Buzz Out Loud 637: New U.S. currency: Wii Video

Buzz Out Loud 637: New U.S. currency: Wii Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:04

>> It's Tuesday, January 8th, 2008. I'm Molly Wood.

>> I'm Tom Merritt.

>> I'm Veronica Belmont.

>> Welcome to Buzz Out Loud.

>> And that's [inaudible]

>> CNET broadcast, indeterminate length for this episode 637. And no, you're not hearing things.

>> 637?

>> That, yeah.

>> Holy Moly.

>> You missed it.

>> You missed a lot.

>> Wow. That's awesome.

>> You are not hearing things. We are joined by Veronica Belmont today, but not only Veronica for those who cannot see us, we're also joined by Nate Langston of CNET UK.

>> I'm very happy to be here.

>> Very good.

>> It's a new state. It's all red. It was yellow.

>> It looks really good.

>> It's so much better cooler this year.

>> Hold on. Kelly, did you press record.

>> Oh, we're gonna have to start over. No, I'm pretty sure we're recording every minute of Buzz Out Loud today.

>> Oh, we are.

>> For real. We have a huge studio audience. Yay. Thank you guys for turning out, that's awesome.

>> All right. Nate, do you wanna plug your show on CNET UK before we jump into the news?

>> Before we start?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Well, we've got the Creative Podcast on Crave.CNET.UK/podcast and I do a show called Encoders about new music and new bands and all that kind of stuff on the UK version of CNET TV, which is CNETTV.CO.UK.

>> There's a whole difference to CNETTV.

>> I actually can pretend to look hip every once in a while when I hear about something on a show, then I download.

>> Oh yeah.

>> I know all about klanguage.

>> Get all that.

>> Well, Nate is also a little bit of a sweetheart story for CNET, because he was, last year, a blogger, what did we call that? A backstage pass blogger.

>> A backstage pass winner.

>> A winner, and so he won a trip to Vegas to kind of participate in the CNET thing for CES and then ended up getting hired. They freakin' hired him.

>> And now here he is. Totally legit.

>> And we had to get rid of Belmont to make room for him.

>> And then Belmont, yeah, she just wonders in whenever she feels like it.

>> You can plug your show at the end.

>> Okay.

>> All right. To the news. Shall we?

>> Yes. Paramount dropping HD DVD was the big headline this morning according to the financial times. Then Paramount heard about it and said no, no, not currently was the quote. Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format until at least next. No, I just added that last in.

>> Because Toshiba can't take any more hits this week. That's just not nice.

>> Yeah. Oh, their press conference was very upsetting.

>> So heartbreaking.

>> It kind of broke my heart. They were very upset about it. They were like, what can we say? You know, this happened. We're just gonna keep moving forward, keep doing the HD DVD thing. We think our product's the best and that's all there is to it.

>> Awww.

>> Now I'm gonna go cry in a corner.

>> I just wanna give them a little hug. Poor little puppies.

>> I know.

>> Where can you send flowers?

>> Anyway, we'll be watching for reports next week that Paramount will indeed drop HD DVD, but they're just saying they're not gonna do it right this second.

>> It's them and Universal now. The last [inaudible] of HD DVD.

>> Well, and you gotta wonder, like how long can they hold out?

>> Not too long, I'm guessing.

>> They're pinned down. They're under fire. They're gonna have to surrender.

>> Blue Ray lobbed the grenade in of the first Blue Ray player to cost less than a PS3, a 350 dollar Phillips BDP7200.

>> Set two in the rising are planned lower the price.

>> That's right. As we call it.

>> Blue Ray players.

>> Not low enough though, right?

>> Not low enough yet, but it's a crack in the wall.

>> I mean, 50 dollars less than a PS3? 50 dollars more and you get all of that added functionality. It's too close, still.

>> That's totally, 350, yeah, 350 for a DVD player, no matter how pretty, is very unpalatable.

>> Well, they're definitely saying it's gonna be sub 200 models coming out sometimes in the very near future.

>> I thought I heard that, too.

>> So once they get to that point, I mean there's really no contest.

>> Yeah. I thought that we might see that, see some kind of surprise, but 350 dollars is as low as it's gone.

>> You know if this comes out in the UK, it'll still only cost like the same amount as a small car.

>> Totally worth it though, right?

