tray.

10:10 am: The notification area also provides quick access to settings such as Airplane mode and to lock the screen orientation.

Barra said that existing apps that follow Android guidelines should run well without modification. Demos existing version of Fruit Ninja, developed before Honeycomb, running well on the tablet.

10:11 am: Of course, Google wants to encourage Honeycomb-specific apps as well. To do that, Google added a number of new tools and concepts, such as fragments, which let apps be split into various panes. Barra is demoing how this works in a Gmail app.

10:12 am: There’s also improved drag-and-drop capabilities in Honeycomb, as well as an application bar at the top that brings common application commands to the forefront.

10:14 am: Barra says that the company spent a lot of time optimizing performance, particularly around 2-D and 3-D graphics.

Existing 2-D graphics code can be hardware accelerated with just a line of code, while a new framework has been added to speed up animations.

There’s also a new engine, called RenderScript, aimed at 3-D graphics. Barra shows this in action in YouTube carousel and turning pages in Google Books.

10:17 am: Barra also shows 3-D in action in Google Body–kind of like Google Maps for the human body.

Now he brings up a game developer to show. Thomas Williamson, CEO of some game maker whose name I didn’t catch, shows Monster Madness, a PS3 game being brought over to Android.

10:21 am: Demo of new camera app, with new design taking advantage of added screen real estate.

Honeycomb supports video chat natively.

They’ve added image stabilization to video chat to improve quality and save bandwidth.

10:23 am: Barra is trying to demo video chat, but can’t find “lady killer” whom he was trying to chat with. Perhaps that user is out, killing ladies.

Decides to chat with his friend Anand instead.

“Sorry I’m not lady killer,” Anand says. “I’m not bad with the ladies, though.”

10:24 am: Now invites CNN exec to show an app they have built for Honeycomb.

10:25 am: Louis Gump, VP of mobile, showing new tablet version of its app for Android. It uses fragments to allow users to choose categories, dive in and swipe from one place to another.

“This is an incredibly immersive experience,” Gump says. “Consumers love it.”

The app includes audio and live video.

10:28 am: It adds iReport for the tablet, allowing people to view user-generated content as well as capture their own photos and videos and upload them from within the app.

10:31 am: Okay, we’re still trying to reach “lady killer” but moving on nonetheless.

10:32 am: Demo of new Android market features with Chris Yerga, an engineering lead at Google.

10:34 am: Release of Android market Web store. It’s the new way for users to get applications on their devices. Previously had to do so only from the Android device. Now users can go to browser.

From the Web, users can purchase and have the app installed directly on their Android devices.

10:35 am: For those who had “cloud-based Android Market” in their Honeycomb Bingo, please mark your square now. (Google Music, anyone?)

10:37 am: Allows you to install app on one or all of one’s compatible Android devices. Moving to the Web allows more graphics and a better sense of the Apps, Yerga says.

He demos buying an app, putting it “on his Google corporate credit card.”

Android Market Web site also makes it easier for friends to share and recommend apps. Email can take a link direct to that app’s page in the store.

In addition to screenshots, developers can post a YouTube video of their app in action.

There’s also a “tweet” button for each app that creates a deep link to that app in the market.

If you are on a computer, the link takes you to a Web market; from an Android device it will take you to the built-in Android Market client.

10:43 am: Okay, if you had “automagically” in your Honeycomb Bingo card, you can mark that one as well.

Next time, perhaps Mobilized will make up actual Bingo cards.

10:44 am: Developers will also have the option to price their app for different currencies. Currently, apps are priced in one currency and then converted.

This will be rolled out in phases, Yerga says.

(Still no “lady killer,” Yerga notes.)

10:45 am: Support for in-app purchases also coming to Android via a new software development kit.

10:47 am: A Disney Mobile rep is up talking about its Android plans. “That number is about to get a lot bigger,” the rep says, noting that the company is bringing Radio Disney and two other apps to Android.

Also bringing Jelly Car, a physics game, as well as Tap Tap Revenge, the company’s biggest mobile title.

The company waited for in-app purchases to be available on Android before porting Tap Tap Revenge, says Disney Mobile exec Bart Decrem.

