The Nike+ FuelBand measures time, calories, steps and “NikeFuel.” It uses an accelerometer to measure movement, has built-in USB and 20 LED flights that flash red or green to show your progress, and can connect wirelessly to the iPhone via Bluetooth.

The FuelBand comes with a free iPhone app, and is social network friendly, for those users who want to share their activity updates with Facebook, Foursquare and even Path. For now, the FuelBand app is iOS-only. Stefan Olander, Nike’s vice president of digital sport, says that the company will eventually explore other mobile operating systems for the app.

Nike, for competitive reasons, currently isn’t sharing details on how the band calculates users’ NikeFuel levels, whether they’re running, skateboarding, or doing any other kind of physical activity. The idea of NikeFuel — a measurement or score of a user’s activity — sounds a little bit like the Fitbit’s “flower power” currency. It’s a way for users to compare workouts without necessarily referring to data like calories burned, which may differ from user to user.

With FuelBand, Nike seems to be taking a slightly different measurement approach from those of other makers of health-and-fitness bands. The company says it maps oxygen uptake against a three-axis accelerometer during both activity and downtime to measure the metabolic equivalent of a task (a.k.a. M.E.T).

The Jawbone UP, for example, measures steps, heart rate, calories burned and sleep patterns. Basis is also focused on measuring heart rate and other metrics with its Basis B1 Band (no chest strap needed). And BodyMedia’s Fit armband uses galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors to measure body temperature and how much heat has dissipated from the body to determine the amount of energy that’s being used.

The Nike+ FuelBand will be available for preorder in the U.S. on Jan. 19, and will cost $149 — more than the UP, less than the B1 Band, and in the same range as BodyMedia’s bands.

Nike has a few other wearable workout tools already on the market, but its FuelBand is really meant to be worn all day, so Nike device users don’t have to switch from day wear to workout wear. With the FuelBand, Olander says, Nike is aiming to hit all areas and levels of the fitness market, not just serious athletes and runners.

Here’s a quick rundown of how the FuelBand compares to Nike’s other fitness-monitoring devices:

There’s the Nike+ SportBand, which currently retails for $59, has a slightly bulkier form factor, and works in conjunction with a sensor that goes under the sock liner of your left-foot Nike+ compatible shoe. This one is water-resistant, tracks distance, pace, time elapsed and calories burned, and stores 30 hours of running data. (It’s also available as a “Livestrong” SportBand.)

There’s also the $199 Nike+ GPS Sportwatch powered by TomTom, which works with or without a Nike+ sensor as well as a Polar WearLink Transmitter for measuring heart rate. Compared to a single rubbery wristband, that’s a lot of stuff to carry around; without those devices, the watch alone shows a mapped route and tracks time, distance, pace, heart rate and calories burned. It plugs directly into a USB port on your computer to upload run data and recharge the battery.

And the Nike Amp+ iPod Remote is no longer available through Nike’s store, but way back in the day — four years ago — it was a nifty device that synced the Nike watch to users’ iPods and provided voice updates on time, distance, calories and pace during workouts.

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.

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

Two of the 25 TechZones on the showroom floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center will be geared specifically toward digital health, with more than 171 exhibitors showcasing products as part of the Digital Health and Fitness category.

Basis B1 Band

One notable device attendees will see is the Basis B1 band, which offers an alternative to accelerometer-based fitness products. The band is a water-resistant wristband that uses multiple sensors to calculate calories burned, amount of physical activity and sleep patterns. It also sports Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors that track perspiration to measure body temperature alongside ambient temperature.

In addition to showing off the B1 band at CES, Basis CEO Jef Holove said the company plans to demo a Web dashboard that works with the USB-compatible band to help users track the activity data they upload.

The cost of the Basis B1 band, which is expected to launch in early 2012, is still to be determined.

Another company, called Striiv, will showcase a $99 keychain-friendly device meant to track a user’s every movement; the idea is to motivate individuals by using activity-based games and creating challenges based on real-world distances, like crossing the Grand Canyon. The Striiv device hit the market this past October.

Among the other health-related products to be featured at the CES 2012 Sports and Fitness TechZone are waterproof MP3 players, armbands, heart monitors, high-tech goggles, GPS-enabled cameras and the integration of gesture-recognition technology into games for fitness and sports.

According to a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organization that runs CES, the sports and fitness category is a $70 billion annual business in the U.S. alone.

The growing mobile phone market and explosion of mobile apps has contributed to the growth of the digital health market as well. A recent ABI Research report says the market for sports and fitness apps is expected to reach $400 million by 2016, across more than one billion annual health-related app downloads.

Health care companies have also been getting into the app arena. United Health Group plans to show off mobile applications at CES 2012 for managing health care accounts, tracking prescriptions and creating health goals. Aetna already has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry; Blue Cross and Blue Shield introduced an app for iOS devices earlier this year.

The development of these mobile apps, as well as lightweight wearable devices such as the popular FitBit, opens up a new category of products that are less expensive — and in some cases less cumbersome — than a traditional, bulky fitness watch or a heart-rate monitor that straps around the chest. In many cases, new fitness products come with analytical Web services, and aim to go beyond the standard pedometer or accelerometer to offer a comprehensive look at activity and health.

But the marriage of health and fitness data applications with actual hardware can be a difficult one in terms of product development. Case in point: The Jawbone UP wristband.

Jawbone UP

Jawbone, a maker of slick audio products, recently made its first foray into the fitness market with the $99 dollar Jawbone UP. A few weeks after the launch of the UP, which tracks user activity and plugs directly into the iPhone to sync the data, user complaints began to trickle in. Some cited battery issues, syncing problems and poor design. The company put out an apology, instituted a no-questions-asked return policy and has temporarily halted production of the device.

