| Get smart: a guide to spiffy phones
Apple Inc.'s iPhone has shaken up the "smart phone" business and set other manufacturers scrambling to add features and make it easier to get e-mail, surf the Web and enjoy music and movies on a cell phone. Prices also have come down to the point where some of these feature-packed models cost little more than "dumb" phones. Sizes have come down too - gone are the days when carrying a smart phone was a workout. Remember, though, that you need a data plan to get the most out of a smart phone, which usually adds about $20 to the monthly cost. (Prices below are with two-year carrier contracts unless noted.) The top contenders of this holiday season (and a few to avoid): Apple iPhone (AT&T) This is the star of the field, despite a number of shortcomings.
Springs eternal
It is late and I am very tired the night I check into Bedford Springs Resort in south central Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley. But as the evening unfolds, I will get very little sleep.
It isn't that my $249 bedroom for the night is not comfortable. The mile-high bed's thick mattress and cloud-soft bedding are cushy -- once I manage to scale them without the help of a step-stool.
It isn't that the hallways are not quiet. As I walk them in the wee hours of the night, I am by myself, although not really alone.
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TV moves to digital age
Americans can watch television shows on anything from a computer to an iPod these days, but media companies and advertisers have yet to figure out how best to take advantage of all the new ways to reach audiences. So suggested a panel of experts from Google <GOOG.O>, Dow Jones & Co <DJ.N>, NBC Universal and TNS Media Research at a conference in New York on Tuesday, which coincided with the first work stoppage by TV and movie screenwriters in 20 years. At the heart of the work stoppage is the question of how screenwriters should be compensated in an era of burgeoning digital technologies, such as Internet and hand-held wireless devices, that are changing the face of entertainment. Those changes were the central topic of conversation during the hour-long panel session -- part of the adtech conference in New York -- although nobody mentioned the strike itself.
Alienware Announces Trade-In Program
Dell's boutique PC arm, Alienware, has announced a trade-in program to exchange used electronics gear for new PCs. The move follows similar trade-in programs already in place at companies like Toshiba. Users can exchange old PCs, monitors, MP3 players, phones, or PDAs for credit that can be used toward new Alienware gear by visiting the Alienware's Web site for more information, or calling 1-800-ALIENWARE (254-3692). If an exchange is approved, users can print out a shipping label to send in the old item. I tried to "exchange" two items: an iPod nano 8 GB, and a 2.0-GHz Core Duo white-box PC with a 150-Gbyte hard drive and a gigabyte of memory. For some reason, the Web site repeatedly glitched on pricing the nano (or several other iPods) and gave me an estimate of $128.10 for the Core Duo machine.
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