10:52 am: That allows you to, say, download the latest track from Bruno Mars, who is apparently a really big deal. (Mobilized is old and has to be told who is big these days.)

10:53 am: Yerga is back. Developer code being released for in-app purchases today, though Google has been testing with a few publishers.

In-app purchases will be released for customers before the end of the quarter, Yerga says.

10:54 am: Almost time for the event to wrap up. But first we have “lady killer,” who is apparently music artist Cee Lo Green. (Did we mention we are old?)

10:55 am: Event wraps up and we are off to the demo room to try to shoot some video of Honeycomb in action.

Update: And here it is:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/live-talking-tablet-from-googles-honeycomb-event/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110126/obama-wants-a-wireless-broadband-network-for-everyone/ http://allthingsd.com/20110126/obama-wants-a-wireless-broadband-network-for-everyone/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:00:11 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=2356 Talk about technology was sprinkled widely throughout President Obama’s State of the Union address last night. He mentioned Google and Facebook in the same breath as Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers. I don’t think it’s the first time Google has been mentioned in the State of the Union, but it is certainly the first time for Facebook.

After reminding the nation that “South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do,” he went on to call for a national wireless broadband network.

Within the next five years, we’ll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans. This isn’t just about–(applause)–this isn’t about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It’s about connecting every part of America to the digital age. It’s about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers and small business owners will be able to sell their products all over the world. It’s about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device; a student who can take classes with a digital textbook; or a patient who can have face-to-face video chats with her doctor.

It’s the latest attempt by Obama to try to solve the difficult problem of broadband penetration in America. In many places, most of them rural areas with low population density, cable and telco companies can’t make back the investments required to build out network infrastructure, and so they don’t build at all. As I’ve said here before, for Americans in those places, the options for participating in the digital culture the rest of us take for granted are few, and it often means the difference between participating and not in so much of the daily discourse that occurs online.

Part of the answer lies in taking back some radio spectrum that’s used for other things. In June, Obama signed a memorandum calling for the freeing up of certain radio frequency spectrum in the 500 MHz range. This is a block of spectrum largely owned by TV broadcasters for free over-the-air TV transmission. Broadcasters have been under pressure–and so far they are resisting–to voluntarily give those licenses up so that the spectrum can be re-auctioned off.

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, essentially telegraphed that this is going to be the commission’s major policy priority in comments at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. He has said he’d like to offer broadcasters incentives to give up their spectrum, but this would require a new law passed by Congress, and those in Congress have their own ideas about how this should be done. You can expect a lot of debate about this in Washington this year, but probably not a lot of progress.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110126/obama-wants-a-wireless-broadband-network-for-everyone/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110126/2011-the-year-of-too-many-tablets/ http://allthingsd.com/20110126/2011-the-year-of-too-many-tablets/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:15:47 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=56415 I’m not quite sure how to view this list of tablets that debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month–as a monument to competitive spirit and move-the-story-forward innovation or as a memorial to vaporware.

Either way, this canonical categorizing of the multiplicity of slates and e-readers by CEA Chief Economist and Director of Research Shawn DuBravac is pretty stunning. There are more than 100 in all, and they run the gamut from Panasonic’s diminutive 4-inch VieraTablet to Kno’s dual-14-inch-screen device. DuBravac has helpfully broken them out according to OEM, screen size and operating system (note the proliferation of Android tablets). Notably absent: Any data on pricing and availability, which isn’t too suprising since only a portion of the tablets on this list will ever need it, particularly with the iPad 2, Research In Motion’s PlayBook and whatever webOS creations Hewlett-Packard’s Palm division has cooked up headed to market.

