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  • Senior Editor Eric Dahl covers buzzworthy products, ideas, and trends with his unique take on the latest tech news.
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Plugged In: More Powerful Laptops Coming

Eric Dahl

Centrino Sequel

Illustration by Gordon Studer.

Illustration: Gordon Studer
The Buzz: Get ready for some important notebook updates from Intel early next year. The company's latest mobile platform, code-named Santa Rosa, should launch in the first half of 2007. One of the neater additions is a technology called Robson, which packs a large cache of flash memory onto the motherboard to shorten boot and resume times, and help save power. Wireless networking gets a boost, too, since the new platform will include draft-802.11n networking. Some improvements in speed are also on tap, including a faster bus (800 MHz versus 667 MHz), updated mobile Core 2 Duo CPUs with superior power-saving technology, and integrated graphics ready to handle all the 3D-accelerated eye candy in the Aero interface for Windows Vista.

Bottom Line: I can't wait to see how well all these integrated flash technologies work. Now if laptops could just get fire extinguishers built in, we'd be in business.

High-Def Video Comes Home

AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec HD) camcorder.The Buzz: Home movies will get a whole lot sharper, thanks to a raft of affordable camcorders on the way that record in 720p or 1080i. Based on a new codec called AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec HD), these new camcorders record to flash, DVD, or hard disk. A pair of models from Sony are available now: The $1400 HDR-UX1 records to DVDs, while the $1500 HDR-SR1 packs a 30GB hard drive. Panasonic, which codeveloped the format with Sony, is planning to release its own AVCHD units in the first half of next year.

Bottom Line: Thus begins our countdown to the inevitable premiere of America's Funniest High-Def Videos. And you thought dogs on roller skates were funny in standard def.

Apple ITV

The Buzz: Media streaming devices have been fighting an uphill adoption battle for years. That landscape is about to change, as Apple prepares to launch its own $299 iTV streaming device at Macworld in January. The preview units that Apple showed at its fall developers conference looked like thinner Mac Minis and featured HDMI and component video outputs, digital and analog audio connections, and wireless networking. Rumor has it the final version also contains a hard drive, but at that price I have to assume it's more of a cache than a storage device.

Bottom Line: When Apple finally gets into the game, you know a product class is about to take off. Apple rarely arrives first, and it doesn't always build the best new tech, but it can design and market like nobody's business.

Future Tech: Neutralize Bad Web Sites
We all know that our trusty Web browsers are far from trustworthy these days. So how do you make sure you can surf the Web safely with all the malicious code out there? A Microsoft research project called BrowserShield hopes to solve the problem by analyzing dynamic Web pages and rewriting their code on the fly to edit out dodgy behavior. If a site attempts to download a file without your permission, for example, BrowserShield could edit out the offending code and display the rest of the page. That's fairly easy to do on a static page, but the wealth of dynamic content online makes the task much more difficult. The researchers plan to work with other Microsoft teams to add the technology to future browser plug-ins, firewalls, and other software.
Here\Now
  1. ViewScore: New site averages scores from an assortment of independent gadget reviews.
  2. 8GB Zen V Plus: Updated Nano rival continues to offer a better value than the iPod does.
  3. Slingbox: This video place-shifting box now comes in lots of attractive high- and low-end models.
  4. Rhapsody: Version 4 ties in with both SanDisk players and Best Buy.
  5. Scrapblog: Drag and drop to create an attractive presentation for photos.

You can contact PC World Senior Editor Eric Dahl at eric_dahl@pcworld.com.

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