Vegas gadget show gets smaller

Even amid the flash and sizzle of the world's premier showcase for consumer electronics, the reality of the economic recession will be hard to ignore.

With shoppers in a funk and companies scaling back, the annual Consumer Electronics Show extravaganza in Las Vegas this week is likely to be subdued, with fewer manufacturers, retailers and people expected in attendance.

The focus is likely to be on smaller, more connected and greener devices that can help consumers save on bills. That is a change from years past, when companies trafficked in excess, offering items such as massive 150-inch TVs that were beyond the financial reach of most consumers.

"In tough times, the emphasis maybe shifts from cool and neat to how do you make things work better," said NPD analyst Stephen Baker.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which hosts CES, estimates that 130,000 people will attend, down from 141,00 last year. Hotel rooms in Las Vegas, usually scarce at this time of the year, can still be found.

The show's 2,700 exhibitors will be spread over 1.7 million square feet, a smaller footprint than last year's 3,000 exhibitors.

The tone will be different as well, with many tech companies focused on sealing sales rather than just making showy exhibits on the convention floor.

"A lot of companies are asking us for meeting rooms that haven't done so in the past," said Jason Oxman of the Consumer Electronics Association. "Companies are looking to do business at the show that they would otherwise do with individual customer visits."

Kumu Puri, a senior executive with Accenture Ltd's consumer technology practice, expects the focus to be on areas showing strength, such as mobile devices, video games and personal navigation systems.

"Those are the categories that really continue to appeal to the consumer ... they're at price points that are a little bit more manageable," said Puri.

Some things will stay the same: attendees will be treated to a cast of speakers, including Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Cisco Systems Inc CEO John Chambers, Sony Corp CEO Howard Stringer, Intel Corp Chairman Craig Barrett and Ford Motor Co CEO Alan Mulally.

SMALLER, CONNECTED AND CONVERGED

CES is likely to be awash in small, $300 to $400 laptops known as netbooks, which are gaining popularity, even as overall PC sales stall. IDC expects netbook unit shipments to surge 85 percent to 21.5 million in 2009.

Nearly every PC maker except Apple Inc has thrown its hat into the netbook space, hoping that volume sales will make up for lower margins. Analysts expect to see even cheaper netbooks emerge for 2009, possibly below $200.

So far, according to DisplaySearch, Taiwan's Acer Inc and Asustek Computer Inc dominate the netbook market, as Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc struggle to catch up. Some expect Sony to unveil a netbook at CES.

As always, TVs will be a major focus and, while there will likely be huge models on display, expect to see more organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens that are thinner, more energy efficient and have superior picture quality than liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma sets.

TVs will get more connected, too. Yahoo Inc is slated to announce deals with equipment makers that executive Patrick Barry said would bring the Internet to the TV "without destroying the TV experience."

There is also plenty of buzz around 3-D, which is gaining popularity at the Cineplex, but has yet to move into the living room. Fox Sports will show college football's championship game in 3-D at a Sony-sponsored event at CES on January 8.

Many companies, including graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp, will be flogging competing technologies as they struggle to get a toehold in the emerging 3-D industry.

In the wireless sector, CES will be littered with competing touch-screen phones. Some hotly anticipated news is a new operating system from Palm Inc, which has been hurt by Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd's BlackBerry. A new device will come later in the year.

Cisco also plans to unveil a wireless home audio system linked to an online media library called Media Hub, and a software service called Eos that helps media companies create social networking sites.

And there will be plenty of companies hawking green technology, such as Monster Cable, whose GreenPower products promise to eliminate energy drain when a PC is turned off.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew, Franklin Paul, Ritsuko Ando and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

Soonr cloud-computing app gets down to business

If you'd like to use your iPhone to sync up more than just contacts, calendars, and e-mails between your mobile device and your computer, Soonr thinks it has the app for you. The company's self-titled iPhone app makes files stored on your computer accessible via your iPhone, allowing you to view, comment, and print documents when you're on the go.

Soonr's iPhone app is now available from the App Store.

According to Soonr, the application backs up files—Soonr supports 30 file types—in a "personal cloud" that you can access from your phone. The developer says that Soonr automatically maintains the latest versions of these documents, saving you the hassle of having to upload files every time you change them.

What can you do with these documents once they're uploaded? Soonr displays presentations, spreadsheets, and text files right on the iPhone, allowing you to zoom and scroll with the customary touchscreen finger gestures. You can also view thumbnail previews of pages within a file or look at documents in landscape view as well as portrait.

A Dashboard screen within the iPhone app shows you what files are available, recently added, or changed since your last secure log-on. Soonr also touts its app as a collaboration tool—you can share documents with the tap of a button. You're also able to comment on documents as well as read the comments of your collaborators.