OEM	Name	New	tablet or e-Reader	Screen size	OS
Acer	iconia tab a500	New	tablet	10	Android
Acer	Iconia W7 tablet	New	tablet	10.1	Windows
Aluratek	Cinepad	New	e-Reader	10	Android
AOC	Breeze	New	tablet	8	Android
Archos	101	New	tablet	10	Android
Asus	Eee Slate EP121	New	tablet	12	Windows
Asus	Eee Pad Slider	New	tablet	10	Android
Asus	Eee Pad MeMo	New	tablet	7	Android
Asus	Eee Pad Transformer	New	tablet	10	Android
Augen	Doppio	New	tablet	10.1	Android
Augen	Espresso	New	tablet	7	Android
Augen	Latte	New	tablet	7	Android
Augen	Latte Grand	New	tablet	7	Android
Azpen	tablet	New	tablet	7	Android
Azpen	tablet	New	tablet	7	Windows
BlackBerry	PlayBook	New	tablet	7	QNX
Dell	Streak 10	New	tablet	10	Android
Dell	Streak 7	New	tablet	7	Android
eFun	Nextbook Next4	New	tablet	10	Android
eFun	Nextbook Next6	New	tablet	7	Android
Enspert	Identity Tab E201	New	tablet	7	Android
Enspert	Identity Tab E301	New	tablet	7	Android
Entourage	Pocket eDGe	New	e-Reader	6	Android
Freescale	24 different models	varied	tablet	varied	varied
Fujitsu	unnamed Windows 7 tablet	New	tablet	7	Windows
Fujitsu	Lifebook T901	New	tablet	13.1	Windows
Gajah International	multiple e-Readers	New	e-Reader	7	unknown
Hanvon	WISEreader N500	New	e-Reader	5	WinCE
Hanvon	WISEreader N618	New	e-Reader	6	WinCE
Hanvon	WISEreader N628	New	e-Reader	6	WinCE
Hanvon	WISEreader N638	New	e-Reader	6	WinCE
Hanvon	WISEreader N800	New	e-Reader	8	WinCE
iRiver	StoryHD	New	e-Reader	6	unknown
Key Ingredient	Demy	Previously Released	e-Reader		unknown
Kno	single screen	New	tablet	14	Linux
Kno	dual-screen	New	tablet	14×2	Linux
Lenovo	LePad	New	tablet	10	Android
Lenovo	Windows7 slate	New	tablet	10	Windows
LG	Optimus tablet	New	tablet	8.9	Android
LG T-mobile	G-Slate	New	tablet	10	Android
Motion Computing	CL900	New	tablet	10	Windows
Motorola	Xoom	New	tablet	10	Android
MSI	WindPad 100A	New	tablet	10	Android
MSI	WindPad 100W	New	tablet	10	Windows
MSI	Kid Pad	prototype	tablet	10	Android
NEC	Cloud Communicator LT-W	New	tablet	7	Android
Netbook Navigator	Nav7	New	tablet	7	Windows
Netbook Navigator	Nav9	New	tablet	8.9	Windows
Netbook Navigator	Nav10i	New	tablet	10.1	Windows
notion ink adam	tablet	New	tablet	10	Android
OpenPeak	OpenTablet 10	New	tablet	10	Android
Panasonic	VieraTablet	New	tablet	4	Android
Panasonic	VieraTablet	New	tablet	7	Android
Panasonic	VieraTablet	New	tablet	10	Android
Pandigital	Multimedia Novel	New	e-Reader	9	Android
Pandigital	Multimedia Novel	New	e-Reader	7	Android
PocketBook-USA, Inc.	902/903	New	e-Reader	9.7	Linux
PocketBook-USA, Inc.	602/603	New	e-Reader	6	Linux
PocketBook-USA, Inc.	701 IQ	New	e-Reader	7	Android
Razer	Switchblade	New	tablet	7	Windows
Rullingnet	Vinci	prototype	tablet	7	Android
Samsung	Galaxy Tab WiFi	Previously Released	tablet	7	Android
Samsung	TX100	New	tablet	10	Windows
Sharp	Galapogas E-media Tablet	New	e-Reader	5.5	Linux
Sharp	Galapogas E-media Tablet	New	e-Reader	10.8	Linux
toshiba	Toshiba Tablet	New	tablet	10	Android
Velocity Micro	Cruz tablet	New	tablet	7	Android
Velocity Micro	Cruz tablet	New	tablet	8	Android
Velocity Micro	Cruz tablet	New	tablet	10	Android
Viewsonic	ViewPad 10	New	tablet	10.1	Android / Windows
Viewsonic	ViewPad 10s	New	tablet	10.1	Android
Viliv	X10	New	tablet	10.2	Android
Vilix	X7	New	tablet	7	Android
Vilix	X70	New	tablet	7	Windows
Vizio	Vizio (Via) Tablet	New	tablet	8	Android
Samsung	Galaxy Tab 4G	New	tablet	7	Android

