DW Innovations Awards 2005

Contrary to what some manufacturers claim, not everything new is innovative. Slapping a new shape or color on an old product doesn't qualify.

No, true innovation is about rethinking what technology can do for us. And that's just what the winners of the 2005 Digital World Innovations Awards do. They surprise us. They excite us. And most of all, they entertain us in ways we've never been entertained before.

And the winners are...

Subscription Music A-Go-Go

Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10

The allure of subscription music services is the access to hundreds of thousands of songs for one monthly fee. The downside: To listen, you've been stuck using a broadband-connected PC. Microsoft's Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10 platform changes that. Using Microsoft's PlaysForSure Web site, you match up subscription services (like Napster) and devices (like Creative's Zen Personal Media Center). After that, you can put as many songs on your device as it will hold. A hardware-based clock in the player keeps track of your status, and as long as you subscribe to the service, you'll never run out of tunes.

High-Def Home Movie Maker

Sony HDR-FX1 HandyCam

Anyone who has browsed a Best Buy store knows high-definition makes almost any video captivating. Hey, even your relatives might want to watch your home movies if you record them in HD. First, you'll need one of these: Sony's HDR-FX1 HandyCam. Although it's not the first HD camcorder--JVC's GR-HD1, introduced in 2003, captured 720p high-def video--it's the first one that handles 1080i HD video and doesn't require Trump funds (it's a relatively affordable $3700). The HDR-FX1 uses mini-DV cassettes to hold up to 63 minutes' worth of footage. At 4.25 pounds it seems more like a semipro model than a "consumer camcorder," as Sony likes to call it, but something this innovative just isn't going to fit in your pocket.

That's Entertainment

HP Digital Entertainment Center Z500 Series

Look! There in the living room. It's a stereo component, it's a digital video recorder, no wait--it's both, and a PC, too. HP's Z500 Series puts it all together in a sleek black, brushed-aluminum box that anyone could mistake for a DVD player or AV amplifier. Packed in its handsome chassis is a Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005-powered PC with dual TV tuners, a 160GB or 200GB internal hard drive, a bay for HP's 160GB removable USB hard drive (included with the 200GB model), Wi-Fi, a wireless keyboard and remote, a DVD burner, and Dolby Digital 5.1. The $1699 Entertainment Center is more versatile than any dedicated media component--it's the first PC in full entertainment clothing.

When Is a Notebook Not a Notebook?

Sharp Actius MP30

The Sharp Actius MP30 looks like an ultraportable notebook. In fact, it is one: Push the $1899 unit's topside power button, and you boot into Windows. But if you'd rather use the 2.8-pound notebook to watch movies or listen to music instead of work, you can skip the hassle of loading Windows and just press Play. While other similarly functioning notebooks are out there, Sharp's is the only one that comes in a slim, stylish case that's so light you could forget you're carrying it. The 10.4-inch XGA display produces rich, saturated colors whether you're watching Star Wars or creating a PowerPoint presentation, and the battery maintains power for the promised 4-plus hours.

TV on Demand

Akimbo AP1200

To misquote Bruce Springsteen, we live in the age of 500 TV channels--and it can still feel like nothing's on. Enter Akimbo, an inventive new $10-per-month service that uses your home network and broadband connection to deliver an eclectic array of downloadable programming to your television. The $230 Akimbo AP1200 is a TiVo-like box that stores up to 200 hours of downloaded shows. Plug it into your network, and you can start picking programs, from vegetarian cooking shows to Hindi movies. Akimbo also plans to offer software that lets you use its service on a Media Center PC.

Sounds in the Round

Virgin Electronics Boomtube EX

The small size of portable speakers for digital audio players, portable DVD players, and notebooks has limited their sound quality, largely because decent bass requires more room to resound than those compact systems are able to provide. Virgin Electronics' $199 Boomtube EX surmounts the bass hurdle with tubular aluminum speakers that deliver room-filling bass. The right and left satellite speakers unscrew from the Thermos-shaped main body, and a rechargeable battery powers the entire unit. The Boomtube EX pushes 40 watts of sound, and you can spread the satellites out for true stereo separation. And best of all, the volume control goes to 11.

The People's Robot

Wow Wee Toys Robosapien

Sooner or later, robots may change all of our lives. Plunk down $99 for Wow Wee Toys' Robosapien, and one can change your life right now--or least make it more entertaining. If Sony's $1899 Aibo is the Lamborghini of robotic playthings, Robosapien is a humble but lovable Volks-robot. He walks, he talks, and he can even pick things up--as long as you position them very, very carefully. Most important, he's both programmable (via the included remote) and hackable. An array of Web sites chronicle the work of inventive owners who've taken soldering irons and Dremel tools to their bots to add new functionality.

