Apparently, I left out an important detail when I've talked about the N900 in anticipation of it's arrival because Neal, my husband who is with me all the time didn't know that the N900 is able to make phone calls. Go figure. Let's start by looking at the industrial design. I have an iPhone 3GS here along with a Motorola Droid and the Nokia N900. The iPhone and Droid are almost exactly the same height and width. The Droid is a little thicker than the iPhone to accommodate the slider keyboard and the removable battery. The Nokia N900 is the same width as the iPhone and Droid, but its quite a bit thicker. I thought it would be fun to pull out the kitchen scale and weigh them. The iPhone is 4.7 ounces. The Droid is 5.9 ounces and the N900 is 6.4 ounces. Specs we've talked about, but let's hit them again. The processor is 600MHz. There's 1GB of application memory. It has a 3D Graphics accelerator with Open GL ES 2.0 support. It has 32G of storage out of the box and you can expand that to 48 gigs with a microSD card. The camera is 5 megapixels with a dual LED flash. The screen is 800X480, 3.5 inches diagonal and has resistive touch. The N900 has two hardware features that I hadn't expected. It has a built-in FM transmitter for playing audio through your radio's speakers. I had to put the phone on top of the receiver for the FM transmitter to work, but sitting on top of the receiver, it sounded really, really good. It also has what I think could be a killer feature if developers take advantage of it. It has an IR transmitter. Software is really where the N900 can shine. It runs Nokia's Maemo 5 and open source version of Linux and it really does feel like I'm using a computer rather than just another smart phone. To turn on the screen, simply press the power button on the top and just like on other smart phones, you slide to unlock. The N900 gives you four work surfaces. You can add applications, widgets, and bookmarks from the Web. There are several basic apps already installed and you can add more. There aren't yet tons of apps available, but the framework for making apps available is so much better than Apple's gatekeeper method. There will be an Ovi store for the N900, but if you go there right now, you get a Coming Soon page. In addition to the Ovi store, you can add different software repositories where you can download Maemo apps for free. Because the N900 is running Linux, developers can develop whatever applications the hardware can handle. That's one of the reasons I think the IR transmitter is so cool. It's inevitable that someone will develop a really good universal remote. The Web browser'is very good. It is a Mozilla-based browser and I wasn't able to find a Web site it doesn't display exactly as it should, including Web sites developed in Flash. You can also install a beta version of Firefox branded browser. The Firefox browser froze for me, but the potential is exciting. I really like the Nokia N900, but it's important for me to point out, even though you can order one now, it seems to first be targeting hardcore geeks, extreme early adopters and most specifically developers who want a mobile device that they can customize as much as they want. The device as hardware is a playground with a lot of potential for exciting functionality, should the right developer take up the cause. For example. The IR transmitter's built in, but it needs software applications that aren't yet available in order for it to fulfill it's potential. The N900 has an accelerometer, but very few applications flip into landscape. That's something I hear will change by years end. GeekBrief.TV bridges the gap between hardcore geeks and grandmas who are casually interested in tech. A less technical person would probably enjoy the N900. It's by far the simplest and fun user interfaces I've ever seen on a Nokia phone. It isn't as simple as an iPhone and maybe only slightly more challenging than a Motorolla Droid. I think, though, the MORE you understand and enjoy Linux, the more you'll enjoy all you can do with an N900. My big hope is that Linux developers embrace it and build exciting new applications. The studio is freshly painted so we can start doing live production again and we found a great painter who gave us a great price using Angie's List. If you're not a member and you own a home, check it out. Promo code GEEK will save you 25% when you join.

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Looks like we'll get the beta for Chrome on the Mac by December. If you're using Chrome on a PC, 4.0 was released today. Project Natal from Microsoft looks to be launching late 2010 with a sale price of between $50 and $84, with 14 Natal-ready games. Blue Microphones announced a USB mic that's also the world's first THX Certified Mic called the Yeti USB Microphone. Microsoft has an 802.11n adapter for the Xbox 360. Parking your car in your garage may turn out to be much like docking your iPod one day if car and consumer electronics makers use a new technology called the Rovi Automotive Solution. Details on the New York Meetup is on my blog at www.calilewis.me. It'll be on November 20th. Hope to see you there! You can save 25% on an Angie's List membership by using promo code GEEK at www.angieslist.com/geek.

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Google's getting in the holiday spirit. They want to provide free WiFi for travelers in 47 airports across the country. The only downside is being asked to download Chrome (do it!) and if you want to set Google as your default search engine. Amazon released the Kindle PC App, which uses Whispernet, so you can switch between devices and always pick up where you left off. Intel is developing an eReader for the visually impaired. I has a text scanning camera and a text-to-speech synthesizer. The Sparkz Pico Projector is a dock that will charge your iPhone or iPod and project up to 60 inches. You can see the demo video here. I'll be getting a Nokia N900 for review soon. They're hipping outs to Europe, the Middle East, Russia and North America. This episode was brought to you by Petco, where promo code BRIEF will save you 10% and provide free shipping on orders of $65 or more and promo code BRIEF10 will save you 10% on ANY size order.

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As you know, the hugely anticipated launch of the Motorola Droid was on Friday. I went to a press event held at a Verizon store to get a hands on with the Droid and some footage to share with you guys. Boring, but I'll take what I can get. Surprise, surprise, Verizon was nice enough to let me hang on to a Droid for two weeks so I'm able to give you a more in-depth review. The Droid runs Android 2.0. Android is an open source mobile operating system, originally developed by, and heavily supported by Google. If you use Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, or Google Voice, having Android is a very good thing. It means those apps are going to run smoothly and you'll get more out of them. More on that in a minute. Verizon has put a lot of effort into their network, and the hope here is that you don't get the amount of dropped calls or inconsistent service a lot of people complain about with AT&T. In my experience with iPhones on AT&T, dropped calls are less of an issue than calls I have to drop because I can't understand the person on the other end of the call or they can't understand me. The Motorola Droid provides vastly better sounding calls than my iPhones. In a perfect world both phones would be available on both networks so I could tell if it's a hardware issue or a network issue. The Motorola Droid has the best screen on any handheld device I've ever seen. It's a 3.7 inch touchscreen with a resolution of 854x480. That's over 400,000 pixels, and you can definitely tell a difference. We're showing you The Droid playing a movie in HD. The Droid screen is brighter and richer and point 2 inches bigger. The downside? No multitouch in the US. It's capable of multitouch, and the GSM version in Europe has multitouch enabled, but we're not allowed here in the US. Instead, you double tap to zoom or use the plus and minus buttons on the screen to zoom in or out. If you've been using an iPhone, you're going to natually want to pinch the screen. The Droid's method of zooming isn't bad. It has nice animation, but precise pinch and zoom is better. The best part about the 5 megapixel camera isn't the additional pixels. What I liked was the software based zoom. I was taking a picture of some Thai soup when I discovered the feature by accident. Just double tap the screen to get up close and personal. You can snap the photo from the screen, or use the physical button on the side of the phone. Just like on a regular camera, hold the button half way down to focus, then click to take your photo. The Droid has both an onscreen keyboard and physical slider keyboard. iPhone users tend to agree with Apple that physical keyboards are overrated and I'm in that camp. However, there is a large market for whom the iPhone is off the table just because it lacks physical keys. No amount of Apple evangelism is going to convince someone who insists on a keyboard that they really don't need it. I say Motorola was smart to zig where Apple zagged. It's important to point out, though, since the keys are flush, there isn't really any tactile difference between the virtual keyboard and the one with real buttons. The biggest advantage of the slider keyboard, whether you think it's necessary or not, is that you can type and enjoy the full screen at the same time. One of my favorite things about the Droid is that it allows you to run up to six applications at once. This is one of the main complaints from power users about the iPhone. Being able to listen to Pandora while browsing the web or tweeting is HUGE for me. I do it on my laptop, and that desire doesn't change just because I'm using a smaller device. Apple doesn't allow that because having six applications all processing data at the same time puts the phone at risk of a crash. I totally get that! However, I'd rather have the choice to take that risk. I mentioned Google apps before, and I want to get back to that. I don't know how many of you are in the same situation as me. I can't use the Mail app on the iPhone or any mail app on any phone because I use Gmail. That wouldn't be a problem (the iPhone supports Gmail) except I use labels and filters like crazy! Most of my mail is sorted automatically and doesn't even see the inbox, so any time I can't easily see and use my labels on the go, I'm severely crippled. Since Google supports Android, they've made it possible for me to use the Gmail app successfully without having to go into the browser. There are 10,000 apps in the Android store, called Market. There are 100,000 apps in the iPhone store. No surprise there. Apple has a head start. That said, there are plenty of Twitter apps, if nothing else!! With the ability to run apps in the background, you're able to set up Twitter apps, for example, to notify you when something new arrives in your feed or Direct Message inbox. This is a great way to save on SMS costs if you don't have an unlimited plan. One thing I was super excited about was the turn by turn navigation with voice commands. No need to pay for an app - it's already installed when you buy the phone. The voice is very synthetic, but it works AND speaks in complete sentences! One of the coolest possibilities you get with the Motorola Droid requires an additional purchase. It's just $30, though and it's a dock for charging the phone. What's special about it is that it turns the phone's display into a digital photo frame, a widget display and an alarm clock. When you set the phone on the dock and use it as an alarm clock, you can dim the time and set the alarm. Motorola promises 6.5 hours of battery life when used continuously. I'm getting close to 10 or 11 hours of normal use. If you're ready to buy one, let's talk price. It'll be $199 with a 2 year agreement. This is after a mail in rebate, but David Pogue from the NY Times says that if you buy it from Best Buy, you'll get an instant rebate. Voice plans start at $40/month for 350 minutes and data plans start at $30/month. The mainstream media keeps looking for an iPhone killer. That's not me. I want the iPhone to continue to succeed, but I want other alternatives to succeed too. I haven't been looking for an iPhone killer. I've been looking for a smartphone that plays effectively on the same field. The Motorola Droid does that. Will I buy one? I have a couple weeks to decide so I'm going to take advantage of that. My sense so far, though is that moving from iPhone to Droid will not be a downgrade and in a few ways, like call quality and Google Voice integration it will be an upgrade. I'll write more about my experience with the Droid on my blog at www.calilewis.me. This episode was brought to you by SquareSpace.com. The actor and chat show host Kevin Pollak is using Square Space for his site, kevinpollak.tv. It's the easiest way to build a great looking Web site and my promo code GEEK will save you 12%.