>> So true.

>> Well, maybe.

>> Nah.

>> Nah.

>> Just come here and buy one.

>> Yeah. Maybe.

>> And then just cart them back.

>> His carryon bag is gonna be stuffed full of gadgets. Like trying to take it through customs, like I don't know.

>> What are you talking about?

>> Can you get Wii here?

>> No.

>> No.

>> No.

>> Not anymore.

>> Only bundles. Although a bundle is cheap to you, so you might as well.

>> True. True. Make a good present.

>> Just put a little more money down at the tables.

>> So the [inaudible] are hard to get in the UK? They're that impossible to get there, too?

>> Yeah. It's, gold dust are actually easier to get than a Wii.

>> Really?

>> Yeah. Wii's.

>> Gold dust in the streets there?

>> Have you been [inaudible].

>> See, America, America should just change our currency to Wii's. It would be worth way more money that way.

>> That is so true.

>> The American Wii. Right?

>> The American Wii. The Wii is strong. [ Laughter ]

>> I think we should lobby the presidential candidates in New Hampshire today. Are you in favor of the Wii standard?

>> There you go.

>> Of course, our CES coverage at CES.CNET.com. There's more [inaudible] than we can possibly talk about in one day. There's a video with R2D2 on it up there right now. All kinds of blog postings. So go check that out. If you wanna relive all the best of CES throughout the week. Apple made a CES timed announcement today.

>> How convenient.

>> Aren't they clever?

>> Before the start of Mac World. They released an update to the high end Mac Pro Desktop and a new server. The new Mac Pro combines two of Intel's new 45 nanometer quad core Zion 5400 processors. And that's why they made the announcement. Because Intel announced those processors, so I think they felt like we have to say, hey, we've got those in our boxes.

>> Yeah.

>> And it starts at 2800 bucks.

>> It starts.

>> Youch.

>> Wow.

>> You could pay more.

>> That's like a real.

>> But they're not, yeah, they're saying like this is.

>> Hardcore model.

>> This is the machine in the drool-o-rama.

>> You got that again.

>> Like it is. Absolutely.

>> This isn't just your home, the iMac is for your home desktop.

>> Yeah.

>> This is like I need to do some serious video editing. My wife is weeping right now, actually.

>> I have to say.

>> Didn't she just buy a Mac Pro?

>> Yeah, sorry Ilene. Yeah.

>> Awww.

>> Awww.

>> And he has this really sweet picture of her like hugging her new Mac Pro like just so, like learning over the box and loving it. And now it's all he's gonna show us. And now it's all over. It looks so sad.

>> There it is. Look at that. Can you see it?

>> You broke her little heart. Thanks a lot, Apple.

>> As usual.

>> Big jerks.

>> Breaking the hearts of people all over the world.

>> I have to admit, I've been going into the [inaudible] and eyeballing that HP, the Blackbird 002 gaming machine.

>> Yeah, the gaming. The gaming, yeah.

>> That thing is just, it is beautiful. I kinda can't take my eyes off of it. It's so pretty.

>> You can't take, you can stop.

>> It's pricey, too, though.

>> Going and, you know.

>> Yeah.

>> It's up there.

>> Yeah. Oh, it's easily a four or five thousand dollar PC, right?

>> Yeah. I think.

>> Yeah.

>> If you get that and then pair it up with the Alienware curve, the monitor, the curved monitor that's the equivalent of two 24 inch monitors put together.

>> It's like an iMac screen on your desktop.

>> You would never leave your freaking room.

>> You wouldn't need to. You'd have the whole world.

>> I mean, I don't anyway, but I'm just saying.

>> Does it have, make you a little motion sick, the Curve? Do you get that like iMac sort of dizziness? Like okay, too many, too much screen play.

>> Vertigo.

>> You could just live in a virtual world.

>> We already do, dude.

>> That's true.

>> Pay attention.

>> Comcast had their keynote address this morning and made a bunch of announcements. One of my favorites was fancast.com, which I was really skeptical about.

>> Yeah.

>> I was like oh, they're gonna have a video portal, who cares?

>> Tom told me about it. I was like, is it TV guide? No. Is it TV.com? No. I was skeptical, too. But I think maybe I'm with them.

>> It's IMDB, Hooloo, Blockbuster, Netflix, a TV guide and the ability to program your Tivo DVR all from one site.