DVD Scene Automat

GoVideo VR2940 DVD Recorder+VCR

Like clockwork, set-top DVD recorders typically create chapter markers at regular intervals--say, every 5 minutes or every 10 minutes. But those intervals aren't necessarily the ones you'd pick for chapter breaks if you were inserting them yourself. GoVideo's $350 VR2940 DVD Recorder+VCR is the first consumer device to offer YesVideo's YesDVD scene detection technology, which adds chapter marks at logical points. For example, the unit places chapter breaks when the action in a scene fades out or the camera switches angles. The technology isn't perfect--we'd like to see chapter markers around commercials in recordings from TV--but it's on the right track. Plus, the resulting disc includes a handy index file so you can easily create labels with thumbnails of the DVD's content.

TV Where You Want It

Sharp Aquos LC-15L1U-S

Wireless Internet made it possible to work from anywhere in the home; now "wireless" television lets you play from just about anywhere in the house. Plug your cable, satellite, DVD player, or VCR into the wireless base station of Sharp's $1699 Aquos flat-panel LCD, and you're free to roam (up to 50 feet) and take Homer Simpson with you. The device maintains your television connection for 3 hours between battery charges. Sharp figured you might want to watch the wire-free TV from unconventional placements--such as hanging upside down on your gravity-inversion system--so an image inverter lets you switch the angle of the display. It doesn't hurt that the 11-pound Aquos display is, well, sharp, even at 170-degree viewing angles.

You Can Hear Me Now

Aliph Jawbone

"Are you on a cell phone?" Aliph's Jawbone may not render that question obsolete, but this $150 cell phone headset can eliminate many of the telltale signs that you're calling from a bustling city street or overcrowded airport lounge. The unit's unique noise-subtraction, echo-cancellation, and audio-enhancement technologies do a startlingly good job of stripping out background noise and amplifying your voice--which should please anyone who's actually trying to hear what you have to say. In this era of wireless Bluetooth headsets, the corded Jawbone feels a tad retro. But it fits comfortably on either ear, doesn't require batteries, and neatly embeds its noise-busting brain in a clip that fastens to your clothing. And its white-and-silver industrial design is cutting-edge: If an IPod were a headset, it would look like this.

Swiss Army Satellite Radio

Delphi MyFi

Where do you like to listen to the radio--in the car, around the house, on the run? Delphi's $350 MyFi is the first satellite radio that lets you do all of the above. This feature-packed Walkman-like device lets you listen to XM Radio's 100-plus channels of music, news, talk, and more through headphones, indoors or out--or you can use the embedded FM transmitter to broadcast via your car audio system or home stereo. Features like TuneSelect--which knows when your favorite artists and songs are on the air--help you get the most out of all that programming, which costs $10 a month. While MyFi takes satellite radio places it has never been before, reception still isn't available everywhere, such as deep in an office building's windowless corridors. But Delphi has built in an inventive workaround: a VCR-like feature that lets you record up to 5 hours of programming for later listening.

High-Def TV on Your PC

ATI HDTV Wonder

Once the exclusive domain of the exceedingly well-heeled, high-definition TV is now within reach of normal budgets. With ATI's HDTV Wonder, the less affluent among us can enjoy HDTV too. The PCI card with its included antenna brings over-the-air HDTV broadcasts to your PC for only $200--a fraction of the cost of a new high-def television. Most PC monitors can handle HDTV resolutions easily, so if your PC has plenty of CPU power and is within range of HDTV broadcast towers, the Wonder can display gorgeous video. If your setup meets these requirements, the Wonder works wonderfully well.

A Mouse That Has Mastered Media

Logitech MediaPlay Cordless Mouse

Logitech's Mediaplay Cordless Mouse was designed for more than mousing around--it doubles as a media remote control. You can manage your MP3s, audio CDs, and video DVDs totally via the mouse; the extra ten backlit media buttons on this ambidextrous pointing device transform it into a convenient remote control. Just pick it up and stand back from your PC--up to 10 feet away--and the $50 device becomes a handheld remote for instant track selection, volume control, and other standard playback functions. A tilt wheel lets you scroll in three dimensions for viewing digital photos from various angles. And an on/off switch right on the device saves battery life, too. You can use the included MediaPlay software, or switch to other popular alternatives (Microsoft Windows Media Player, Musicmatch, Real, and more).

