This week’s annual Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld San Francisco has produced an overwheming surfeit of interesting gadget-related news. A roundup of stories I’m following:
- DirecTV announced that it plans to carry 100 national HD services this year. (Engadget asks, “There are 100 HD Channels?“)
- TiVo2Go finally comes to the Mac. It allows you to transfer TV shows from your TiVo to your computer. (But it will set you back $100 for the Roxio software that makes it possible.)
- Comcast demonstrated its DVR running TiVo’s software (Here are pictures of the interface.)
- Apple finally unveiled the much-anticipated, not-yet-final iPhone. (David Pogue played with one for an hour and answered the most important question: Yes, it smudges easily but can be cleaned with a shirt sleeve).
- In a bid to resolve the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray, LG revealed a player that plays both formats. Meanwhile, Warner announced a hybrid disc called “Total Hi Def,” which includes both formats on one disc thereby playing on either type of player. (In similar news, the American Booksellers Association announced that all new books must be published in two different but equally valid sizes. In response, the Bookshelvers Association announced that all future bookcases will be engineered to snuggly fit both sized volumes at the same time.)