>> It's really impressive that they got Blockbuster and Netflix on the same ticket.

>> Yeah.

>> That's pretty insane.

>> And what you do is you go in and you can search for a show, and it says okay, you can put in your zip code, right, and it says do you wanna watch it on TV, and if you wanna program it on your DVR, or would you rather watch it on one of these services, or you can download it from Amazon unboxed. It's like how do you wanna watch it? Here it is. And it's just taking all of those different ways of watching the video that we've been scrambling around trying to choose and putting them in one, easy to use, kind of web tool glorified interface. Pretty smart.

>> That's their plan, right? Like it sounds to me like not all of those deals are signed right now. It's sort of part of their, they're calling it project infinity, which is trying to get all of those deals signed. It sounds like right now.

>> All the ones that I mentioned are listed on, if you go to fancast.com right now.

>> As partners?

>> Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, Fandango, iTunes, all have icons.

>> Oh, project infinity is a content initiative. An attempt to bring, now this, this is actually in my wish list [inaudible] device, the one box that can do it all. It's their attempt to bring every piece of content to the set top box.

>> Yeah. So in other words, fancast is just on the web, but they wanna take fancast and put it on your box. And that's project infinity.

>> Well they have, they have the new hardware box. It's a Panasonic.

>> Project infinity is a little over dramatic.

>> Because they had the new DVR and the new DVR slash DVD player.

>> Like the portable DVR, the one you can take with you, which has the true two way.

>> True two way, yeah.

>> Which is the open cable standard.

>> TRU.

>> It's kind of the next generation of cable card. It's cable abs way of making things interoperable between different cable systems.

>> Their way. Not the cable card way.

>> Well, but it's cable labs. Cable labs make cable card. This is the new way. Although it is just cable companies.

>> Without that TRU two way kind of ability then, isn't the portable DVR just kind of like another box that you have to carry around and play DVD's on? Like why wouldn't you just rip your DVD to your Zune or your iPod and?

>> Yeah. Good question.

>> I've never really gotten that.

>> I've never really gotten into the whole portable DVD player thing. It's really popular though with people with kids, I think, because they can take it with them and watch it at the airport or.

>> I actually, this is kind of horrible, but some people had a restaurant and they had a portable DVD player and their kid was in the high chair and they were like eating sushi.

>> Here kid, watch this.

>> That's a good idea. Horrible. It's horrible. Such bad parenting.

>> What an excellent horrible idea.

>> To do that.

>> Two years from now, Molly, you'll be that girl.

>> I know. I'll have the TV in the minivan. I'll be like I'm doing it. I don't care.

>> A somewhat softer announcement. Comcast said they're gonna have four minute HD movie download service by the end of the 08.

>> Four minutes?

>> Four minute.

>> So that's four minutes for the download?

>> Four minute movie.

>> Four minute downloads of HD content.

>> It would take, like a movie could download in four minutes. But a smart question.

>> Yeah. It's part of project infinity.

>> Yeah. It's part of project infinity. It's Doxus 3.0, so to be using four channels to really suck down the bandwidth. 100 megabits per second, I think. This is one that strikes me a lot like the Tivo integration announcement where they say we'll roll it out in small areas first. So small you can't find them in some ways.

>> Yeah. Exactly. And then three years later some body has it. Although, again, it's sort of like what we were talking about yesterday, if they get it out the door and they're doing it right, then again with the format war, what's the point?

>> Exactly. That's what I've been saying. Are we, you've all been saying all along. Is this gonna go straight to HD downloads instead of like hard media. Why do we even need to deal with discs at this point when speeds are going so fast and downloads are faster and everything's available that way, why bother? I really like that a lot of TVs now you just have to stick an Ethernet cable into it. You don't even have to deal with a set top box.

>> Yeah.

>> Like that's really gonna be the wave of the future. Like maybe even hard drives built right into the TVs so you download your HD movie, watch it that way, and move on.

>> That's probably the way that HP is going with those advanced media televisions. Like they were demo-ing those two years ago. You know, talking about their internet televisions that would have all these services built in, that would have a built in DVR and things like that and then they're finally starting to hit the market, which is actually, you know, it's fun. That's way too long. Don't announce a product that's not coming out for two and a half years, but now is the time. We're ripe for it. That's for sure.