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The USB Breast Warmers may have been created just so engineers could look at women in bras, but I'd like to know if I'm missing something here. We'll be gettting a hands on with the Droid tomorrow. The HTC Droid ERIS is also launching for $99 after a $100 mail in rebate. Sony Ericsson's new phone is called the Kurara. The OS is Symbian S60, it'll have a 3.5" touch screen with an 8.1 megapixel camera capable of 720p video. We're having a meetup in New York on November 20th. Details are being worked out over on my blog, calilewis.me. Many people have been waiting for the E-P2 Micro Four Thirds Camera from Olympus. They finally announced the launch today. One of the reasons we want one of these cameras is that it has Full Manual Control of shutter and aperture when the camera's in Movie Mode. Brief 656 was brought to you by AngiesList.com/geek. As an Angie's List member you get access to fellow member reviews of contractors and healthcare providers. Everything from Wedding planners like my sister Christina to guys who will install a solar vent on your roof. Promo code GEEK will save you 25%.

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I was really excited when I first learned about the Robovie-PC, the little Robot with a PC built in. Students at Electro-Communication University in Osaka competed in a princess rescue challenge and demonstrated that a robot can be romantic if you're willing to buy-in a little bit. Neal played around with SoundForge to create the soundtrack. Brief 655 was brought to you by SquareSpace.com, the easy way to build an inexpensive, great-looking Web site. Sign up using promo code GEEK and you'll save 12%.

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We've talked about the Peek before, a device dedicated to email. Now they have the TwitterPeek, completely dedicated to Twitter. The idea sounds great! I'm a Twitter addict, but the only issue is, before purchasing a device, I want to know what the interface is like, and I can't get a good sense of that from the website. The Atheros AR6003 is an 802.11n chip that uses 20% less power than current chips and still delivers 85Mb/s data transfer. If you have people coming to your house for the holidays who've never been there, The HomeFinder Light Control might help. It will flash your front porch light for 20 minutes to let people know where to find you. The Remote Controlled Tissue Boxes seem like it'd make having a cold better. You can get them in white, black or red from GeekStuff4U.com. Join me for a live blog of the premiere of V Tuesday at 7PM Central / 8PM Eastern / 5PM Pacific. Just head on over to calilewis.me. Using promo code GEEK will save you 12% when you sign up at SquareSpace.com, the easy way to build a great looking Web site or blog.

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RED gave us some more details on the Scarlet and Epic X cameras. The Scarlet is expected to be popular with independent film producers and the Epic X is capable of 5K video. Creative announced they're working on an eBook Reader called the MediaBook. They don't just want to give you books and newspapers to read. They also want to be an all in one media device, complete with pictures and video capabilities. Mobile-review.com has a video that shows multi-touch being available on Droids that will be released in the UK, but that functionality won't be available to the US version. Ideum created a 100" multi-touch table, the largest ever developed, and is opening it up to the public on November 7th. If you're in Nashville, here's your chance to see it in action. Apple looks to be creating a subscription TV service. You'd pay $30 a month, but will all content providers be on board to give you a complete viewing experience? JustShootMePhotography.net is powered by SquareSpace. Promo code GEEK will save you 12% when you're ready to easily build a nice looking Web site using SquareSpace.com.

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The Motorola Droid will be released November 6th, and we have more details! It'll be running Android 2.0, with a large customizable screen. It has a 5 megapixel camera and some camera enhancing features. It also has free Google Maps Navigation with turn-by-turn voice guidance. MSI has a line of Windows 7 Multitouch all in one PCs. There are three of them, ranging from $660 to $900. If you're in the market for a kitchen scale, take a look at the Foldable Kitchen Scale with a tare function. I stopped by SCOTTEVEST on our trip back home. If you don't know about them, it?s a line of clothing optimized for storing electronics. Not only are there more pockets than you think you can fill, but also multiple channels for routing wires throughout the clothing.

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I ran into Chad Vader on the show floor at Blogworld. For those of you not familiar, he's Darth Vader's younger brother who is a day shift manager at a grocery store called Empire Market. We talk about his goals, his passions, and of course his brother. If you didn't see the Chad Vader promotional video I was a part of for Blogworld, it's embedded below. Chad Vader's Site

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In Bed with Victor Cajiao Victor Cajiao has been podcasting longer than Neal and I have even known about podcasting, and we started at the beginning, so that means Victor's been around forever! :) We talk about the changes in new media between 2005 and now, and his two shows Typical Mac User and Typical Shutterbug. Typical Mac User Typical Shutterbug Twitter Facebook

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Apple pre-empted the Windows 7 Launch with update announcements of their own. The thing I'm excited about the most is the Magic Mouse. It looks kind of like a Mighty Mouse, but it's multi-touch. It'll be available at the end of October. They updated the iMac. There's a 21.5" and 27" version in true 16:9 aspect ratio. There are two Mac Mini versions. One runs OSX Server, has two 500GB hard drives and no optical drive. The MacBook is going unibody. It'll have an LED backlit display, a glass multi-touch trackpad and a built in battery that will last up to seven hours. You can try SquareSpace.com for free for 14 days and then save 12% when you sign up using promo code GEEK.

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Vizio released the TruLED HDTV. It uses LEDs and has a contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1. The Spring Design Dual Screen eBook Reader is called Alex. Like the Barnes & Noble eReader, it's Android based and allows for full Internet browsing. A Blackberry accessory called the inPulse SmartWatch displays incoming calls and RSS headlines from your phone. I'm very much looking forward to the Droid. The Boy Genius Report got his hands on a unit and says it's the most impressive handset since the iPhone. You can save 25% off an AngiesList.com membership with discount code GEEK.

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I grabbed Chris Brogan for a chat. He's very popular, and spends a lot of his time trying to help businesses take advantage of social media and integrate it successfully in their business model. We talk about the dos and don'ts of marketing and how what matters now more than anything is just being real and nice. Chris' Website Twitter Facebook

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You guys have spoken! I know a lot of you don't like floor interviews when I'm at expos, so we wanted to do any Blogworld interviews at a little different. One of the things I always try to accomplish is to create a comfortable, casual environment. What better way to do that then get really comfy! Don McAllister is the producer of Screencasts Online, where you can get informative and educational screencasts about Mac software. If there's anything you need to know how to do, check here first! Don is an old school podcaster like us. He can't un-embrace the name "podcasting". That makes him family! Screencasts Online Twitter Facebook

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Gizmodo has a first peek at the Barnes & Noble eReader. We'll have more info next week, but we can see that it has a multi-touch screen at the bottom, and Gizmodo says it'll be running Android. Dyson showed off their Air Multiplier Fan. It doesn't have blades! There will be a 10" and a 12" version. Wi-Fi Direct is a technology that will make it possible for devices to communicate with each other without a router. Nikon's D3S has a maximum ISO of 102,400 which means it's almost night vision. Take a look at the incredible video. Video Monkey may prove to be a good replacement for Visual Hub for compressing video to upload to the Web. If you've tried it, I'd love to hear your experience! Orange Technology Management used promo code GEEK at SquareSpace to build naples-computer.com. My promo code gives you a 12% discount. Thanks for supporting The Brief!

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There was an outage on T-Mobile's Sidekick, and they're working hard to restore service and data. If you lost data, T-Mobile is offering you a free month and a $100 gift card, or letting you out of the contract. You can keep up with details at geekbrief.tv/sidekickoutage. Nokia's Booklet 3G will be subsidized by AT&T in the US. You can pick one up for $599, or $299 with a 2 year contract and $60/month data plan. People with Google Voice invites will start to see invites rolling in that you can give out to your friends. If you don't know anyone with invites, you can request one at geekbrief.tv/voiceinvite. Sanyo announced the VPC-HD2000A and the VPC-FH1A, the first two cameras that use the iFrame format, an H.264 format that allows for faster importing, editing and uploading. You can save money by using promo code GEEK when signing up for AngiesList.com.

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Kylie likes it. Mossberg likes it. Maximum PC says, "Windows 7 is unquestionably the best version of Windows ... ever." CNET says, "Windows 7 is stable, smooth, and highly polished." Gizmodo gives permission to, "Upgrade without trepidation, people. With excitement, even!" I second that emotion, Windows 7 is not only a worthy upgrade, I've had as much fun using Windows 7 this past week as I did when I switched from PCs to Mac. I did a clean install on a Gateway One with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz processor and 3GB of RAM. Installation took about 45 minutes and was a much smoother, welcoming experience than when I upgraded to XP and installed Vista on our Mac Pro. With XP and Vista, it felt like Microsoft was still trying to sell me the OS after the install. Activation seemed like an obstacle course before. With Windows 7, it was simple and only took a few seconds. One of the things most users hated about Vista was the never ending warnings. With Windows 7, those checks to make sure I really want to do what I'm doing don't seem to be happening any more often than they do on a Mac. Things that aren't immediately critical, but that need to be taken care of none-the-less, like installing anti-virus software, await action in the Action Center located in the Task Notification area. The Notification area is also where you can find security settings, maintenance settings, troubleshooting and it's where you can restore your computer to an earlier time. The Taskbar does much of what the Dock does on a Mac, but it does it in a way that seems more sensibly restrained than it's Mac counterpart. If you open an application, it's icon shows up on the task bar just like before, but if it's an application you use all the time, you can permanently "pin" it to the dock, and arrange the order as you like. Hovering over an icon gives you a preview of any or all of its opened Windows. Then, and I LOVE this, if you move your mouse over one of the preview thumbnails, it expands to full size. The full-size view remains on the screen as long as you hover over the thumbnail, and then if you click the thumbnail, that window stays opened. If you right click an item on the taskbar you're given what Microsoft calls a jump list. It's a list of things you can do in that application and it's my understanding that developers decide what they're going to put there, so if I right click on Safari or Firefox my only options are to open the window, pin or unpin the application to the taskbar, or close the application, but if I right click on Chrome, I have more options, like links to my most visited and recently closed sites. Engadget is such an important site I can permanently pin it to my Chrome Jump List. Aero Peek is a little shortcut that makes your windows transparent when you hover over this little rectangular space on the right end of the taskbar. Clicking the box hides all the open windows, and then clicking again brings them back. This is the first thing I wish Microsoft had handled just a little different. What I get between the hover and the click is too similar to be truly useful. I don't see the point of transparent outlines of my windows. What I'd rather see when I hover over the box, is shrunken versions of all my open windows like the Expose feature in OSX. Aero Shake is one of the fun things you can do in Windows 7. You realize you have too many windows open. You need the zen simplicity of a solitary window. Grab that one wanted window at the top, shake it and all the other windows are minimized. Shake it again after your moment of zen and all the clutter returns. I preferred using a Mac for about four years now, but one Windows feature I've always missed when I'm using OSX is the ability to tile windows. I rarely want to tile more than two, but I often want to have a google docs window open on one side of the screen and a browser open on the other. With Windows that's always been easy, but on a Mac, unless I've missed something, you have to manually size the two windows and manually arrange them side by side. Windows 7 still lets you right click and tile from the task bar, but now there's feature called Snap. Grab a window at the top, throw it to the right side of the screen and it snaps to fill exactly the right half of the screen. Take a second window, throw it to the left and then you have two equally balanced windows where you can work side by side. Snap also works when you want to maximize a window so it fills the whole screen. Just drag it to the top to maximize and pull it down when you want to work with multiple windows at the same time. Now lets just put that whole Vista thing behind us. Lets all pretend that never happened. PC users finally have an operating system that's a joy to use. The Apple "I'm a Mac" ads might not make sense anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up OSX for Windows 7. I will continue to use both, but now I can enjoy using both. Brief 642 was brought to you by AngiesList.com/geek. More than one million consumers use Angie's List to find high quality contractors, service companies and doctors they can trust and my promo code will save you 25% when you join the list. Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized Win+Space: All windows are made transparent so you can see the desktop Win+Home: Minimize all windows but the current window Windows 7 Reviews Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5330609/windows-7-review-you-can-quit-complaining-now Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/12/windows-7-review Mossberg: http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091007/a-windows-to-help-you-forget David Pogue coming soon, I hope!

