Denny Arar

Tired of the tinny sound of music on your laptop? Logitech at CES is showing a new adapter that lets you stream music wirelessly from laptops with Intel Wireless Display (or WiDi) chips to any external speakers.

WiDi uses WiFi to make peer-to-peer connections between devices, meaning no router is involved. It's similar in functionality to (but not exactly the same as) the WiFi Direct technology that the WiFi Alliance has been promoting of late.

The Blu-ray Disc player's in the den, but you want to watch the movie on the HDTV in your bedroom. What are your options? ActionTec at CES announced a kit that promises to let you access your high-def media in any room within 802.11n Wi-Fi range of the source.

The ActionTec MyWirelessTV kit is expected to debut this spring with a suggest retail price of $200. It will be one of the first consumer electronics to incorporate Cavium Networks' Wi-Vu technology, which uses 802.11n Wi-Fi on the 5ghz band, but with sophisticated quality-of-service features intended to mitigate problems commonly associated with attempts to stream high-definition media wirelessly.

The N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router. (Click to zoom)Netgear has announced a lineup of broadband routers and adapters designed primarily to facilitate high-def multimedia streaming and the ever-problematic issue of setup for nontechnical customers. Drawing on the latest Wi-Fi and HomePlug AV powerline technologies, these products exemplify the home networking industry's efforts to woo home users rather than their tradition business clientele.

For example, the Netgear N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR4000) -- the company's new top-of-the-line Wi-Fi offering -- promises theoretical throughput of 450 megabits per second, the highest yet for a Wi-Fi router (although other firms are also announcing 450 mbps routers). The N750 surpasses the also-announced N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router Premium Edition (WNDR3800), which tops out at a theoretical maximum of 300 mbps.

The Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD media player picks up where its predecessors, the WD TV and the WD TV Live, left off, adding integrated Netflix support to the previous versions' ability to play HD media from USB drives and (in the case of WD TV Live) local network and several popular Websites--including YouTube--on your HDTV. But like the earlier versions, it lacks built-in Wi-Fi support so you'll need to either hook it up to your network via an ethernet cable or buy an optional USB Wi-Fi adapter.

In appearance, the WD TV Live Plus looks a lot like its predecessors--it's a small (about 5 by 4 by 1.6 inches) black box with a remote that fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. The WD TV Live Plus has TV connections for HDMI, optical digital audio, component video, and composite video with analog audio; two USB ports for media; and an ethernet port for hooking up to your home network. It only comes with component and composite video with analog audio cables, however; you're on your own for the HDMI, digital audio, and ethernet hookups. (In my tests, I connected the WD TV to a free LAN port in a HomePlug AV switch.)

With Office 2010, Microsoft continues to refine the dramatic overhaul that it began with the 2007 editions, while adding a few nifty new features with marquee appeal--all at prices much lower than we saw for similar Office 2007 packages.

In general, the shipping version of the suite isn't much different from the Office 2010 beta we wrote about last year. Some of the new features should impress even jaded Office users; PowerPoint's Broadcast Slide Show function, which lets you show a presentation remotely to anyone who has a Web browser, heads the list.

How would you like a mobile phone that can be svelte and spare one day, and larger and full-featured the next? That's the concept behind Modu, one of the more innovative handsets at Mobile World Congress. Sadly, there are no immediate plans for a U.S. launch, but it is slated to debut through carriers in Israel and the Philippines this spring.

Created by the company of the same name, the Modu phone looks like a small MP3 player, with a screen the size of a postage stamp and very basic controls. It's so small that it's in the Guinness World Records book as the world's lightest cell phone.

The live blog of Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference keynote starts now:

The Rokr E8 excels at music playback, but usability issues plague it in other areas.

The Motorola Rokr E8 looks vaguely like an iPod: glassy, slim, and dark, except for a thin circular metal strip in its middle. The resemblance is probably not coincidental, given that the device is a cell phone intended for music lovers. The 0.4-inch-thick candy bar phone boasts good looks--and isn't half-bad as an MP3 player--but its usability shortcomings in other areas disappoint.

Auction sites are among the Web's greatest wonders. Want to know something's value? For tangible goods, there's no better barometer of current worth than eBay. Now a new site called MoneyAisle promises similar benefits to people looking for the best interest rates for their long- or short-term savings.

Sure, you can run a search on Bankrate.com, or check out mortgage offers on LendingTree.com. But MoneyAisle's creators at the online auction technology company NeoSaej say that the site's innovative technology and ad-independent business model help consumers find the best rates on money-market savings accounts or certificates of deposit, while also helping banks find depositors more cost-effectively.

Samsung and Sprint collaborate on the most credible iPhone competitor to date. With 3G and GPS support, and a promised aggressive price point, the Instinct does outdo the iPhone in some respects--but will Apple fans bite?