Jawbone declined to comment on when the company will resume production of the UP device, but Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s Vice President of Product Management & Strategy, issued a statement saying, “The passionate response to UP has been phenomenal — and this is just the beginning. We’re extremely committed to the category and we’re going to keep improving the UP product until we realize the powerful vision of what this category can be.”

Basis’s Holove concurred that fitness devices that look to eliminate straps and wires while still performing multiple tasks can be complicated products, and said part of the reason the Basis band isn’t officially launching at CES is because the company is focused on “getting it right.”

“We don’t want to repeat any lessons learned in the industry recently. We’ve redoubled our testing plans now,” Holove said.

Holove says he believes the initial excitement over the Jawbone UP is evidence of growing consumer demand for wearable health-and-fitness devices. He also predicts that, in the near future, more corporations will begin to institute health-incentive programs, like Virgin’s HealthMiles, which could involve the mass distribution of health monitors. Through Virgin HealthMiles’s Pay-For-Prevention program, companies encourage employees to use a GoZone tracker and record their daily activities for potential rewards.

But for now, Holove says, the focus is still on marketing directly to the consumer when it comes to fitness and health. ”It’s no mystery that we need to be healthier. Health care costs are rising while health is declining, so we’re going directly to the customer and saying, here’s what you can do about that.”

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

The Flip Camera
San Jose, Calif. — The Cisco Flip, a beloved handheld video recorder, was killed on April 12, 2011. Its untimely death was a result of the realignment of Cisco’s consumer electronics business.

Born in May 2006 as the Pure Digital Point & Shoot, the pocket camera went through many evolutions in its lifetime, later becoming the Flip Ultra and spawning the Flip Mino and Flip MinoHD. It found a new home in 2009, when it was acquired by Cisco for $590 million. The Flip was known as the life of the party at birthday and wedding celebrations, and will be remembered for its simplistic design and pop-out USB arm. “People literally flipped for the Flip when it first came out,” a friend of its parents, Pure Digital, said. It is survived by a number of boiled-down point-and-shoots and countless smartphone cameras, as well as video-sharing apps with annoyingly cute names like “Viddy.”

Its distant cousin, the Kodak Zi8, also went missing from the Kodak store earlier this year.

Guitar Hero
Santa Monica, Calif. — For Guitar Hero, Feb. 9, 2011, was the day the music died. The videogame franchise was killed when Activision announced during its fourth-quarter earnings call that it was shuttering the business unit dedicated to Guitar Hero.

The popular game was born in 2005 to Red Octane and Harmonix, and was distributed by Activision. Later iterations of Guitar Hero, which were developed by Neversoft, had band-specific titles and also incorporated more instrumental props, so fans could play drums or sing as well as play guitar.

But Guitar Hero sales fell off, and the game was eventually overshadowed by its record-breaking Activision siblings, the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft series. Revenues of Guitar Hero fell from $1.7 billion in 2008 to about $300 million in 2010.

Guitar Hero will be remembered for its love of music, with Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen among its favorite artists, and for creating living-room rock arenas for millions of users.

Guitar Hero is survived by Rock Band, Rocksmith, Rock Revolution and likely many other console and mobile games starting with “Rock” that we’re not aware of or haven’t been invented yet.

HP TouchPad
Palo Alto, Calif. — That flame which doth burn brightest often burns out quickly, or something like that.

The HP TouchPad was effectively killed on Aug. 18, 2011, at the young age of just 49 (that’s days). Prior to its demise, the TouchPad was praised for its bright 9.7-inch display, Beats audio and mostly for the fact that it ran HP’s intuitive webOS mobile operating system, though the tablet ultimately saw disappointing sales during its short life.

Hewlett-Packard, its maker, said webOS devices had not gained enough traction in the marketplace with consumers, and couldn’t justify continuing to produce hardware like the TouchPad around it.

HP’s new CEO, Meg Whitman, said later on, “I think we’ve got to walk before we run here.” The TouchPad is survived by a newly open source webOS system and a cult of rabid fans, as evidenced by its post-mortem fire sales. It joins the Microsoft Kin phone in a special Afterlife for Tech Products Less Than 50 Days Old, while its operating system remains in a state of purgatory.

Dell Streak Tablets and Mini 10 Netbook
Round Rock, Texas — The streak was not a long one.

Dell’s Streak 5 tablet, which was originally demoed at D8 in 2010, disappeared from store shelves in mid-August of this year. Dell hardly had time to recover from the loss before its sibling, the Dell Streak 7, was also discontinued.

Shortly after the loss of the Streak tablet, tragedy again struck the Dell family, when Dell confirmed it would no longer make consumer netbooks, feeling the pressure of tablets as well as an emerging shift toward thin, light “ultrabooks” in the laptop category. The Dell Mini 10 was known for being small, as netbooks are, and for being that laptop you knew you could always fit on the seatback tray on an airplane.

Apple MobileMe
Cupertino, Calif. — June 6, 2011, was Steve Jobs’s last appearance at an Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. It was also the day MobileMe effectively went away, with Jobs saying the $99 dollar service wasn’t Apple’s “finest hour.”

MobileMe launched at WWDC in July of 2008, and was meant to sync calendars, emails, bookmarks and photo galleries. For individual accounts, it came with 20 gigabytes of online storage and 200GB of monthly data transfer.

While great in theory, our friend MobileMe was not without flaws. In fact, AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg said, in his review of the service, that MobileMe was “far too flawed to be reliable.”

Apple’s Internet-based sync services since 2000 have evolved, but have never truly gone away: Like an actual ghost, we know they’re there, and we see glimpses of how they work, but they still elude many people. MobileMe, in its earliest form, was iTools, and later on, the subscription service .Mac. Even now, we’re not entirely sure whether MobileMe was killed or simply reincarnated as something new — in this case, iCloud.

Adobe Flash on Mobile
San Jose, Calif. — This is the way mobile Flash ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper.