Chart and data courtesy Shawn Dubravac

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110126/2011-the-year-of-too-many-tablets/feed/ 17 http://allthingsd.com/20110121/full-dces-interview-video-nvidias-jen-hsuan-huang/ http://allthingsd.com/20110121/full-dces-interview-video-nvidias-jen-hsuan-huang/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:44:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39815

As promised, after posting highlights last week, here’s the full video from an interview with Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at our D@CES event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The chipmaker exec talked a lot about how mobile is about to see super-duper-duper smartphones and more.

Here’s Huang in a video of the interview with Mobilized’s Ina Fried:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110121/full-dces-interview-video-nvidias-jen-hsuan-huang/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110119/full-dces-interview-video-microsoft-internet-explorers-dean-hachamovitch/ http://allthingsd.com/20110119/full-dces-interview-video-microsoft-internet-explorers-dean-hachamovitch/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:17:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39756 As promised, after posting highlights last week, here’s the full video from an interview Walt Mossberg did with Microsoft Internet Explorer head Dean Hachamovitch at our D@CES event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The browser chieftain at the software giant talked a lot about privacy, as you can see from Hachamovitch’s latest shirt motto.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110119/full-dces-interview-video-microsoft-internet-explorers-dean-hachamovitch/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110117/full-dces-interview-video-twitter-ceo-dick-costolo/ http://allthingsd.com/20110117/full-dces-interview-video-twitter-ceo-dick-costolo/#comments Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:05:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39649

As promised, after posting highlights last week, here’s the full video from an interview I did with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo at our D@CES event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Costolo is one funny dude, and he also said a lot about what’s up at the San Francisco microblogging service.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110117/full-dces-interview-video-twitter-ceo-dick-costolo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110114/dces-highlights-video-nvidias-jen-hsun-huang/ http://allthingsd.com/20110114/dces-highlights-video-nvidias-jen-hsun-huang/#comments Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:01:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39510

Our next highlights video from our D@CES event last week is of Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.

The event, which we did in cooperation with the Consumer Electronics Show, was only three sessions in one afternoon. It was followed by a lovely party, all at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Huang talked about how mobile is about to see super-duper-duper smartphones and also touched on the chipmaker’s legal battle with Intel, which was settled earlier this week.

Here’s a longish highlights video of Huang’s interview with Mobilized’s Ina Fried:

I’ll be posting the full videos of this interview, as well as with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and Dean Hachamovitch, who is in charge of Microsoft’s Interet Explorer browser from D@CES next week.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110114/dces-highlights-video-nvidias-jen-hsun-huang/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110113/intel-beats-earnings-expectations-despite-slower-pc-market/ http://allthingsd.com/20110113/intel-beats-earnings-expectations-despite-slower-pc-market/#comments Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:29:41 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=1753 Chipmaker Intel just reported quarterly earnings of 59 cents a share, beating the expectations of analysts who had expected earnings of 53 cents. Revenues were $11.5 billion, ahead of the forecast of $11.37 billion. Sales were up 8 percent versus the year-ago quarter, while profits surged 48 percent. Gross margins, a key measure of profitability, was 67.5 percent, slightly above the company’s prior guidance. Intel shares are trading up by 1.7 percent after hours.

Intel said in its statement that PC Client Group revenue was flat. Other groups were stronger: Data Center Group revenue was up 35 percent, and Intel’s architecture group saw sales surge by 27 percent. Intel Atom microprocessor group, its low-power chip aimed at tablets and smartphones, saw revenue grow 8 percent. This despite word from Microsoft last week at the Consumer Electronics Show that it will develop a version of Windows for ARM-based chips from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Nvidia aimed at tablets and smartphones. Microsoft’s move calls into question Intel’s hopes to land design wins for the Atom low-power chip that it hopes to sell to manufacturers of smartphones and tablets, but which has yet to show any significant results.

