Entertainment

The Ultimate Tech Celebrity Deathmatches

Gladiators with oversized forks. Boxers with oversized shorts. Rugby players with frighteningly deformed ears. Throughout history, man has pitted himself against his fellow man and cheered as limbs were ripped from limb and teeth flew like confetti at a wedding. Given our general lack of buffness, however, geeks have never got in on the act. Until now.

Today, with tongue firmly in cheek, metaphors at the ready and whimsy mode set to "on," we're pitching the top celebrities of the technology world against each other. Kevin Rose, founder of digg, takes on Rob Malda, founder of Slashdot. … Read more

Prizefight: Cowon Q5W vs. Archos 705 WiFi

In the past few months, these two mastodons of Wi-Fi portable media stampeded through the CNET office, leaving a trail of awestruck and dumbfounded reviewers in their dust. It seemed only natural to pit these two behemoths against each other in a prizefight worthy of their intimidating giantism.

Will the Cowon Q5W's Bluetooth and GPS functionality beat out the Archos 705 WiFi's 7-inch touch screen and higher storage capacity? Click through to witness our prizefight's five rounds of gadget-on-gadget brutality.

SXSWi panel: Professional video gaming is the sport of the digital age

AUSTIN, Texas--Professional video gaming could be the next great sport--and the one that will be the choice of the digital generation.

That was the prediction of a panel on the future of the sport at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference here Friday.

Speaking with video game instant-messaging company Xfire's CEO, Adam Boyden, an impressive cross-section of the professional video game industry talked at length about why their chosen sport could join football, baseball, soccer, and basketball at the top of the athletics heap in the future.

Joining Boyden on-stage were Jason Lake, a former property attorney, and … Read more

Road & Track tests the Mach 5

Somehow, a reporter for Road & Track got to test the Mach 5, the car from the upcoming Speed Racer movie. We got to see the Mach 5 at the Detroit auto show, although the one we saw looked like a nonfunctional mock-up. Some of the features and specs covered in the Road & Track article seem fictional, such as the "crampons" that are supposed to wrap around the tires for better traction. But the article includes pictures of things such as the saw blades that pop out from the front, so we're not really sure what … Read more

SXSW: Mashing up Interactive

It's freezing in Austin (39 degrees last night....) but nonetheless SXSW Interactive is about to kick off today. There is no doubt that the conference is hitting the mainstream this year (with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as keynote speaker and most of the big high-tech players participating). The program, which is notoriously hard to navigate, has grown even more in terms of depth and breadth.

SXSW has therefore teamed up with Microsoft and frog design to create a rich, interactive online community hub that facilitates real-time conversations around conference events while also providing an easy-to-us panel calendar. The Silverlight-based … Read more

Rumors persist on Blu-ray drive for XBox 360

CNET's Gamespot posted a news blurb today on a report that, "Microsoft has entered into talks with Sony to bring Blu-ray to the Xbox 360." The report comes from a Financial Times story that quotes an unnamed "senior executive," who says that Sony and Microsoft "are not simply discussing a successor to the Xbox 360's now discontinued, dirt-cheap external HD DVD drive," but that "there is also the possibility of an internal Blu-ray drive being incorporated into a new, more expensive 'premium' 360 model."

At the Consumer Electronics Show in … Read more

Blu-ray encryption scheme revolves around half life of films

Call it the Harold and Kumar effect.

Now that Blu-ray has won the format war, the public and security industry will get a chance to see how well the novel encryption scheme that Blu-ray publishers and manufacturers works.

What makes the strategy somewhat novel is that is relies as much on consumer tastes and behavior as it does on technology, according to Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist of Cryptography Research, which helped devise the strategy.

Since some of you might now be gearing up to buy a Blu-ray player, here's how it works. Studios will hire software developers … Read more

Free SXSW 2008 playlist

Whether you're going to Austin, Texas, next week or not, it's always good to update your music collection with bands appearing at the annual South by Southwest music conference and festival. There are a few big names like R.E.M., Paramore and Talib Kweli playing this year, but this isn't Lollapalooza (or Austin City Limits for that matter). SXSW is all about discovering new music, and with more than 1,600 bands booked this year, you may need a bigger iPod.

To see a list of bands that we're excited about this year, check out … Read more

A one-stop shop for Blu-ray licensing

Now that Blu-ray has won the high-definition disc format war, the industry is moving on to the next step: recruiting companies to produce players and media.

And to help that process along, MPEG LA, the standards and licensing group, is floating the concept of a creating an organization that will be able to license all of the patents necessary to make Blu-ray products.

The idea was discussed back in early 2007 during a meeting of 18 of the holders of necessary Blu-ray patents. With the format war over, MPEG LA is once again talking up the concept. The mechanisms and … Read more