On Nov. 9, Adobe said it would no longer be developing Flash, its platform for interactive and rich media content, for mobile devices.

Macromedia Flash was born in 1997, the spawn of FutureWave’s FutureSplash Animator. Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005, thus becoming Adobe Flash.
As smartphone and tablet wars heated up in recent years, Flash support became one of the features that iPad competitors — mainly Google Android devices — touted to set themselves apart from Apple’s mobile products.

The tech world has contemplated what this could all mean for the future of Flash. As AllThingsD’s Ina Fried wrote, Flash’s death on mobile was seen as a vindication for the late Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products. Could Jobs once again have seen the future? Flash is not a completely dead standard yet, but with developers increasingly adopting HTML5 as the new standard for Web language, it’s unclear what exactly will become of Flash.

Google Buzz
Mountain View, Calif. — A standard housecleaning session turned fatal this past October when Google pulled the plug on its social networking effort. Google Buzz, the predecessor to Google+, aimed to create a social network through Gmail.

Social and gregarious by nature, Google Buzz was born in February of 2010. Its early life was filled with strife, as users struggled to grasp the real-time social interactions that were occurring within email chains, and real privacy concerns emerged.

Despite its short life span, the memory of Google Buzz surely remains, as the search giant eventually had to settle with the FTC over privacy violations and is now committed to 20 years of privacy audits.

Memories, indeed.

Google Buzz is survived by Google+, and follows Friendster and Myspace to the social graveyard, although technically those still exist.

Readers, what do you think was the greatest tech product loss in 2011?

AllThingsD tech-reviewer kingpin Walt Mossberg also showed off his favorite fun gadgets at the annual Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley earlier this week.

Among his picks: Tangle-resistant ear buds; an Apple iPhone beer-bottle opener and consumption tabulator; a wireless USB drive; and the latest Ultrabooks to compete with the MacBook Air.

Here’s the video of his presentation:

Here’s a ZDNet video of the gadgets I selected for the Churchill Club event that Walt Mossberg and I do annually.

This year’s celebrity geek guests were a pair of well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and VCs, Reid Hoffman and John Lilly; along with our regular gadget freak, Greg Harper.

Here’s the video of my stuff, with an assist from my No. 1 son, Louie:

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

You had me at lotsa.

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming movie “The Avengers.”

On our weeklong trip to Asia in preparation for our upcoming AsiaD conference in the fall — including a stop in South Korea earlier in the week — Walt Mossberg and I have spent the last few days in Tokyo.

That’s because while AsiaD will have a Chinese flavor — by virtue of its location in Hong Kong and given how increasingly important China is in the digital arena — we also want to make sure that the focus is pan-Asian.

Of course, Japan has always been one of the key centers of the digital world, especially in the area of consumer electronics, so it was interesting to see what it has been up to.

While here, we visited gaming firms such as Nexon (Korean-born, but HQed here) and Gree; met execs from companies such as Mixi, Japan’s largest social networking site (and not Facebook, which is still small here); and visited the big behemoths like Sony (which is up to some very innovative things, from what we saw this week, including the dorktastic head-mounted video device I am wearing above).

We also went to see what’s up with smartphones and other gadgets in the Akihabara area — often referred to as “Electric Town” — of this bustling city, which is one of my favorites in the world.

That’s why Tokyo’s digital companies will be a big part of AsiaD. We’ll soon be announcing even more speakers for the event, which takes place in Hong Kong Oct. 19-21.

Until then, here’s my video of our tour, which includes a look at the latest in rice cooking technology (you’d be surprised!):

And here is a video from a breakfast talk Walt and I did there:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110806/asiad-adventures-japan-edition-walt-and-kara-visit-digital-tokyo-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110718/new-tech-gadget-news-site-name-the-verge/ http://allthingsd.com/20110718/new-tech-gadget-news-site-name-the-verge/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:00:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=99077 A new tech site, which has been founded by a number of former staffers of AOL-owned Engadget and operating temporarily as This Is My Next, will be announcing its new name — The Verge — during an appearance by Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky tonight on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night television talk show. The Verge, whose charter sponsor will be BMW, will debut in the fall as a new competing gadget property for the well-funded content start-up SB Nation.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110718/new-tech-gadget-news-site-name-the-verge/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110713/jawbones-newest-product-health-tracking-wristband-called-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20110713/jawbones-newest-product-health-tracking-wristband-called-up/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:34:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=97677 Jawbone, the San Francisco consumer electronics start-up that just grabbed another $70 million in funding, has announced its latest gadget called UP. The new product is described as “an intelligent, wearable wristband with an application that combines tracking, analysis, social and motivational elements.” Jawbone, which makes a popular Bluetooth headset and also the Jambox wireless speaker, said UP will track a user’s movement, sleep patterns and nutrition.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110713/jawbones-newest-product-health-tracking-wristband-called-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110707/former-top-editor-makes-another-talent-raid-on-aols-engadget-for-new-competing-gadget-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20110707/former-top-editor-makes-another-talent-raid-on-aols-engadget-for-new-competing-gadget-site/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:24:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=95334

I love the smell of blog wars in the morning!

Acting as Facebook often does to Google, a new site started by former Engadget editor Josh Topolsky just hired away yet another passel of tech journalists from the giant gadget news and reviews organization.

Editorial movement is not uncommon on tech news sites, but this level of it from one site to another is somewhat, um, aggressive.

Engadget, which is owned by AOL, is one of the largest tech-focused sites on the Web. Topolsky left his editor-in-chief job there in March.

By April, he had grabbed eight prominent Engadget staffers who had left the huge tech site amid editorial tensions, in order to start a new competing gadget property for the well-funded sports content start-up SB Nation.

Now, sources said, Topolsky has added Thomas Ricker, an Engadget senior editor, who had run its European coverage; Sean Hollister, a senior associate editor, who ran its West coast team; and Joseph Flatley, an associate editor.