>> Yeah. [Inaudible] was talking about a Google TV. Like a TV that would have Google built into it so that you could watch like You Tube right on the TV just by plugging in an Ethernet cord.

>> Yeah.

>> But there are all kinds of crazy variations on this.

>> The vericast stuff from Panasonic, I think, was that the one? There was one TV that actually did have like widget capability.

>> Yeah.

>> Kinda built into it from Yahoo or something.

>> And you could get.

>> Tivo had that. It's an external box, but they've got that too.

>> Oh, okay.

>> Well, I am gonna make a hardware prediction. I think that next year, 2009.

>> This doesn't count, by the way.

>> Totally take this idea and build it. We're gonna see a remote control that's like one of those voyager phones, slider, to a QWERTY keyboard. Because that's what we need. Right? Like right now, with my media center, I always need to have a wireless keyboard.

>> There's, I just did a video actually.

>> You did?

>> Yeah. There's a, it's the a, what company is it? Does anyone remember? It's like, it has a little. The Logitech.

>> Dan Ackerman had that too.

>> So it has a QWERTY keyboard in that?

>> Yeah. It's a little unit that.

>> You missed it.

>> Well, I knew it was a good idea.

>> Dan Ackerman was like sitting in there showing it around to everybody. I think you were gone.

>> It has a little cover and a little mouse pad and a little keyboard. It's all for media center.

>> Well, genius. Good work, Logitech. Good job on doing the thing I wanted to do.

>> Let's move on.

>> Not to leave satellite out of it, DirecTV's PC tuner is apparently real according to [inaudible] gadget. They got some screen shots off of DVS talk and got some official confirmation that the device actually exists. So it's a box you would set down next to your computer and plug it in and be able to get dual tuner, direct TV and record onto your hard drive and interact with media center so that you could have your direct TV service pretty much in the media center instead of having to do vive or something to communicate between the two.

>> That's pretty cool, I guess.

>> Yeah?

>> I don't know.

>> You're under whelmed.

>> Well, now I'm so fired up about the idea of my TV doing all that, like I just wanna not have the media center box as the external thing. Just another box that's a tuner. Like no.

>> We always set ourselves up for disappointment.

>> I know. It's like we're so pie in the sky. This is the cool thing. This is actually a cool thing.

>> Three years from now, the technology. That's the new rule at CES. I'm making a new rule that if you have technology that's not coming out this calendar year, I don't wanna see it. Don't waste my time.

>> Because it's gonna break my heart.

>> Because it's just gonna break my heart.

>> Wow.

>> I know you guys are very frustrated by this trend.

>> Look, there's nothing cool coming out right now. I wanna see the right now stuff.

>> Or at least say for certain this isn't gonna be coming out, we're just prototyping. Because they'll say well, we hope to get it out.

>> Well, they do. No, they do say that it's a prototype.

>> Sometimes. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they hand you a cardboard box and they go shipping in April.

>> I don't mind seeing prototypes. I don't. But I think it's true. They have to be clearly labeled and there has to be some hope that it's gonna come out, because it's too heart breaking to then not buy anything.

>> First all the vendors are sitting there going you just don't understand. Stop, stop, stop, stop. It's much harder than you think, sitting up there in your white desk, criticizing us.

>> Think you know everything.

>> Optimus Maximus, which is the OLED screened keyboard that is reprogrammable at the touch of a button, all the keys kind of light up, you can change it to be a gaming keyboard, you can, all the caps will come up when you press shift, so everything's capitalized when you look at the keyboard. They're showing it off here at CES. Now it's a really expensive keyboard right. Its 1500 dollars. But they're gonna put out a base model that's 462 dollars and it comes with on OLAD screen in the keyboard inside the spacebar. Then you can buy extra keys and replace the old style keys with the OLED keys for 10 dollars a key.

>> Wow.

>> So it's like a payment plan. You just you know, I only need the arrow keys for my first person shooters to start with.

>> You just set aside a key budget.

>> It's all about [inaudible].

>> Yeah.

>> Every month you buy a new key and set it aside.

>> Yeah.

>> Because you can't do 10 dollars a month.

>> Eventually.

>> Eventually it costs you 30,000 dollars but you got the whole thing.

>> Right exactly. Well you could break a key too right.