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I get asked a LOT about the best cameras to buy for this type of shooting or that type of video. On today's Brief, we're taking a look at three different cameras to show the strengths and weaknesses of each. Panasonic HVX200A Great quality camera Shoots to P2 Cards Expensive JVC GY-HM100 Great size Creates Final Cut ready files Removable XLR inputs Didn't have great results in low light Kodak Zi8 Smallest HD camera with mic input and image stabilization Very inexpensive No zoom or focus Canon Vixia HFS10 Great for $700-$1200 range Use my promo code GEEK to save 12% when you sign up with SquareSpace to easily build a great looking Web site.

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The two complaints I hear most about the Amazon Kindle is the price and that international users can't take advantage of Whispernet. Amazon announced the Internation, GSM version of Kindle is available for pre-order now for $279. The US version has dropped in price to $259. AT&T is allowing VoIP applications on the iPhone to be used on its 3G and 2G networks. Previously, users could only use apps like Skype or Vonage on WiFi. Verizon and Google are teaming up to launch open Android hardware that will run Google Voice. The HTC Hero is confirmed to launch on Verizon in November. doubleTwist made their expected announcement. They launched an Amazon MP3 Store that allows you to load music on almost any device you want. There are new Gateway One models, the ZX6800 and the ZX4800. The ZX6800 is a computer and an HDTV, with a resolution of 1920x1080. A GBTV viewer used my promo code GEEK to save 12% at SquareSpace.com and built one of the most beautifully simple Web sites I've ever seen, SimpleTree.biz.

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We might get a multi-touch Mighty Mouse from Apple, but Microsoft has their own ideas. In the video, we take a look at the FTIR Mouse, the Orb Mouse, the Cap Mouse, the Side Mouse, and the Arty Mouse. I'm sad to say I bought the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch tablet, but had to return it. The cursor didn't move smoothly, even after some time and messing with settings. , br I'm excited about Vstone's Robovie-PC. It's a 15" robot that runs Windows or Linux. It has WiFi, USB, VGA and a camera. Take a look at the video of Robovie in action here. Toshiba's new LCD TV, called the Cell Regza 55X1, integrates a Cell Broadband Engine. It has a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 3TB of storage and can record and display eight channels at the same time. You can save 25% on an Angie's List membership by using discount code GEEK.

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Dell's Z600 is beautiful and brings some new ideas to the top of your lap. EyeTV released an iPhone app that will let you record and watch your recordings. It's $5. BlackBerry users got an app for TiVo, but you'll only be able to schedule and view recordings, and not watch. It's free. FOTOBOX is an SD card reader that will turn your photos into an animated slideshow, that you can then burn to a DVD. Pioneer released a 12x Blu-ray burner, called the BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc Computer Writer. It'll be $250 and ships later this month. I want to join the Bacon of the Month Club!!! In addition to getting bacon every month, you also get...1) discounts on Grateful Palate bacon products and bacons, 2) a membership card, 3) a monthly comic strip about bacon, 4) a Bacon themed ball-point-pen, 5) a little rubber toy pig, 6) one free bacon tee-shirt, 7) a monthly bacon recipe, 8) additional discounts, and 9) a pig nose. Paul Barron used my promo code GEEK at SquareSpace.com to build socialcoco.com, a blog about how folks in the restaurant biz can make the most out of social media.

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We've all been expecting Apple to release a touch screen tablet, but they may not be the first to market. The Hanvon should hit China later this year. We saw a video showing us Microsoft's Courier last week. This week, we have an update and more information about what the device should be. How interested are you guys in the Courier? Sony's DRX-S70U-W is a very small CD/DVD burner for those netbooks that don't include an optical drive. I'm expecting DoubleTwist to start working for iPhones on Macs on October 6th. It gives you the option to manage content on many different devices like iPods, PSPs, and Kindles, all by drag and drop. They released a video parodying Apple's 1984 ad, which you can see here. I love when researches demonstrate how things work in an entertaining way. In this video, MIT Professor Vladimir Bulovic shows us how OLEDs work using an organic light emitting pickle. I'm looking forward to more from MIT Tech TV. SquareSpace.com sponsored this episode of GeekBrief.TV. My promo code GEEK will save you 12%. Thomas Flight used the code to build a site highlighting his photography at thomasflight.squarespace.com.

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You know when I love a product? When it simplifies a process that has historically been complex by just working. The iPhone does that for mobile phones. Drobo does that for redundant storage. The 5D Mark II does that for shooting photos and video without great lighting. The PogoPlug does that for sharing a hard drive, and now the Vue Personal Video Network does that for home surveillance. Believe me. I was nervous when I ordered my Vue kit from Amazon because I've tried other wireless camera systems that were a pain in the butt to set up, worked intermittently or didn't work at all, unless the camera was with in a few feet of the receiver. The kit comes with two wireless cameras. Four ingenious magnetic mounts, four CR123 batteries, a receiver and an ethernet cable. The battery cover opens with the twist of a coin. My guess is they include two extra batteries because they aren't quite as common as double AAs or triple AAAs. I climbed a ladder to get to one of our routers. I plugged in an ethernet cable, plugged in the power and within about 10 seconds I got a flashing blue light to indicate the network connection was active. To activate the wireless connection between the two cameras and the receiver I pressed a sync button on the receiver. A camera has to be within 12-inches of the receiver during that activation process. Right after I pressed sync, lights started rapidly blinking on the two cameras and I was done. I created an account on my.vuezone.com. It took less than three minutes to enter my details, create a password and boom! There were my two cameras. I renamed them, dragged them into the view screen. Press play the same way you start a YouTube video and the live stream begins. I can choose to record and my account includes 2000MBs of storage that I can watch later and choose to share online. The share feature is cool because I can add my neighbor as a friend and activate his ability to view the cameras when I'm out of town. If the alarm goes off, he can hop on and see what's happening without putting himself in danger. I like the Vue Personal Video Network because it works as well as they say it does and it couldn't possibly be simpler to set up. Image quality is perfectly acceptable. Of course my eyes are used to HD so I expect that to come in the future. The magnetic mounting system is brilliant. You stick it to a wall and then move the camera around to get the best shot. Wireless range is excellent. I carried a camera throughout my house and all around my yard and never lost the signal. This blew me away. You can add up to 50 cameras!!! Now, that would be expensive because extra cameras are $100 a pop. I won't be adding 50, but I already ordered 3 more cameras for full coverage around the house. This is far and a way one of my favorite products released this year. Brief 636 was brought to you by AngiesList.com/geek. Kind of relevant to this whole surveillance theme, I used angieslist.com to pick our alarm monitoring service. My promo code GEEK will save you 25% when you join AngiesList.

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Spawn is offering place-shift gaming with the HD-720. While traveling, you can play games from your consoles at home. Verizon wants to rollout their 4G coverage mostly "all at once", in 25-30 markets next year. The Livepack from Livestream gives people the ability to live stream HD video while on the move. I would LOVE to try this on a road trip! I'm loving Livebrush. It's a free Adobe Air drawing app, and great for useful purposes in a presentation, or just to waste some time. eHarmony matches singles based on psychological compatibility, and the results are impressive. There are an average of 236 eHarmony marriages every day. You can get 1 Month Free when you subscribe for 3 Months by using promo code EHGBTV...that's EH for eHarmony, GBTV for GeekBrief.TV...EHGBTV.

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Wacom announced a series of Bamboo Tablets that brings multitouch and gesture control to any PC or Mac. The collection ranges from $70 to $200. I love Monoprice's MiniDisplay Port to HDMI Adapter. They just released a new version that includes the ability to transfer audio, so it's perfect for adding a Mac Mini to your home theater. I've been anticipating Avaak's Vue Personal Video Network for a while, and it's finally here. I'll let you know if it works as promised next week. AT&T made an announcment on Facebook that they're adding MMS to the iPhone on September 25th. Researchers at MIT are making headway on research to bring vision to blind people. My promocode GEEK will save you 25% when you sign-up for a membership at Angie's List. If you ever need to hire a contractor to do work on your home, angieslist.com/geek is THE place to start.