Also hired: Thomas Houston, editor-in-chief of Switched, an AOL tech site that was recently subsumed into its Huffington Post Media unit; and Dieter Bohn, who was editor-in-chief for the Smartphone Experts network of sites, including Crackberry and others.

And other possible new hires soon from Engadget: Another European editor, Vlad Savov, and writer Jacob Schulman.

The Topolsky-helmed site is still unnamed but is now operating as This Is My Next. It already has 16 writers, compared to Engadget’s two dozen, and is set to debut in the fall with a new name.

It will be the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

Before that, SB Nation had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

Another AOL link: SB Nation was founded by former AOLer, CEO Jim Bankoff, who had bought Engadget for AOL many years ago.

Engadget Editorial Director Josh Frulinger said that the impact of the talent drain on Engadget — mostly from This Is My Next raids — has been small, since the site has also been aggressively hiring.

“We’re past the people leaving and into celebrating what we’ve accomplished in six short months, and we welcome any new competition,” he said. “Dana Wollman, Brian Heater, Myriam Joire, Zach Honig, Joe Pollicino, Richard Lawler, Michael Gorman, Sean Buckley, Joseph Volpe, Brad Molen, Terrence O’Brien, Amar Toor and Sharif Skar — all brought on in the past six months — are your Engadget stars of tomorrow.”

To prove it, AOL said unique visitors for Engadget in June were up 1.1 percent from May and will be up again for July. In recent reports, the site had 14 million unique monthly visitors.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110707/former-top-editor-makes-another-talent-raid-on-aols-engadget-for-new-competing-gadget-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110406/former-aol-media-exec-marty-moe-to-join-engadget-gang-of-eight-at-sb-nation/ http://allthingsd.com/20110406/former-aol-media-exec-marty-moe-to-join-engadget-gang-of-eight-at-sb-nation/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:49:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42389 Just what is SB Nation’s Jim Bankoff up to?

Earlier this week, he hired away eight staffers from AOL’s Engadget in order to create a competing tech news and gadget reviews site.

And now, according to sources close to the situation, the former AOL content head is close to hiring another former top AOL media exec, Marty Moe (pictured here), to manage it and also more niche sites the blog network is contemplating launching.

Sources said the hiring of Moe is not yet complete, but is close to being struck.

Tyler Bleszinski, SB Nation’s founder and sports editorial director, will continue to manage the start-up’s sports blog network, while Moe will focus on the company’s tech vertical and any other future categories.

Moe left AOL less than a year ago, after nine years working at the New York-based portal, including with Bankoff.

Both had been involved in the purchase of Weblogs Inc., which included the flagship Engadget site.

Now, it seems they will be trying to remake the concept of a content network, although in a more entrepreneurial and innovative setting.

The new tech site–which is still unnamed and will be helmed editorially by outgoing Engadget Editor in Chief Josh Topolsky–will debut some time in the fall. It is the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which has heretofore been exclusively focused on sports.

Topolsky will be joined by former Engadget managing editor Nilay Patel and also former staffers Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, Chris Ziegler, Justin Glow and Dan Chilton.

All of the above had left Engadget in a series of departures of late, all due to increasing unhappiness with AOL’s management and content strategy.

Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related, both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled “The AOL Way.”

New AOL content head Arianna Huffington has shifted toward a more journalistic path, but the talent bleed began before AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.

Many new upstart content sites such as SB Nation have begun to try to eat away at the big portal’s content strategy–pushed by its CEO Tim Armstrong–with perhaps more nimble efforts of their own.

And those smaller companies are also well funded.

SB Nation completed a $10.5 million Series C venture round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

It had already raised about $13 million in total funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110406/former-aol-media-exec-marty-moe-to-join-engadget-gang-of-eight-at-sb-nation/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110404/aol-confirms-tim-stevens-as-engadget-editor-in-chief/ http://allthingsd.com/20110404/aol-confirms-tim-stevens-as-engadget-editor-in-chief/#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:08:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42340

As BoomTown reported earlier, AOL has confirmed that Tim Stevens (pictured here in a classic Speed Racer pose, but see his real face below) will replace Josh Topolsky as editor in chief of Engadget.

Stevens has been working at the large tech gadget news and reviews site since 2007, most recently as its automotive editor.

Unusually, he was a part-timer at Engadget until a few months ago and lives several hours north of New York City, where AOL has its HQ. The company said Stevens will commute as necessary.

In his bio on the Engadget site, Stevens noted, in part, that he’s “an avid gamer, amateur motorsports enthusiast, lover of most outdoor activities, and proud creator of the first (and possibly only) two-player game for the Sega VMU.”

Geek credentials–check!

The appointment comes amid a fair bit of hubbub, with the announcement last night of a new competing tech site with eight new staff members, all of whom have recently left Engadget.

An Apple-obsessed, gadget-loving, nerdy-McNerd Gang of Eight!

That includes Topolsky, who is joining Jim Bankoff at his well-funded SB Nation sports and news start-up to launch the still-unnamed site.

Bankoff–in even more only-in-tech interconnectedness–was key to the purchase of Engadget many years ago when he was AOL’s top content exec.

An AOL spokesperson said in an email that “Engadget stays the same, with an obsessive focus on news.”

He correctly pointed out that “there’s a long tradition of handing down the editor in chief baton to someone from within: Pete Rojas to Ryan Block to Josh Topolsky to Tim Stevens.”

The site’s editorial director since 2009 has been Josh Fruhlinger. Recently promoted managing editor, Darren Murph, will also remain in the job at AOL.

In a statement to me, Fruhlinger said:

“As a member of Engadget since 2004, I know that we built our success on a commitment to what matters most to readers: staying focused on the latest technology news. Tim has a reputation for sharp news coverage and is a natural leader–our staffers are deeply loyal to him and stand behind him as we move on to the next generation of Engadget. Darren has an intuitive sense for discerning news and trends that matter. And we’re thrilled to be working with Arianna Huffington as part of The Huffington Post Media Group, as Arianna has a history of die-hard support for the work of journalists.”