>> Oh definitely.

>> Keys come in like one tiny, tiny little box, each key its own little blister type.

>> [Inaudible] wrap.

>> You know I wanna do it by direct deposit so every month or every pay check I get they automatically take out a keys worth of money and just send it to me in a little box. That'd be good.

>> I think I know what Nat's saying to which is does it come in it's own package.

>> Yeah like a little.

>> Yeah. [ Talking at once ]

>> If it was from Apple it would.

>> With a tiny bow.

>> It'd be a little black box.

>> It would be perfect.

>> Made in [inaudible].

>> It would be perfect and it would have like a little silver embossing the front, you know.

>> A small black leather shammy.

>> I can see some plans for this. You could buy, you could do bundles like you know buy F1 and F2 and get like F3 for half price.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah there you go.

>> That's a good idea.

>> That's brilliant.

>> That'd be great.

>> I'd buy it.

>> No one is gonna pay for function keys, come on.

>> Hell yeah.

>> Don't be crazy.

>> The function keys are the one's you get free when you buy the other keys is that what you're saying? Do you know who Jeremy Clarkson is Nate?

>> Yeah Jeremy Clarkson I just saw him almost die in the Arctic. He tried to drive a mammoth car like into the artic where no one's ever been.

>> Really.

>> On Top Gear, yeah it was on top Gear it was like a repeat of Christmas.

>> It's a, it's a UK show then.

>> It's a UK Show.

>> BBC or [inaudible] or.

>> It is on the BBC yeah. I hear it' one of the most pirated TV shows I the world.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow.

>> So.

>> You can, you can see it on BBC America.

>> Oh yeah.

>> If you get that yeah.

>> I haven't, I haven't watched it yet but.

>> The point of the matter is, is he did a really stupid thing.

>> Yeah well he is one of those gentlemen who, like myself thinks that piracy fears are overblown because you hand your credit card to waitresses and waiters all the time and you write checks to people you don't know that has your bank account number on it. But he took it a little too far. He wrote an article in the newspaper and put his bank account in there saying see I am so not concerned.

>> Right.

>> I'm just gonna put it in here and of course someone opened an account and took 500 pounds out of his bank account.

>> Yeah, that's what happens.

>> That's so amazing.

>> It's shocking. Actually though have you seen the.

>> Which 500 pounds I think that's 10,000 dollars.

>> I think at least yeah or eight Wii's. I think that, there's have you guys seen the ads? There's like full page adds running in newspapers and it's I think he company's called like True Lock or something. And it's supposed to be an identity theft protection service.

>> Well, the guy's a social.

>> And he has.

>> Social security number.

>> His real social security number there yeah. I actually think that is pretty cool because it's not just like some yahoo going on a rap.

>> Right.

>> And putting the bank account number out there you know. But it, I'm kind of curious to see if that guy is ever gonna get happen.

>> So, what's your bank account number? [ Laughter ] We'll talk after the show.

>> You're the one unconcerned with privacy, so.

>> Yeah.

>> I know are you kidding.

>> No, no, no, no I'm not unconcerned with privacy.

>> How many needs a new Wii?

>> This is the difference between Jeremy Clarkson. I think it's a little over blown. But I'm not gonna put my bank account number out in the newspaper that's.

>> He's pretty lucky that it was only 500 pounds. That was obviously somebody trying to just give him a little poke like dude.

>> Trying to teach him a lesson.

>> I can't believe he didn't get cleaned out.

>> We're smarter than you.

>> Maybe it's some kind of law requirement like over 500 dollars is like a felony, I'm sure it's a felony anyway I don't know.

>> Yeah, I don't know.

>> You know like maybe they just did that amount to kind of toy with him.

>> Yeah, that would be the severity.

>> I'm not too familiar with UK law.

>> In other, in other UK news actually apparently copying music from a CD to a home computer currently illegal could be made legal.

>> Harrah.

>> You'll be a free man. Instead of I assume the scofflaw that you are right not ripping CDs because of this.

>> No, I think we're just sort of over looking it. They just sort of think people do it and we're just not gonna like act on it. but now they're making it legal as probably to sort of defend the estimated, maybe they see everything going digital and on demand and coming down the wires. And they want to give people even more of incentive to keep using CD's maybe and they're just saying hey I tell you what. It's yours you own it do what you want with it. You know, put it on an iPod. Obviously not, you know then cell the CD on it.