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I'm back from my secret G.I.A. mission! If you follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/calilewis, you got a peek into what I was doing. I was on a panel along with Amber MacArthur, Brian Tong, Peter Rojas and Ryan Block at an Alcatel-Lucent event where we spoke candidly to to telecom and cable companies. Gizmodo got an exclusive demo from Microsoft of a tablet Microsoft calls the "Courier". I'm looking forward to this coming to market! Disneyventures.com is another site built by a Geek Brief viewer using SquareSpace.com and they used my code GEEK to save when they signed up.

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I'm on a secret mission. I signed an NDA. I'll tell you what I can on Twitter (www.twitter.com/calilewis) until I get back on Wednesday.

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We have an update on the Google Voice and Apple situation. Google said they do believe Apple rejected the app because of similarities to native features on the iPhone. Apple says it's still under review and hasn't been rejected. Microsoft is giving students the chance to get Windows 7 for $30. It's a limited time offer. Details are at win741.com. HP's Dream Screen digital frame has 802.11g Wi-Fi, 2 Gigs of memory and a remote control. You get access to real-time weather, Snapfish, read-only Facebook, Pandora, and HP Smart Radio. Unfortunately, you don't get a browser or the ability to post on Facebook. The Messless Charger came in for review. I mentioned them on Brief 594. It'll charge up to four devices. It comes with an iPod connector, a Nokia plug, a Sony Ericsson connector, Mini USB and a couple more. You can order additional connectors and switch out based on your needs. NextCreativeMedia.com used my promo code GEEK to save 12% and design a great looking Web site using SquareSpace.com.

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The Media Decor Eclipse Art Lift covers up displays with a piece of art when it's not in use. The TV is installed in the wall, and you can lower, raise or move the art to one side. You can find different sizes and options at mediadecor.com. If you've been watching GeekBrief.TV for a while, you've heard me talk about Kaleidescape. I finally got to see it in action and I loved what I saw! Control4 is offering a low cost automation system. The UI is displayed on an HDTV. Unfortunately, you still have to go through an installer to get it. I've been skeptical of the AIWX Series of loudspeakers, but I heard them and am impressed. At Petco.com, promo code BRIEF will save you 10% and provide free shipping on orders of $65 or more and promo code BRIEF10 will save you 10% on ANY size order. I?m Cali Lewis. Thanks for watching!

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Terra was showing off Weather Proof Speakers. They're designed to work in all climates and withstand snow, wind, heat, ice and rain. MB Quart Entertainment has made an entirely water proof TV. It can even be entirely submerged under water, unlike some other waterproof TVs. SÉURA's ONE mirror is perfect for the bathroom. The TV is integrated into a part of the mirror. They also have TVs completely hidden behind mirrors. I didn't mean to go to CEDIA and actually buy anything, but I couldn't help myself when I sat in the Cuddle Bag chair. It completely envelops you. This brief was brought to you by squarespace.com. It's a simple, inexpensive way to build a beautiful Web site and my promo code GEEK will save you 12% off when you sign up.

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We came to CEDIA in Atlanta this year, and began to cover it as we normally do tradeshows, but instead of the normal booth interviews, we wanted to find a way to cover CEDIA without causing viewer fatigue. We decided to do this year a bit differently. Let us know in the comments below what you prefer! Today's Brief is all about the outrageously expensive products! Thiel was showing off their CS3.7 speakers at CEDIA signed by Les Paul. The money from these special editions go to charity. The Grand Cinema HT6000 is a 3-chip 1080p DLP projector with a high brightness dual lamp configuration and it delivers 4000 lumens. Rumor has it it'll be sold at $120,000. If you like home theater rooms, you might like First Impression Theme Theaters. I sat in a chair that made the noise of an engine revving when you lean back. JVC had a 3D TV, as a few others did. I liked JVC's. They didn't hurt my eyes and they worked with simple polarized lenses. When you have to pick a contractor to do work on your home and you're an Angieslist member, you can find someone you can trust. Start at angieslist.com/geek and use geek at check out to save 25%. Follow Cali on Twitter

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On Friday, we posted our first video from CEDIA. We had to pull down the video because there were two very loud audio spikes. Something happened during compression. It wasn't in the original, exported version. While we're trying to figure it out, we wanted to apologize to those of you who had to deal with the first uploaded video!

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Amber MacArthur interviewed me recently for her new show on XBox LIVE called Girls Go Geek. She asked me what I would build if I could bring to market one thing. I said that I want a low cost system to automate my entire house. Today, I saw exactly what I was asking for at the Savant booth. If you're looking to do home automation, you'll spend at least $10,000. Savant's system is called Protege. It's a box with a Mac Mini that will control a mid size home for $5,000, and you can control everything from your iPhone or iPod Touch. I also got a look at the TrueImage Control, which is a visual system to control your lights, TV, etc from a touch panel.

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We're on our way to Atlanta for CEDIA and kept up with Apple's "It's only Rock and Roll" event while in the car. Forgive the low quality video. It's the only way to get it uploaded while moving down the road! :) iPhone 3.1 -- Genius will make suggestions for apps you might like based on apps you already have -- 30,000 ringtones will be available for $1.29 each iTunes 9 -- Genius Mixes will pick out and play songs from your music library that it thinks go together -- Improved syncing includes the ability to manage pages and apps from iTunes. You'll also be able to copy songs or movies onto your iPod from other libraries on your network. -- Available now Touch -- Unfortunately we don't get the camera and microphone on the touch as we predicted -- 8GB $199 -- $299 16GB -- $399 64GB iPod Classic -- The 120GB iPod Classic is upgraded to 160GB, but stays at same price of $129 Nano -- The Nano DOES get the camera and microphone addition -- One click sends videos to YouTube -- Adds FM Radio -- Adds Pedometer -- 8GB $149 -- 16GB $179 -- Available Today

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About a month ago, my iPhone shattered. I don't know if it was the heat or if the bike repair shop accidentally smashed it. It happened around the time Apple dropped Google Voice apps from the App store, so I wasn't too keen to buy an iPhone replacement as long as Apple was saying no to innovation that matters. It just so happened, I had a Nokia N97 at the P.O. Box! I decided to go without an iPhone for a month and just use the N97. Brief 626 is my review. Nokia N97 You can save 12% when you sign up for a SquareSpace.com account by using discount code GEEK. If you use the code and create a website with SquareSpace, tweet me a link. I'm @calilewis.

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The PenCam HD Trio from AipTek is a small camera about the size of a sharpie that shoots 720p video. Stills are 5 megapixels and it has a voice recorder. Asus will be showing off their digital reader by the end of the year. Their goal is to make the world's most inexpensive reader, and it does a lot more than hold books. It'll be full color, and have a webcam and mic. Perhaps they should be aiming at the touchpad market instead. Spotify I'm excited to see the online game that Google and Monopoly are launching on Wednesday. It's called Monopoly City Streets and it's like the game of Monopoly but uses Google Maps as the board game. Promo code GEEK will save you 25% off a membership at AngiesList.com/Geek.

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Amazon is still aiming to make up for their mistake with the 1984 debacle. Customers who got their copy of 1984 stripped off their Kindles can choose to get a legally published version of the book redelivered for free or an Amazon gift certificate or check for $30. USBfever.com has an interesting twist to the external battery pack for iPhones. The 3-in-1 External Battery gives you a built in USB cable and the ability to carry around two SIM cards safely. Toshiba's JournE is a 7" tablet running Windows CE 6.0 Pro. It doesn't look to be multi-touch, but it's light and small. I'm very excited to have the JVC GY-HM100U ProHD Solid State Media Camcorder in my hands. It's very small and lightweight but it has Pro features, including XLR inputs. It creates files ready to be dragged and dropped into Final Cut Pro, so you save a lot of time not having to import files. I'll be testing it next week at CEDIA in Atlanta. When you have to pick a contractor to do work on your house, AngiesList.com helps you find someone you can trust and my code GEEK saves you 25% off the cost of a membership.

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Robert Clain and Miguel Salas created the Fart Detector as their Senior Project at Cornell. I'd prefer to stay far away from this one! Panasonic announced the Lumix DMC-GF1. It has 12.1 megapixel stills and artistic presets called My Colors to give you film-like beauty without post work. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a mic input. Gadgets and Gizmos has a frame that has a proximity sensor. You put in a real photo, and when someone gets close, snow will swirl in front of the picture. The BookArc is a great holder for a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro when you want to use it in Closed Clamshell Mode. Creative Vado got an update. There's a 4GB version and and 8GB version, plus they'll be releasing Vado Central for OSX that will make it easy to import video into iMovie. Brief 623 was financially powered by a NEW sponsor, eHarmony.com. eHarmony matches singles based on psychological compatibility and this blew my mind ... there are an average of 235 eHarmony member marriages a day! This promo code is trickier than the rest. It's EHGBTV and obviously it stands for E Harmony Geek Brief TV. The code yields you a free month when you subscribe for three.

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Skype was bought by eBay, but eBay hasn't been able to do what they wanted with it. 65% of Skype is now owned by a group of VCs, and eBay will keep a 35% ownership. Microsoft announced Windows Phones will be available October 6th, running Windows Mobile 6.5. The Canon 7D is a great alternative for anyone drooling for the 5D Mark II but not ready to pay that much. Opera 10 was released out of beta today and with it comes Turbo mode, an option that compresses Web pages for faster browsing when you're on a dreadfully slow connection. This brief was brought to you by Petco.com where I have two promo codes. Enter BRIEF at check out to save 10% and get free shipping on orders over $65 or BRIEF10 to get 10% with no minimum order.

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Medion announced their 24" Multi-touch All-in-One PC. It runs Windows 7, has a Core 2 Quad Q9000 processor, 4GB of RAM and a GeForce GT240M graphics card. Mobilzy brings augmented reality to your phone by overlaying turn-by-turn directions when you point your phone's camera at the road. It's still being tested before release. Sony's Daily Edition eBook Reader offers 3G wireless connectivity without a monthly fee, just like the Kindle. Unlike the Kindle, it'll natively read PDFs that you transfer via USB. It'll be available in time for Christmas shopping for $400. I finally got my pre-ordered Snow Leopard in today and have it installed on my MacBook Pro. I'll update you as I have a chance to play with it. You can save 12% on a SquareSpace.com account when you use my promo code GEEK.