Earlier Fruhlinger also tweeted: “In case anyone wondered, Engadget will be hitting tech news when we all wake up. Just like today. Just like 2004.”

Thus, everyone back to work as before!

Until more Engadget news is committed, here’s Stevens–who thinks he looks more like Racer X in the photo above–with an actual face on display (“I AM THE STIG” is yet another car-racing reference):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110404/aol-confirms-tim-stevens-as-engadget-editor-in-chief/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110403/sb-nation-sacks-aol-in-raid-of-former-engadget-team-for-competing-new-tech-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20110403/sb-nation-sacks-aol-in-raid-of-former-engadget-team-for-competing-new-tech-site/#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:34:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42274

Jim Bankoff, the fomer AOL exec responsible for buying Engadget for the Internet portal, has grabbed eight staffers who had recently left the huge tech site amid tensions, in order to start a new gadget property.

The site–which is still unnamed and will be run by outgoing Engadget Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky–will debut sometime in the fall. It is the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C. sports news site SB Nation, which is helmed by Bankoff.

“The technology we built is applicable beyond sports,” said Bankoff, in an interview with BoomTown tonight. “It was an opportunity to apply our model…into another content category where there was an overlap in demographics.”

That would be fanboys and, well, boys-who-will-be-boys.

UPDATE: In related news, sources said that AOL has zeroed in on Tim Stevens, Engadget’s automotive editor to replace the outgoing Topolsky. The New York-based company had already named Darren Murph as its new managing editor.

Now Stevens will be competing with Topolsky, as well as managing editor Nilay Patel, who will also lead the Engadget tech-exodus (techxodus?). The others include former Engadget staffers Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, Chris Ziegler, Justin Glow and Dan Chilton.

Stern and Ziegler are still on Engadget’s editors site as current employees.

All of the above had left Engadget in a series of departures of late, all due to increasing unhappiness with AOL’s management and content strategy.

Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related, both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled “The AOL Way.”

In his blog post, Topolsky threw another smackadoo at AOL, noting “SB Nation believes in real, independent journalism and the potential for new media to serve as an answer and antidote to big publishing houses and SEO spam–a point we couldn’t be more aligned on.”

New AOL content head Arianna Huffington has shifted toward a more journalistic path, but the talent bleed began before AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.

In a blog post, which is embedded below, Topolsky said the new SB Nation gadget site will be similar in pace and topic, but it will be broader than Engadget.

The move is an interesting one for SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

It had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

In related news, also restarting tomorrow will be a popular gadget podcast that Topolsky, Patel and Paul Miller had done for Engadget.

The New York Times’ David Carr mentioned the new site in the middle of a column earlier tonight.

Here is Topolsky’s blog post on the move, titled “This Is My Next Project”:

As you may have already heard (or read), there’s some activity going on in the world of Joshua Topolsky. Earlier this evening, David Carr published a piece in the New York Times about a new project that I’m embarking on…and I want to just say a few things about it.

Firstly: yes, this is happening. I’ve decided to join the team at SB Nation to build something brand new in the tech space. Now I know it might seem odd to some that I would be partnering with a sports publisher to build a technology news site, but that’s only half the story. This isn’t just about sports, or tech, or lone silos. What we will build together at SB Nation is a new media company–buoyed by the absolutely incredible work SB Nation has already done in publishing–and part of that new media company will be the as-yet-unnamed gadget and technology site that I’ll be working over the next few months to create. When we launch (hopefully in the fall), I will be editor-in-chief of a property that I hope will inform, entertain, and engage fans of technology in whole new ways.

I should say that I wouldn’t want to build something like this alone, and thankfully, I won’t have to. I’ll be joined by some very good friends at this new venture–people like Nilay Patel, for instance.

Of course, the natural question I’m sure a lot of people have is: why SB Nation? The easy answer is that the people at SB Nation share my vision of what publishing looks like in the year 2011. They think that the technology used to create and distribute news on the web (and mobile) is as important as the people who are responsible for the content itself. And that’s not just pillow talk–SB Nation is actively evolving its tools and processes to meet the growing and changing needs of its vast editorial teams and their audience communities. They’re building for the web as it is now. From the perspective of a journalist who also happens to be a huge nerd, that’s a match made in heaven. SBN isn’t just another media company pushing news out–it’s a testbed and lab for some of the newest and most interesting publishing tools I’ve ever seen. In short, I was blown away when I saw what kind of technology they’re using to get news on their front page and engage audiences, and even more blown away when I started talking to them about what could come next.

But beyond the technology (and possibly more important than the technology), there’s another factor here that’s driving my decision. It’s that SB Nation believes in real, independent journalism and the potential for new media to serve as an answer and antidote to big publishing houses and SEO spam–a point we couldn’t be more aligned on. This is a group of people that not only think independent media works, but are reaping the rewards of new publishing done right. As the fastest growing online sports publisher, they’re seen as a source for credible and honest journalism, which is why industry stalwarts like Rob Neyer have recently joined their ranks (ranks which include hundreds of talented sports experts). This isn’t tabloid page grabbing or content farming–it’s news and insight by and for a passionate and informed group of people. And that’s exactly where I want to be.

So, what happens next? We get to work.

In the coming months I’m going to be laser focused on one thing: building the best tech site in the world–and I would love to hear what you guys think the next phase in technology and gadget news should look like. Ping me with ideas, gripes, or even better–come and work here! SB Nation is looking for new developers as we speak, and as we ramp up to launch, we’ll be bringing on lots of talent to work both on the front page and behind the scenes.

