CES 2012- Page 16 - CNET Blogs

Tom Hanks' 'Electric City' is no 'Toy Story'

LAS VEGAS--"Electric City" is the latest Tom Hanks animated adventure, but it leaves behind the madcap buddy antics of Toy Story's Woody and Buzz Lightyear for a futuristic utopia with dark underpinnings. Instead of coming to a theater near you, though, the 90-minute-long series will be streamed episodically on Yahoo.

Revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 here, with a more in-depth formal announcement coming tomorrow, "Electric City" was created by Hanks and will star him, while production is being handled by Playtone and Reliance Entertainment. "It was always our intent to have this project live and breathe online and we felt Yahoo would be the perfect home," Gary Goetzman, co-founder with Hanks of the production company Playtone, said in a prepared statement.

For its part, Yahoo has been exploring original online entertainment for a few years, with reality and news roundup shows like "omg! NOW," "Primetime in No Time," and "Daily Ticker" helping to drive around 26 million people per month. Thanks to Hank's involvement in "Electric City," though, Yahoo thinks the series has the potential to significantly expand the scope of digital-first series. … Read more

Samsung touts even smarter TVs and mobile devices (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--Samsung Electronics kicked off its press conference today, as expected, highlighting its smart TV lineup and what the company is calling "Smart Interaction" technology, which gives viewers control over their set by waving, shouting, or otherwise using gestures and voice.

Next up, also as many expected, Samsung unveiled its "ultimate TV," a 55-inch "super" OLED TV. And it went on to showcase new mobile devices, including the Samsung Galaxy Note on AT&T, Galaxy Tab 7.7 on Verizon, and a second-generation Series 9 notebook.

You can replay the entire live blog … Read more

LaCie one-ups itself with dual-drive Thunderbolt storage

LaCie, one of the first companies out of the gate last year with storage using Intel's fast Thunderbolt interface, introduced a dual-drive system called the 2big today at CES.

The 2big can be configured with two drives paired for high performance and capacity (RAID 0) or for high reliability by mirroring (RAID 1). Some people will appreciate fast backups, no doubt, but it seems likely that those willing to spring for Thunderbolt will be more inclined to take the performance route.

In addition, LaCie introduced its eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series. eSATA is an external version of the usual internal … Read more

AT&T bets big on Microsoft-Nokia alliance and Windows Phone

Ralph de la Vega has a lot to say about Microsoft-Nokia and Windows Phone. Except for the name of the actual device.

Due to a quirk in the conference schedule, AT&T couldn't actually talk earlier today about the big, new 4G LTE smartphone from Microsoft and Nokia, the Lumia 900 (also known as Ace). The companies are planning to formally unveil the device later today at a conference hosted by Nokia.

As a result, de la Vega was left touting the benefits of the phone in an interview with CNET, without actually specifically naming it.

"The … Read more

Dish lets kangaroo out of pouch at CES (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--At the Consumer Electronics Show here, satellite TV provider Dish Network went kangaroo crazy as it took the wraps off "Hopper," a new multiroom DVR that, with the help of "Joey" units, will let people watch recorded programs on TVs throughout their house.

The new DVR also lets users record prime-time programming on all four major networks at the same time.

The company also announced a new high-speed broadband service with partner ViaSat that will launch in the "first quarter." It's called Dish Broadband and will allegedly provide up to 12 Mbps … Read more