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I'm back from the staycation and have a lot to cover! Nokia announced their Booklet 3G. It's a beautifully designed netbook with WiFi, built in 3G and GPS, plus an HDMI port. Sirius announced the XM SkyDock, which turns an iPhone or iPod Touch into a Sirius XM Radio tuner. It'll charge your phone and broadcast audio from it, either stored or streaming for $120. The newest PocketDock from SendStation adds line out and a mini USB port to you iPhone or iPod. I'm loving my latest WordPress install called Pretty Link Pro. I would say this is the best plug-in I've ever installed because it allows you to control your brand better throughout the Internet. We've all become accustomed to shortened URLs and using services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com. They're great services, but unfortunately you're giving away those links to another brand other than your own. Pretty Link Pro allows you to create shortened URLs using your own domain name. My normal posts for GeekBrief.TV look something like this: www.geekbrief.tv/brief-616-slimmer-ps3-glass-dualview-st225-st220-logitech-mice. I have to shorten that if I want to tweet it, but with Pretty Link Pro I can turn it into www.geekbrief.tv/616 (the episode of that particular Brief). Or, I can turn www.calilewis.me/12-days-of-twitter-wrapped-up into www.calilewis.me/12days. There are tons of features, all of which you can find at www.geekbrief.tv/prettylink. John P. is the one who turned me on to this plugin, and he wrote a full review on his blog, www.onemansblog.com/plp. Snailmailr.com will let you send snail mail with color pictures to the unconnected members in your family just by going to their website and filling in the address, and typing the letter. It's as easy as sending an email. You can sign up at Angieslist.com/geek and save 25% and find service providers you can trust when you use promo code GEEK.

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The third and final segment from my Las Vegas speech for Fiserv is another of Pranav Mistry's projects called SixthSense. It's a wearable gesture interface that allows a person to interact with As a public speaker, I talk about the impact of technology we experience today, amazing research that will become the technology we'll use in the future, the importance of social media, and video production tips and tricks. If you're interested in having me speak at your event, please contact me.

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Brief 618 is the second segment from my speech in Las Veags for Fiserv. I've covered Yowza on The Brief before but I go into a little more detail about it and show exactly how it works. They're constantly updating the coupons and adding companies. You can get more information at GetYowza.com. As a public speaker, I talk about the impact of technology we experience today, amazing research that will become the technology we'll use in the future, the importance of social media, and video production tips and tricks. If you're interested in having me speak at your event, please contact me. You can save 12% on a SquareSpace.com subscription by using promo code GEEK.

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I'm taking a few days off for a staycation to organize the house, but in the meantime I wanted to share a few clips with you from a recent speech I did in Las Vegas at a private event for Fiserv. In this particular speech, I talked about future technologies that will change the way we interact with computers and present technologies that can save us time and/or money. The first clip is about Pranav Mistry's project at the MIT Media Lab called QUICKIES. QUICKIES are an electronic version of Stickies that have the ability to intelligently interact with us. TECHNICAL NOTE: Our video copy of the speech has overly compressed audio so we put a music bed to cover up some of the pops and compression artifacts. As a public speaker, I talk about the impact of technology we experience today, amazing research that will become the technology we'll use in the future, the importance of social media, and video production tips and tricks. If you're interested in having me speak at your event, please contact me. You can save 25% on an AngiesList.com membership by using promo code GEEK.

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The first week of September, we'll see a new slimmer PS3 with a lower price point at $300. It'll run cooler, use less power and run quieter. Cloud Telecomputers is working on an Android Desktop Smartphone called Glass. It has an eight-inch color touchscreen, with Outlook integration, Bluetooth, speakerphone and an API for adding additional features. Samsung is thinking different with their DualView ST220 and ST225. They added a secondary LCD screen on the front of the point and shoots to give you a better view when shooting yourself and it also will display animated videos so you can attract a baby's attention when you want them to look at the camera. Logitech announced two mice that, using Darkfield Laser Tracking, will work on glass that's only 4mm thick and glossy surfaces. They're the Performance Mouse MX and the Anywhere Mouse MX. SquareSpace automates the design and development of a Web site or blog and through automation, they're able get you up and running on the Web starting at just $8 a month. You can try it free for 14 days and my promocode GEEK will save you 12% when you sign up.

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Canon released lots of new cameras and printers today. Take a look: Canon VIXIA HF S11 Dual Flash Memory Camcorder Six New Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras Four New Canon Printers Use my promo code GEEK to sign up for an AngiesList.com membership. The short cut is angieslist.com/geek and my code saves you 25% when you sign up, but much more after you're a member, both in terms of money AND headaches.

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Microsoft's LIfeCam Cinema Webcam is 720p and shoots at 30 frames per second. It's USB 2.0 and requires a 3GHz dual core processor and 2GB of RAM. Spasers are a new kind of laser that can be concentrated to increase performance speed in our electronics. John Gruber from Daring Fireball is encouraging companies to build an Android phone that is as good or better than an iPhone to encourage competition. CRISTAL stands for Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces. The goal of the project is to make a practical application for multi-touch beyond pinching and zooming. Save 12% on a subscription at SquareSpace.com by using promotion code GEEK.

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I've covered the Outcast Ultimate Wireless Speaker before and have been using it ever since. I love it more the more I use it. It's weather resistant and fireproof. They released it's little brother, the Outcast Jr. It has a 6.5" down firing woofer and four 3" high frequency drivers in an omnidirectional array. If you have two Jr.'s, one can receive only the right channel and the other can receive only the left. You can plug the AudioCast Transmitter into your home theater or your laptop. It's versatile because of the magnet and form factor, which I love. One of my favorite gadgets that has made being outside, or on a plane, or in the car easier when you loose power in your MacBook or iPhone is the HyperMac External Battery. They have four options, from 60 Watt Hour to 222 Watt Hour, providing between 11.8 to 52.2 additional hours. If you haven't seen the IT Crowd, buy the DVDs! It's worth it. They once did a great episode about "The Internet". When I saw the Verizon MiFi, I immediately thought of this episode. The MiFi is a tiny router that lets you easily share Internet access with your friends or family. I think I'll be giving up my Sprint mobile broadband card for the MiFi. The IT Crowd The IT Crowd: The Complete Season OneThe IT Crowd: The Complete Second SeasonThe IT Crowd: The Complete Third Season You can save money using my promo code GEEK at either Angieslist.com or SquareSpace.com.

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We've been doing double enders in audio since we started, and have wanted to do a video double ender, where we record our end and the other person records their end. We just realized this week that the technology has gotten to a point where it's easy, rather than a hacked together solution. On Brief 612, I walk you through the setup we used to do a couple double enders, one for Channel 9 in Denver and the other for Amber Mac's Girls Go Geek on XBox LIVE.

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Motorola will be releasing an Android phone codenamed "Sholes" with a 3.7" 854X480 touchscreen with a slider QWERTY keyboard. It'll have GPS, Wi-Fi, USB and Bluetooth. The PRC is a swinging chair that costs $4200. Sony is working on new technology that gives batteries long life and rapid charging. It can be charged to 99% within 30 minutes. Shoot It! is an iPhone app that makes sending postcards much easier! Take a picture, write a note and send the company prints and sends them for you. CNET has a very thorough review of the Logitech Harmony 900 Universal Remote. They called it "hands down, the best universal remote control we've ever tested." This Brief was brought to you by AngiesList.com/geek. Angie's List provides member reviews of contractors, service providers and even doctors so we can learn from our neighbor's mistakes. Promo code GEEK saves you 25% when you join and it supports the production of GeekBrief.TV.

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Optoma announced their attempt at making 1080p projection more accessible with their H20 1080p Projector. It's only $1000, and has two HDMI ports. The Vivitek H1080FD is another good option if you're in the market. Julie & Julia is, I believe, the first movie about blogging. I loved it, and hope you guys go see it too! You can see Julie Powell's current blog here. Julie's original blog called The Julie and Julia Project is here. Sony has two new Walkmans, the S-series. There are 8GB and 16GB versions. Supported codecs include MP3, WMA, AAC, H.264, MP4 and WMV. When connected to a PC, you'll be able to drag and drop files onto the player. Onkyo's TX-NR807 is an A/V Receiver with network audio streaming. The TX-SR707 is an A/V Receiver without Network Audio Streaming. We use and love the Onkyo TX-SR706. Google is letting you use their new search engine. You can test it out here. SquareSpace is a very easy, inexpensive way to setup a Web site or blog. They host and manage all the technical stuff. If you start with SquareSpace and then decide you want to move to WordPress or Blogger or Typepad, SquareSpace will help. They'll help you move from one of the other platforms too. My promo code, GEEK, will save you 12% when you sign up. Cali's Shirt Courtesy of Conch Tees

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We've talked about the Cowboys Stadium 60 yard HD display a couple times before on The Brief. It's the largest HD screen in the world. Today I got to see it in person and we brought the cameras along to share it with you! It's pretty incredible to look at and I hope it comes through on video. In addition to the displays, the stadium has a lot of other technology built in, including RFID, 2800 smaller displays with their own IP addresses, and antennas for Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

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User mringwall on YouTube is playing with the possibility of a virtual WiiMote on the iPhone. Ustream released a mobile app. On the 3GS, it will allow you to record video and upload it. For Nokia phones, you can stream live The TomTom Car Kit is priced in the UK. The Sony Party-shot mounts to a tripod and will take pictures for you while panning and tilting. You can concentrate on your guests while knowing moments are still being captured. There are two new Cybershots. The TX1 allows you to flick through images and has a 4x telescopic zoom. The WX1 has a wide angle 24-120mm 5x optical zoom lens with a 2.4 maximum aperture. They both use an "Exmor R" back-illuminated CMOS sensor to enhance image clarity and drastically reduce grain when shooting in low light. They also shoot panaramic pictures. This brief was brought to you by SquareSpace.com. Check them out if you want to inexpensively build a pretty Web site without dealing with code. Use promo code GEEK to save 12%.

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I've always loved Griffin PowerDocks that charge two or four iPods or iPhones at a time. I'm blown away by the Parasync Dock that charges up to 20 iPods or iPhones using one USB cable! Self Edge NYC is testing the Square iPhone Credit Card Processing app to process retail transactions and allow for signatures right on the iPhone. The receipt would then be emailed to the customer. Alex Lindsay suggested the Intensity Pro HDMI and Analog Editing Card for our Mac Pro. We'll keep you updated as we see what difference it makes for us! Brief 607 was brought to you by angieslist.com/geek. Not only will my promo code save you 25% off the cost of a membership, if you purchase an annual or multi-year membership, Angie's List has a 110% money-back guarantee that you'll like the service.