I couldn’t be more excited and enthusiastic about what we can build right now, and I can’t wait to share what we’re going to make with the rest of the world. The months ahead are going to be filled with lots of early mornings and sleepless nights, intense debates, triumphs, and trials–and I can’t wait.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110403/sb-nation-sacks-aol-in-raid-of-former-engadget-team-for-competing-new-tech-site/feed/ 32 http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/ http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:23:19 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1613 It isn’t easy being a computer mouse these days. While laptop sales grow and desktop sales decline, more people rely solely on laptop touchpads, many of which offer more functionality than mice. And tablets like Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab shun the mouse altogether.

But before you toss your tethered friend, it’s worth paying homage to the many things this gadget can do. From precisely cropping one of cousin Fred’s fleeting girlfriends out of a family photo to selecting just the right number in a spreadsheet filled with thousands of digits, the mouse is just the right tool for such precision jobs. And sometimes it’s just a lot more comfortable to use for long stretches of work on a laptop.

This week, I tested three computer mice that laptop users will actually want to bring along with them. Their designs make them simple to pack in a bag, use while sitting on the couch or recharge directly from the laptop. I tried Microsoft’s $70 Arc Touch Mouse, Logitech’s $50 Couch Mouse M515 and the $70 Swiftpoint Mouse.

At first glance, Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse looks like nothing more than a flattened mouse. But it’s cleverly designed to bend into an arc that serves as a comfortable rest for the hand. As soon as the Arc Touch Mouse is bent into this shape, its battery turns on. It holds this shape until you flatten it with your hand. When it’s flattened, the mouse turns off to conserve battery. Microsoft claims this battery will last up to six months. The flattened Arc Touch is much easier to pack in a carry-on or to slip into a side pocket than its rotund relatives.

On a Mac, the Arc Touch is limited to basic functions, including use of its touch-sensitive scroll strip that scrolls super quickly when a finger flicks up or down on it. This strip makes a subtle sound like that of a roulette wheel as it scrolls, and a tap on the strip stops the scrolling at a specific location on the screen. I caught myself looking down at this mouse a few times to make sure I wasn’t using a real scroll wheel because the sound effects and feel of the scroll strip are so wheel-like.

On a Windows PC, installing software will give the Arc Touch extra functions. Double tapping the middle of the scroll strip gives it the same function as a regular mouse’s middle click. Or this button can be programmed to open a link in a new tab within Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. This mouse’s tiny USB receiver can be plugged into a laptop almost unnoticed or it will magnetically stick to the base when not in use.

Logitech’s Couch Mouse M515 seems like it was made with me in mind. I often sit on my bed or couch using my laptop, and this mouse has a sealed underside so its sensor doesn’t collect fuzz from fabrics after passing over them several times. I used it on carpets and on a blanket and liked its base, which is designed to glide easily over all types of surfaces. This mouse felt fast and responsive.

To conserve battery, the Couch Mouse is only on when a hand grips it. So if someone stops to watch TV for a while, then accidentally sits on the mouse or the mouse slips between couch cushions, its buttons won’t continue clicking away. An underside switch turns it entirely on or off. The Couch Mouse also uses a USB receiver, and it can be stored inside the mouse for travel.

Like the Couch Mouse, the Swiftpoint Mouse from Swiftpoint Ltd. of New Zealand, is designed for use with laptops in less than ideal working environments. This tiny mouse was designed to operate directly on the laptop wrist rest area or on the laptop touchpad, itself. In fact, the mouse comes with a large, clear sticker labeled “Swiftpoint Parking Accessory” that goes on the laptop so the mouse doesn’t slip off when the laptop’s tilted.

The simple sticker worked well, creating a magnetic square in the center of the wrist rest area that kept the mouse from slipping off when I was leaning back and typing at an angle.

The Swiftpoint Mouse is made for maneuvering directly on a laptop.

A scroll wheel on the right of the Swiftpoint Mouse works by rolling it with one finger or by turning the mouse on its side and moving it up or down, which made for faster scrolling. I found this feature awkward and unnatural at first, but after a lot of use, I grew accustomed to it. Touching the left click button while scrolling up or down zooms in or out, respectively, on any screen.

This mouse is so small that rather than its USB receiver fitting inside or on it for storage, the mouse magnetically attaches onto its USB receiver, resting on it while the receiver is plugged into the laptop. This allows for the Swiftpoint Mouse to recharge its battery; Swiftpoint says 30 seconds of charging will give the mouse an hour’s worth of juice and a 90-minute charge will last two to four weeks, depending on how much you use it. The former proved to be true for me, but I didn’t have enough time to test the latter claim.

When I set this mouse onto the USB receiver for charging, it flashed a rapid green charging indicator light, which slowed after about a minute. Using a rechargeable mobile mouse means not worrying about getting stuck somewhere with dead batteries.

For those looking to have more control in the Windows 7 environment, Microsoft is bringing out in May an $80 model called the Touch Mouse. It will work specifically with Windows 7, using a touch surface that responds to gestures so as to perform tasks like docking, minimizing or maximizing and displaying the desktop.

It’s an awful lot like Apple’s $69 Magic Trackpad, a square surface that came out last summer and enables gestures within the Mac operating system for desktops.

Though these three mice are easy to port around and work well in a variety of work environments, they can’t replace many of the clever gestures built into so many laptops nowadays, especially Macs. But if you’re looking for comfort and function on the go, they do the trick.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110106/remember-the-parrot/ http://allthingsd.com/20110106/remember-the-parrot/#comments Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:30:55 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27687 This is the gadget industry’s week of hope and promise. But if you’re a dark sort, you can invert all that and see nothing but doom.

Me, I’m a peppy, perky guy. Ask anybody! Still, if I were a gloomy Gus, I’d spend some time reminiscing about 2010′s Consumer Electronics Show, where I spent a bunch of time checking out:

• Hearst’s Skiff e-reader
• The Plastic Logic Que e-reader
• Palm’s new line of smartphones
• Keychest, a dizzingly dull rights-management scheme from Disney.

