gadgets

CES 2008: Previewing the future

By Michael V. Copeland

LAS VEGAS - Solar-powered Bluetooth headsets, radio-controlled beer coolers, a $2,000 iPod dock, and it's hard to tell whether it's day or night. Welcome to the Consumer Electronics Show, 2008 version.

While the show doesn't kick-off officially until Sunday evening with Bill Gates' annual keynote speech, the press on Saturday got an advance look at what the world's largest electronics trade show has to offer over the MORE

How to cash in your old cell phone

By Michal Lev-Ram

Shiny new cell phones might make for great stocking stuffers, but for every new mobile device purchased there's an old phone that needs to be recycled. If you're prone to hiding last year's model in a desk drawer or, even worse, throwing it in the trash (a major environmental no-no), think again. This holiday season, you might consider swapping it for some cash.

You won't make much, but companies MORE

Closed is the new open

By Josh Quittner

One of the rallying cries of the Web 2.0 movement, during its sensational rise over the past five years, is openness. Open systems (Linux, Wikipedia, any phone you can hack from T-Mobile) are good. Closed systems (Windows, The Wall Street Journal Online, any locked-down cell phone you buy from Verizon) are bad.

The basic idea is that the Web itself, that Shiva of the business world, is built MORE

Wireless photo-sharing

By Josh Quittner

Apple is the king of simplicity. A huge amount of engineering and thought goes into making every aspect of every product -- from how the thing works, to how it's packaged -- simple. One could argue that's Steve Jobs's greatest gift: taking the enormous complexity out of technology, and making a tool work as it should.

Luckily, lots of companies are finally starting to get this. A smart, new MORE

New WiFi camera technology a boon for photo-sharing sites

By Michal Lev-Ram

At a friend's wedding back in 2004, Yuval Koren and fellow guests snapped dozens of photos of the special day. They promised to share their pictures, but months later Koren realized he still hadn't seen any of them.

That got the former Cisco Systems engineer thinking — what good are digital cameras if many of the pictures they take remain imprisoned on memory cards? Convinced that consumers would pay MORE

Phonemakers roll out the touchscreens

By Michal Lev-Ram

Back when the iPhone launched, phonemakers like Motorola were playing it cool, saying they weren't all that excited about the prospects of touchscreen devices in the United States.

"Historically, carriers and subscribers have been resistant to touchscreens," Rob Shaddock, chief technology officer of Motorola's (MOT) mobile devices unit, told CNNMoney.com last March.

Fast forward a few months, and touchscreen phones by LG, HTC and Nokia (NOK) are popping up all MORE

How to get the Blackberry Facebook app to work

Blackberrys may be the most popular smartphone in corporations - which is presenting a problem for some business people trying to download and use the new Facebook application. For security reasons, some big companies tend to restrict employees' Web access on their Blackberry browsers. That appears to be what's thwarting many Blackberry users who have downloaded the new Facebook application, but can't use it.

The fix is easy - MORE

Facebook's Blackberry problem

By Josh Quittner

If this is Facebook Mobile, perhaps the company ought to go back to Facebook Static. Many users who downloaded a new application released yesterday for popular Blackberry smartphones have yet to get it running.

Clearly, some users have gotten it to work. But many others say the application simply doesn't connect to Facebook's social networking service. The rallying point for criticism, ironically, is on Facebook itself, where members have MORE