This report of flat revenues for PCs comes a day after Gartner and IDC both said they saw weaker-than-expected sales of PCs in the fourth quarter of 2010.

For its 2011 first-quarter outlook, Intel said it expects revenue of $11.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million, and a gross margin of 64 percent, plus or minus a couple of points. For the full year, it expects gross margins to be 65 percent, plus or minus a few points. More after I go through the numbers and attend the conference call, which starts in about an hour.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110113/intel-beats-earnings-expectations-despite-slower-pc-market/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110112/skype-does-better-with-group-calls-than-mobile/ http://allthingsd.com/20110112/skype-does-better-with-group-calls-than-mobile/#comments Thu, 13 Jan 2011 02:03:32 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1719 Making audio and video calls between computers over Skype is now so common that the company’s name has become a verb. People ask others to “Skype me” or say they are “Skyping.”

But the Luxembourg-based service had been a bit slow in getting into a couple of areas that other companies have jumped into: mobile video calling, and computer-based video calls involving multiple people. Now, Skype has entered both arenas, and I’ve been testing the features. A couple of weeks ago, Skype introduced free mobile video calling to its iPhone app and has plans to extend the same functionality to certain Android-based phones running on Verizon’s new high-speed 4G network later this year. And, last week, at the Consumer Electronics Show, it launched a paid service it had been testing that allows for group video calling on computers.

My verdict: Like some competing services, Skype’s mobile video calling varies greatly in quality and therefore isn’t especially reliable. Its computer-based group video calling, however, worked well in my limited tests and is nicely designed.

Video calling between computers is well established. Skype says that, in the first half of last year, 40% of its Skype-to-Skype calling minutes were video, as opposed to audio. But making video calls over mobile phones is a nascent practice, one that began to get serious only last year, when multiple smart phones with front-facing cameras came to market. Apple introduced a free video-calling service called FaceTime that was integrated into the iPhone 4 and later added to the iPod Touch—both of which now have front cameras—and the Macintosh. Various Android phones with front-facing cameras shipped with a video-calling app called Qik, which Skype just bought, though it says it developed its mobile system prior to the deal. Tango launched video-calling apps for both iPhone and Android last year.

Skype’s iPhone video-calling feature in action

Now, Skype has joined the fray. And it brings some advantages. The biggest is its huge subscriber base, from which you can choose to have a mobile video call with anyone whose device includes a camera. That includes not just iPhones, but also computers. You can do video calling between two iPhones, two computers or one of each type of device.

Also, unlike Apple’s FaceTime, which works only over Wi-Fi, Skype’s iPhone video calling, like those of some competitors, also works over the phone’s 3G cellular network, though typically with inferior results. Like other products, Skype allows you to switch between front and rear cameras during a call. Unlike FaceTime, it works with the older iPhone 3GS, though the latter has only a rear camera. It even allows you to receive video calls on an iPad, though you can’t transmit video from the tablet, as it lacks cameras.

I tested Skype mobile video calling in two rounds, in both cases between the Washington, D.C., area and New York City. In the first round, I conducted video calls with my son, using both Wi-Fi and 3G. In the second, I conducted tests with a Skype representative. In both rounds of tests, calls made over Wi-Fi on both ends, or even just one end, were better than those made using 3G cellular on both ends. Skype notes this is due to the unpredictability of cellular data network speeds and congestion. And, in both rounds of tests, calls where one party was on a computer, as opposed to both being on iPhones, worked better.

But, in general, the service was erratic. Far too often, the images were fuzzy, or syncing between audio and video was off, or the calls would freeze or crash. Only a minority of the calls were truly satisfactory for more than a few minutes. Skype does warn you if your network quality is too poor for a decent video experience, but, even if the app deems your network connection acceptable, the call may still look or sound lousy.

In the tests with my son, we compared the Skype calls to FaceTime calls and found the latter to be much better, though hardly perfect. In fairness, this was also true when I tested Tango last year, and may have something to do with the fact that FaceTime is Wi-Fi only and is deeply integrated into the iPhone, while Apple doesn’t allow third parties like Skype the same level of integration.