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Apple announced today that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google is resigning from Apple's Board of Directors due to conflicting interests. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw on Saturday that my iPhone was shattered, so I've been thinking about which phones I might like to replace it with. The LG-BL40 is one option, which we've talked about a couple times on the Brief. Now there's a commercial that shows us the potential of the widescreen. Will you embed this video on GBTV and then link to it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvjBRLdyYo4 Nikon may be releasing the S1000pj Coolpix camera soon. It'll have a projector and sell for around $700. Toyota has built a humanoid robot that can run. The challenge they face, by working on his balance control, is getting him to walk and run smoothly on uneven ground. If you want a great looking Web site without spending loads of money or dealing directly with code, check out SquareSpace.com. It's one of the easiest ways to get yourself, your business or a project online and my promo code GEEK will save you 12% when you sign up for an account.

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Nikon announced two cameras we've been waiting on. The D300s shoots 720p video, has an external mic jack, and does autofocus during video shooting, which the Canon 5D Mark II doesn't do. The D3000 is an entry level DSLR with a guide mode and stitching software. It doesn't shoot video. The LG BL40 Chocolate is a high definition wide touchscreen smartphone. The display is 800x345 and will be available later this year. Apple released a 2TB Time Capsule at $499. The 1TB is still available at $299. If you participated in the Windows 7 Beta program, you're eligible for a free, final copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. Take a look at the .Beta_Program newsgroup for details. Angie's List is our sponsor today. You can save 25% when you sign up for a membership using promo code GEEK.

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Twitter is working on its self image for newbies. Lots of people hear about the service, go to the website and get confused about the question "What are you doing?" They've changed that to "What do you have to say?" Apple released the MobileMe iDisk App, but they pulled the Google Voice apps. I'm none too happy about that! Ricoh announced the Zi8. It's a 1080p Pocket Video camera. It hols up to 32GB of storage, you can edit video and upload to YouTube, it has smart face tracking and promises good low light performance.

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I met Mark Taylor from TAYLORMARK a couple years ago when I had a hard drive failure. He watches The Brief and invited us over to his office to see if he could recover it. He recovered that one, and then a little later, I had another failure and he recovered that one. This is now my third drive to bring to him. I like him because I'm cheap and he charges between $499-$799 for most recoveries. That's about half of what other places charge. I wanted to share Mark with the Geek Brief audience as a resource. He's developing a new data recovery store concept that's designed to calm the nerves of anybody who comes in scared to death that they've lost their precious photos or business data. When you walk into the door it feels more like a spa than anything technical. All the technical magic happens in the back, and customers never see it. The Geek Brief audience has lots of hard core geeks that can recover their own data, but we also have a lot of people who are just casually interested in technology and the gadgets we talk about, and this Brief is for them!

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We've been doing GeekBrief.TV since December 23, 2005. I don't remember exactly when, but I know it was early on that I met SwitchingGranny (Martha Garrett). She told me I was one of the major influences in getting her to switch to the Mac, but as we began to talk, what drew me to her was her obvious love for technology. She's a grandmother who didn't appear to feel the overpowering hurdle that technology can present to some of our parents and grandparents. She didn't understand everything at first, but was open to learning and asked lots of questions. In 2003, she was diagnosed with MS, and instead of letting the disease ruin her life, she connected to the online community and it's enriched her life. She's also one of the nicest people I've ever met! After about three years, she has become a valuable part of the Geek Brief community, and we invited her to spend some time here at the GBTV studio. Heck, we had to invite her...she promised to cook for us!! It's been a wonderful week of geeking out and getting to know someone who has not only been part of our lives because of this crazy Internet world, but also has become a part of so many other GeekBrief.TV viewers' lives through twitter.com/switchinggranny . Technical Note: Neal wrote a post on the Geek Brief Blog about Brief 602 and working with the latest Final Cut Studio upgrade for the first time. We love experimenting even when the experiments don't work perfectly. twitter.com/switchinggranny facebook.com/SwitchNGranny

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Jeff Bezos issued an apology on the Kindle Community forum for last week's ordeal. We're seeing a lot more augmented reality come to reality lately. Jonas Jager will be releasing the source code for an Augmented Reality business card. It'll turn the card into a 3D image when a webcam is shooting. The Zoom Q3 Digital Audio Recorder records high quality audio plus video. The audio is 24-bit, 48kHz and the video is just 640x480 at 30 frames per second. I'm looking forward to seeing some awesome games designed for Project Natal. Here's a video of RUSE being played on a Microsoft Surface. SquareSpace.com is now sponsoring the Brief. Squarespace is a powerful, seamless solution for designing, building and hosting a Web site or blog. It's one of the simplest tools for building a Web site I've ever tried. Just like with Angieslist.com, my promo code at squarespace.com is GEEK. You can try squarespace for free for 14 days without giving them your credit card. Then my promo code will save you 12% off the cost of a subscription.

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Apple announced an upgrade to Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio. There are over 100 new features, and I'm really excited about the changes to the way exporting is handled. The Lexicon BD-30 Blu-ray player promises to load discs in under five seconds, but it could cost $3,000 when it's released. If The Orb Bluetooth Ring Headset actually comes to market, I think I'll be getting one. It's a bluetooth headset made as a ring for your finger. It'll display caller ID and other information from your phone. Windows 7 has been Released to Market (RTM). October 22nd is the expected availabiity date. You can save 25% on an Angie's List membership by using discount code GEEK.

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Synaptics has a new multitouch developer kit called the ClearPad 3000. It can read input from up to 10 fingers simultaneously and offers greater precision. Canon is releasing new technology in lenses coming out by the end of the year, called Hybrid IS. It's an acceleration sensor that determines the amount of shift-based camera shake. Coke is testing a Freestyle Soda Fountain that will let you try different mixed fountain drinks. There are 100 flavor options. The test markets are Georgia, California, and Utah. ASUS is releasing the first motherboard with USB 3.0 ports. It's the P6X58 Premium. This episode was brought to you by AngiesList.com/Geek. You can get recommendations from fellow members and my promo code GEEK will save you 25% off the cost of joining.

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Amazon caused all kinds of controversy today when it took back books Kindle users had bought. The books in question were George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 from publisher MobileReference. Amazon later released a statement saying that the books in question were unlicensed and they wouldn't do the same thing in the future. John Biggs over at CrunchGear has his hands on an HTC Hero and it looks good from the intitial unboxing. He'll have a full review next week. In January, Collins America will release a 47" display and an external dual HDTV tuner. It'll have both HDMI and Mini DisplayPort out. Samsung announced a small 1080p camcorder called the HMX-U10. It comes with conversion software that will convert your footage to be YouTube ready. Save money at Petco.com using our promo codes. BRIEF offers 10% off and free shipping on orders $65 or more. BRIEF10 offers 10% off with no minimum order.

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A study by The Leading Question says 66% of teens prefer CDs to digital downloads. It may be due to the economic downturn, but Apple's sales dropped 12.4%. The EVGA InterView Dual Display has two 17-inch displaces mounted on each side of a single stand. The displays can be rotated to face either direction so that two people can work across from each other. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, www.wechoosethemoon.org is recreating the mission. It'll include animation, photos, video and best of all, the recording of the radio transmissions between NASA and the Apollo 11 capsule. Canon announced two new HD cameras, the iVIS HF 21 and the iVIS HF S11. The press release wasn't in English, but I was able to pull some information from Google Translate. Save 25% on your Angie's List membership with the promo code GEEK.

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Allan Grinshtein was bored on Monday so he decided to write an site called PingWire that shows all the pictures posted to TwitPic in (almost) real time. It was too much for the TwitPic servers to handle, so he switched to YFrog. Warning: may be NSFW Meeting Ticker is a result of a GitHub.com collaborative project. You enter the Number of Attendees, Average Hourly Salary and the time the Meeting started. It'll keep a running total throughout the meeting. Nintendo is releasing a Black Wii in Japan on August 1st. I love Cisco's Telepresence technology, but it's large and expensive, and not meant for the average consumer. They're working on bringing the technology to the HDTVs we have in our living rooms, and I can't wait! Geoff Smith, who you might remember from such videos as Digg the Code, , and Ones and 0s, is a partner in Ringtone Feeder. They released the Alarm Pack, which offers 25 custom songs and sounds that you can set as your alarm on the iPhone. Save 25% on your Angie's List membership with the promo code GEEK. [technical note from neal: Cali's shirt was dark blue so I thought it would work on the blue screen. I was wrong. That's why we kept the back black. The cool thing about doing that, though is it creates a much smaller file size, right Mr. Kevin Pollak?]

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The Messless Charger looks like a futuristic fruit bowl, but holds phone and other portable electronics. It looks like it's only available in the UK at the moment. Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's Prime Minister, deserves some geek cred. Take a look at his monitor setup! The Cordless Rechargable Margarita Machine will give you up to 70 margartias before needing recharging, and you can adjust the slushiness factor to suit your preferences. Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking takes a look at cooking in a very geeky way. By understanding the ratios that go into a particular dish, the author says you'll be able to cook anything. A company called Neoluxiim is working on a Solar Power e-ink Display that can be charged even by indoor lighting. When you need to find trusted vendors to work on your house, Angie's List can help. Use promo code GEEK to save 20% off your membership.

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If you've been watching GeekBrief.TV for a while, you're familiar with my love of Data Robotics, the company that made Drobo (the first storage robot). Their newest edition is the Drobo Pro. Data Robotics makes data redundancy easy. Shortly after I fired up my first Drobo, I asked them for a Pro version (http://m.podshow.com/media/13917/episodes/91078/gbtv-91078-12-14-2007.mp4) with double the drive bays. Two days ago my wish to have a Drobo Pro came true. I had 13 external and internal drives with GeekBrief.TV related files, and it took about 40 hours to get everything transferred due mainly to three drives that only had USB ports. Here's a look at the read/write speeds we got with Drobo Pro. USB Read: 15.8 MB/second Write: 13.8 MB/second Firewire 800 Read: 53.4 MB/second Write: 43 MB/second iSCSI Read: 73.6 MB/second Write: 78.7 MB/second We used a free application called AJA System Test to get these results. You can download here. For photographers, video professionals, small businesses, or anyone with a large amount of files that need to be in one location, the Drobo Pro is a great solution. It will certainly help us at the GBTV Studios be more productive and more efficient. The cool thing that's already happened is that I've found photos from the early days that I thought were lost forever. In the episode I mentioned Taylor Mark. It's a company owned by a friend of ours that specializes in Mac repairs and hard drive recovery. I'll be taking my failed WD MyBook drive to Mark next week to see if he can recover the missing GBTV episodes stored on that drive.

