Minnesota's Department of Revenue is predicting that the state will be the first one in the country to receive a 70% rate of e-filed taxes, marking a new record for the state and going beyond what is expected for the other 49 in 2007.
New York will soon be getting a new system that could be one of the biggest advancements in emergency call centers since the creation of 911 over 35 years ago. In his State of the City speech, mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city has plans to allow callers to send cell phone pictures and videos to local 911 dispatchers.
Fujitsu claims that it has developed a key technology that would allow the company to quintuple today's highest commercial storage densities in hard disk media. If researchers will be able to transfer the technology into commercial products, we could see 5 TB desktop drives and 1.5 TB notebook drives in the not too distant future.
Google announced that will integrate "hundreds" of 3D buildings of Hamburg, Germany into its application "Earth." According to a report published by Spiegel Online, the models will find their way into the software "within a few days" and make Hamburg Google's first 3D city.
The Japanese space agency is canceling its long awaited moon mission. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is recommending canceling the Lunar-A project which would have planted probes into the moon's surface. Japan had been planning the mission for more than a decade and even built the mothership, which is falling apart from neglect.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) today released first details about a "hybrid" nano-CMOS chips that could lead the way not only to much smaller chip structures and extend the physical limits of Moore's law, but also continue the trend to a substantial decrease of power consumption in semiconductors.
Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.
We have had our fair share of new GPS navigation systems at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. But if it's the basics you are looking for and you need a navigation system that is always with you, than it probably does not get much better than Telenav's Navigator.
All around Vegas there is to be found an enigmatic advertisement from Texas Instruments: "It's all in the mirrors." They are referring to Digital Light Processing, something Texas Instruments invented in 1987 and which they are today putting to use in HD TV's and projectors across the industry.
There's something to be said for a company called "Honest Technology" selling DVD burning software, but I digress even before I begin the story. If you're like me then you've probably got rid of most of your old VHS and casette collections.
AMD said that it is developing guidelines for computer case and motherboard design that will allow the creation of improved small form factor PCs (SFF PCS).
Let's get this out of the way first: Microsoft's newest operating system bears more than a passing resemblance to Apple's OS X. And that's a good thing. At first glance, anyone familiar with OS X's Dashboard and desktop widgets will experience a feeling of déjà vu when they see the Windows Sidebar and Desktop Gadgets.
While the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps are still at each other's throats, we are seeing the first hybrid high-definition solutions entering the home video market. Earlier this week, LG announced a hybrid HD DVD - Blu-ray player; Warner followed up late Tuesday with a hybrid hi-def disc that can be played both in HD DVD and Blu-ray players.
More pun-prone journalists than I might be moved to wax lyrical about how Dell is getting into the business of selling trees... Well, not literally, but at his CES keynote this morning company CEO Michael Dell announced that the company will be offering an inexpensive, around $2 - $6, option when buying a new computer to plant a tree which should offset the energy consumption of that machine.
Dell has updated its XPS enthusiast PC line with a an overclocked quad-core machine and an elaborate cooling system. The H2C Edition puts the price tag of the XPS desktop series deep into Alienware territory.
Microsoft showed off a system, named "Sync", for synchronizing data you want to take on the road. It also do other tasks that make driving easier and safer. Ford Motor Company is making Sync real in twelve of its products this year.
Two crappy things in this world: (1) Your car breaking down and you not knowing why; and (2) going to get it fixed and being charged an arm, a leg and some other essential regions in order to get it fixed.
Another iPod accessory? Yes, another iPod accessory has indeed arrived. We've seen our share of iPod accessories at CES, from different speakers and docking stations to a marvelously designed yet obscure EGO waterproof case from Atlantic.
If ever there was a perfect product displayed at a mammoth trade like CES, Aliph's Jawbone might be it. The Bluetooth headset, which is available exclusively for Cingular Wireless customers, uses Aliph's Noise Shield Technology to virtually eliminate background and present clearer conversations.