>> That is crazy talk.

>> Yeah.

>> I like the clear cut manor of this though where it was clearly like specifically illegal and now they're making it specifically legal.

>> Right.

>> Instead of what we got in the US, I don't know, might be fair use, might not.

>> But it's still.

>> We'll wait till we bring a lawsuit against you before we say for sure.

>> Yeah, and actually intellectual property minister Lord Treasman [Sp?] said he law should be changed. So it quote, keeps up with the times, which is also a novel idea.

>> That's refreshing.

>> Isn't it though?

>> That is a cool drink of water.

>> Nate do you have ambitions to become intellectual property manager?

>> I'm gonna say no.

>> No.

>> No not really.

>> Think of all the good you could do.

>> Yeah by making laws that should've been made in the first place.

>> Exactly.

>> Yeah no.

>> What's wrong with that? Somebody has to do the changing.

>> I, we're going to start movement to draft you for intellectual property manager.

>> I think so, yeah. Is there some sort of balloting process that we can engage in?

>> I have no idea. No, no idea.

>> Okay, we'll do the research.

>> We'll look into it.

>> Let Lord what's his face do it. He's obviously doing a good job.

>> Clearly.

>> Alright, I was at the Tiger Direct PC race yesterday.

>> Oh how'd you do?

>> Oh, I embarrassed myself it was awful.

>> What was this?

>> This was the build a PC race where they give you all the parts for a PC and then you, the fastest person to put it together wins. Yeah, it was just, I, I don't know.

>> It was really awful you look kind of upset you mean it.

>> Tired, I never done the entire box all at once, so you know, I was just like.

>> Excuses, excuses.

>> Oh, I put the hard drive in and I'm like what I have to do more now.

>> Isn't there a point where like someone wins and then you get to stop?

>> Once you get the top three then, then you stop.

>> Oh, but until then it's just a slow.

>> Yeah a slow painful death.

>> I'm sorry.

>> Anyway.

>> That's why I never agree to do that.

>> The good news is Tiger Direct announced yesterday in a press release and then they talked about it at this event. But, the have acquired part of the assets of Comp USA. So, they're buying the name. They're buying 16 of the stores and they're buying the website. And what he said in his little announcement before he race in front of a bunch of UNLV cheerleaders was they are going to buy at least 16 stores. They hope to buy more. He one's they're buying for sure in Texas, in Florida, and another location that I can't recall. And then they're going to put the Comp USA website on top of the Tiger Direct website. And I don't know if that means Tiger Direct is going away, he didn't say it was going away. So, they may still have both sites. But Comp USA will kind of work on that Tiger Direct model.

>> It does make, make sense because Comp USA does have strong brand recognition. It' kind of makes sense to resurrect and keep it going.

>> Yeah.

>> I guess in that way.

>> Who would've thunk Comp USA would be rescued?

>> I know not me. And now. [ Talking at once ]

>> Before, they get to the end like trying to get rid of all their stuff.

>> Yeah.

>> And they're gonna just have to stop doing the crazy everything must go sale.

>> Oh yeah.

>> I wonder if they're gonna try to buy back some of their fixtures. [ Laughter ]

>> We changed our mind about [inaudible].

>> Oh yeah about that book rack. I got some email to buzz at CNET, buzz at CNET.com Joe in Boston. Joe notes that they have been nuninite [Sp?] free since 2007.

>> Ah good.

>> Say, now that HT DVD is dead all that needs to be done is sink Blue Ray and let the gazillion layered disk take its rightful place. Yet I hear not a peep about HD VMD conspiracy.

>> Joe.

>> Gibson and I think so.

>> Is just not listening. For example, New Medium Enterprises announced here at CES 2008 today January 8th that its HD VMD players would be shipping in the US market at a starting price of 199 dollars.

>> Wow.

>> They ship with such awesome titles as mother ghost and cutting room. [ Laughter ] They have zero major studio support except for apparently Mel Gibson movies, and also Blade Trinity which everybody knows is a classic.

>> That's the bets one they got.

>> Yeah.

>> No, no this, it's just an underdog thing. It's just an uphill battle just gotta.

>> Alright.

>> Get the hardware in there.

