digital

Digital TV: It's a wasteland all right

Digital TV will bring a new world of entertainment to consumers and generate a big honking pile of electronic waste.

Roughly 80 million analog TVs will get heaved out in 2008 and 2009, according to John Shegerian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers (ER), one of the largest e-waste recyclers in the U.S., and someone is going to have to dispose of those old TVs properly. The glass in the tube consists of about 22 percent lead.

Even without the digital TV mandate (which kicks in on February 17, 2009), the e-recycling business is booming. Roughly 65 million pounds of e-waste … Read more

Pocket 10 megapixels for $179.99 shipped

A digital-SLR is all well and good for nature photography, family portraits, and other high-falutin' shootin', but sometimes you just want a camera you can slip into your pocket. The Casio Exilim EX-Z1050 measures a scant 0.8 inches thick but comes stuffed with features. It's available from CircuitCity for $179.99 with free shipping.

I've owned four Exilims over the years (only one of which was replaced due to breakage), and I've always been pleased with their slim designs, easy operation, and venerable Best Shot modes (which take the guesswork out of camera settings for photography … Read more

Shoot to kill with the Canon Digital Rebel XT digital SLR, $382

Been waiting to pull the trigger on a digital-SLR camera? Wait no more: Dell has the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT--by all accounts a fantastic model--for $382. Considering that this baby sold for upwards of $900 when it debuted a couple years ago, it's pretty much a steal at that price.

Specs include an 8-megapixel sensor, 7-point auto-focus, and loads of fancy photographic features that, quite frankly, I don't pretend to understand. I can tell you that I bought an original Digital Rebel several years back, and I absolutely lurve it. (I won't, however, tell … Read more

Facebook's Zuckerberg apologizes, allows users to turn off Beacon

Today on the Facebook Blog, Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for the mistakes Facebook made in rolling out Beacon, and announces that the company is "releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely."

This is a clear victory for consumer backlash and protests. MoveOn.org spokesman Adam Green responds to today's development:

"Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate with each other and organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy. The big question is: Will corporate advertisers get to write the rules of the Internet or will these new social networks protect our basic … Read more

Simplify Media: Listen to your entire music collection on your iPhone

Simplify Media--a free desktop application for Windows or Mac OS X that lets you stream your digital music or your friends' from iTunes or Winamp (Simplify Media covered previously)--today released a new version of its software that is developed to run on the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch.

Rather than function as a conventional iPhone app, (i.e. a Web app built for Safari), the new program is standalone software that requires a "jailbroken" iPhone to work.

The ability to listen to your entire music collection or your friends' anywhere your iPhone or iPod Touch has … Read more

Photo slide shows on DVD

Along with "What's the best free video-editing software?" one of the most frequent questions I receive from CNET Download.com users is, "How can I put my photos on a DVD that anyone can watch?" For everyone whom I wasn't able to respond to personally, here's a quick overview.

First off, the most important issue is the DVD player for which you're creating the slide show. Many DVD players nowadays don't need a specially formatted disc to view digital pictures, and some have built-in slide-show features for viewing JPEG images. The … Read more

Hands-on with the Pure Digital Chronos II

Pure Digital's original Chronos bedside digital radio scored an impressive 8 out of 10 last year and was nominated for our prestigious 2006 Editor's Choice award. Its cute design, ease of use and good price point earned the Chronos our respect. Now we've got hold of its successor, the Chronos II.

At first glance you might not notice much difference between this and its younger brother: It's the same shape, same colour, same price, and has the same button layout. But there are a couple of changes under the hood. First, the Chronos II has FM … Read more

Get a 2GB SD card free (after rebate)

Hey, congrats on the new digital camera you snagged cheap on Black Friday (or Cyber Monday, or Fairly Ordinary Saturday). Now you just need a high-capacity memory card to store all your snapshots. How does a free one sound? Well, okay, the A-Data 2GB Secure Digital card will cost you $19 up front, but you'll get it back in 6-8 weeks. Yep, it's one of those free-after-rebate deals. Of course, even if you're one of those lazy types who never remembers to submit the forms until the day after the cutoff, $19 is still a pretty good … Read more

TiVo and cable industry unveil Switched Digital Video workaround

As of the most recent software update (9.2), TiVo's added quite a few fixes to its high-def DVRs: the Series3 and the TiVo HD now offer the TiVo To Go, Multi-Room Viewing, Rhapsody, and expandable storage features that were originally promised. Now it appears that TiVo has solved the other big sticking point: compatibility with Switched Digital Video (SDV) technology. The company announced today that it's developed (with the help of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association) an add-on USB adapter that will enable its two high-def DVRs to properly tune cable channels being broadcast with SDV … Read more