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Tech Buzz

Laptop TV without booting up

By wire services
Published July 19, 2004

Toshiba Corp. plans to announce a new laptop model that allows users to watch TV on it without having to boot up the computer's Windows operating system, the first in what analysts say will be a new crop of multimedia notebooks to come.

Called Qosmio (koss-me-oh), it will be Toshiba's first laptop to fully integrate audio and video features, including a bright, near TV-quality display, DVD drive, TV tuner and enhanced speakers. A user could click on the TV with the laptop's remote control or watch a DVD movie without having to go through the all-too-familiar process of starting the accompanying Windows Media Center operating system.

If users want to pause live TV or record TV shows onto the 80-gigabyte hard disk, however, they'll need to do so with the Windows software.

A 15-inch model will be available in August. The price has yet to be determined but likely will be between $2,499 and $2,599, said Terry Cronin, a product management director at Toshiba. Wide-screen models are planned later.

In recent years, a growing number of desktop computers and displays have adopted more multimedia and TV-watching capabilities, and some laptops already allow for DVD movie playing without booting up.

But Toshiba's Qosmio promises to be the first with a built-in, no-waiting TV mode and "arguably the best laptop display currently on the market," said Rob Enderle, an independent industry analyst with the Enderle Group. "They've just moved the bar and are further defining this multimedia class of products."

Video games usually play out in spaceships, dungeons, battlefields or athletic fields. But farm fields?

John Deere American Farmer is a new computer game that lets players sow digital crops, milk computerized livestock and raise virtual barns.

It's the first game licensed by Deere & Co. of Moline, Ill., makers of the green-and-yellow tractors and farm equipment.

A Deere & Co. spokesman said the game provides a unique way to learn more about the importance of agriculture in the U.S. economy.

The $20 title simulates market prices, weather, farm hands - and the occasional plague.

There are 11 modes of play, including one where you have to raise 10,000 hogs. In "Fixer-upper" mode, you have to dig your way out of $200,000 in debt and repair a dilapidated farm within five years.

"It's the most authentic farming experience available besides working the fields yourself," said Paul Rinde, chief executive of Destineer, the game's publisher.

The Web was invented so scientists and academics around the world could easily share information from the comfort of their own computers. More than a decade later, millions of people continue to e-mail one another links to Web pages about everything from the weather to vintage Wonder Woman memorabilia. But a program called Pluck aims to make sharing Web information even easier.

With one click, users of Pluck can save Web bookmarks into an online folder or e-mail them to others. Fellow Pluck users can dip into the shared folder of links to see all the gathered information, saving time and e-mail traffic for co-workers collaborating on research for a company project or for couples furniture shopping for a new house.

Pluck users can add comments or notes about the Web pages they share. As others add bookmarks, the Pluck software updates the folder so all the connected users can see all the same links. The program will alert you to updates at favorite news sites and Web logs.

Pluck is free and works with Windows 2000 and XP and with Internet Explorer 6.0 and later. The program, still in the testing stage, can be found at www.pluck.com

Online shoppers may want to take note of Pluck's powerful search-and-sort feature: It neatly displays results from Amazon, eBay and Google in one pane of the Web browser, meaning you can spend less time wading through search results and more time shopping.

Digital picture frames have been around for a while. But a new version from PhotoVu, the PV1910, taps into your wireless network for pictures to display on its 19-inch LCD screen.

Once you have configured the frame within your network, you can direct it to specific files in your computer and it will draw the pictures in those files through the wireless connection and display them. No more memory limitations: If a picture is on your computer, it can be on the wall.

The PV1910 can be controlled by any computer running Windows, Macintosh, Linux or Unix. No special software is needed, but the computer has to be turned on for the frame to work.

The software that controls the frame is reached through your Internet browser. The PhotoVu software lets you schedule show times for the frame and determine the order in which the photos are shown, the delay between pictures, the background colors and so on.

The PV1910 is compatible with virtually all digital cameras and can display images up to 12 megapixels in size. It is available for $1,200 at www.photovu.com

The frame can be customized with various styles of wood molding and matting at the PhotoVu site.

It took nearly three months longer than Apple Computer Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs predicted, but Apple's iTunes Music Store has sold its 100-millionth song, the company said last week.

When the market-leading music download store launched April 28, 2003, a confident Jobs forecast that iTunes would sell 100-million songs within a year. However, the service reported selling about 70-million songs by the time it reached its first anniversary.

In a statement, Jobs called the sales mark a "historic milestone." Apple also marked the occasion with a contest, awarding the buyer of the 100-millionth song - a Kansas man - a free Apple computer, an iPod digital music player and 10,000 free downloads.

Downloads purchased from iTunes customers in the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Germany were used to calculate total sales, but the company excluded downloads given away as part of iTunes promotions, Apple spokeswoman Liz Einbinder said.

[Last modified July 16, 2004, 10:43:14]