>> HD VMD those of you who've never listened to buzzilla before write it down. It's gonna make you a lot of money.

>> It will invest now.

>> Buy that stock now.

>> It has the same 38 byte capacity that's currently available with HD DVD and it's software compatible.

>> What happened to the hologram storage that we've been talking about for years.

>> Yeah, I don't know.

>> I'm waiting for the holographic storage.

>> I know, because it's true when we first started talking about the format all three of us were just like whatever that's just not enough storage holographs, holograms.

>> Yeah holograms.

>> You can't even see that at ES anymore.

>> No, I know.

>> Maybe that's what the [inaudible].

>> Jim wrote in and I will attempt to mimic the tone of his email. Molly, all iTune signals are back to 99 cents even the DRM free. [ Talking at once ]

>> Am I to drop the price after the Amazon DRM free store on.

>> That's true I didn't know because I don't shop there. However, the Amazon tracks are 89 cents right so they're still cheaper.

>> Most of the time. Sometimes they're 99 cents sometimes they're 89. But I thought that's what you were talking about is the fact that Amazon tracks are often 89 cents [inaudible].

>> No, I didn't even really know I forgot that they had dropped the price.

>> No, I mean that's what you were talking about right.

>> Yeah, that's what I meant.

>> Yeah, okay.

>> Jim.

>> Finally, Ben from Ireland wrote in and said. Hi, as you're currently at CES and Veronica's currently at CES after listening to the best of 2007 show I want Veronica back on as a guest. Keep up the great show, Ben. Work on it.

>> I don't know.

>> She's hard to get.

>> So Ben.

>> Veronica's huge now. You can't just have her come over.

>> Well, you called her.

>> What are you saying? [ Laughter ]

>> Oh, sweetie I haven't seen you in a while. Whatever, whatever. So there you go Ben a little present for you from us to you [kissing sound]

>> Alright.

>> You're super happy I got you to be on.

>> Yeah I was happy you were able to squeeze it in too because I know everybody's like crazy busy at CES.

>> Lot's of stuff.

>> That's CES for you.

>> We announced our best of CES nominees earlier today. If you go to ces.cnet.com you can find the full list of folks who are up for the best of CES award. And you can actually take part in the voting as well. CNET editors have made their selections, they've narrowed it down to 30 products. I am reading this yeah. You have a chance to cast your vote for the products that you think will be the most talked about. Vote in the people's voice awards at ces.cnet.com or if you wanna do it right now, you know what you wanna vote for send a text message with the nominee number to CNET1 you gotta get the number off of ces.cnet.com. Or you can go on your mobile device to m.cnet.com/pv. Voting began, oh does it begin tomorrow?

>> No today.

>> Today.

>> It did okay thanks. [ Talking at once ]

>> It ends at noon tomorrow.

>> Yeah, so get your votes in, my prediction is the Curve actually.

>> Yeah.

>> The Curve monitor. That's the only thing anybody's really talking about, you know. Alright anyway I don't wanna break the voting so let's cut it off.

>> Alright, thanks Nate from CNET UK.

>> Yeah thanks for having me it's been great.

>> I know you, it's hard to get a word in edgewise when we're all yammering away.

>> Well, you know, it's been a laugh, it's been good.

>> Alright, and Veronica Belmont from holler.com.

>> Mahalo daily.

>> Where do you get to mahalo daily?

>> daily.mahalo.com.

>> Alright and any other side projects.

>> Yeah, all our, all the videos that I'm doing are showing up on ingadget.com so [inaudible].

>> Oh alright now any others?

>> Sorry awkward I know.

>> Any other sites. [ Laughter ]

>> Any other sites. [ Talking at once ]

>> Yes Tom and I have a side project swordandlaser.com it's our Sifi fantasy book club.

>> Alright.

>> You can check that out at swordandlaser.com. And we're doing cyber punk for the next book, so.

>> Alright.

>> Maybe a little Gibson maybe a little Stevenson we'll see. [ Laughter ]

>> Any side project Molly?

>> No, goodbye.

>> Dll.cnet.com is our blog find out all of the information about how to contact us there. We'll be taking calls again next week.

>> Yes we definitely will.

>> But not for tomorrow so see you tomorrow.

>> Okay bye everybody.

>> Bye.

>> See you. ^M00:27:03 [ Music ]