A year later, and they’re all gone: Either officially dead, or just pining for fjords, and very unlikely to perk up.

Not all of this stuff was vaporware, in the technical sense. Palm, at least, really did sell a few of those Palm Pre Pluses before it gave up and sold out to HP.

Still, an 0-for-4 experience like that is enough to make a humble media correspondent want to avoid checking out new technology altogether, and that’s basically what I’m going to do.

I might take a look at the UltraViolet media locker demo, but that’s about it. I’m headed to Las Vegas this morning* with the primary goal of talking to media people, many of whom live in New York, just like I do.

So yes, it might seem a little odd to head across the country to talk to people who live and work a few miles away, but there’s a logic to it. Trust me!**

And if you do want smart, incisive technology coverage, trust the rest of the All Things D team: Walt, Katie, Kara and Ina are on the ground already, and the rest of the gang is monitoring developments from their home bases. It’s good stuff!

*Not just because I enjoy being fashionably late, but because it was many hundreds of dollars cheaper to fly out today than earlier in the week. (And also because I’m old, and at my age every extra day you spend in Las Vegas is a dog year.)

**Totally not a boondoggle. Note the line about saving money on airfare, above.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110106/remember-the-parrot/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110106/comedy-is-not-pretty-and-neither-is-ces/ http://allthingsd.com/20110106/comedy-is-not-pretty-and-neither-is-ces/#comments Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:48:32 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=55202 That Steve Martin is on Twitter is a good idea. That he’s taken to tweeting about the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week is a great one. Who better than Martin to sardonically poke fun at the annual gadget bacchanal that promises to launch game-changing technologies but more often than not ends up showcasing derivative ones?

Below, four of Martin’s bulletins, each one of them a taut little send-up of the conference commanding so much of our attention this week.

• At Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: electronic wired “voice” phone, with “touch” rotary dial surface. Weighs a ton. Wow factor. 3-D.
• At Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: Saw large wooden device that can fling boulders over castle walls. iPad killer.
• At Vegas Electronics Show: Pet “cat” that you feed and will “die” if you don’t. Also needs air, kitty litter. Gives birth and has feelings.
• Report from Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: Saw demonstration of “bow” modular unit that can direct an “arrow” into bale of straw “pad.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110106/comedy-is-not-pretty-and-neither-is-ces/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101222/wakemate-finally-ships-will-you-sleep-better-now-that-its-watching-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20101222/wakemate-finally-ships-will-you-sleep-better-now-that-its-watching-you/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:58:02 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=34268

Let’s get this out of the way right now–WakeMate co-founder Arun Gupta said the start-up is finally shipping all pre-orders of the long-awaited sleep tracking gadget.

Gupta said, “Our goal is to fill all pre-orders by Christmas.”

And I can even verify that the unit exists, since I have been using one for a week now.

So why all the skepticism?

Because WakeMate–which began as an idea for a smart alarm clock back in 2006 and graduated out of the Y Combinator incubator in summer of 2009–has had more than a few delays in delivering product.

To be fair, the tiny company might have bit off a fair amount to chew. WakeMate chose a solution to the sleep-tracking problem that required it to build original hardware, a main Web application, as well as apps for Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry.

Thus, Gupta describes the first version of its product as “really, a public beta.”

And, WakeMate is indeed a little rough around the edges.

For example, the unit itself–with its semi-exposed electronics and shrink-tube wrapper–looks a little more like something hacked together on top of one of the mini DIY Arduino boards than it does a finished consumer electronics device.

But if you have any experience programming microcontrollers, you might appreciate the sort of sophistication that goes into coordinating this sleepy symphony of data gathering.

(Pardon us for a minute, while I get a little über-geeky and explain how the WakeMate wristband works. If this doesn’t concern you, feel free to fast-forward a few paragraphs to get to Gupta’s predictions for WakeMate’s future.)

When you flick the small switch on the WakeMate wristband, just prior to going to sleep, the device connects via Bluetooth to your iOS, Android or BlackBerry device.

You then open the WakeMate app and enter a 20-minute window during which you’d like to be woken.

The app talks to the wristband and transmits that time information. Then, both app and device enter a sort of low-power state. At this stage, the WakeMate becomes little more than a data logger.

There is a fairly standard, solid-state, three-axis accelerometer on board, much like the one that allows you to “shake to shuffle” your iPhone.

WakeMate then spits out three fields of data–X,Y and Z axis readings–40 times per second, which are stored in its flash memory all night.

That means an eight-hour sleep cycle will produce about 3.5 million unique data points, not including metadata.

The onboard clock–for the computer, not for human time-telling–waits until your pre-selected 20-minute window and then figures out, based on frequency and severity of wrist movement, when you are closest to being awake on your own.

When that moment comes, it wakes the Bluetooth connection, connects to the phone, sounds the alarm and starts uploading the data it collected all night directly to the phone and immediately sends the information to WakeMate’s servers.

And, not to worry, if the WakeMate dies mid-sleep, the phone knows to sound the alarm anyway.

It is quite a concert that needs to be played flawlessly for connectivity and battery life to remain intact.

Impressive data tricks aside, the world in which WakeMate was conceived looked a little different from the one into which it has been born, and that means a different set of competitive realities.

When WakeMate left Y Combinator, the world of iOS device-connected movement sensors was limited to the Nike Fit, which links running performance via a shoe-attached device.

It was also a world without Fitbit, another popular activity and health tracker.

And, unlike now, there were no sleep apps claiming to do what WakeMate does.

But now, even with all the new rivals, Gupta believes WakeMate still has the edge.

He explained: “In the early days of sleep-tracking studies, doctors decided to monitor non-dominant wrist movement as part of the data collected to determine sleep state. That continues today, so there is a ton of research that has been collected over the years on correlating wrist movement with sleep cycle.”