This Carbon's No Copy

Rio Carbon

Some things just feel innovative--like Rio's silver-clad Carbon MP3 player. Apple's IPod Mini may have invented the mid-capacity player (smaller than a standard hard-drive-based player, larger than a flash player), but this sexy little number came along and did most everything notably better. Despite its pocket-perfect slim profile, the Carbon holds a full 1GB more than the Mini (for 5GB total), it includes a handy voice-memo recorder, and it works with nearly every online music store under the sun, including (after a firmware upgrade due by the time you read this) ones that support Microsoft's Windows Media 10 DRM. Oh, and we can't forget that the Rio Carbon runs for more than 20 hours on a single charge, while the Mini sputters out at about 8 hours. The Carbon isn't perfect--an early batch had some headphone-jack problems (since corrected), and at $250 it's not inexpensive. But hold this player in your hands, and you'll understand what innovation is all about.

The Great Communicator

Blackberry 7100T

Rim's venerable BlackBerry was a major innovation in its day, drawing a cultlike following of busy execs and IT professionals. In 2004 RIM has done it again with the new $200 7100t. The company has packed all the beloved features of the original text messenger into a device that feels, acts, and looks like a top-notch cell phone. Then there's the phone keypad that doubles as a quasi-QWERTY keyboard (it has two letters per key) and uses fiendishly clever SureType predictive-typing software to make firing off urgent e-mail a breeze. Add a high-resolution color screen, a built-in hands-free speakerphone, and a remarkably reasonable price, and you've got one truly great communicator on your hands.

Innovative Then, Innovative Now

Sony's Direct-to-Disc Cameras

Way back in 1997, digital cameras were innovative, period. They were also pricey--and so were memory cards. But Sony's Mavica MVC-FD7 had a built-in drive that let you store photos on the cheapest, handiest media of all: 1.44MB floppy disks that you could easily use in any PC. Floppy-based Mavica models stayed popular for years, until images got big and flash memory got affordable. Today's Handycam DCR-DVD301 and its brethren are a 21st-century spin on the same idea: Their built-in DVD burners let you record digital video directly to disc, so you can skip the hassle of tapes and FireWire cables.

Creative Keeps Building a Better Jukebox

Back in 2000, Creative's $499 Nomad Jukebox was a revolutionary MP3 player, thanks to its then-enormous 6GB hard-drive capacity. It could store an unheard-of 100 hours of music, but was the size of a portable CD player and offered 4 hours of battery life (on a good day). Five years later, Creative is still making Jukebox models, and they're still impressive. The $399 Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra, for instance, is much smaller than the first Jukebox, offers ten times the storage capacity (60GB), and can run upwards of 10 hours between charges.

From Humble Organizer to Superphone

Palm Computing's Pilot 1000, launched in 1996, revolutionized the concept of the personal digital assistant. Then in 1997 the company launched its now-legendary PalmPilot models, the $399 Professional and the $299 Personal. Both PalmPilots included the user-friendly Palm OS interface, a touch-sensitive monochrome display with the clever Grafitti handwriting recognition system, and enough memory to hold thousands of names and addresses. Flash forward to 2005: Palm Computing has evolved into PalmOne, and the venerable operating system is still wonderfully simple, but more powerful than ever. The company's $450 Treo 650, the evolutionary descendant of the PalmPilot, has a 65,000-color high-resolution display, an SD Card slot for multigigabyte memory expansion, a built-in digital camera and audio capability, and a remarkably usable micro-keyboard. It does e-mail, Web browsing, and other Net tasks, too. Oh, and did we mention it's also a phone?

Expert Opinion

Joe Hutsko

TV Guide's TV Tech columnist

"The Philips Ambilight is my oddball pick. It's sort of a given that you should have light behind your TV, but I don't know anyone who does that. The Philips Ambilight [a technology within Philips flat-screen TVs] is a subtle light behind the TV that glows, fans out, and hits your wall. It's kind of like a mood ring. Say you're watching HDTV content of the Mediterranean. It will shift to blue.... It's innovative in that no one has really thought of it before."

Joel Johnson

Editor of Gizmodo (www.gizmodo.com), the weblog for gadgets

"The Archos Gmini 400 is an IPod-size player that I've been an advocate for this season. [The Gmini is] more techie than the IPod, but it plays music and video, and it's still small and convenient."

Harmut Esslinger

Founder and co-CEO of Frog Design, which designed the Sony Trinitron in the mid-1970s and created the look of early Apple products.

"The IPod Mini I like. The product is so characteristic in shape; it's like a symbol. Thank God it has colors. I love colors. Mine is green, currently in my pocket. The interface is simple--it's not perfect but it's simple. It could be improved. When you get deeper and deeper into lists and go back, back, back, back, that gets kind of boring to me."