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Google finally officially announced Chrome OS. It's meant for netbooks at first, is built on Linux and uses Web apps to keep things simple. Juicy is selling a pink silicon roll-up keyboard with their logo on it. You can get it at Nordstrom for $45. Yoostar has potential, but I'm afraid there isn't enough information on the website to get me excited. It's a kit that includes a camera, a green screen, software and movie scenes that you can insert yourself into, then upload to the Yoostar website. Frolicat BOLT can offer a lot of fun for not a lot of money if your cat or dog enjoys chasing lasers. Set it on the table and it'll create random patterns for your pet to play with. When you need to find trusted vendors to work on your house, Angie's List can help. Use promo code GEEK to save 20% off your membership.

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Sony announced their VAIO W netbook. It has a 10.1-inch display, a 1.6GHz Atop processor, 1GB of RAM, runs Windows XP and a resolution of 1366 X 768. Bristol Interactive is adding PC power to their ViewSurfer TVs. The 22" and 32" TVs are powered by an Intel Atom processor, have a gig of memory, a 160GB hard drive, four USB ports, and an Ethernet port. Google Translate gives us a good laugh with the Quattro for iPhone Case. What's really cool about it is that it allows you to screw on various types of lenses so you can really get creative with your iPhone photography. I got the Balanzza Digital Luggage Scale for Christmas last year, thinking I'd never use it. Much to my surprise, I now use it all the time! With airlines charging outrageous fees for overweight baggage, it saves you money. The Trace of Time Clock lets you focus on the next twelve hours of your life. Write your appointments, and as time passes, your appointments are wiped away to make room for the next twelve hours. This Brief was brought to you by Angie's List. I just used it to schedule a plumber and he was great! He actually have us an Angie's List discount that very nearly covered the cost of the membership. Check it out at Angie'sList.com. The greatest promocode in the history of promo codes, GEEK, will save you 25%.

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The PogoPlug is intended help you easily access your files from anywhere, whether you're at home or out and about. Plug the PogoPlug into the wall, attach it to an ethernet cable plugged into your router, then plug an external hard drive or USB stick to it. Once you activate it online, you're set and ready to go. The interface is simple and intuitive. I was surprised to see that not only do you get preview images of your files, you can click to watch a movie, view a photo, or listen to a song. The preview process is immediate and smooth. The transcoding isn't perfect, but surprisingly good. You can find out more at PogoPlug.com. You can also mount it as a hard drive on your desktop and access your files via the iPhone app.

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We heard about gdgt last year when Peter Rojas and Ryan Block announced it and have been looking forward to finding out exactly what it'll be. Now we know. It's a cross between social network, wikipedia and a database. You can create an account and associate yourself with gadgets you've owned and you currently own. You can rate those gadgets and you can edit specs if you see a mistake. You can follow me at user.gdgt.com/Cali and see an introductory video by Veronica Belmont here. The Star Wars Force Trainer should be a big hit this Christmas season. It attaches to your head and when you start concentrating, it floats a ball. bing is holding a photo contest. There will be a series of rounds, and on August 3rd, the winner will be seen on the homepage. Instead of tying your kids to a leash, there's another option based on RFID. It's called the Kiddo Kidkeeper. The alarm will sound when your kid moves too far away. Energizer has a Camera Battery USB Charging Clip that will charge your camera batteries via USB. The promo code at Angie's List is GEEK. It will save you 25% on a membership.

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Yamaha's neoHD Media Controllers are aiming to simplify your options. You get the choice of Watch, Listen or Play, and then more options as you go through the menu. There are two models. The YMC500 (without Wi-Fi) is $599.95. The YMC700 (with Wi-Fi) is $799.95. Sony's NAS-Z200iR is a beautiful, crazy and expensive iPod dock and remote. It has a 3.5" LCD touch screen and will cost 400 Euros. The Man Wall is the ultimate for any sports guy and HDTV lover. It has a 52" HDTV as well as two 26" HDTVs, a 5.1 home theatre system, DVD player, sports ticker, kegorator, microwave, two cigar humidors, a wine rack and and iPod dock. We'll miss you, Billy Mays! The VholdR ContourHD is a small HD camera that's intended to be mounted on a moving object. You can shoot in either 720p at 30fps or 858X480 video at 60fps and lets you position it any way you want. The Liquid Image Video Scuba Mask HD320 shoots 720p video and has a 5 megapixel still camera. You can dive up to 115 feet and there will be a pair of 1Watt LED lights that mount on each side of the goggles. The promo code at Angie's List is GEEK. It will save you 25% on a membership.

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When Watchmen comes out , it'll have a special feature called Maximum Movie Mode, where the director will stop the movie in various places and show you the scene being shot raw and compare the scene to panels from the comic book. ASUS announced a USB Blu-ray drive, the SBC-04B1S-U. It's Windows only and the glowing X on the side is dimmable. The Cool Drive U360 offers USB computer to computer file transfer, as fast as 17MB/second. The MyDeskFriend is a robot penguin that will be released in Septemeber, and will read your Facebook messages, news and weather forcasts to you. It has an accelerometer and 5 infared sensors. You can friend me on Facebook at Facebook.com/CaliLewis. This isn't Shiny, Happy. It's actually a bit scary....the US Debt Clock. The There I Fixed It! Blog is Shiny, Happy, though.

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I had an awesome time at WordCamp Dallas this weekend. Thanks to everyone who helped John P. and me organize the event, and to everyone who came! You can see a full write up on my blog, CaliLewis.me. Dave Curlee will be cleaning up the recordings and I'll post them right here on GeekBrief.TV. The best way to know when they're up is to follow me on Twitter, where I'll post the links. PogoPlug is now Mac friendly. It makes external hard drives accessible on your local network and over the Internet. They're sending me one, so we'll have a review soon. Two iPhone projectors are coming to market. Lancer's iJector appears to work with any iPod that does video including the iPhone and iPod touch. Resolution is 557X234 and projection size is up to 50 inches, and has stereo speakers. The second one is a joint effort from BeamBox and MiLi. The Evolution Mini Power Projector is 10 lumens, and resolution is 640X480. X-mini Capsule Speakers are smaller than an egg when closed, but they have a patented expandable vacuum that they say mimics the resonance of a sub-woofer. When expanded, one is about the size of an egg. It has a rechargeable battery, and an 1/8-inch mini plug and USB connector.

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Kino Flow Diva-Lite 400 LitePanel 1X1 Spots LitePanel MiniPlus Spot and Flood American DJ LED Megabar Rosco Ultimatte® Blue Chromakey Paint Panasonic HVX200A ProPrompter (small prompter setup) Electrovoice RE20 Mics Mac Pro Mackie Onyx1220 Presonus HP 60 Headphone Mixer dbx1066 Compressor Limiter Gate Marantz PMD 570 Solid State Recorder Tricaster Studio Wealth Nation Radio You can see the Quicktime VR movies at my blog, www.calilewis.me.

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The HTC Hero will be an Android phone designed with a slight curve to make it more like a real phone. It has a 3.2 inch screen, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, GPS, a compass, a gravity sensor, standard headphone jack and a dedicated search button. We've known about the Mimo Minu USB Monitor for quite a while, but ThinkGeek.com started selling them and sold out almost immediately. Their price is $130 vs. $200 everywhere else. PhotoFast is attempting to dissolve the disadvantage of Compact Flash cards with their CF adapters. One gives you an SD slot. One gives you and microSD slot and one gives you four microSD slots with built-in RAID storage. Viore's PLC7V95 is a 7" portable LCD TV with a built in tuner so you can watch TV wherever there's a digital signal. It includes USB and SC card slots, but unfortuately the antenna is external. Vizio will be offering a Blu-ray player, the VBR100, exclusively through Wal-Mart for $188. It will start to sell through other outlets later this year.

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Apple updated the Remote iPhone App. I haven't had a chance to give it a try yet, but it'll let you control an Apple TV with multi-touch gestures. Vizio is adding WiFi to HDTVs along with social network integration and Internet streaming. You'll have Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo Widgets, and Twitter integrated and streaming from Vudu, Netflix, Blockbuster On Demand, Amazon Video OnDemand or Rhapsody. Cello Electronics introduced an HDTV with a built in tuner and records to SD cards. The video will be portable, which is great to see! Unfortunately, it doesn't have HDMI. WildCharge is in the business of wireless charging. Their Adapter Skins will allow you to just place your iPhone on the pad to charge. The WildCharger will be $34.99, and you'll need a Pad as well, which is $50.

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Today's Brief is the real life story of a real live geek adventure, starring The Intermittent Kevin and his friends, Ryan and Mark.

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We've been talking about Augmented Reality for a couple years on GeekBrief.TV. It's exciting to see future tech begin to become reality. SPRXmobile has an A.R. browser called Layar. The excitement will reach the Dutch market first, and spread out from there. The Samsung VC2400 is Telepresence even small companies can afford. It has a 24-inch LCD display and a 5-megapixel camera with a noise-canceling mic. Everyone's talking about the Olympus PEN E-P1. It's a classic-looking Micro Four Thirds camera that will produce video and images with "depth of field and Art Filter effects familiar from still photography". Stills are 12.3-megapixels and HD video is captured at 1280X720. If you're interested in getting the source code and instructions for multitouch on Linux, click here. TomTom is introducing Homer Simpson as a new voice in their GPS units. Doh! (yeah, I know, that wasn't funny) Max Murphy from MacNewsWeekly.com used my promo code SHOWGEEK at Brookstone.com when he purchased his gift for Father's Day, and he saved 10% on his order. You can too! For more information, visit our Support page.