In both rounds of tests, incoming regular cellphone calls, even when ignored, disrupted the Skype calls, by either cutting out the audio or freezing the video, or both. Skype claims this is a problem with the iPhone’s operating system and it is working with Apple on a solution.

Skype’s computer-based group-calling feature worked much better, though my tests were more limited, and were conducted with a group of Skype employees who were using a wired office network connection. (I was on Wi-Fi at my home.)

Group calling, which can handle between three and 10 people, is a feature of the latest Windows version of Skype, and of the latest beta version for the Mac. I tested both and found the Windows version had a few more features, being complete, but both versions did work. You can set up a group in advance in your Skype contact list and call all members with one click, or you can add people on the fly.

In my tests, there were four Skype employees, each at separate computers, plus me. Each appeared in his or her own box on a dark screen and I could optionally see myself in a smaller box. The box containing whoever is speaking is automatically outlined in blue. You can also turn on a cool feature in the Windows version called Dynamic View, which enlarges the box of the lead speaker and moves it to the top of the screen. (Skype says it hopes to add this Dynamic View to the Mac version eventually.)

In contrast to my mobile tests, this more limited test of group video calling provided very good quality, with almost no fuzziness, freezing or syncing issues. I can’t say how it would work over slow networks, and Skype does publish minimum bandwidth and processor recommendations for using it. But it worked well for me. The group video-calling feature is part of a plan that costs $8.99 a month, after a seven-day free trial. Skype is running a sale until Feb. 28 that cuts the price by a third if you subscribe for three or 12 months. It also offers a day pass for $4.99 a day.

Overall, I’d say Skype has nailed paid group video calling on computers, but has work to do on its free mobile video calling. Perhaps the advent of faster 4G networks will help make mobile video calls better.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110112/skype-does-better-with-group-calls-than-mobile/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110112/dces-highlights-video-microsoft-ies-dean-hachamovitch/ http://allthingsd.com/20110112/dces-highlights-video-microsoft-ies-dean-hachamovitch/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:01:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39437

Our next highlights video from our D@CES event last week is of Microsoft Internet Explorer chief Dean Hachamovitch.

The event, which we did in cooperation with the Consumer Electronics Show, was only three sessions in one afternoon. It was followed by a lovely party, all at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Here’s a longish highlights video of Walt Mossberg’s interview with Hachamovitch, during which they focused a lot on privacy issues on the browser and the Web (check out his shirt):

I’ll be posting the third highlights video D@CES of Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on Friday and all full videos from the event next week.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110112/dces-highlights-video-microsoft-ies-dean-hachamovitch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110111/when-will-we-see-a-verizon-ipad/ http://allthingsd.com/20110111/when-will-we-see-a-verizon-ipad/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:35:34 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=2066 While most of the talk on Tuesday was about the arrival of the Verizon iPhone, there is another wireless product in the Apple lineup.

You might have heard of it: The iPad.

Indeed, Verizon apparently wants to offer such a product, with the CFO of Verizon Wireless parent Verizon Communications telling Bloomberg that the company would offer such a product at some undefined point in the future.

But a Verizon Wireless representative declined to comment on the Bloomberg report and also declined to comment about its iPad plans. An Apple representative also declined comment.

In fact, the iPad is already sold at Verizon stores.

But it is a Wi-Fi-only model that is paired with a Verizon portable hotspot. The wireless carrier certainly could keep offering it in just that fashion, but it also might make sense at some point to sell a model with a connection to Verizon’s network–something which is currently offered only via AT&T.

In the mean time, Verizon also has another big tablet coming–the Motorola Xoom it introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show

It has the exclusive on the Xoom and is likely to be the first with a Honeycomb-based Google Android tablet for some time, making the need for a Verizon-connected iPad perhaps less critical.

Also, because the Verizon iPhone can act as a portable hot spot, customers could easily share that device’s Internet connection with their iPad. Verizon has not said how much it will charge for either its iPhone service or how much the additional charge will be to use its iPhone as a hotspot.

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