Finally, there's a print command, allow you to print up documents directly from the iPhone, even to a remote printer you've set up. As an example, Soonr says, you would be able to access a quarterly report from your iPhone while you're at the airport and send it to your boss's printer.

The company has posted a demonstration video for Soonr at YouTube.

The App Store version of Soonr is free. The company also plans to offer it as a richly-featured white label service through mobile operators and software-as-a-service providers. In Denmark, for example, TeliaSonera Denmark offers a version of Soonr called Sky Files; Soonr says it's the fourth-most downloaded business app in the Danish App Store. Look for additional partners to join forces with Soonr in 2009.

China targets big websites in Internet crackdown

China has launched a crackdown against major websites that officials accused of threatening morals by spreading pornography and vulgarity, including the dominant search engines Google and Baidu.

China's Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies announced the campaign at a meeting on Monday, state television reported, showing officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office.

The meeting "decided to launch a nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the Internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people," the report said.

The 19 Internet operators and websites named had failed to swiftly cut "vulgar" content and had not heeded warnings from censors, it said.

Baidu dominates the Chinese web search and advertising market with an estimated two-thirds of the audience. Google Inc, the global market leader, is a distant number two in China.

China's ruling Communist Party is wary of threats to its grip on information and has launched many such censorship efforts before, targeting pornography, political criticism and web scams. But officials flagged tougher steps this time.

SENSITIVE ANNIVERSARIES

The campaign also coincides with Communist Party efforts to stifle dissent and protest as the economy slows and as China enters a year of sensitive anniversaries, especially the 20th year since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989.

"Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations," said Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, who chaired the meeting, according to a report on an official news website ( http://www.china.com.cn ).

"They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet."

The Information Office is the government face of the Party's propaganda and censorship machine.

Cai told officials to "fully grasp the gravity and threat of the vulgar current infesting the Internet" and said law-breakers face "stern punishment."

Despite China's rings of censorship, websites and especially blogs have become sometimes racy magnets for the country's nearly 300 million registered Internet users, many in their teens.

The official China Daily reported last month that Shanghai police detained a local woman who became an online sensation after posting a video of herself having sex.

The Financial Times reported on Monday that the Chinese government is arming censors with more advanced filtering software to catch banned content

DataCore SMB SAN Software Solutions for Server Virtualization Environments

DataCore Software has announced an expanded line of SAN software starter packages priced for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs). The high cost and complexity of traditional SAN storage required to support virtual servers and desktops typically puts it out of reach for many SMBs. DataCore's new business continuity solutions provide true auto failover/failback high-availability and fault tolerance. These new packages provide automated storage protection to ensure business uptime, while also significantly lowering the cost and complexity barriers of SAN storage for Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix, Virtual Iron, Parallels, VMware and other server and desktop virtualization environments.

The new software packages, with entry prices starting at under $2,000 per server, include thin provisioning, data migration technology, storage performance caching software, snapshots for fast disk backups, remote site disaster recovery replication and DataCore's High Availability (HA) data protection. In virtual server and desktop environments, DataCore's HA provides automation (true failover/failback recovery), manufacturer independence (storage and server brands), network connectivity (iSCSI or FC, or both) and fault tolerance (deployed in thousands of systems worldwide).

"DataCore makes cost avoidance a reality," continued Teixeira. "The software leverages existing storage investments, maximizes utilization and runs on virtually any Intel/AMD hardware platform or, for maximum cost avoidance, even on a VM itself. It is a 'renewable resource" within SMBs providing years of return on investment, because unlike throw away hardware-based solutions, it can be expanded and upgraded to meet growth needs and stay on top of the rapid pace of changes in IT.

Wipro Develops Integrated Police Information System Using SOA

Wipro Infotech has developed an integrated Police Information System, an end-to-end online application software which covers activities related to the day-to-day functioning of police departments, including the back-end administrative processes of general administration, finance and stores. The processes have been automated to ease the tasks of administration and record keeping, thereby bringing in operational efficiency throughout the police department.

The application has been developed on a flexible software oriented architecture (SOA) that allows it to be used in both centralized and de-centralized deployment modes. This architecture enables each police station to function independently and at the same time allows for data to flow to the divisional and HQ levels at regular intervals, thereby achieving the benefits of a centralized system. The application also has a citizen interface through which complaints can be raised and the status of an already lodged FIR can be tracked. The user interface can display content both in English and the local language.

The application has several operational modules that will maintain records within the police stations and other police bodies pertaining to various activities of the police in areas of crime, law and order, wireless, traffic, intelligence and counter intelligence. Each module has the search function to retrieve relevant data. A standard-based information exchange gateway will make available the required crime and criminal information for access by other states. The information exchange will also retrieve the required information from other states, enabling a sharing of crime and criminal information across the country.