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The Loop Pointer was first announced at CES in 2007. We covered it on GeekBrief.TV and I was excited about it. It didn't come out and I forgot about it. Monday, Hillcrest Labs finally released it an I ordered one from Amazon.com and I've been playing with it for about a day now and it rocks! On screen tracking was very precise. It doesn't require very much motion to move the cursor around the screen. The best part is the thumb scroll wheel. I wish every remote control had one. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Front Row since Front Row doesn't support mouse navigation. It works beautifully with Windows Media Center and it's even better with Elgato's EyeTV Hybrid. It took quite a bit of practice to learn to click hypertext links on a Web site. It took about an hour before I got my aim right. The Loop is the most fun gadget I've played with this year and it works exactly like I hoped it would. It really makes me want to hook a Mac Mini up to my TV. It's also the best presentation controller I've ever used. We're welcoming Angie's List as a GeekBrief.TV sponsor. If you follow me on Twitter.com/calilewis, you know yesterday morning I woke up to find my MacBook Pro infested with ants. Because Angie's List is a sponsor, I went to Angieslist.com to find an exterminator. It feels really good to pick service providers recommended by people in my community. I'll tell you how it goes on a future Brief. The promo code at Angie's List is GEEK, which BTW is the best promo code ever. It will save you 25% on a membership.

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The Archos 9 will have a lot of the same functionality as the CrunchPad, but it'll have a 9" screen and will cost twice as much. It will run Windows 7 with an 80GB hard drive. In 2010, there will be a Blu-ray standard, Manage Copy, that makes it legal for consumers to rip a single copy of a DVD. Is this a good thing? Movies like Marley & Me offer a good compromise between consumers and the movie business. It costs a little more, but it offers a Blu-ray disk, a standard def disk and a digital copy. Chime in with your thoughts in the comments below! I talk a lot about Savant Systems, the home automation company that builds on Mac hardware and software, has a new product called the Virtual Home Controller. It's the most intuitive controller I've seen. Twitter rescheduled maintenance downtime due to the Iranian situation. Opera wants to make it possible to do things from your browser, like share files, serve a Web site, play your media from any browser, share photos, host a chat room and create a virtual wall for notes. Yesterday, we welcomed Brookstone (promo code SHOWGEEK) as a new sponsor. Today we welcome Petco.com. I have two offers from Petco. Promo code BRIEF10 gives you 10% off an order. If you need more than $65 worth of Pet supplies, just use the word BRIEF and you'll get 10% plus free shipping.

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Dreamfield Labs Running the iPhone OS on Mac Pro Loic Le Meur's Video of a Previous CrunchPad Prototype Power Finding Robot from Willow Garage The Hillcrest Loop Pointer is Finally Out! Buy from Amazon: bit.ly/loopcontrol Welcome Brookstone! Save 10% with Promocode SHOWGEEK

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Brief 577 is my review of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 with the Wii MotionPlus.

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iPhone 3G S has an Oleophobic Multi-Touch Screen The Joy of Tech on the 3G S The Billion Year Carbon Nanotube Memory Chip Eye-Fi Pro xpPhone Buffalo NFiniti Wireless-N Dual Band Ethernet Converter

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A guy decided to make a 130 megapixel camera out of a 1200 dpi Epson GT-S620 scanner. You can see his experiments on his Flickr Stream. I've decided I won't be upgrading to the iPhone 3GS due to the upgrade pricing structure. Early upgrade pricing makes the 16GB version $400 and the 32GB version $500, and if you don't qualify for that, the full price is $600 for the 16GB and $700 for the 32GB. The Nokia N97 is being sold now and it comes preloaded with Qik. If you love the smell of books and libraries, take a look at Smell of Books in a Can. I don't think it's real, but they're showing a can of Crunchy Bacon Scent. How could I resist? Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 with Wii MotionPlus is now shipping. I'm looking forward to trying this out!

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Today at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Phil Schiller delivered the annual WWDC keynote and introduced a couple new products including a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a faster iPhone 3G that Apple is calling the 3GS. New 13-Inch MacBook Pro Safari 4 Out of Beta OSX Snow Leopard Available in September for $29 Tom Tom for iPhone iPhone 3G S

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Nokia thinks they have the best bluetooth headset ever made with the BH-905. It wil be compatible with a wide range of phones, has eight microphones dedicated to active noise cancellation, and two microphones dedicated to capturing your voice during phone calls. Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth Headset with Active Noise Cancellation NEC CRV43 Surround Display CruchPad Launch Prototype Launch Windows in a Second with the ioXtreme from Fusion-IO WWDC09 Cali

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I got to chat with Chris Pirillo at Wordcamp San Francisco about new vs old media.

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I've been trying to get Daniel Brusilovsky on Geek Brief for two years. I finally caught up with him at WordCamp San Francisco. I want you guys to meet him because he'll be doing great things. He already is on his way with Teens in Tech, a company he founded to help teens get started blogging. Dave Moyer is a name I've been hearing over and over for the past six months, so I was excited to get to meet him. He's the top WordPress Podcaster with his show WordCast, and the founder of Bitwire Media.

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Microsoft announces Project Natal for the Xbox 360

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I told you about the DSLR Remote iPhone App on yesterday's Brief. Today I can show it to you in action. It's awesome!! Hulu released Hulu Desktop, an app that you can control with a Windows Media Center Remote or an Apple Remote, or a keyboard. Nicely done!

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Microsoft has finally announced the Zune HD, meant to compete head to head with the iPod Touch. It'll have an OLED screen, and Internet Explorer browser, and will be using flash memory. The American Idol vote was allegedly influenced by AT&T. We're hearing they provided Kris Allen fans with phones with free text-messaging services and lessons on how to submit 10 text messages at once. Engadget put all the mobile broadband companies to a head-to-head speed test. AT&T won for speed, but is most expensive when it comes to overage charges. Take a look at the results from Engadget - it's pretty interesting! Apple announced new specs for the 13" white MacBook. The processor is faster at 2.13GHz. It has faster RAM, but is still 2GB, and the hard drive is bigger at 160GB. DSLR Remote is an app that allows you to control your Canon EOS DSLR with iPhone/iPod Touch. If your camera supports Live View, you'll be able to see the live stream on your iPhone screen. It'll be $20, but for a limited time after it's approved, will be selling for just $10. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

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Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is available for download. You can get the 32-bit version here, or the 64-bit version here. Jorge Colombo has begun creating iSketches using an iPhone app called Brushes. Instead of setting up an easel in the middle of the street, he "paints" on his iPhone, and sells archival prints. The June 2009 cover of New Yorker Magazine is one of his iSketches. Nokia phone owners have access to the Ovi Store as of today, where they can get a variety of apps. Panasonic's 9-Inch Portable Blu-Ray Player supports Amazon Movie downloads and has Viera Cast so you can watch YouTube videos, view photos stored on Picasa and get weather information. You can pre-order it from Amazon now. I'll be one of the judges for the Boxee Dev Challenge, along with Veronica Belmont, Chris Pirillo and Avner Ronen. If you're interested in learning more, click here for contest details. see you at Mezzanine! - we were able to book Mezzanine in San Francisco as the venue for the event on June 23rd. following our meetup in Webster Hall in NYC, we thought we should find a similar place in San Francisco. how to build a boxee app - there are now two examples of boxee apps that could serve as a good starting point for building your own app. the first one is ThruYou and the second is songza. if you have any question about the API or the development process you can check out the boxee dev forum, or connect with idan on twitter. Drobo + 4TB - our friends at Seagate are sponsoring 4TB of Barracuda drives for each of the 3 Drobos we are giving away at the event. Drobo + 4TB is my personal setup at home, connected to my Mac Mini over the network and serving all my videos, music and pictures. it is excellent! ideas for boxee apps - want to build an app, but don?t have a specific idea? you can look at what people are asking for on getsatisfaction, search on twitter, look at services with open APIs, or just think of what you?d love to see on boxee and is not already there. fred wilson will be happy to see someone build a La Blogoteque app. working on a boxee app? let us know http://bit.ly/boxeedevchallenge You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. William, the former Geek Brief intern used promo code GB1 at GoDaddy.com to RENEW WilliaMedia.com.

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The BenQ GP1 Pocket Projector is the first to use LED lights. It weighs 1.5 pounds with a 20,000 hour lamp life. Santok released a DC power splitter that includes two USB slots, and it's designed in the Wall-E/Minoru cute little robot looking way. The Dallas Cowboys unveiled the world's largest HD display. It cost $40 million, is 180x72 feet (actually there are two of them) and uses LED lights. Sharp's Aquos DX 20-Inch HDTV has Blu-ray but only a resolution of 1366x768. People with kids and dogs running around the back yard might be interested in the Powerloo, a professionally installed system for flushing away the poo. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. Ian used promo code GB3 to register the domain name, Floor Fillers.fm at GoDaddy.com.

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The Automatic Jar Opener from Black & Decker will open your jars with just a push of a button. I could see this being very useful for people with arthritis or any kind of disability. I talked about the Sanyo PLC-WXU700, the first Wireless N equipped projector, on Brief 559. The price when it comes to the US will be $3000. Pirates vs. Ninjas sounds like the only way to play a game of dodgeball, and it comes in the form of a Wii game. The Pentax K-7 camera records in 720p with a 14.6 megapixel CMOS sensor built just for this camera. It's lighter than any in its class and will sell for $1300. The Kindle iPhone app got a facelift, with the ability to read in landscape mode, gesture control, and a Sepia option to read with less contrast than the harsh black and white of a screen. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. George used my promo code GB1 to save money when he registered PrincetonRodeo.com at GoDaddy.com.

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How cool would this be to have on the GeekBrief.TV set??? It's an authentic Captain Kirk chair that plays sounds from the original Star Trek. It costs $3,000. Or, I could just get an electroluminescent t-shirt. The Panasonic HDC-TM350 shoots 24 frames per second in 1080p. It has 64GB of storage, line in and a mic in. AT&T is testing out a new program, for now just in Atlanta and Philidelphia. You can get a netbook with built in 3G subsidized with a 2 year contract. Intel is working on something called IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment) in conjunction with Volkswagon. They embedded a full IVI computer in a head unit to provide gesture control over music, photos, and 3D GPS navigation. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. Zach used promo code GB1 to save money at GoDaddy.com when he registered CookingwithDottie.com.

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