Smart phones, free stuff and widgets
The giant Consumer Electronics Show officially kicked off Thursday with a keynote speech by the head of an automaker touting interactive gadgets for drivers. But the tech confab continued to be centered on popular personal electronics such as smart phones and TVs connected to the Internet.
Here is a sampling of blog postings by the Los Angeles Times technology staff.
TomTom
What’s the best way to compete with free? Start offering some perks for free.
GPS manufacturer TomTom, faced with pressure from Google Maps, plans to give away features for which it now charges a fee. Free downloads of updated map and traffic data will be available for select devices in the second quarter of this year.
Newer GPS units may qualify for the free-update model, including the small consumer-entry TomTom Ease, which was announced Wednesday.
-- Mark Milian
Palm Pre
Last year at CES, Palm introduced the Pre cellphone exclusively on Sprint. This year, Palm unveiled two new devices for Verizon Wireless. The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be available to Verizon subscribers Jan. 25.
The new Pre has 16 gigabytes, simplified navigation and an inductive back cover for easier use of Palm’s Touchstone charging station. The new Pixi has Wi-Fi and more back cover color choices.
The Verizon phones will be able to serve as mobile hot spots for up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Both models will come loaded with VZ Navigator, which provides audible turn-by-turn directions.
No word yet on pricing.
Palm also unveiled 3-D gaming, the advent of Flash and video recording, editing and sharing for Pre and Pixi. Among the titles available in the U.S. today are EA’s Need for Speed Undercover, Sims 3, Scrabble and Monopoly and Gameloft’s Asphalt 5: Elite Racing and Let’s Golf.
-- Michelle Maltais
Yahoo widgets
Connected TVs are again one of the main stories at the Consumer Electronics Show, increasing the pace significantly from last year’s gingerly steps. Yet one of the stars of the 2009 show, Yahoo’s Connected TV initiative, has been outshone by the likes of Vudu and DivX.
But Yahoo executives insist that they haven’t lost momentum. On Thursday, the company announced several new Connected TV partners -- Chinese consumer-electronics manufacturer Hisense, display maker ViewSonic and chip makers MIPS Technologies and Sigma Designs -- and an expanded relationship with Vizio. These deals and coming deployments in Blu-ray players and set-top boxes will give Yahoo’s Connected TV a firm foothold in the consumer-electronics industry, spokesman Cory Pforzheimer said.
Pforzheimer also said the four major partners Yahoo announced last year -- Sony, Samsung, LG and Vizio -- will put Connected TV widgets on more models this year. Also expected is a significant expansion in the number of TV widgets, or applications that deliver audio, video and other content from the Web to the TV screen. (Examples include photos from Flickr, microblog posts from Twitter and online video from DailyMotion.)
Yahoo has approved only about two dozen of the roughly 4,000 widgets that have been proposed, but Pforzheimer said the pace should accelerate significantly. That’s because the company is making its software development kit for the widgets widely available for the first time. It’s a significant step toward an open platform, although Yahoo and TV makers will still hold veto power over new widgets.
Brightcove separately announced that it would support Yahoo’s Connected TV platform, making it easier for its customers -- more than 900 media publishers -- to create widgets.
The first wave of Brightcove users to do so includes Time Inc., TheStreet.com, Wine Spectator, Slate and the Hollywood Reporter.
-- Jon Healey