He added that WakeMate has built an algorithm that fits the data collected by its wristband to these medically relevant sleep-cycle models and spits out graphs mapping your sleep states, your waking moments and even times when you were in deepest sleep.

“All the competing tools out there aren’t at all based on any kind of accepted research–no one is studying pillow movement or waistband movement or anything,” Gupta said. “But we know how you are sleeping when you move your wrist.”

The major questions facing WakeMate as a company revolve around what one might expect from a start-up with such a complex beta product.

Gupta said it will focus on innovating and revising its wristband, as well as doing more interesting things with the data it will collect.

“On the macro level, we’re really doing the biggest sleep study that has ever been done,” he said. “We’ll be able to tell you how people are sleeping in San Francisco versus New York, based on seasons and all kinds of things.”

Gupta added that while he doesn’t know what the next step is, WakeMate is prototyping ideas where it could correlate sleep data with other metrics about health, occupation and stress to provide a more complete tool set.

But as more companies work on the problem of digitizing the analog data of human life, the harder questions to answer are really in front of the consumer.

Gupta said he doesn’t know what a world would look like if a health insurance company could access your sleep data, or when information about your apparent insomnia is grabbed by some hacker.

What WakeMate hopes for, he said, is a world where more people have access to the kind of medical data collection that has previously only been collectable by trained technicians in controlled settings.

But more data is better, as far as WakeMate is concerned–it is hoping that its vision puts its products at the center of an all-day biometric data collection future.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101222/wakemate-finally-ships-will-you-sleep-better-now-that-its-watching-you/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101207/cellphone-history-with-greg-harper/ http://allthingsd.com/20101207/cellphone-history-with-greg-harper/#comments Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:56:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26686 Gadget freak Greg Harper (official title: President of Harpervision and co-founder of Gadgetoff) dropped by D: Dive Into Mobile to show off…gadgets, of course.

Not the stuff you’re used to seeing from the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft, but the kind of odd products you have to look awfully hard to find. And the kind of stuff you might think very hard about before using. Or not!

This is definitely one that’s better to show, not tell, so take a look at the assorted what-the-heck-is-that stuff that Harper brings to the stage. And check out the All Things D archives for a trip down gadget memory lane.

And in case you wanted to garner a few extra geek points, here is Harper’s list of gadgets, starting with the historical time line and ending up with his mobile gadgets of the moment.

1985: Motorola Dyna Tac “Gordon Gekko Phone”

1992: HP 95/LXZ Viking Express
1993: Bell South/IBM Simon ($900)

1995: Motorola Marco Radiomail ($1400)
1996: Motorola Page Writer/Star Tac ($3000)/Nokia 9000
1997: Original Blackberry
1998: Iridium Satellite Phone
1999: Nokia 7110 (Matrix Phone)/Mobile Web
2000: Samsung Uproar/Handspring Visor/Data
2001: Palm-Kyocera smart phone/ Erricson Bluetooth headset
2002: Camera phone/Tmobile sidekick/Microsoft Windows 3 Smartphone
2003: Treo 600
2004: Razr

2006: EVDO USB 720
2007: iPhone

2009: Android

Current Gadgets:

iPhone ibottleopener case

Square credit card reader

Parrot AR drone

PLX car interface

Zeal GPS heads up goggles

Zephry HxM bluetooth heart rate monitor

Verizon LTE 4G modem PanTech UML290

OverBoard Waterproof iPhone case with Waterbuoy miniature flotation device

Cellphone flask

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101207/cellphone-history-with-greg-harper/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101203/back-in-the-day-with-woz-a-sneak-peek-inside-the-new-and-improved-computer-history-museum/ http://allthingsd.com/20101203/back-in-the-day-with-woz-a-sneak-peek-inside-the-new-and-improved-computer-history-museum/#comments Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:51:56 +0000 Drake Martinet http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33419

What could be better than listening to legendary Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak wax poetic about his first and favorite gadget–which turns out to be a transistor radio?

Well, doing it inside the newly renovated Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., certainly raises the geek factor to 10.

The museum has spent the last five years planning and installing “Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing” and will open the doors to the public on January 10, 2011. That’s “011011,” Woz reminded the small crowd of journalists invited for an early tour of the new Silicon Valley facility.

The museum has more than doubled its public space to accommodate the new exhibit, which includes an impressive collection of the rare, revolutionary and ridiculous–mostly relating to computing from the 1950s onward.

The whole shebang was largely funded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose name features prominently in the signage.

Woz led a tour that highlighted some of the machines that meant most to him. He recounted hours spent at the IBM Model 026 punch card machine, and fawned over a Honeywell Kitchen Computer.

That device was originally sold by Neiman Marcus, complete with mod ’60s styling and bearing the “Mad Men”-esque slogan: “If only she could cook as well as the Honeywell computes.”

Woz said it was the machine that inspired him to believe computers could be attractive things for the home.

After a long meander through many, many more Woz-ly musings, the tour ended at the Homebrew Computer Club exhibit, complete with an Apple 1–signed by Woz–basically identical to the one that recently sold at Christie’s of London for $210,000. (Woz flew there and signed that one too.)

Once open, the expanded museum promises to be the perfect spot to take that über-geeky date, or just wander and reflect amidst hundreds of miles of wire and mountains of transistors.

No word on whether Woz will also be on permanent display.

He seemed to enjoy it, but you can judge for yourself by checking out our highlight video reel from the tour, complete with an interview about Woz’s first and favorite gadget, the coming robopocalypse and the iPhone as a future historical artifact.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101203/back-in-the-day-with-woz-a-sneak-peek-inside-the-new-and-improved-computer-history-museum/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101019/atd-welcomes-ina-fried-as-our-new-mobile-reporter/ http://allthingsd.com/20101019/atd-welcomes-ina-fried-as-our-new-mobile-reporter/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:59:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35888

Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

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