Stage

And the winner is...

Although there were worthy competitors in the afternoon, the winner of the CEA i-stage event here in Las Vegas was Boxee, the "open, connected, social media center." (Though I did talk to a venture capital guy who said he was following my pick, Occipital.) I suspect that Boxee won through sheer slickness of interface, defined value proposition, and possibly presentation value. It's a good product, there's no doubt. Boxee walks away with the $50,000 and the coveted CES booth space, and we'll probably try to keep tabs on it on … Read more

It's lunchtime now and we've seen the first half of the i-stage presenters. It's been interesting and occasionally contentious, with a few notable standouts. First thing in the morning we saw a voice-activated remote control (Amulet) that manages Windows Media Center (cool, but with some minor hiccups that belie the difficulty of voice-recognition technology) and a portable, wireless video-camera system from Avaak that comes paired with an online streaming service. And a company called Frontline showed off the future of the treadmill--an Internet-connected exercise device that lets you virtually run through various locations, like the route of … Read more

I'm in Las Vegas right now, because tomorrow I'm hosting the i-stage event at the Consumer Electronics Association's Industry Forum event. By "hosting," I mean that I am sort of the Ryan Seacrest of the event: Kevin Kelly of Wired, Jeff Pulver, and Ryan Block are the judges. It's a pretty interesting and cool-sounding contest, actually: It deals with software, hardware, and services, and the winner gets $50,000 and a free booth at CES. And while the organizers assure me they've got a really big check for the winner, I think it … Read more

Donald and Jasmine tease the iPod Nano vs. Microsoft Zune Prizefight and discuss a variety of portable audio accouterments, including a pair of headphones, a portable iPhone-compatible speaker, and the best MP3 players for audiobooks.

Also, hear some gab on the new Zune software, and find out who won last week's contest.

Listen now: Download today's podcast… Read more

So you love Rock Band 2, but somehow when you're playing, the reality that you're a normal person with a normal job and not a rich rock star is still able to annoyingly creep in.

Now, you could go out and learn how to play a real musical instrument and start your own band. However, it would probably fail to gather any of that widespread popularity you're yearning for, eventually leading to your untimely, but not surprising drug-induced death. Fret not, though, because there is an alternative.

Stage Kit from Performance Designed Products (PDP), attempts to enhance … Read more

Like Slinkies and Silly Putty originating from flubbed technology, some of the cooler Web services have originated from tech originally intended for government agencies.

BigStage is definitely one of those services. It uses three photos of your face to map your features onto a virtual head using technology developed for the CIA. Your magic head is rendered into various scenes from popular movies, television shows, and digital shorts--including clips from The A-Team. You can then send those clips to your friends, parents, and relatives to be thoroughly confused and/or entertained by your shenanigans.

The service was originally demoed at both CES … Read more

I wrote about OurStage a couple weeks ago: it's a battle-of-the-bands site that's actually worth looking at, as it requires no up-front payments to participate, seems very hard to "game" by stuffing the ballot box for your own or your friend's bands, and offers prizes of actual value.

On Wednesday, the company signed a deal with concert giant Live Nation, which owns many top concert venues in the U.S. and has been signing so-called comprehensive record-plus-touring ("360") deals with acts such as Madonna and Nickelback. Under the terms of the deal, Live … Read more

If you're a performance-minded audiophile who thinks aesthetics are of little or no importance to equipment, consider AKG's newest high-end headphones. The Austrian company has just announced the successor to its highly rated K 701 model--which Crave UK photographed in excruciating detail just last week--but the main differences in the new version seem largely cosmetic.

The K 702, which Steve Guttenberg said will be released in August, will come in a "Stage Blue" as opposed to its predecessor's white finish, according to Audio Junkies. The company says the reason behind the change is more than … Read more

When I put together a small comparison test of video services earlier this year, an overwhelming number of people got on me about not including Stage6, a side project of the people behind the popular DivX codec to showcase what their technology was capable of. Shortly thereafter, Stage6 shut its doors in a rather dramatic fashion--giving users mere days to find somewhere else to host their high-resolution videos.

That was in February though, and since then a group of half a dozen developers has put together their own solution, called Vreel. Originally planned to launch back in March, it … Read more